1896 was born in wuzhen, Tongxiang county, Zhejiang province on July 4th. Mao Dun's grandfather opened a shop in Wuzhen to do business. He is an optimist and has always held a naturalistic attitude towards the education of his children and grandchildren. His father Yongxi Shen was a scholar in the late Qing Dynasty. He is proficient in Chinese medicine. He is an open-minded reformer and attaches great importance to new learning. In addition to natural sciences such as sound, light, chemistry, electricity and mathematics, he also likes to spread social science works with progressive ideas. My mother, Chen Aizhu, is a liberal arts, visionary and strong-willed woman. Mao Dun 10 lost his father. As a child, he accepted the knowledge of literature, history and geography taught by his mother. Mao Dun said, "My first teacher is my mother".
Mao Dun's enlightenment education began earlier. I studied at home and in a private school before elementary school. At the age of 8, he entered Wuzhen Lizhi Primary School and later transferred to Zhicai Senior Primary School, becoming the first student of the school. Here, he not only read textbooks on Chinese, self-cultivation and arithmetic, but also became interested in painting. At that time, in the eyes of ordinary conservatives, children were forbidden to read novels and other "casual books", but Mao Dun got the permission of informed parents. The Journey to the West's Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin, Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio and The Scholars are all his favorite books at this time. From Mao Dun's essays in primary school, we can see that he shows his thoughts and feelings of worrying about the country and the people, strengthening the body and eliminating evil spirits.
Mao Dun spent his middle school days in three middle schools in Zhejiang. 1909 was admitted to Huzhou No.3 Middle School in Zhejiang Province, 19 1 transferred to Jiaxing Middle School in autumn. Soon, the Revolution of 1911 broke out, and Mao Dun warmly welcomed the revolution and became a voluntary propagandist of the revolution. At school, Mao Dun and several classmates attacked an unpopular academic supervisor and were expelled from the school. So I transferred to Hangzhou Anding Middle School and graduated there. In middle school life, although some teachers left a deep impression and positive guidance on Mao Dun, the whole learning atmosphere is outdated. "Parallel prose is an authentic article unless you read books before the Qin and Han Dynasties. Poetry should learn from the seven sons of Jian 'an ... and tolerance should be broad in Tsinghua (My Middle School and Later). All this once gave Mao Dun the accomplishment of classical literature, but in his memory, it was more ordinary, gray and suffocating. He spends almost all his spare time reading novels. Classical novels inspired his literary thinking, and at the same time, they also showed their marks on his creative style.
19 13, Mao dun was admitted to the first class of Peking university preparatory school. 19 16, went to Shanghai Commercial Press as an editor.
19 17, the October Revolution in Russia was thunderous, which greatly shocked China, and China was also carrying out anti-imperialist and anti-feudal new cultural and new ideological movements. Mao Dun took an active part in the New Literature Movement and published many articles. He devoted himself to the editing and translation of new literature and translated Gorky's and Chekhov's novels. He also actively engaged in literary theory criticism. He published what is the responsibility of modern writers? In the June issue of Oriental Magazine 1920. This paper puts forward a literary view of "expressing life". He also established a literary research society with Zheng Zhenfeng and others. Mao Dun is one of the important advocates of the New Literature Movement in China.
From 65438 to 0920, Mao Dun was the editor-in-chief of Novel Monthly. At that time, the cultural market was mainly "interesting" works, many of which described "talented people and beautiful women" and were called "Yuanyang Butterfly School". After Mao Dun became editor-in-chief, he carried out a comprehensive reform of Novel Monthly, advocated new literature, and launched an attack on the representative of stale feudal critical ideology and culture-Yuanyang Butterfly School. As a result, the sales volume of Novel Monthly has increased greatly, which has transformed this old publication, which preached feudal decadent ideas and vulgar tastes, into a new magazine with extensive influence to spread new cultural ideas.
The failure of the first revolutionary civil war gave Mao Dun a great shock. Mao Dun was blacklisted in Shanghai under the white terror. In this case, Mao Dun went into hiding and had time to finish his long-standing novel creation plan. From 1927 to 1928, Mao Dun wrote a trilogy of disillusionment, vacillation and pursuit.
Mao Dun summed up his trilogy like this: "When writing Disillusionment, I had already thought about the general idea of Shake and Pursuit ... At that time, I had decided to write about the three stages experienced by modern youth in the revolutionary wave: First, the high spirits on the eve of the revolutionary wave and the disillusionment when the revolution came; Second, vacillation when the revolutionary struggle is fierce; Third, after disillusionment, I am unwilling to be lonely and want to be the last pursuit. " The trilogy reflects the disillusionment, vacillation and pursuit of young petty-bourgeois intellectuals during the turbulent period of the Great Revolution since the May 4th Movement. It is of typical significance to describe their complex ideological and psychological state during the Great Revolution. Although the trilogy is pessimistic and negative, it does not well describe the advanced figures of the revolution and the prospects after the failure of the revolution, but as a description of the life of an era, it has permanent literary value.
From 65438 to 0932, Mao Dun completed the novel Midnight, which was an important milestone in his literary creation. Midnight refers to the midnight from 1 1 to 1, which is the darkest moment before dawn. In China in 1930s, there was a civil war within the Kuomintang for rights, which caused great damage to industry and commerce. Many factories and enterprises are facing bankruptcy, workers strike and farmers revolt. This is the darkest period of China society before the arrival of a new era. In this novel, Mao Dun uses Marxist viewpoints and methods to analyze and reflect the social unrest in semi-colonial and semi-feudal China and the development trend of China society. Midnight, with its profound thoughts and excellent art, has become the cornerstone of China's realistic literature and added color to China's literary treasure house.
From 65438 to 0940, Mao Dun visited Yan 'an to give lectures and took part in literary and artistic guidance in the Liberated Area.
After the founding of New China, Mao Dun served as Minister of Culture. Unfortunately, due to various reasons, Mao Dun failed to write better works in the new period.
1981On March 27th, Mao Dun died in Beijing. On his deathbed, he earnestly proposed to the Party: "If party member and China * * * are honored, it will be the greatest honor in my life." According to Mao Dun's request and his life's performance, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to resume his qualification as party member of China * * * Producer Party, with a party age of 192 1 year. He used his savings to set up a literary prize (later named "Mao Dun Literature Award") to reward outstanding novel creation.