There was no plan to write such a topic in this issue. However, in the special period when the “New Crown” epidemic suddenly came, it was difficult to wipe out the “anti-epidemic” from thoughts and life anyway, because the epidemic information from all directions was flying ,full of. Writing will inevitably “breath” it …
However, to really write something, it seemed so difficult, so suffering, and choking.
The most direct understanding of “literature and disease” should be the unique description of disease in literary works. This description can be a disease that occurs in an individual. For example, the world famous books such as “La Traviata” and “A Dream of Red Mansions” all have the role of disease. It has detailed description and characterization; it can also be the description and characterization of epidemics such as the plague that occurred in human history, or literary works created with the plague as the background. For example, Camus’s Plague, Shen Congwen’s Smallpox, and Bi Shumin’s Corona Virus. In August 2019, at the 22nd International Comparative Literature Conference held in Macau, China, Professor Liu Jiuming from Huazhong University of Science and Technology published a report on this subject. He said that literature has been inextricably linked to disease since its birth. Literature is the study of human beings. In ancient and modern Chinese and foreign literature, writing people as their own responsibility cannot avoid writing about diseases. It can be said that the narrative of diseases constitutes an ancient and long-standing tradition in the field of literature. From the perspective of creative subjects, writers in the history of literature suffer from various diseases to varying degrees. The indiscriminate relationship between literature and disease has left a broad space for exploration of literary research. It not only provides a new way for literary criticism and interpretation, but also provides a way for literature to return to the true path of reality and escape from self-entertainment. The marginalized dilemma offers a new possibility and even the possibility to study how literature treats diseases, especially people’s mental trauma.
Of course, there is another way to understand “literature and disease”, that is, “literature is ill”, that is, the literature itself discussed in our earlier article has suffered from disease, and has become ill or even killed; or, “literature is not diseased” And getting healthier. The research and discussion of “literature and disease” at this level is quite complicated and always under debate. It involves literary roots, literary essence, literary function, realism, romanticism, modernism, “pure literature”, “why is literature”, “what is literature” and a series of literary theory and aesthetic issues. However, even so, when human beings are faced with sudden major diseases and major crises, the most basic conscience and soul of literature itself should and will be awakened to fight against diseases and crises with their innate immunity, Fight. In fact, many writers did just that in this epidemic. They are benign cells that bring immunity to literature, and they are the guardians of literary life.