DH Lawrence praised her work as "a work of genius"; Xu Zhimo commented on her creation as "pure literature, true art"; Virginia Woolf once wrote in her diary that her novel is "the only thing I feel Jealous Works". She is Katherine Mansfield, the short story queen known as "The Chekhov of English."
Mansfield was a talented female writer who was well-known in the UK and even the world at the beginning of the 20th century. In her creative career of more than ten years, she has written 88 classic short stories for the world with delicate and poetic brushstrokes. The era she lived in was a booming era of modern literature. Together with Lawrence, Woolf and Joyce, she created a new era in the history of British literature. She is well-deserved as the founder of modern British short stories. However, under the dazzling halo is a girl-like fragile heart. Having experienced estranged family love, twists and turns in love, and a writing career full of ups and downs, dragging a body that was tortured by tuberculosis, what she has gained along the way is exhaustion and loneliness. When she was young, she left her homeland in a hurry to pursue her dream, and made her name in the bustling London alone. The sudden and numerous honors have caused controversy about her nationality as a writer, but readers who know Mansfield know well that New Zealand is her endless source of creation, and she will unknowingly reveal a little bit of "seeking home" in her works. Nostalgia. She is a kite flying in New Zealand. No matter how high or far she flies, the other end of the invisible silk thread on her body will always lead the beautiful hometown of New Zealand.
Yoyo Prelude: Youth Chasing Dreams
Katherine Mansfield was born Katherine Beecham on October 14, 1888 in Wellington, New Zealand. Her father, Harold Beecham, was a wealthy banker who was later knighted. Mother Anne, Beachem was a delicate wife, warm and considerate to her husband, but not very good at babysitting. Therefore, the children were looked after by their grandmother, Mrs. Dyer, from the beginning. Catherine apparently loved the elder so much that her pseudonym was derived from her grandmother's name, Dale Mansfield. Katherine is the third child in the family, she has two older sisters and a younger brother (one younger sister died of cholera). Among them, she has a particularly good relationship with her younger brother Leslie. When she was five years old, her family moved from downtown Wellington's Tinner Corey Street to Carrolly, a suburb where the idyllic scenery brought infinite joy to children's childhood. Her short story "A Doll's House" is Created with this background. Little Catherine loves reading very much, and her literary potential was revealed very early. At the age of eight, she won an English composition competition award at school. The teacher who taught her at Carrolli Elementary still vaguely remembers that the chubby, calm little girl "was written as if driven by some force" and that she "was unable to stop writing as soon as she began to put her thoughts into words." They had to restrict her to make her sentences shorter to meet the standards of elementary school students. Of course, there are teachers who don't appreciate her style, thinking that she "puts too much of herself" into her composition.
In 1903, Catherine and her two sisters, accompanied by their aunt, entered the Royal Academy of London, England. Parents expect to raise their daughters to be well-educated ladies and ladies, so that they will be able to conclude a well-matched marriage in the future. Because the young lady from the middle-class Victorian period faced only two choices: one was to become a governess with a humble social status; the other was to take up the only suitable occupation for women at that time and enter the palace of marriage. Despite the very serious atmosphere at the school, there was no shortage of interesting teachers who greatly expanded their knowledge by introducing students to the work of emerging writers such as Ibsen, Oscar, Wilde, Paul Valery and Richard DeMeer vision. There, Catherine devoted herself to studying German, modern history, English literature, astronomy, practicing the cello, and contributing to the school magazine from time to time. In October of the same year, her children's story "Pine Tree, Sparrow, You and Me" was published in the school magazine and won some praise, which showed her warm and cheerful side. Just two months ago, however, she was quietly writing in her notebook something completely different and deeply murky: a story or hallucination, titled "His Ideal." The theme of death wishes first appeared in her work when Catherine was only 15 years old. Later, she even began to try to write a novel titled "Juliet" based on her own experience of her first love. In 1906, Catherine reluctantly obeyed her parents and returned to her small, sparsely populated hometown. But she, who has seen the world and is ambitious, can't stand a life that is limited to a forest picnic, a barracks dance, and a happy marriage every day. She felt that New Zealand was just a small world, and she needed people and environments she liked to develop her writing talents. So, after some quarrel, in July 1908, Catherine, who was only 19 years old, resolutely sailed from Littleton to London and started her writing career.
The turbulent climax: dreaming back home
On August 24 of the same year, Catherine, who had been at sea for several weeks, finally returned to her ideal "creative garden" in London. Compared with the closed New Zealand, here provides her with more time and space to experience life. However, as time went on, a strong sense of homesickness emerged, and she felt that she was, after all, a foreigner from the colony, an irrelevant stranger who could not be accepted by the British beside her. Whenever she wandered the paths of the London gardens, she could only take a quick glance, and dared not linger for a long time. If she lay down on the grass, others would yell at her, "Look at her, lying on someone else's grass, looking at peace, as if she were the owner of the grass, as if this was her garden, as if that The splendid house with windows on the back wall and colorful curtains is her home." The strange eyes around her made Catherine feel deeply uneasy and hesitant. Poor little girl with beautiful dreams.
In March 1909, Catherine married a violinist, not out of love, but because she desperately needed a home of her own to free herself from her parents' control. When filling out a form at the marriage registry, she referred to herself as an unemployed unmarried woman, and the groom took the same casual attitude, simply calling himself a singer. It was an unhappy marriage, and Catherine left without saying goodbye on the wedding night. Since then, she has traveled to various places to make a living in various ways. She has worked as a cellist for a touring troupe, as a freelance writer for a magazine, and has experienced several romantic relationships in the meantime. A string of life blows provided her with enough poignant writing material to publish her first collection of short stories, In a German Apartment. Catherine, who has experienced the vicissitudes of life, can not help but recall the simple and happy life in New Zealand as a child. In stark contrast to the melancholy, mournful tone of the other works in the "In the German Apartment" short story "The Day of the Birth", this pure little story is written against the background of the mansion where she lived as a child. Once, she was so stubborn to leave New Zealand. At this time, her recollection of the things, events and people there in the novel deeply expresses her longing and nostalgia for her hometown.
In December 1911, Catherine was for some reason annoyed at the New Age magazine she often contributed to, so she forwarded a story called "The Woman in the Shop" to a new magazine, "Rhythm," and This led to the acquaintance of the editor-in-chief of the magazine, John Middleton Murray. Murray had just graduated from Oxford University as a young literary critic who ran two magazines at the same time. From the very first meeting Katherine, Murray idealized her, "She is very simple and lovely in every move. Katherine has always been a very elegant figure in my eyes, and I never thought to criticize her." He admired her talent very much and sympathized with her experience. At Katherine's invitation, Murray moved into her London apartment. The relationship between the two quickly developed from friendship to love, and Catherine felt the warmth of being surrounded by true love for the first time. At the same time, her beloved writing career has also developed by leaps and bounds, and she has also made a lot of colleagues in the literary world. Berrant Russell, DH Lawrence, Virginia, and Woolf are all her friends, and Lawrence also uses her as the prototype of the heroine Gezhen in his novel "Women in Love". However, the sweetness of love and the success of careerGong could not fill the void she missed about her hometown, she began to consciously use pen and ink to recall the land that raised her, she once wrote in her diary affectionately: "I want to write about my own country until it is stored in my heart. My memory is completely drained. Not only because this is a 'sacred debt' that I owe my country, not only because I was born there, but also because it is the place I have always dreamed of...my heart never leaves there . I long to give it new life with my pen. Ah, and those whom we have loved there, I shall write too."
Gorgeous Closing: Dead in a Strange Land
In the summer of 1915, Catherine and Murray moved into St. 5 Akasha Road, John Lynn. Her younger brother, Leslie, came to London as a soldier, and after a holiday with her left for France. The siblings’ fond memories of childhood became the material for her novels such as Tequila and The Wind Rises. However, just a few months later, Leslie was killed during a military exercise. The fire of war fundamentally shaken her love for European "civilization", and she even openly declared that London was "the terrible and dark city she hated". This sad event completely changed Katherine's life, and her pain completely transformed her cynicism and thus unleashed her creative energy. The love for her parents, her nostalgia for her childhood, and her yearning for New Zealand were intertwined and lingered in her mind. When she was able to sort out and put these complex feelings into pen and ink, she revised her early work "Tequila" and named it "Prelude", implying a new beginning. The completion of "Prelude" can be said to be a turning point in Catherine's creative path. She created a "prelude" narrative method in her novel, which is a writing method that only belongs to Catherine Mansfield.
The huge trauma of losing a loved one and a long-term displaced life made young Catherine overworked. In 1918, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis. But in the years of fighting against the disease, she still kept writing. Dragging a heavy body, she wrote excellent short stories such as "Under the Moonlight", "Yangyang and Liangliang" and "Confessions of a Married Man". She loves writing from the bottom of her heart, she once wrote in her diary: "What I want is this kind of life...I want a garden, a small house... Above all, what I want most is Writing. (Maybe I'm going to write about a taxi driver, that's fine.)" In the last two years of her life, she seemed to have a premonition that her time was running out, and she desperately raced against time with all her heart and soul. Keep writing, writing about her memories, about her New Zealand? When "Ideal Family", "Stranger", "Her First Ball", "Sixpence", "Fly", "Canary" and so on one after another When the wonderful short stories are presented to readers, the fire of her life is also burned out.
One night in mid-July 1922, the Chinese poet Xu Zhimo had the privilege of having a 20-minute meeting with the ill-stricken literary heroine. As soon as they met, Catherine's handsome appearance and elegant demeanor attracted him deeply. In the conversation that followed, he was again impressed by her wise insights. Although the two only met in a hurry, they became bosom friends. No one expected that only half a year later, Catherine would die in Fontainebleau, France. Xu Zhimo was deeply grieved when he learned about it, so he wrote a sad poem "Ai Man Shufeier" to express his nostalgia. Later, many of Mansfield's short stories were first translated and introduced to Chinese readers by her Oriental confidant.
Catherine was only 35 years old when she died. Perhaps God did not want this beautiful angel to suffer again, so her short and wonderful drama life came to an early end. In order to commemorate this national writer, the New Zealand people specially established the "Mansfield Literary Creation Award"; the New Zealand government also collected her manuscripts and other relics and stored them in the National Library. In fact, Mansfield has never gone far. Her short stories are the continuation of her life, telling readers around the world about her spiritual homeland, New Zealand, which she spent her whole life searching for.
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