林语堂与白话文运动

Lin Yutang and the Vernacular Movement

作为一个游走于主流与边缘之间的知识精英,林语堂反对白话文运动将文学的形式与内容割裂的做法,主张将白话文与新文学在现代文学观念的观照下合而为一。他所提出的契合其文学主张的语录体和性灵说,实际上却是其在文化与政治的交错论述下却走向自身的反面的体现。考察林语堂对白话文运动的观点变化,可了解白话文运动中语言与文学既合且分、文化与政治相互纠葛的复杂历史过程。

As an intellectual elite wandering between the mainstream and the edge,Lin Yutang didn’t agree to the practice of separating the form and content of literature in the vernacular movement but advocated the integration of vernacular and new literature in the light of modern literary concepts.The diction style and spirit theory proposed by Lin,in line with his literary ideas,are actually the embodiment of his own negative side under the interlaced discussion of culture and politics.Studying Lin’s change of views on the vernacular movement helps understand the complicated historical process of the combination and separation of language and literature,and the entanglement of culture and politics in the vernacular movement.