A Miscellaneous Textual Research on"Death the Gate of Life"
In the 1940s,Ba Jin and his close friend Miao Chongqun wrote essays under the common title"death",and both placed the phrase"death the gate of life"in the opening section.According to the research,it can be basically deduced that this phrase comes from a passage in Milton's Paradise Lost,which is based on the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament.In fact,this quote was also used as an important conceptual representation in the works of Guo Moruo,Kuai Sixun and other writ-ers in the 1920s,so it cannot be said to be a quote that merely reflects the individual views of life and death of Bajin and Miao Chongqun.We can see from such a phenomenon that in a discourse space dominated by the utilitarian concept of life and death,in which one would rather sacrifice one's life for a greater value(such as nation,state,people,revolution and or so),one rec-ognizes a metaphysical,non-utilitarian"truth"such as"love"as being comparable to the metaphysical value of"life",and such idea constitutes a trend that cannot be ignored.In a sense,this(the longing for"death")can be regarded as a merck-mar-le that Chinese literature has departed from tradition and penetrated into the realm of modernity.This paper aims to take the trivi-al investigation of the origin of the phrase quoted by Bajin and Miao Chongqun as a starting point,and suggest the possibility of a new perspective on literary history that takes the diversity of concepts of life and death as an entry point.
Ba JinMiao ChongqunParadise LostNew TestamentGospel of MatthewGuo MoruoKuai Sixunviews of life and death