Chen Haiying

(Foreign Language Department Huanghuai University, Zhumadian Henan 463000)

The tragic consciousness in literature is the combination of the psychological motivation, intention and power for the writer to make artistic analysis and psychological protest to the frustration of himself and others and to look for actively the frustration with essay, poems and other literary forms. Tragic conscious mainly includes himself and others frustration and self experience of being battered, and the resultant distress, that is the actual ”misery conscious” and “frustration in life”. These constitute the basic level of tragic consciousness, which is basic and indispensable. Nietzsche said, a misery world was absolutely necessary for tragedy.〔1〕

Goethe thought ”The key of tragic is that there is conflict which cannot be solved ”.〔2〕Tragic consciousness is not random, and its generation is inseparable from individual and society. As a result, it is a pressing work to study the tragic consciousness of literary works, find out deeper reasons behind tragic consciousness and explore its relationship with human society and its influence on society and individuals, which has literary value and social value.

Chen Zi’ang and Hardy, the two literary masters in China and in British, who had separately influence on the the literature development of their own country, were high-profile in their own country. The two persons lived in different countries at different times. In spite of many frustration in life and literature creation, they always adhered to their faith and never gave up their loyalty and love to literature, and they were not affected by main stream politics and they adhered to their own literary direction with quiet efforts. Rich life experience and insistence to literature gave them profound understanding to life and humanity, so they created many classic literature works.

In the Tang dynasty, poetry has entered a golden age, early masters, middle and late periods, such as Chen Zi’ang, on construction of character; send for fresh, write hermit feelings, beautiful artistic conception. Chen Zi’ang, once regarded as a literary genius by Du Fu, was an important figure in the history of transition from early Tang dynasty to the prosperous Tang. Songs of On Climbing Youzhou Tower written by him has become the big bell book in Chinese literature. The mighty sense of tragic consciousness from his deep inside was the core of his affectionate world. Thomas Hardy was one of the leading novelists in English literature at the end of nineteen century. Most of his novels have his place Dorset as their setting, expressed his pessimistic view on human life at large. Considered a Victorian realist, Hardy examines the social constraints on the lives of those living in Victorian England, and criticizes those beliefs, especially those relating to marriage, education and religion, that limited people’s lives and caused unhappiness. Such unhappiness, and the suffering it brings, is seen by poet Philip Larkin as central in Hardy’s works.

Ⅰ.Definition of Tragic Consciousness

As an unfailing theme in Chinese and Western literature writing, tragic consciousness has a very rich connotation. When people realize their tininess as individuals, briefness as natural elements and destiny in survival field, they will have a sense of loneliness, emptiness of their value and fear of end of their own life. With the end of a person’s life, his life stage also ends tragically. So the tragic consciousness in literature works is the aesthetic translation of the survival crisis.

Tragic consciousness ran through the works of the two writers. In the development of Chinese ancient literature, tragic consciousness never meant blindly self-pity. With deep influence of traditional Confucian philosophy, from the beginning, there were the people with loyal ideals, who excelled in learning and could become an officials. The tragic conscious in their poetry works and between the lines showed the political tendency of intensive concern on country and home affairs and national destiny. Chen Zi’ang was a quick-minded poet with lofty ambition. Chen Zi’ang’s devotion to poetry was the innovation of “no predecessors and no latecomers” whether in literature theory or practical creation. His poems was full of enthusiasm with strength of character in Chinese Han and Wei Dynasty.

On Climbing Youzhou Tower, the model of wonderful works in early Tang, was a poem with typical tragic consciousness which combined ideal with reality, and it embodied the unrealized ideals and depressing of the reality, which created the new page of poems innovation theory and practice for Tang poems. Written in the early Tang Dynasty, On Climbing Youzhou Tower was like Chen Zi’ang, who stood on Youzhou Tower, unruly alone and lofty, making the poets in early Tang Dynasty who were indulged in the dreams of the former dynasty more tiny and dispirited. Since the young, Chen Zi’ang had been keeping a heart of devoting himself to the country and battle field, so his poems were not always with passive and pessimistic style, but with deep and strong, excited and passionate style. Compared to Li Bai, worries about home and country embodied in Chen Zi’ang’s tragic consciousness were deeper, more lasting and stronger, and more profound and comprehensive, more sorrowful and franker. It was also “profound and comprehensive”,”sorrowful and straightforward” than Du Fu’s tragic consciousness. The poem described that the writer climbed on the Jibei Tower, which was Youzhou Tower. Facing to the boundless field, he recalled the past in the light of the present and thought of the pain of sadness, repression and distress of no way to serve the country with his all aspiration.

At the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the western society was an age of value reconstruction, disturbance and an age when people could not find spiritual home and existence value, and could not take control of their own. Although the western literature in this period continued the tragic tradition——discussion about the question of life and death, literature works displayed not only the tragic forms, the more important was the attitude to the tragedy. Hardy’s works both assumed the thinking of the history that was to pay attention to express the destined tragedy of death which had been thinking from the ancient Greece literature, and had the period feel that displayed the tragedy of lonely individual struggle of “others are hell”, which highlighted the sadness of the Sisyphus eternal tragedy that was beyond despair and faced the impossibility without giving up. For Hardy, whether his character and environment novels, romantic and fantastic novels, or skilled structure novels, there were tragic consciousness in his works. As Hardy himself, tragic consciousness in his works was not single and had profound social and personal factors. Hardy’s works also express his responsibility and mission to society and people, and deep concern on humanity problem.

Ⅱ.Analysis of the Tragic Consciousness and Connotation of Literature

In the scope of literature, tragic consciousness shall be understood in two aspects: First, the nature of the conflict. As the name implies, tragic conflict expresses that man’s nature force inevitably suffers frustration, misfortune and adversity, and that is the conflict between the necessity and the impossibility of the realization in realities. Second, it is the emotion effect of the tragedy. There are different types of tragedies, such as hero tragedy, horror tragedy, family tragedy and others, and tragedy effect can focus on pity, sympathy, indignation and fear, etc. Effect of tragedy consciousness is shocked. It has serious and depressed emotion and tends to lofty beauty, and it makes people excel the daily life and moral standards to stimulate a sense of justice or produce a more serious and deep feelings of life, so that the mind is purified. The tragedy will become a lower form of melodrama or sentimental drama in the absence of the lofty.

“True literature always goes with human survival dilemma” .〔3〕Tragedy is not only a state of life existence, and it is also emotional experience of life. It makes people feel misery and helpless, and it is caused by some extrapolation of the eternal living environment to lead to unexpected situation. It is a deviation of the track of subject and objective object in the time and space. People continuously study the difference between tragedy and comedy, and explore the connotation of the nature of tragedy and rise to the tragedy conscious in theory. It has been said that tragedy is a serious thing in life, and it is not only the synonyms of sorrow, painful or even death, it is also spiritual power which can make people inspired and self-improved and produce an aesthetic pleasure.

In Chinese and the Western culture, people can feel deeply the forms of expression of tragic conscious in different culture. Tragic conscious in Chinese literature is the depression of having unrecognized talent for the writers themselves, and the sorrow of conflict that is difficult to reconcile between the inner will and the social history, and it also covers the art conversion of deliberately description of miserable life, evil, carrying forward the justice and courage. These constitute another level of tragic consciousness and it is the motive power to incur the tragedy creation. Without the psychological motivation, there will be no tragedy and tragic consciousness. Tragic consciousness in the western culture is based on the ideal world of “subject and object” separation, which have positive influence on the development of tragic consciousness to tragic spirit. Tragic consciousness in the western culture roots from Plato’s doctrine of “Idealism”. Plato thought that there was an “ideal world ” beyond the real world, and real world was the imitation of the ideal world , while the ideal world was the target of human recognition. But the imperfection of mankind led to huge opposite and the contrast between mankind itself and the idea, reality and ideal, the limited and the infinity, which was often doubtful and mankind often doubted and denied all things, and feared that all these would hurt them.

Ⅲ.The embodiment of tragic consciousness in on Climbing Youzhou Tower of Chen Zi’ang

Chen Zi’ang read a lot when he was young, and he was straightforward. Therefore, he was a poet with political talents and political foresight. Because of his excellent abilities and talents, he put forward many pertinent suggestions and advice to the maladministration in Queen Wu’s time. But because evil governors were in power, his many advice were not adopted. On the contrary, for his straight words and brave remonstrance, he was hit in succession and once was put into prison for implicating “traitor”. The poet had high aspirations, but his political ideal and aspiration could not be realized and he was frustrated successively, so he felt abnormal pain and grief. “No Predecessors and No Latecomers”. The predecessors the writer referred to were sage monarch who could treat worthy men with courtesy. When the writer climbed the high tower and overlooked the distance field, he could only see boundless filed and the universe, as well as his remote future. He felt sadness welling up, and felt so deeply loneliness that he could not help crying with sorrow. With sad and impassioned tone, his on Climbing Youzhou Tower described the frustrated condition resulted from impossibility to realize his ideal and display his talents, and the lonely and gloom feelings resulted from under appreciated and being framed. And the distress described by the writer was often in common among the people with lofty ideals who had great ambitions and were under appreciated, so the poet aroused wide resonance of people with lofty ideals who had “great ambitions”, and ” were under appreciated” , and “were unable to make contributions to the country”.

Beyond the waving and gloomy, impassioned and bleak, bright and clear tone, the poet was also with a sad and distressed sigh of life, and a sad sense about matters at that time. As an important literary phenomenon in Chinese classical literature, tragic consciousness combined the complicated emotion of thinking after the collision of the poet himself to life and society, reality and history, so it had unique literary achievements and vivid artistic feature in artistic, ideological, aesthetic style and other aspects. on Climbing Youzhou Tower has strong tragic consciousness, and its manifestations was the conflict between the subjective world of the poet’s inner and the reality. The nature of the tragedy was that the writer’s subjective consciousness (the enthusiasm to devote himself to the country) was denied by the reality (under historical circumstance, the helpless status that the poet could not change ), which caused the poet’s painful thought about the life meaning. What can cause readers’ resonance is the writer the spirit explore of looking for the life meaning at the expense of his personality repression and self-life.

Ⅳ.The Expression of Tragic Consciousness in Hardy’s Works

Thomas Hardy, who was called “The greatest master of tragedy among English novelists”, was an outstanding critical writer in British in the end of the19th century. His works mainly reflected the changes in society economic, politics, customs and the tragic fate of bankrupt after capitalism invaded the British countryside, and made profound analysis and tragic exploration to people’s fate at that time, and expressed the concern of the writer on the relation between society, culture, economic and the times. It had a strong sense of tragedy.

Throughout Hardy’s creation in his whole life, the distinct sign of his works was the description of the strong tragic consciousness and destiny under this consciousness. His tragic outlook was throughout both Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure and The Mayor of Casterbridge, The Return of the Native. He said :”Tragedy, in brief, that is to say, tragedy is a state of affairs to express personal life, and his instincts and desires eventually lead to tragic endings. There are two reasons that lead to the tragic ending: one is the matters which is inseparable from the universe, the other is the things occurs in human society, that is the social reason for tragedy”.〔4〕

“ The tragedy that is decided by the inevitability is best, more simply the highest tragedy.” In some of his works, there were a lot of description about the unfairness in the character’s life, the tragic fate of the character with a tragedy end, but the hero and heroin’s enthusiasm to struggle with fate and their aggressiveness was described so vividly that the works had high ideology and literariness. Hardy’s time was the period when British capitalism flourished, Ge Hong social contradictions were very serious. Hardy thought “the world is in utter disorder, capitalism life order is hostile to people who are lack of wealth”.〔5〕It was in conflict with the decadent system and outdated idea of main society at that time. But the tragedies in his works were universal with broad and profound social significance with extraordinary literary charm.

The tragedies in Hardy’s Wessex novels were not only a social tragic phenomenon, they were more like human tragedies of different culture generated from the culture impact of different society. Hardy’s life was deeply influenced by tragic outlook of ancient Greek, and the democratic view of humanism under the tragedy connotation was very obvious. And as a realist writer, when describing the beautiful scene in Wessex, he felt so pity about the ruin of the natural simplicity of pastoral lifestyle under the erosion of industrial civilization. For the ruin, Hardy could not find the reason and solution, so he felt so confused that he could only rely on the misery fate and fatalism. Is not the deep depression a true portrayal of pain of the tragic hero in the works of Hardy ?

The ending of western tragedy has no fixed form as Chinese tragedy. It gives full play to their own advantages in the inheritance of ancient Greek tradition tragedy. The embodiment of justice and the perfect religious feeling of faith in western culture deeply influences the development of western tragic consciousness, and reflects the charm of western tragedy, and the spiritual sublimation kept the unfailing charm of their tragedies. Beyond the westerners’ living circumstance, there are many active factors stimulating their thought. They are happy to accept new things and with strong independent sense from their childhood, they are accustomed to open and independent living mode, and they experiences the joy of survival by various adventures. While Chinese culture is different. As one of the traditional ancient civilizations, ancient culture was brilliant with great achievement, while there were potential factors hidden behind it, such as the traditional feudal idea and ethical notion were deep-rooted, the three cardinal guides and the five constant virtues constrained people’s thought, and these were the result of the fierce collision between history and human internal contradictions. The generation of tragedy is not fearful, the most important is that people should have correct tragic consciousness to arouse their positive energy and sense of justice, and reduce the extent of injury of the tragic consequence to the lowest. Take this for example, and deeply reflect the deep-seated reasons behind the tragedy, so that people can get strong and improve a lot in spirit, promote national cohesion and centripetal force, and stand firmly in the world.

In a word, under real society circumstance, as a special occupation, writers has insight and sensitivity which is different from ordinary people. As excellent literature masters, Chen Zi’ang and Hardy were good at thinking tragic consciousness and created special literary value and social value in their works. Most of their works disclosed the conflict between human and society by a series emotions mixed with sad and joy, witnessing the ruin of social internal contradictions in the perceptual world. In addition, the carving and construction of words are the charm of their works. The hero’s unique “sad man” embrace and touching artistic charm can move readers and arise strong emotion resonance.

Ⅴ.The Influence of Cultural Factors on Tragedy Consciousness

Literature is an aesthetic activity that has both aesthetic function and moralization function. In a sense, the original generation of literature was totally for ethics and morality, and the appreciation for literature and arts was not the main purpose, but served for morality. Creation of writers embodied their ethical ideas. Tragic consciousness in the works of Chen Zi’ang and Hardy was the common emotions, and their respective ethical ideas were penetrated in their tragic stories, the basis of which was humanity theme. Their humanity ethic and tragic consciousness complemented each other, and the humanity and ethical issues were almost involved in their respective works and became the main parts of literature.

The influence of the difference between Chinese and western culture on tragic consciousness are very obvious. The basic point of Chinese literature was unity of heaven and human, and human was a part of nature, receives the rein of the heaven and borne the presents of nature. Chinese philosophy of “restrained the concern on gods and gaze d at man’s world only”〔6〕and many theories generated from it were all concerning on the harmony and unity between human and nature. At that time scholars cherished ideals of leaving the world, and gave the practical explanation and criticized on tragic phenomenon. Chinese traditional tragedies——The Orphan of Chao, Autumn in the Han Palace, Palace of Eternal Life, etc. all expressed the realistic conflict. The tragic reason was the defect of personal humanity, and tragic theme expressed the discontent to reality and attributed the tragedy and misery to the fierce of vicious power. While western culture started with the theory that man is separated from nature, which emphasized on freedom and independent of human and showed us a charming life picture, and people could examine their life through the tragic consciousness in their works. There are various happy or sad stories on the stage of human history, and tragic consciousness exists in social culture and in people’s spiritual and material world, which has vital influence on society and individuals. The subjective consciousness is starting point of literature creation for many writers. The success of many literature works is attributed to the high artistic tragic consciousness that causes the reader emotional resonance. To reflect the tragic consciousness in the works often benefits us a lot.

〔1〕Nietzsche: The Birth of Tragedy, Joint Publishing, 1986, P.52.

〔2〕Gesprache mit Goethe, translated by Zhu Guangqian, People’s Literature Publishing, published in1982

〔3〕Wang Qiankun, Promise of Literature, Beijing, SDX Joint Publishing, 2005, p.18.

〔4〕Edited by Golgi world Literature Institute, Soviet Academy of Sciences, English Literature (1789-1832), Nankai, Nankai University Press, published in April, 1984, P.241.

〔5〕Edited by Golgi world Literature Institute, Soviet Academy of Sciences, English Literature (1789-1832), Nankai, Nankai University Press, published in April, 1984, P.215.

〔6〕Yoshikawa Kojiro (Japan) , A Glimpse of Chinese Literature, translated by Zhang Peiheng, Hefei, Anhui Literature and Art Publishing House, 1986, P.21.