Feng Zikai is a great prose writer with unique style and charm in China modern literature. From 193 1 year 1 year, his first collection of essays, The Essays of Yuanyuantang, was published by Shanghai Mingkai Bookstore, to the underground writing and editing of the sequel of Yuanyuantang during the Cultural Revolution, most of his essays were commensurate with the essays and formed an indissoluble bond with Yuanyuantang. Therefore, we might as well call all Feng Zikai's essays "Yuan Yuan Tang Essays". "Yuan Yuantang's Essays" should be the unified symbol of Feng Zikai's prose.
There are many articles in Yuan Yuan Tang Essays describing the local conditions and customs of Feng Zikai's hometown in western Zhejiang. Reading Yuan Yuantang's prose, a strong western Zhejiang style came to my face. The author's hometown is about 5 kilometers away from Shimen town, and he has been familiar with the customs of western Zhejiang since he was a child. I think it is necessary to introduce the beauty of western Zhejiang in Yuan Yuan Tang's prose.
Qiantang River, called "Zhejiang" in ancient times, is also called "Jiang" because of its tortuous flow. Zhejiang people are used to dividing East Zhejiang and West Zhejiang with Qiantang River as the boundary. "Different winds in ten miles, different customs in a hundred miles", the customs in eastern Zhejiang and western Zhejiang are naturally quite different. But in the eyes of outsiders, not to mention Zhejiang, but even Jiangsu, all belong to the regional cultural circle of wuyue and have their own "customs".
Feng Zikai was born in Shimen Town (now Tongxiang City), Chongde County, Zhejiang Province. Shimen Town crossed the border of Wujiang during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Shimen is the border between the two countries, hence its name. Because the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal flows from the southwest, it turns into a bay and flows to the southeast, so it is also called Shimen Bay. Shimen Town is located in Taihu Lake Basin in western Zhejiang. Six or seven thousand years ago, wuyue's ancestors thrived in Luojiajiao area near Shimen. In the old days, Chongde County belonged to Jiaxing Prefecture.
The Feng family is a well-off family in Shimen Town. Their ancestors have lived here since the Ming Dynasty. To Feng Zikai's generation, there were dozens of acres of fertile land and a hundred-year-old dyehouse. Hire a few workers on weekdays, and rent the grain in the field and the income from the dye house to maintain a well-off life.
The author tries to integrate Feng Zikai's relatively complete "Custom Map of West Zhejiang" by combining sporadic customs descriptions in Yuan Yuantang's essays. In this way, we can accept the cultural information of Yuan Yuan Tang's essays from a broader cultural background, so as to better appreciate its charm.
Tanner, a French literary historian, literary critic and aesthete, pointed out in Philosophy of Art: "To understand a work of art, an artist and a group of artists, we must correctly imagine the spirit and customs of the times to which they belong. This is the final explanation of art and the basic reason that determines everything. " ① The customs of western Zhejiang in Yuan Yuan Tang's essays are mostly from the first half of the 20th century, which is quite different from the current customs. Restoring the style of western Zhejiang in Feng Zikai's works is conducive to our "final understanding" of Yuanyuan Tang's essays.
This should help you!