War Writing and Peach Blossom Spring Imagination——A Comparative Analysis of Robert Payne's and Shen Congwen's Novels

Robert Payne and Shen Congwen shared a profound cross-cultural relationship.Payne's concentrated translation and introduction of Shen's fiction significantly facilitated its global dissemination;Moreover,through his reading and translation of Shen,Payne's Chinese-themed fiction was influenced to a certain extent.Payne's views on war and life were highly compatible with Shen's,as both demonstrated an intrinsic consistency in their attitudes toward life,encapsulated in their respective notions of “Everything that lives is holy” and “To live on with toughness and resilience.” Like Shen,Payne placed particular emphasis on exploring the poetic dimensions of everyday life during wartime,portraying the psychological trauma and solitary experiences of ordinary soldiers.The spatial imagery created in their novels—such as “Singapore River ／ Cloud Temple Hall” in Payne's works and “White River ／ Chadong” in Shen's—can be regarded as comparable achievements,reflecting their reverence for Daoist culture and their aesthetic construction of a Peach Blossom Spring world.Moreover,their depictions of grandparent-grandchild relationships,romantic relationships,and even open-ended narrative structures exhibit numerous similarities.The manifold connections between Payne and Shen illuminate the deep-level exchanges and interactions between Chinese and foreign literature and culture,offering significant insights for the study of world literature and the global dimensions of Chinese literature.