In the study of the rural literature & art-creating subjects of China, the substantial changes in the process of modernization in emotional and spiritual world of Chinese intellectuals and peasants who are armed with Marxist thought are described into the concept of China’s rural literature and art-creating subjects, with "the angel without wings" as a symbolic or metaphorical concept. This is indeed the result of reflecting on and analyzing rural literature and art of China by putting them in the process of modernization.
To be specific, it is intellectuals who create rural literature, while peasants are the object of rural literature. Both groups have experienced significant changes with the development of China's modernization. The modernization of Chinese style is carried out based on land revolution and rural construction and transformation, of which the emphasis and key lie in the countryside. In the course of China’s modernization, rural literature has become the most important form of Chinese literature and art, and its core factors are in the sociological and anthropological aspect instead of the literary aspect. After Mao Zedong published his Speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art in 1942, Chinese intellectuals who had experienced the wave of the eastward transmission of western sciences not only significantly changed the idea of worshipping and having blind faith in foreign things in literary and artistic creation, but also opened up a new creative concept of devoting themselves to real life and getting close to peasants. This enabled a better grasp of “realistic truth” referred to by Marx and Engels, of which the main connotation is the law of social development and the inevitable trend of development, that is, the real track of China's social and cultural modernization process from agricultural civilization to modern civilization demonstrated by the peasants who account for the majority of Chinese population.
Therefore, in terms of "the angel without wings": First,"the angel without wings" proposed by Benjamin in his "New Angel" refers to a natural relationship between Chinese rural literature & art and science & technology. This is particularly evident in the peasantry. Only when peasants from agricultural civilization are transformed into workers can they enter the vision of modernization. Their native irrelevance to modern science is just like the lack of wings representing science and technology. But because of their inherent deep connection with historical and cultural traditions, they have the spiritual power to fly to the future like an angel, that is, the marching posture of "singing folk songs towards the future" with the support of the aesthetic concept of "nostalgia into Utopia", entirely without frustration or confusion of the "new angel". It is vibrant assurance and persistence nourished by advanced ideas and eastern lingering charm of the Orient. Second, unlike Benjamin's "New Angel" which emphasizes a categorically negative image, the "angel without wings" puts focus on a rustic and tough image. It does not blindly magnify the opposite relation between urban and rural areas, but conveys recognition of the nature with the thought of harmony between the nature and human beings. It does not obdurately criticize or deny "progressivism", but actively integrates itself into the modernization process and further identifies with the socialist concept. Third, different from the aesthetic redemption in western literature and art that relies on visual experience-based plastic arts after the "new angel" predicts the arrival of "catastrophe", the "angel without wings" adheres to the demotic sublime that relies on sound image-based poetry, such as "Yellow River Chorus", the musical and dancing epic "Dong Fang Hong","Long March Suite", and Wang Luobin's new folk songs.
Issued on January 13, 2022
Wang Jie (Distinguished Professor of Qiushi, College of Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University); Yang Libin (Associate Professor, School of Languages & Literature, Guangxi University for Nationalities)