A Writer in a Dilemma about His Aesthetic Sense Comment on Shen Congwen's Aesthetic Sense

Abstract) Shen Congwen, an influential Chinese lberal writer in the 1930s,was a writer in a dilemma about his aesthetic sense.His early stories reveal that his aesthetic standards were characterised by the seeking for humanitarianism,the natural beauty and the beauty of human nature.All these find full expression in his short stories in which the subject matters were centred on the pepole, the scenry and the custom of his hometown Xiangxi.In these stories, he expressed his own ideal, his criticism and negation to the morbid metropolitan society and human nature.But a deliberate study of his later works reveals that when he placed himself in modorn civilization and examined his hometown again, he felt painful and unpeaceful for its backwardness while enjoying and appreciating its extreme natural beauty.