Pursuit Of Aesthetic Modernity

Modern Chinese novels have displayed duality in pursuing modernity-pursuit of realism in enlightenment modernity and pursuit of Xieyi* in aesthetic modernity. In this context, a group of modern Chinese novels which are in pursuit of Xieyi spirit have been made prominent.This dissertation, based on narratology and comparative poetics, makes a deep analysis of the differences between these novels and Western realistic novels in the conception of novels and narrative modes, which, so to speak, is the first attempt in the academic world. Compared with Western novels, these Chinese novels treat characters as images to express the writers' ideas, weaken the story and its plot, with space instead of time as the center of the novels' structure, and extensively employ poetic rhetoric such as metaphor, image and symbol, blank and ellipsis, and simple, straightforward style of writing, etc.. Therefore they have created implications and artistic conceptions of great tension, which can convey the writers' views on life and universe. The artistic conception is the highest category of Xieyi novels.Based on the analysis, this dissertation traces the development of Xieyi tradition in classical Chinese philosophy and art. And it also points out that after novels have been made refined and scholarized in modern China, traditional Xieyi first appears in Chinese novels, resulting in Xieyi novels and a completely new narrative mode of novels, which is different from that of both the Western novels and classical Chinese novels. This kind of novels not only carry cultural implications and cultural ethos but also function as Poetry and Philosophy in modern Chinese culture.