Mao Dun | |
|---|---|
茅盾 | |
 Mao Dun as pictured inThe Most Recent Biographies of Chinese Dignitaries | |
| Minister of Culture | |
| In office 21 October 1949 – January 1965 | |
| Premier | Zhou Enlai |
| Succeeded by | Lu Dingyi |
| Chairman of theChina Writers Association | |
| In office 23 July 1949 – 27 March 1981 | |
| Succeeded by | Ba Jin |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1896-07-04)4 July 1896 |
| Died | 27 March 1981(1981-03-27) (aged 84) Beijing, China |
| Spouse | Kong Dezhi (孔德沚) |
| Relations | Shen Zemin (brother) |
| Alma mater | Beijing University |
| Mao Dun | |||||||||
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| Chinese | 茅盾 | ||||||||
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| Shen Dehong | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 沈德鴻 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 沈德鸿 | ||||||||
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| Shen Yanbing | |||||||||
| Chinese | 沈雁冰 | ||||||||
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Shen Dehong (Shen Yanbing; 4 July 1896[1] – 27 March 1981), best known by thepen name ofMao Dun, was a Chinese novelist, essayist, journalist, playwright, literary and cultural critic. He was highly celebrated for hisrealist novels, includingMidnight, which depicts life in cosmopolitanShanghai.[2][3] Mao was one of the founders of theChinese Communist Party and participated in a number of left-wing cultural movements during the 1920s and 1930s. He was the editor-in-chief ofFiction Monthly and helped lead theLeague of Left-Wing Writers. He formed a strong friendship with fellow left-wing Chinese authorLu Xun.[4] From 1949 to 1965, Mao served as the firstMinister of Culture in the People's Republic of China.[2]
In addition to novels, Mao Dun published a number of essays, scripts, theories, short stories, and novellas. He was well known for translatingWestern literature, as he had gained academic knowledge of European literature from his studies atPeking University. Additionally, although he was not the first person in China to translate the works of Scottish historical novelistWalter Scott, he is considered to be the first person to popularize Walter Scott's work in China through his "Critical Biography".[2]
He adopted the pen name "Mao Dun" (Chinese:矛盾) to express the tension in the conflicting revolutionary ideology within China in the 1920s. The name means "contradiction", as Mao means spears and Dun means shields. His friendYe Shengtao changed the first character from矛 to茅, which literally means "thatch".
His father, Shen Yongxi (Chinese:沈永錫) taught and designed the curriculum for his son, but he died when Mao Dun was ten. Mao Dun's mother Chen Aizhu (Chinese:陳愛珠) then became his teacher. He mentions in his memoirs that "my first instructor is my mother". Through learning from his parents, Mao Dun developed great interest in writing as well as reading during his childhood.
Mao Dun had already started to develop his writing skills when he was still in primary school. In one examination the examiner commented on Mao Dun's script: '12 year old young child, can make this language, not says motherland nobody'. There were other similar comments which indicate that Mao Dun had been a brilliant writer since his youth.
While Mao Dun was studying in secondary school inHangzhou, extensive reading and strict writing skills training filled his life. He read theWen Xuan,Shishuo Xinyu, and a large number of classical novels, which influenced his writing style.
Mao Dun entered the three-year foundation school offered byPeking University in 1913, in which he studied Chinese and Western literature.[2] Due to financial difficulties, he had to quit in the summer of 1916, before his graduation. After quitting from university, he immediately got married with the daughter of Kong family, Kong Dezhi (孔德沚).[4]
The trainings in Chinese and English as well as knowledge of Chinese and Western literature provided by the fifteen years of education Mao Dun received had prepared him to show up in the limelight of the Chinese journalistic and literary arena.
After graduation, Mao Dun soon got his first job in the English editing and translation sections of theCommercial Press,[5]: 139 Shanghai branch. At the age of 21, he was invited to be the assistant editor ofXuesheng Zazhi (Chinese:學生雜誌;lit. 'Students' Magazine') under the Commercial Press, which had published many articles about the new ideologies that had emerged in China at that time.
Apart from editing, Mao Dun also started to write about his social thoughts and criticisms. To some extent, he was inspired by the famous magazineNew Youth. Like in 1917 and 1918, he wrote two editorials forXuesheng Zazhi:Students and Society (學生與社會) andThe Students of 1918, those were significant in stimulating political consciousness among the young educated Chinese.
His early literary career also included writing children's literature.[5]: 139
At 24 years of age, Mao Dun was already renowned as a novelist by the community in general, and in 1920, he and a group of young writers took over the magazineFiction Monthly,[6] to publish literature by western authors, such asTolstoy,Chekhov,Balzac,Flaubert,Zola,Byron,Keats, andShaw, and make new theories of literature better known. Despite the fact that he was a naturalistic novelist, he admired writers likeLeo Tolstoy for their great artistic style.
In 1920, he was invited to edit a new column:The Fiction-New-Waves (小說新潮) inFiction Monthly. He even took up the post of Chief Editor of the Monthly in the same year and was obliged to reform it thoroughly, in response to theMay Fourth Movement. His young writer friends inBeijing supported him by submitting their creative writings, translating Western literature and their views on new literature theories and techniques to the magazines. TheLiterary Study Group (文學研究會) was formed partly because of this.[2] The reformed Monthly was proved to be a success. It had facilitated the continuation of the New Culture Movement by selling ten thousand copies a month and more importantly by introducing Literature for life, a brand new realistic approach to Chinese literature. In this period, Mao Dun had become a leading figure of the movement in the southern part of China.
On the notion of content reformation, both the innovative and conservative parties in the Commercial Press could not make a compromise. Mao Dun resigned from the Chief Editor of Fiction Monthly in 1923, but in 1927 he became the chief columnist of theMinguo yuebao (民国月报). He wrote more than 30 editorials for this newspaper to criticizeChiang Kai-shek, and to support revolutions.
Inspired by theOctober Revolution of 1917 in Russia, Mao Dun took part in theMay Fourth Movement in China. In 1920, he joined the Shanghai Communist Team, and helped to establish theChinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1921.[2] At first, he worked as a liaison for the party. He also wrote for the party magazineThe Communist Party.
At the time, the CCP was allied with the Kuomintang in theFirst United Front. Mao Dun participated inChiang Kai-shek'sNorthern Expedition to reunite the country. He quit, however, when Chiang'sKuomintangbroke with the Communists in 1927. In July 1928, he went to Japan in order to take refuge. As he returned to China in 1930, he joined theLeague of Left-Wing Writers.[7] Later, China went to war with Japan and he actively engaged in resisting the Japanese attack in 1937. In 1949, the communist government took over and he was responsible for working asMao Zedong's secretary and Culture Minister until 1965.[2]
As a literary man, Mao Dun had a great number of achievements. His reforms atFiction Monthly were his first contribution to Chinese literature. The magazine then became a place where "New Literature" circulated. Many famous writers likeLu Xun,Xu Dishan,Bing Xin,Ye Shengtao, had their works published through it. Mao Dun supported movements such as "New Literature" and "New Thinking". He believed that Chinese literature should have a place in the world.[8]
The experience of political conflict broadened his horizon in literature, therefore the theme of his later writing was mostly based on this. He helped to found the League of Left-Wing Writers in 1930. After that, he worked together withLu Xun to fight for the right of the society and the revolutionary movement in literature. The harvest period of Mao Dun's writing is considered to have been from 1927 to 1937.
Shi (蚀), also translated in English asThe Eclipse, was Mao's first novel. It was published in three volumes:Disillusions (幻灭, 1927),Wavering (动摇, 1928), andPursuits (追求, 1928).[1] It tells the story of a generation of young intellectuals caught up in the world of revolutionary fervor without a true understanding of the nature of social change. His next major work wasRainbow (虹, 1929), which became famous for having no less than 70 main characters and numerous plot twists and turns. In 1933 came his next work,Midnight, which gained great popularity, to a point that it was also published in French and English, and it allowed to develop a sense of revolutionary realism.[3] It is a naturalistic novel exploring the commercial world of Shanghai in detail. In addition, his fiction offered a sympathetic portrayal of working-class life and praise of revolution. He left a work unfinished, the trilogyShuangye Hongsi Eryuehua (霜叶红似二月花, 1942).
The League of Left-Wing Writers was dissolved in a quarrel in 1936. After the initiation of theSino-Japanese War in 1937, Mao traveled to many places and started a literary magazine inWuhan. He edited the periodicalLiterary Front and the literary page of the newspaperLibao inHong Kong and worked as a teacher.
In May 1940, Mao and his family traveled toYan'an.[9]: 146 In Yan'an, he wrote essays praising the Communist Party's transformation of the region through both cultivation of culture and of labor.[9]: 146
After 1943 Mao Dun did not produce any major works, but still wrote some articles and essays. In 1946 he visited theSoviet Union.
When thePeople's Republic of China was established in 1949, he became active in several committees and he worked as the Secretary and then the Minister of Culture forMao Zedong until 1965.[2] He started the monthly literary journal Chinese Literature, which became the most popular for western readers. He was dismissed from his position as minister in 1964 due to the ideological upheavals. Despite this fact, Mao Dun survived theCultural Revolution and was afterwards rehabilitated. In the 1970s he became an editor of a children's magazine, and began working on his memoirs, which were serialized in the Party publication, the quarterlyHistorical Materials on New literature (新文学史料), but he died on 27 March 1981, before he could finish it. His influence on Chinese literature continues to the present day because he used his savings to set up a fund called the Mao Dun Literature Scholarship to promote an atmosphere for writing fiction.
Mao Dun's achievements in literature were also seen at his 50th birthday, which was also the 25th anniversary of his literary life. More than five hundred guests came to celebrate with him. Russian and American friends also joined the celebration. Wong Roufei wrote an essay as congratulations on behalf of theChinese Communist Party. Mao Dun's influence and achievements in the literary field were witnessed. On the other hand, he was twice elected as the chairman and then once elected as the vice-chairman of the China Literary Arts Representative Assembly. His status in the literary field has been highly recognized. Although he suffered great pain from illness in his old age, he still kept writing his memoirs, calledThe Road I Walked (我走过的路).
Besides his achievements, Mao Dun also had great influence on Chinese literature. TheMao Dun Literature Prize was created due to Mao Dun's wish that outstanding novels should be encouraged and communist literature should be promoted.[2] It is one of the most honorable literature awards in China. Many famous modern Chinese literary authors likeWei Wei andZhou Keqin have received the prize.
Mao Dun had a typical traditional Chinese marriage. His family got him engaged to the Kong family when he was five years old and he married the daughter of Kong family after he quit from university. After their marriage, the daughter of Kong family had been renamed as Kong Dezhi (孔德沚), and she would go on to assist Mao Dun with his literary and political career during their marriage.[4] However, Mao had had a two-year long affair with Qin Dejun (秦德君) during his marriage, which is also believed to have effects on his novelRainbow. In the end, Mao Dun ended the affair and returned to his own family.[4]
Mao Dun has over 100 publications throughout his life, which includes short stories, novels, theories etc. Some of his most famous works include:
The 1930s is a turning point of the female characters' identity in Mao Dun's works. Between the 1920s and the 1930s, which was also the early period of Mao Dun's writing career, the female characters occurring in his works mostly were in identity of "New Woman", for instance, Mrs. Gui (桂阿姨) and Qionghua (琼华) inWild Rose (野蔷薇, 1929), Ms. Mei (梅小姐) inRainbow (虹, 1930).[10]
However, from the 1930s, the "New Woman" characters in Mao Dun's works started to be replaced by the women who were living in traditional Chinese family. Furthermore, female characters even started to lose their own names. As in one of Mao Dun's short novels, which was released in the 1930s, Shui zaoxing (水藻行), the only female character did not even have an actual name but only be called as "Xiusheng (one of the two main male characters)'s wife (秀生妻)"[10] in the novel.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by none | Minister of Culture 1949–1965 | Succeeded by |
| Cultural offices | ||
| Preceded by none | Chairman of theChina Writers Association 1949–1981 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |
