ABSTRACT
Shen Congwen is a special case in the history of modern Chinese literature. The uniqueness and complexity of Shen and his creative writings have long been acknowledged in all quarters. The character of Shen’s works clearly evinces an interweaving of three cultural strands, coming from the West Hunanese Miao, the Han, and the West. The result was that life in West Hunanese society became the product of an intertwining of different cultures, and the Miao districts retained aspects of a living fossil of primitive culture. From the time of his youth, Shen experienced the contradiction between the social order and principles of his times and the realities of human life. Viewed from an economic perspective, the evolution of West Hunanese society demonstrates a historical process moving from backwardness toward a state of progress. Shen frequently visited him to hear him discourse on “Song and Yuan philosophy,” Mahayana Buddhism, Indian logic, and “the theory of evolution.”
