When it comes to style, many people think it is style, because people usually understand poetry, novels, essays and plays as style. From 65438 to 0990, I began to study the style of writing. In my research, I found that the English word lStyle can be translated into Style, style, style and style. China's theory of "style" since Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties is not only about genre. Style is by no means the same as literary genre or genre, it has rich connotations. So what is literary style? How do we understand style? What is the significance of style to literary creation? This is what this article will discuss.
First, the importance of artistic style
The choice and application of style is very important for writers. It can be said that once a writer decides what to write, the whole creative process is to create a style from the moment he starts writing. In my opinion, the theme of a novel is not particularly important, what matters is how to write it. In other words, how to create an artistic style and reveal a person's unforgettable experience through artistic style is the key to the success of creation, and it is also related to the understanding of literary characteristics.
A reader once asked Tolstoy what Anna karenin wrote. Tolstoy replied, "If I have to explain what I want to express in the novel in words, then I must rewrite this well-written novel." In fact, Tolstoy is fully aware that his novels and his novel style are inseparable. If someone wants to separate the style of the novel and explain what it expresses, it is tantamount to destroying the novel. In the same way, we can't write a summary for Du Fu's Three Officials and Three Farewells, because if we separate the style of Du Fu's poems and explain what his poems are about, it will no longer be Du Fu's poems. In some novels, the theme is trivial. For example, Wang Zengqi's "Commandments" describes the ambiguous love between a young monk and a little girl next to him. The content is simple. The success of this novel lies in the author's stylistic creation. The author described all kinds of characters and scenes with poetic and meaningful language, and created a charming artistic style that readers will never forget. Lu Xun wrote two novels, Scream and Hesitation. Someone praised him as a "stylist", and Lu Xun felt sincerely happy. In the sense that artistic style is inseparable from content, many writers and scholars say that poetry is untranslatable, and even literature is untranslatable. Why? Because a literary work has three elements: thoughts and feelings, language and style. Only when thoughts and feelings are not conveyed by language, then even the best things can't be expressed; But thoughts and feelings are conveyed by language, but there is no artistic style, that is, if you don't know how to convey them artistically, the result will not be art, and the most important thing is that you can't translate the original poem.
All arts, including literature, are the organic unity of thoughts, feelings, language and style. Whether there is style or not, from the author's point of view, is related to the effect of creation; From the reader's point of view, it is related to the impression gained from the work, and the reader contacts the author through the work. Therefore, Xu, a famous scholar in Taiwan Province, said: "Style is a bridge between the author and the reader", and "literary consciousness is also manifested as style consciousness". He's quite right. This shows the importance of stylistic problems.
Second, style is a system.
China's ancient literary theory is rich in stylistic theoretical resources, but it was seldom studied in the past. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century that people began to pay more attention to the "interior" of literature, and the ancient stylistic theory attracted the attention of researchers.
Xu distinguished "literary style" from "literary genre" (literary genre) for the first time in his essay on literary style in Wen Xin Diao Long. He believes that in Cao Pi's Dian Lun Wen, the style and genre were originally clearly divided. Cao Pi said: "The four subjects are different, that is, the cover should be elegant, the writing style should be reasonable, the inscription should be realistic, and the poetry should be beautiful. Therefore, what can be done is partial, and only those who are proficient can prepare themselves. " Commemoration, calligraphy, inscriptions and poems here are the classification of articles, which are divided according to different themes and uses, and are different from the style that determines the quality of articles. Cao Pi specifically pointed out that this is the difference between "support". Four families are four categories. Elegance, rationality, practicality and beauty are the so-called styles, that is, styles. Originally, Cao Pi had clearly distinguished genre from style, but later generations confused genre with style. The research shows that Xu divides style into three interrelated aspects, namely genre, style and style. Genre is system, such as four words, five words, seven words and miscellaneous words in poetry, while style refers to the intellectual content in the work, while style refers to the temperament and mental state shown by the author in the work. Xu believes that it is a "sublimation process" to integrate genres into one and three aspects. A genre has been processed by human intelligence, with specific content and essence, and then injected with the author's temperament and mental state, it has "color" and has risen to the artistic appearance. Xu restored the original meaning of the style through textual research, which is commendable. However, his explanation lacks modern content, such as important concepts such as style and style, which makes it difficult to use in modern times.
In the early 1990s, he began to study literary style, and 1994 "Style and the Creation of Style" was published by Yunnan People's Publishing House. Through research, it is found that neither China ancients nor western modern literary critics can equate style with genre or style. This is consistent with Xu's research. But I think style is a system, and I have given this definition: "Style refers to the text style formed by a certain discourse order, which reflects the unique spiritual structure, experience mode, thinking mode and other social, historical and cultural spirits of writers and critics. That is to say, the style is first of all a text style, such as novel, poem, prose and drama, each with its own style: the novel must be narrative and its system must have stories; Poetry must be lyrical, and its system requires branches: prose integrates lyricism, narration and discussion, but it must be interesting; The script is a contradictory story, but its language order is dialogue. However, only this easy-to-grasp style is not style. The language order of a style must show the writer's unique emotion, personality and mental outlook, and must be a reflection of the spirit of the times, history and culture. This is the whole connotation of a style.
Style presents a "genre-style-style" system, which is a sublimation system.
Genre is the classification of literary genre and the starting point and foundation of style. Generally speaking, the norms of genre classification are not the result of personal creation, but the product of human long-term literary practice. Taking the genre of China's poems as an example, the maturity of five-character quatrains and seven-character poems in Tang Dynasty was achieved through the practice of Yuefu poems in Han Dynasty and irregular five-character seven-character poems in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties for hundreds of years. The "May 4th" New Literature Movement felt that the old-style poems were too binding on people's hands and feet, so it began to advocate writing new vernacular poems. However, after nearly a hundred years' efforts, the standardization of its language style is still being explored. There are many vernacular poems that don't talk about style at all. If they don't talk about rhyme, rhythm, poetry and so on, they just write some words with lines. Take "Trial Collection" by Hu Shi, the earliest advocate of new poetry, for example, it is only a few words. For example, the first poem "Butterfly" in his poetry collection: "Two yellow butterflies, both flying into the sky. /I don't know why, one suddenly flew back. /the rest, lonely and pitiful; /I have no intention of going to heaven, the sky is too lonely. " This poem is neat and easy to understand, but it is too poetic if compared with those poems in the Tang Dynasty. Most scholars seem to have formed such a knowledge: vernacular poetry should be written in vernacular first, freedom, poetry second, image third, rhythm fourth, and the style of new poetry should be gradually improved according to these basic principles. Since the 1930s, everyone has seen the problems existing in new poetry, and some writers have made explorations and attempts. For example, Lu Xun said, "I think the content is not to mention. New poetry must first have a rhythm and a roughly similar rhyme, so that everyone can easily remember, be fluent and sing." But it is not easy for the vernacular to rhyme and be natural. I really can't do it myself, so I have to make an opinion. " Lu Xun was talking, heard one and tried it himself. He created a new poetic style with "scale" as the basic unit. For example:
The children looked at his face in surprise.
He also looked at the red light of the charcoal fire. Wen Yiduo explained: "Here, each line can be divided into four scales, and each line has two three-character scales and two two-character scales. The arrangement order is irregular, but each line must return the total number of two three-character scales and two two-character scales. In this way, syllables must be sonorous, and the number of words will be neat. Therefore, it is an inevitable phenomenon that neat words are harmonious syllables. " Wen Yiduo's attempts and opinions are very good, but if everyone writes poetry in this way, then poetry will be bound and not free, which goes against the original intention of advocating writing new poetry. No wonder Mao Zedong said, "Writing poems in vernacular has been unsuccessful for decades." From this point of view, the maturity of literary genre is not an easy thing, but the result of long-term exploration and practice. But the style of literary genre is indeed the starting point of style, and a certain genre needs a certain language style, that is, style.
Since a certain genre needs a certain style, what is the style? Style can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense. Genre in a broad sense refers to the characteristics of words spoken on different occasions in terms of vocabulary, grammar and intonation. Different styles are used in different occasions: formal meeting style is different from daily family style, shopping mall style is different from classroom style, and stock market style is different from academic seminar style. Weddings and funerals have their own styles on different occasions and occasions. There are styles for friends to meet acquaintances, such as "hello", "welcome", "thank you" and "goodbye", which is different from asking "have you eaten" when meeting acquaintances before. Therefore, the generalized style is developing and changing. In a narrow sense, genre refers to literary genre, that is, a genre that matches the characteristics of various literary genres. For example, poems, novels and plays in literature are all sublimation of life experience, but the objects of their experience are different. Poetry is an emotional experience, so its style is lyrical; Novel is an experience of events, so its style is narrative style; The script is an experience of life conflict, so its style is conversational. Literary style can be divided into normative style and free style. The above is just a general standard style, which is easy to master. In addition to the standard style, there are more important free styles. Although the free style should conform to the standard style, it more embodies the writer's personal emotional characteristics, mental outlook, way of thinking and other creative personality, which is quite similar to the "form" mentioned by Xu. Yang Xiong's sub-chapter of Fa Wu Yan in the Han Dynasty said: "Or, women are colored, and books are colored? Yes. " The so-called "book" here actually refers to literary works. Yang Xiong thinks that literary works have "color", that is, there is a specific, unique and interesting free style in literary style, which fully shows the writer's personality. For example, Yu Dafu once talked about the free style of Lu Xun's essays: "Lu Xun's style is as simple as a dagger, and an inch of iron can kill people, hitting the nail on the head." After grasping the key points, the theme can be revealed in a few words-this is the secret of Lu Xun's composition. "The normative style is conservative and inert, and the free style is fully personalized, pioneering and revolutionary, which is the growing point of the whole style.
Genre style refers to the style required by a certain literary genre, while free style refers to the writer's personalized style. The relationship among genre, style and style is that a certain literary genre needs a certain style, and a certain style is formed because of the writer's personalized play, which has reached the extreme. Style is formed by the writer's steady development of style, especially free style, and the organic integration with other factors in his works. The formation of style is a sign of maturity of a certain style, so it is the highest embodiment and the highest category of style. A writer without style can't talk about style in his works, and his creation can't be really successful. Goethe, a great German writer, said: "Style is the highest state that art can reach, and art can compete with the noblest efforts of mankind." Therefore, he advocated "giving the word style the highest position".
But what is style? Some people say that style is a form of language; Some people say that style is the natural expression of a writer's personality in literary works; Some people say that style is the combination and unity of the writer's inner world and external style characteristics; Some people say that style can only be recognized after being evaluated by critics; Some people say that style is people. My understanding is comprehensive. I think style is the highest category of style, which refers to the basic characteristics that a writer's creative personality can arouse readers' lasting aesthetic enjoyment in the organic whole of his works. In other words, creative personality is the internal factor of style formation. First, the organic integrity of the work is the basic condition for the existence of style; Style, especially the improvement of style, is the basis of style.
Genre → style → style is a system of literary style. A certain genre needs a certain style, and a certain style is brought into full play, that is, style is formed, and style eventually becomes the highest category of style.
Third, the significance of style in creation.
As a form of literature, style is by no means dispensable. Style has the power of carving and shaping in creation. How can a writer turn an emotion, an event, a landscape and a detail into touching art? This depends on the power of style. There are many ways to carve and shape styles. Limited by space, here we will briefly discuss two points by way of examples:,
First, "opposites complement each other." It means that the style contrasts with the theme, thus mutating something new. Of course, we require a high degree of unity in the content and form of literary works, but the question is how to achieve this high degree of unity. Most people always think that the content of comedy should match the form of comedy, and the content of tragedy should match the form of tragedy. In fact, the reality of literary creation is often the opposite. The content of comedy is in the style of tragedy, and the content of tragedy is in the style of comedy, which often achieves better artistic effect. For example, Lu Xun's The True Story of Ah Q is tragic in both subject matter and content, but Lu Xun wrote this story with humorous comedy style, which made people laugh, and profoundly revealed that although the Revolution of 1911 drove away the emperor, it did not bring benefits to the people, because people were as unconscious as Ah Q, and tragedy (subject matter) and comedy (style) complemented each other and achieved unexpected artistic effects.
The second point is "cold eyes and deep feelings". This is a sentence in China's ancient painting theory, which means that the paintings you draw must contain deep and warm feelings, but your artistic description (that is, the artistic style of painting) should be as calm and objective as possible, and treated with cool colors. As a result, cold colors will set off warm feelings more deeply and moving. I remember Chekhov wrote a letter to a young writer after reading his works. The letter said: "As a reader, I want to give you an opinion: when you describe people with bad karma and poor people and want to arouse readers' pity, you should try your best to be cold-hearted, which will give others a similar background and the pain will be more clearly exposed in this background." But now in your novel, your hero cries and you sigh. Yes, you should have a heart of stone. "Some contemporary novelists in China, such as Liu Zhenyun, have realized this artistic principle and written good works. His so-called "neo-realism" novels, such as New Ice Lotus, Guan Ren, Officialdom and A Chicken Feather, all have such characteristics. He described his hero and various events and scenes with no expression and seemingly indifference, but between the lines revealed his sense of responsibility and enthusiasm for society. What a wonderful style this is. Regrettably, Liu Zhenyun later turned to novel creation but lost this style more or less.