"Shortly after the First World War, a new literary technique was quite popular. It almost completely prevents writers from interfering with their own works, making it possible to describe fragments similar to inner life without comment in literature. This technique was once properly called "inner monologue" or "stream of consciousness". 1 Today, the spread and penetration of stream-of-consciousness literature in the world has had a significant impact on other literary schools; However, there are still different opinions on the study of stream of consciousness, such as whether stream of consciousness is a literary skill or a literary style, what is the difference between stream of consciousness and inner monologue, when the stream of consciousness literature originated and how it developed in the world, and so on, which have been puzzling the study of stream of consciousness.
The word "stream of consciousness" first appeared in the American philosopher William? In James's Principles of Psychology. The book expounds William? The most distinctive theory in James's psychological theory is to compare thought to the concept of a flowing water and the concept of "confluence of consciousness". "It compares the objective state of consciousness moving like running water in people's psychological activities to a vivid image. In William? After James, the word' stream of consciousness' entered the field of literature and was used to refer to this kind of psychological description works that expressed the conscious activity as a' stream'. " It can be seen that the word "stream of consciousness" was not originally used in the field of literature. Then, before the emergence of "stream of consciousness", what did people use to describe "stream of consciousness literature"?
The translation of "inner monologue" into English is "inner monologue" or "inner monologue", which was first put forward in Dumas' novels twenty years later (1845). There is a similar statement in Gautier (181-1872, a French writer)' s "Sammen God". The word "stream of consciousness" has been widely used in British and German literary theories since its appearance, but the French have always refused to create the word "stream of consciousness" in French and have always used "inner monologue".
It should be said that since mankind has its own ideology, I am afraid there has been a mental and psychological phenomenon of "stream of consciousness", with memory, imagination and existence; Association, reasoning, guessing, etc. Confused with each other, flowing like water. In the description and expression of literature, methods and descriptions similar to stream of consciousness or stream of consciousness also exist for a long time. Long before Dumas' Twenty Years Later and Gautier's novel The God of Sangmen appeared,18th century Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais's The Wedding of Figaro, the famous monologue of Figaro in the third scene, 17th century Moliere's Monologue of Squanananell, scene17.
Robert, a contemporary American critic? Humphrey defined stream-of-consciousness novels as follows: "Stream-of-consciousness novels should be regarded as novels that mainly explore a wide range of consciousness fields, generally all the consciousness fields of one or several characters. In this novel, no matter the structure, theme or overall effect, it is described by relying on the consciousness of the characters as a' screen' or a' movie'. " On this basis, may? Friedman judged whether the stream of consciousness is a skill or a form: "Stream of consciousness is a form of novel, just as' ode' or' sonnet' refers to a certain form of poem. Although' ode' and' sonnet' use some different poetic techniques, they still belong to the same category. There are similar differences between narrative novels and stream-of-consciousness novels. The difference in skills comes from two different ways of thinking, one is direct thinking and the other is dreams or fantasies. " five
Different ways of thinking have different skills. In the form of stream of consciousness, there are many techniques that can be changed, the most important of which are inner monologue, inner analysis and sensory impression.
"In the inner monologue, everything appears in the form of a clear and quite complete language, but this language is not written for sounds and books. Therefore, in the inner monologue, there are a lot of clear consciousness and sober consciousness, but there are few hazy consciousness and profound consciousness. " That is to say, inner monologues are more orderly and organized in mobility, and they are often a kind of inner thinking, so subconscious and instinctive reactions almost no longer appear in inner monologues because of the limitation of human rationality.
"Inner analysis is to summarize the impression of the characters in the author's narrative, so it will never be separated from the scope of close direct thinking and rational control. Kind of like Freud's pre-conscious psychological field. This method has existed in the works of Stendhal and Dostoevsky to some extent, but it was not until Henry? James's later works and Proust's Memories of Time Past have been fully realized. As for sensory impression, the biggest difference between it and inner monologue is that it involves different scope, and sensory impression involves the farthest distance from the focus of attention. Sensory impression is the most thorough way for writers to record pure feelings and images, and transplant the effects of music and poetry into novels. In Ulysses, a passage describing Sai Ren is a successful example of sensory impression. The purpose of recording sensory impressions is to reproduce pure personal impressions.
It can be said that the inner monologue expresses a clear and sober consciousness in the process of producing thoughts or impressions; Inner analysis only involves a small part of consciousness, that is, the language field. Because of the author's intervention, it becomes indirect and narrative-the author will never be so refined as to disappear completely. Similarly, sensory impression is only related to a small part of consciousness, but it is the farthest part from the center of attention.
Although "stream of consciousness" literature existed long before the word "stream of consciousness" appeared, the method of stream of consciousness became very popular around the 1920s. The most striking feature of stream-of-consciousness novelists in the 20th century is that they try to tell the whole consciousness directly and dramatically, which is closely related to individualism and individualism highlighted in western philosophy, sociology and ethics in the 20th century, prompting literature to pay more attention to individual and human psychological activities. At the same time, the development of psychology in the 20th century, especially the emergence of Freud's theory, provided enlightenment and theoretical basis for literature to deeply and meticulously express people's inner activities. Such a historical environment makes stream-of-consciousness writers have such a view in their creation: the important symbol of human life should be found in the process of their psychological consciousness, not in the external world; Inner emotional life is disordered and illogical; Compared with the continuity determined by logic in thoughts and feelings, the psychological continuity of freedom is more typical. eight
Wang Meng is the first writer in China's literature in the new period to create novels by means of "stream of consciousness". His representative works include Buli and The Sound of Spring. Wang Meng admitted that he had read some foreign novels, but stressed that he was inspired by Lu Xun's Wild Grass, and even consciously avoided the relationship between his "stream of consciousness" creation and western stream of consciousness literature. "Please don't think that writing about psychological activities is a foreigner's patent. China's poems are particularly good at writing about psychological activities. The reason why A Dream of Red Mansions is different from traditional novels is precisely because of its psychological description. "Attaching importance to artistic association is my consistent thought. I have this idea because I haven't read any stream of consciousness novels, and I don't even know the term stream of consciousness. nine
I don't want others to think that my novel creation is only influenced by western stream-of-consciousness novels. Wang Meng tried to find the source of "stream of consciousness" in China traditional literature. The root-seeking phenomenon of "stream of consciousness" has spread rapidly. Some people pushed China's stream-of-consciousness literature to the early 20th century, and emphasized its unique artistic origin: "Diary of a Madman is the first stream-of-consciousness novel of China", "This novel has nothing to do with the stream-of-consciousness works of western modernism. ..... "10 Some people even think:" The Diary of a Madman is a novel created by the technique of stream of consciousness, which has been fully exerted in the Diary of a Madman and greatly enriched the content of this novel. " 1 1
Guo Moruo once said in the article Criticism and Dreams (1March 3, 937): "The focus of my article Can Chun is not on facts, but on psychological description. The psychology I describe is the flow of potential consciousness. This is my extravagant hope in writing that novel. If measured by the scale of describing the facts, there is really no climax. If someone has a little research on psychoanalysis or the psychology of dreams, he will certainly be able to see a kind of creativity and express another opinion. " 12 by the 1930s, China's literary world had not only introduced and commented on the western stream of consciousness in theory and criticism, but also formed an attempt climax in creation, with a number of "new sensation" novel writers represented by Liu Naou, Shi Zhecun and Mu Shiying.
It is one-sided to say that the emergence of China's stream-of-consciousness novels has nothing to do with China's traditional literature, and it is also biased to think that China's stream-of-consciousness novels writers consciously used the stream-of-consciousness method to create from the beginning. If there is a factor of stream of consciousness in China's traditional literature, then "internal lobbying" is a major aspect.
"Internal lobbying" was put forward by Ren Jin Hao Jing (1223- 1270). The so-called "internal travel" refers to "external travel", and external travel refers to psychological travel, conscious travel, association and imagination. It is a conscious activity that is not limited by external factors and transcends the order of time and space. It connects everything with the mind, including memory, association, imagination, concreteness and abstraction. This is very similar to the stream of consciousness, which is not limited by the characters, and can change the narrative angle and time-space order at any time without following the conscious activities of the characters. However, this is only an investigation of the relationship between stream of consciousness and China traditional literature.