Bing Xin (1900~1999), originally named Xie Wanying, was a native of Changle of Fujian Province.
冰心(19oo~1999),原名谢婉莹,福建长乐人。
Her father was a naval officer and she spent her childhood in Yantai of Shandong Province.
父亲是海军军官。她的童年是在山东烟台度过的。
The ocean left a deep impression on Bing Xin.
大海给冰心留下了深刻的印象。
She was one of the most celebrated female writers among the first batch of modern writers emerging in large numbers during the new-vernacular literature (promoted by the May Fourth Movement in 1919).
冰心属于五四新文学运动中涌现出来的第一批现代作家,是其中最著名的女作家之一。
Most of her early works were "problem fiction", which lay bare the oppressive, feudal patriarchal system and exposed the problems of society, family and women. Two Families, The Man Alone Is off Color, Leaving the Courtry and The Sister of Zhuang Hong, showed clearly that the patriotic May Fourth Movement and the tide of new thinking had strongly affected Bing Xin.
在新思潮的影响下,冰心创作了《两个家庭》、《斯人独憔悴》、《去国》、《庄鸿的姊妹》等揭示社会、家庭、妇女等人生问题的“问题小说”。
Passionately concerned about the realities of her day, she was utterly dissatisfied with the feudal authorities. After the high tide of the May Fourth Movement, under the influence of the philosophy of Tagore, she "retreated into the small world of the family, describing and lauding the kind of 'human love', which cannot exist in a society that is bedeviled by class distinctions".
这些小说,表现了她对封建势力和社会现状的不满,五四之后,受泰戈尔《飞鸟集》的影响,冰心退缩到家庭的圈子里,去描写、歌颂在阶级社会里不可能实行的‘’人类之爱”。
Her stories "Superman" and “Awakening" as well as the volumes of poetry "The Stars" and "Spring Waters" belonged to this period.
在这个时期,冰心创作了《超人》、《悟》以及诗集《繁星》和《春水》。
In these works, she dwelt on maternal love, childlike innocence and purity, spreading the empty belief that "the world is love". Compared with her early stories and poetry, Bing Xin's essays brought her greater recognition for their achievement.
这些无标题的格言式自由体小诗,以自然和谐的音调,抒发了作者对自然景物的感受和人生哲理的思索,歌颂了母爱、人类之爱和大自然。
Bing Xin was a talented writer with a very personal style. The style of her prose, known as “Bing Xin style", was light; the feelings expressed were transparent and delicate. As a writer, she was good at using her literary style to create a rich lyrical atmosphere in her works, which also accounted for their influence at the time. She wrote with natural grace so that her writing style was just like floating clouds and running streams.
冰心的散文被称为“冰心体”散文,即以行云流水似的文字,歌颂自然、母爱和童年,抒发对祖国、故乡、家人、大海的眷念,满蕴着温柔,微带着忧愁,显示出清丽的风致。
Essays such as The Post, Thoughts in the Mountains, Letters to My Young Readers, Returning to the South and Little Orange Lamp also gave the reader a sense of beauty close to that conveyed by lyrical poetry or landscape paintings.
代表作有《往事》、《山中杂记》、《寄小读者》、《南归》、《小桔灯》等。
Letters to My Young Readers was the earliest work of children's literature in modern China.
其中散文集《寄小读者》是中国现代最早的儿童文学作品。
Most of these essays were written abroad, as she thought of her family, her hometown and her country. Maternal love and childlike innocence still featured prominently in these works, but the tone was somewhat changed. There was also disappointment upon the shattering of empty dreams, frustration upon the failure to find answers in her search for the meaning of life, and melancholy upon recollection of childhood. She took full advantage of the easy flow of the vernacular as well as the disciplined simplicity of the classical language. She advocated endowing Chinese with a tint of the Western language. The sentences under her pen were elastic and gentle with dancing rhythm.
冰心主张“白话文言化”、“中文西文化”,她的散文既保留了某些文言文的典雅凝练,又适当地“欧化”,使句子灵活婉转,有自然跳动的韵律感。