Cao Duy Son's novel "Heavenly Orchestra" from a cultural perspective - 2

5. Research methods

To carry out the topic, we synchronously apply the following methods:

- Cultural studies approach : Cultural studies are formed on the interface of social and humanistic knowledge about people and society. Cultural studies are a complete whole with a wide scope, in which cultural studies of literature and art are a subsystem. From a cultural perspective, we will find mutual, dialectical relationships between culture and literature.

- Interdisciplinary research method : To carry out this topic, the thesis needs to combine historical research methods, cultural research, and

Ethnological research... Interdisciplinary research methods will help the thesis solve the research problems satisfactorily.

In addition, we use other research operations such as poetic analysis of works, synthesis and comparison...

6. Thesis structure

In addition to the introduction, conclusion, and bibliography, the thesis has a three-part structure:

Chapter 1 : THEORETICAL ISSUES AND SOME FEATURES OF WRITER CAO DUY SON

Chapter 2 : CULTURAL SPACE IN THE NOVEL "THE HEAVENLY PLUNGER " BY WRITER CAO DUY SON

Chapter 3 : CULTURALIZED PERSON IN THE NOVEL "THE HEAVENLY SON"

BY WRITER CAO DUY SON

CONTENT

Chapter 1

THEORETICAL ISSUES AND SOME FEATURES OF WRITER CAO DUY SON

1.1. Concept of culture

Culture is a concept with broad connotations and many different understandings, related to the material and spiritual life of people.

Former General Director of UNESCO Federico Mayor gave a definition of culture: "Culture reflects and expresses in a general way all aspects of life ( of each individual and the whole community ) that have taken place in the past as well as are taking place in the present. Over the centuries, it has constituted a system of values, aesthetic traditions and lifestyles on which each nation affirms its own identity."

Researcher Tran Ngoc Them in the introduction of the Wed page about culture vanhoahoc.com also put forward a similar concept: “Humans exist in a cultural environment. That environment is expressed in space and through time. Life in us and around us is imbued with the yeast of cultural space. Our ancestors, ourselves, and our descendants, are born in culture, live in culture and die in cultural time. Everything we know, related to humans belongs to culture, everything we do not know related to humans also belongs to culture. In that sense. Edouard Herriot (1872 - 1957) - scientist and politician, member of the French Academy - said the immortal sentence: “Culture is what remains when we have forgotten everything, what is missing when we have learned everything” [33, 1].

From the above definition we can see that culture is an objective phenomenon, the sum of all aspects of life surrounding humans, existing consciously and unconsciously in each of us. Even those

The smallest aspect of life bears the mark of culture. It can be bad, it can be good, it can be high-class, it can be secondary… but all the elements that belong to humans, that bear the mark of humans, are culture. Any field is within culture.

1.2. The relationship between culture and literature

Literature is the art of using language and images to express human life and society. “Literature at any time must be placed within the overall structure of culture, but in our country, examining literature and approaching literature from a cultural perspective is still a very new issue. In the past, literature and culture were considered separately because people thought that literature had special characteristics. Now, special characteristics do not disappear, but in many approaches, approaching literature from a cultural perspective is showing that this is an effective approach. This approach considers literature as an element in the structure of the overall culture, it conveys and preserves cultural values” [41, 3]. In the literary history of any country, there exists a relationship between culture and literature. It is a close, inseparable two-way relationship. Here we would like to reaffirm that relationship once again, to see that approaching literary works from a cultural perspective is necessary.

For a long time, culture and literature were placed on equal footing, “considered to be in a reciprocal relationship” , that is, cultural research uses literature as material, while literary research uses culture to illuminate. Recently, after Unesco launched decades of cultural development along with changes in cultural awareness, M. Bakhtin’s works were introduced, researchers agreed that culture is the factor that governs literature. Culture has become an effective research direction. There have been a number of authors following this research direction: Tran Dinh Huou, Tran Ngoc Vuong, Do Lai Thuy, Tran Nho Thin … Author Do Lai Thuy affirmed: “ … Culture is a whole, a system that includes

includes many factors, including literature. Thus, culture governs literature as a system that governs elements, the whole governs parts. This is an irresistible relationship. However, literature compared to other factors is a strong and dynamic factor. Therefore, it always tends to slide out of the system. Meanwhile, the system, especially the cultural system, always tends to maintain stability. Thus, the conflict and resistance of literature to culture is inevitable, thanks to which literature is creative. Creating new values ​​for itself and for the system. Great creativity can lead to changes in the system” [41, 3].

Therefore, we can affirm that culture is the material for literature to create its artistic world, the “stage” for literature to prominently express its values, and at the same time, culture is also the “key” to “decode” the “mysteries” of art. On the other hand, literature reflects culture, recreating cultural models through the artistic world. We also cannot deny the role of literature in guiding cultural development.

We can compare culture to a big river, and literature to a small branch. When the big river is full of water, the small branch will be full, and the small branch will contribute to regulating the water for the mother river. The history of literature has clearly proven this.

Vietnamese folk culture is rich and diverse. We can see that through folk theater, folk paintings, music … most clearly in folk literature.

It can be said that folk literature is the place where culture is most fully preserved. As we have seen, folk theater is gradually being overwhelmed by modern art forms, folk painting villages are gradually fading away, folk melodies are becoming less and less known, but folk literature still leaves a deep mark in the Vietnamese people's consciousness. There, Vietnamese people find their roots, find all the beautiful cultural features of the nation. No one knows since when culture has become the "milk source", the material for literature to "grow up". We can start

The custom of chewing betel leaves is encountered through the folk tale Betel and Areca Nut or the custom of making Chung cake and Day cake on Tet holiday through the story of Chung cake and Day cake . Thus, customs and cultural elements are brought into literature, become the subject of literature, and are preserved in literature. On the other hand, literature explains cultural values ​​and preserves them throughout history. Thanks to that, many cultural values ​​have overcome time until now.

Feudal culture is also deeply reflected through literary works. We can see the glory of feudal dynasties through literary works, see history through the pages of books, see how our ancestors lived, how they fought ... in thousands of years of building and defending the country. Through literature, we can see the cultural picture of the nation through each historical period. However, literature cannot directly reflect culture: "...but can only reflect through the "lens" of culture, through the "filter" of cultural values. Thanks to that, it avoids the "mirror" reflection, the naked reflection. And, perhaps, thanks to that, it creates a characteristic way of reflection for literature, a reflection, as people say, with art " [41, 3].

Some people think that we can find culture through history books, even more clearly than literature. We can know what the ancients ate, wore, and lived specifically. This is indisputable but only partly true, because the concept of culture has a very broad connotation. History can reproduce specific cultural values, but there are also immaterial values. Those are things that are difficult to reconstruct just through a piece of pottery, a plowshare or a hoe. For example, patriotism and humanitarianism. These are precious cultural traditions that can only be seen most clearly through literary art. That is the wonderful reflective ability of literature that if only described in ordinary language, it is difficult to convince. On the other hand, there are cultural elements that have long since disappeared, time has erased them and history cannot recreate them, at that time they have to look to literary works.