Once upon a time, when Fudan University established the first MFA degree program in creative writing among universities in mainland China under the leadership of Professors Wang Anyi and Chen Sihe, people were still arguing over whether universities could cultivate literary writing talents. Time flies. Today, as numerous colleges and universities have successively opened creative writing programs, and Chinese creative writing has been listed as a secondary subject, the question of "whether writers can be cultivated" cannot be said to have disappeared, but it has faded out of people's sight. , instead it is about how to mobilize various resources and cultivate high-quality writing talents efficiently.

　　In recent years, as a group of well-known writers have joined the ranks of creative writing teaching in colleges and universities, many young authors who have stood out in the literary world with the title of "teacher" have attracted attention both inside and outside the literary circle, such as "Mo Yan-Jiao Dian" and "Mo Yan-Jiao Dian". "Yu Hua-Ye Xinyun" is such a typical master-disciple combination. This phenomenon is not new at all. As early as the beginning of creative writing, "Wang Anyi-Fu Yuehui" on Fudan campus was also an eye-catching master-disciple pair. Some people named it the phenomenon of "famous teachers giving rise to outstanding apprentices", which made many eager students feel excited and envious.

　　For young writers, the training model of "famous teachers give rise to outstanding apprentices" is undoubtedly the shortcut to becoming famous in the literary world. Nowadays, in people's daily discourse, words related to creation and innovation have become rampant. In this context, people will have the illusion that creative literary writing is not a hard work, and that brainstorming can be done easily in an instant. Solve all problems efficiently. The most striking feature of literary writing is to create things out of nothing. Although many objects have prototypes in real life, the writer has to vividly incubate a large group of flesh-and-blood characters in the mind of the writer, as well as the complex and changeable background in which they are surrounded. This can be said to be something out of nothing. of creation. It wants to give organic form to all chaotic things, just like the gestation and birth of life. Beginner writers are often full of passion, but often struggle to find a suitable way of expression. At this time, if an expert is there to give guidance, the disciples will suddenly become enlightened, which is better than the emotion of ten years of reading; compared with them being trapped in a humble room , A blind man explores alone like an elephant, and the results are self-evident.

　　To be fair, this training model of "famous teachers producing outstanding apprentices" is not a patent in the field of creative writing. From ancient times to the present, the inheritance of teaching from masters to apprentices has been a common practice in many industries (all kinds of handicraft workshops, art and music, and many performing arts) . In the field of literary creation, before creative writing entered university classrooms, there were many well-known writers who encouraged and supported the younger generation of writers. The most popular story is the personal inheritance between the 19th-century French writers Flaubert and Maupassant. Flaubert once took the trouble to teach Maupassant that for a thing (a horse or a tree), there is only one most accurate noun, verb and adjective to describe it, and the writer's task is to find them. Although Maupassant's writing style and atmosphere would be unique in the future, Flaubert's teachings played an indispensable role in its inception.

　　Imagine what it would be like for a high-spirited young writer who sometimes falls into the confusion of adolescence to spend time with a respected senior writer.

　　Of course, there was a huge initial excitement, mixed with admiration and overwhelming humility. The other party will clear up the clouds, perhaps effortlessly clarify the doubts accumulated in his heart in a short period of time, and reveal a beautiful new world in front of them. Literature is naturally the expression of people's emotions and the crystallization of life energy. However, in its historical development, it has also evolved and derived a variety of complex techniques, which are manifested in language style, structure, style and other aspects. Young and energetic writers often despise the skills accumulated by their predecessors and are superstitious about their own inspiration and enthusiasm. However, one day they will regret it. The consequences of underestimating skills are serious, which will make it difficult for their imagination to fly high, and the results of their hard work are often just the remnants of their predecessors.

　　Close interactions with senior mentors often enable them to abandon their willful and childish fantasies, gain edification from words and deeds, and gain a deeper understanding of the language used in their own creations. They will know that in addition to inspiration and spiritual thought, literature also involves hard craftsmanship. They will no longer linger on the surface of the text, but will feel the color, temperature and grace of different words, understand the wonderful uses of different sentence patterns and structures, and understand the applicable occasions of different genres. Only in this way, literary writing is no longer an impromptu expression for them, but a carefully constructed finished product.

　　However, the training model of "famous teachers give rise to great apprentices" will also bring varying degrees of pressure to beginners. This is not only excessive expectations or doubts in the worldly sense, nor the cold-eyed jealousy of peers, but also an anxiety about the influence of these senior writers that arises from deep in their hearts. According to Harold Bloom, a contemporary American literary critic, the weight of the classic writers of the previous generation set a benchmark for those who came after them, but it has also become a source of great anxiety for the younger generation of writers as they grow up. In Bloom's eyes, a literary history is, to a certain extent, the history of later generations of writers trying every possible means to break through and get rid of the influence of their predecessors. Against the background of the great works of their predecessors, young people who want to stand out in the literary world will feel the shadow of their predecessors everywhere. And to get rid of this influence, they need to put in as much effort as they spend on honing their skills. Almost every young writer will realize the anxiety of this literary influence, and students who debut in the form of master-disciple inheritance and have close contact with their mentors will feel it especially deeply.

　　It should be pointed out that the "anxiety of influence" that Bloom tirelessly discusses does not involve the relationship between individual writers, but the competitive relationship between literary texts (mainly poetry) of different eras. Those latecomers with strong spiritual power often adopt the method of "creative misreading" and modify various elements in the texts of their predecessors in various forms in order to introduce new ones. All this depends on the powerful inner world of latecomers. Bloom once said this in his later years: "All literary influences are like a maze. Late writers wander in the maze, thinking they can find an exit, but among them The tough ones will realize that the winding labyrinth of passages is actually within them.”

　　For writers, their writing process actually overlaps with the life process to a large extent. Every life has its origin and inherits multiple genes from its ancestors, but they are definitely not simple mechanical repetitions of the previous generation. Each generation has its own one-time, unrepeatable experience, seeks its own life trajectory, and is unwilling to follow the path set by its predecessors. Life is like this, and so is literary writing. It cannot be denied that those students who are taught by Master Zhi are the lucky ones. They have a higher probability of being exposed in the literary world, occupying important positions and achieving success. However, deep down in their hearts, while they are grateful to their mentors, they also know clearly that they are themselves. , not a shadow crawling under the halo of the predecessors. For this reason, they have carried baggage, big or small, and will face greater challenges than their less fortunate contemporaries in overcoming the anxiety of influence and creating new literary territories. It seems difficult to have both the darling and the darling under the careful care of the senior master, and the lone warrior who pioneers the trend. As for what their writing will add to literary history in the future, people will wait and see.

　　(The author Wang Hongtu is a professor in the Chinese Department of Fudan University)

　　Wen Wei Po