Chapter 521 The Dean of the Drama Academy Wants to Resign
At 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, the auditorium that can accommodate more than a thousand people was packed, including students from the Chinese Department of Northwest University and literature enthusiasts from other departments.
Vice President Liu Jianjun and a group of teachers sat in the front row.
Fang Minghua has given many lectures here. Today, he stood on the podium and said to everyone: "Students, I used to talk about novels here. This time I will talk about another very important category of literature - cultural essays."
"You can also see the content of my lecture posted in the courtyard. I added two words in front of the essay - culture."
"Before I gave the lecture, some students told me that this word and noun were unfamiliar and seemed to have never been heard of. This is normal because I made it up."
As soon as Fang Minghua said this, the audience laughed immediately.
"But what I want to emphasize here is that the writing method of cultural essays has been tried by others a long time ago. I wonder if you have heard of the two old gentlemen Jin Kemu and Zhang Zhongxing?"
Few people raised their hands below.
"Usually I like to ask girls to answer, but today I'll ask a boy." Fang Minghua smiled and pointed to a boy leaning against the window and said, "Student on the side of the window in the sixth row, please answer."
"Teacher Fang, Mr. Jin Kemu is engaged in translation and research on Indian culture, and Mr. Zhang Zhongxing is researching Chinese classical literature and history of thought."
"You said it very well. Do you know that they are also good at writing essays and have each written an essay collection?"
"I don't know." The boy shook his head.
"Please sit down." Fang Minghua continued, "As the student just said, these two old gentlemen are famous scholars in our country. They all studied and worked at Yan University, and together with Mr. Ji Xianlin, they are collectively known as the "Three Old Men of Yan University." The essay collections written by the two of them, "Swallows Pecking Spring Mud" and "Fu Sun Trivia", are cultural essays. Students who are interested can go and have a look.".
Fang Minghua talked freely on the stage, and someone in the audience was quietly discussing.
It was not a student but a teacher from the Chinese Department of Xida.
"Have you heard of these two people?"
"I have heard of them, but I didn't expect that they can write essays. I'll go read them when I have time."
"As expected, people say Fang Minghua is knowledgeable. He knows all these unpopular works."
"At such a young age, he can be the editor-in-chief of Yanhe, and those writers of the same age or even older than him in the literary world admire him. How can they call him a teacher without reading it twice? I won't say more. Let's listen to him talk about what this cultural essay is all about?"
On the stage, Fang Minghua continued his lecture.
"Cultural essays have the following characteristics:"
Cultural perspective in terms of material selection: Cultural essays focus on thinking about serious themes with a large cultural capacity, highlighting cultural meaning and cultural heritage, and some themes even have spiritual intentions.
Profound ideological content: Cultural essays should have a kind of cultural penetration in terms of ideological implications, and have more depth and thickness than lyrical essays, with ultimate, rational, and philosophical speculative colors.
Cultural charm in artistic expression: not only should there be cultural character and cultural connotation, but also the ups and downs of individual life and the great changes in life through the historical pulse of culture. More importantly, it should have a value position of cultural criticism, integrating cultural narrative and cultural criticism.
A bit boring.
Some people in the audience listened with relish, but some people listened drowsy.
In the end, Fang Minghua also pointed out the problems that this kind of prose is prone to:
First, sentimentality. If the whole article is too lyrical, it will weaken the solemnity and sadness that you want to express;
Second, show off knowledge. There is a lot of historical knowledge in cultural prose, but it must not be written as a historical examination.
Third, the focus is very big, the intention is very big, but the focus to be expressed in the end is seriously weakened. There are some whitewashing, and even fall into boasting.
After speaking for more than two hours, the content was all finished, and warm applause broke out from the audience.
Next, according to convention, it is time for questions.
A girl suddenly stood up and said loudly.
"Teacher Fang, I don't quite understand what you're saying."
"Are you a student of the Chinese Department?" Fang Minghua asked back.
"No, I'm studying geography. I came here because of your reputation."
My own fans.
"Studying geography? Very good. After I write and publish such essays, the latest issue of Yanhe published two of my essays, "Awakening Age" and "Eastern Columbus". You can go and have a look.
"Did you understand?" The two teachers whispered again.
"It's clear, but it's a bit difficult to write it out. It requires profound knowledge, strong professional knowledge in a certain area and very good writing skills, none of which can be missing,"
"But they said it's already been written and published in Yanhe."
"I'll go buy a copy and have a look later. ”
Fang Minghua’s lecture at Xida was a huge success, and his lecture content was sorted out and published in the literary theory section of Yanhe magazine under the title "The Heart of Casualness: Theory and Practice of Cultural Prose Writing".
Shencheng, Drama Academy.
This is a long-standing institution of higher learning that has provided the country with a large number of outstanding drama and film and television talents. The first president was the famous Gu Zhongyi, a famous drama theorist, educator, and playwright in my country.
The current president is Yu Qiuyu.
Yu Qiuyu was born in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province in 1946 and was admitted to the Department of Drama Literature of Shencheng Drama Academy in the early 1960s.
In 1984, he won the first national drama theory book award with "Draft History of Drama Theory". He became the youngest full professor of liberal arts in the country at that time; in the same year, he published the drama aesthetics book "Drama Aesthetic Psychology".
He was appointed as the vice president and president of Shanghai Drama Academy, the president of Shanghai Writing Society, the consultant and planning consultant of Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, and was selected as one of the "Top Ten Higher Education Elites in Shanghai".
He reached the peak of his life at the age of 40, with unlimited glory.
But in the flowers and applause, he always felt that something was missing.
Today he was in his office, and he was looking at a magazine seriously.
A magazine published by Xijing "Yanhe" magazine.
As for novels, he was not interested in any avant-garde novels or new realist novels, so he rarely read "Yanhe". It was only when a good friend told him that "Yanhe" had recently published several essays that were quite good.
So he bought a copy and flipped through it.
Sure enough, he saw "Age of Awakening", "Eastern Columbus", "Night Rain in Bashan", and "From Dujiangyan to Wumenyan".
Suddenly I realized that prose can be written like this!
If you want to write, you have to write with a big heart!
It is no longer the case that works such as "Lychee Honey" and "Camellia Fu" always use objects to describe people, which is formulaic and false.
Wang Zengqi once said: Chinese prose is bad first in Yang Shuo and second in Liu Baiyu. Although it is somewhat absolute, some routines and patterns in the prose of the two are indeed criticized.
Yu Qiuyu suddenly wanted to travel around, travel all over the beautiful mountains and rivers of the motherland, appreciate different scenery, and maybe he could write such beautiful words.
So he thought of resigning.
Fang Minghua naturally didn't know what happened thousands of miles away. He still devoted himself to his creation according to his plan, but he received a letter from Yenching.
It was to invite him to join the Chinese Prose Society and recommend him as a director of the society.