| dc.description.abstract | This thesis is inspired by the preface written by Zhang, Xiao-Feng in“ Essay Selection of Nineties” that she mentioned, “Style of diet essay had changed since Lu, Yao-Dong.” Centered in Lu’s four selections of diet essays, extended to his works in other essay selections and his articles that were not published in books, this paper analyzes the relationship between his works and personal life, the esthetic of his diet essays and the message behind. There are four main perspectives in this thesis: 1.) Life of Lu, Yao-Dong and His Writing Process of Diet Essays, 2.) Content of Lu’s Diet Essays, 3.) Art Character of Lu’s Diet Essays, 4.) ConnectionsbetweenFood and Places.
As a scholar Lu, Yao-Dong was, he concerned then analyzed the places his was born and lived in, his focus was extensive, including the review of history, society, people, education, the identification of the country, the culture of people, his feelings about living, and his findings of life, Lu discovered these problems through eating. Lu Yao-Dong’s diet essays had three major contributions to Taiwanese literature:
1. Brought the style of diet essay writing to a new level
2. Involved food of common people in culture to be recorded in history
3. Witnessed and commented on diet culture changing in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong
Ever since 1990, numbers of diet essay writers has been increased; attainments of their works are in varied standards. The literature value of Taiwanese diet essays has been considered in lower level due to a majority of diet essays diminished to the boast of one’s experience of eating or obsession of cooking. At this point of time, a leading andoutstanding diet essay writer, such as Lu, Yao-Dong, is relatively important. Lu’s works marked the esthetic height of diet essays in literature and set the target for the following diet essay writers to reach and surpass.
Lu, Yao-Dong’s diet essays had his own strong characters, addition to his investigation of diet history and honesty commentary made his works not intelligible. His essay structure is also hard to learn or imitate for other diet essay writers. Nevertheless, this is the uniqueness of Lu’s diet essay style. This uniqueness earned many critics’ approval of his splendid achievement and representation. Lu, Yao-Dong’s diet essays have not only significantly contributed to Taiwanese literature history but also deserved further studies from more perspectives.
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