On The Relationship Between The Revolution And Modern Chinese Literature

The Revolution of 1911 had deep historical reasons and it was the result of countless forces of Chinese society that worked together. Two major social ideologies, Innovation and revolution seemed to contradict but complemented each other in the very essence. Innovation gave birth to revolution while revolution surpassed innovation and in the end, fulfilled the duty that the latter was not possibly capable of. In the background of the Revolution of 1911, literature and revolution had intricate connections. Speaking of the external operating mechanism of literary, under the promotion of innovation and revolution, there formed China's modern book publishing industry. Writers and readers had been through some changes. Then speaking of literary ideologies, both reformists'xin min(the new doctrine) and revolutionaries'pai man(against Manchunese) concept all took literature as an important tool. The difference was that revolutionaries stood on a base of pai man giving special attention to Chinese traditional literature, while reformists advocated literary and artistic innovations. With these two utilitarian literary concepts, renaissance and recreational views on literature and art were also a part of the literary world. Besides, new literary style came into being with Reform Movement. After the rise of the revolutionary ideologies and during the debate between the reformists and revolutionaries, the new literary style changed into logical argument style. As the revolutionary tide ebbed, the new style's political essays quickly dissipated. Meanwhile, Revolutionaries advocated creation a kind of essay that contained revolutionary thoughts with Chinese traditional style. As novel was concerned, new novels became popular for political purposes. With the help of collective control, novels united with revolution. Direct promotion of political ideals and political novels was advocated which resulted the phenomenon that some writers purposely stressed on political propaganda and gave much less concern to the artistic communication. Social novels criticized the late Qing Dynasty government and exposed the dark side in the society, only to promote the revolution indirectly. Even more important is that the sober observation, detailed descriptions and deeply expose of the dark society reflected in novels is also a revolutionary spirit of facing the reality in itself. Another thing worth mention here is the female revolution after which the society came to advocate the freedom of marriage. Pre-revolution love novels swung between the ping(emotions)and li(rites) and finally ended up toward li, Although the sorrow of love novels have the same struggle after the revolution, but its tragic stories in fact, affirmed qing. This kind of love novels is of great social significance. On the writing of literature revolution, in the germination period of the revolution, the revolutionaries and reformists were both fiercely attacking the feudal autocracy. In the preparation period, Revolutionary Party and the reformists began to disintegrate. Revolutionaries mostly used popular literature and arts propaganda to promote the fierce paiman revolution and in the same time, the reformists began to renounced the path of violent revolution. In the peak period, Revolutionaries were more keen to promote full and direct description of revolutionary violence and the Revolutionary War. On the description of constitutionalism, revolutionaries directly denied the constitutionalism and social novelists criticized the constitutionalism ironically but the reformists were sympathetic to the constitutionalism. In the period of ebbing tide, the revolutionaries showed positive sense toward the Northern Expedition in their works. After revolutionary fruits were usurped, the revolutionaries'works were full of feelings of grief and indignation while the reformists'works had a bleak sentiment toward the prospect. In the struggle of anti-Yuan(Yuan Shikai the warlord), the two factions joined hands again, and in literature as well.