"modern" Study

In this thesis, the author tries to give a comprehensive description for the cultural and literary phenomena in Xiandai. As a pure literary journal, Xiandai took an important role in the history of the modern Chinese literature.There are six sections in the thesis, the main body is divided into seven parts.Introduction serves as the first section, which generally introduces the research project, including research range, research way, and the importance of the research. As we all know, Xiandai was closely related to modernist, but for modernist, Xiandai has a more broad understanding: keeping step with the times. So in Xiandai, not only the modem literature, but also the Soviet socialist-realistic literature was introduced.Chapter one presents a brief description of the literal phenomena in Xiandai. This chapter not only brings into focus the experiences of the chief authors in Xiandai, such as Dai wangshu, Shi zhecun, Su wen, but also pinpoints the relations between their experiences and their ideas guiding their literary creation. Furthermore, this chapter centers on the description of multiple literature in the journal from three angles: the introduction of many kinds of western modern literature, the neutral stand between kinds of political ideas and it's creative literary works of modern style. The last part of this chapter aims at describing the editorial art of the journal from the angles of politics, commerce and art.Chapter two provides evidences to prove the journal's humanism solicitude. Being liberal intellectuals, the chief authors of Xiandai paid great attention to the living conditions of the common people and the possible unreasonable outcomes of governmental actions. So, to a great extent, Xiandai criticized the nationalist party government, in this sense, Xiandai showed that it had progressive ideas, thereby, its consistence with the revolutionary power. Moreover, from the viewpoint of humanism, Xiandai expressed its loving care for common people in literary way.Chapter three is an analysis of the modernity in Xiandai. Chief contributors in Xiandai have a more sophisticated understanding of modernity, generally we have two kinds of understanding of modernity, first, the bourgeoisie's modernity, second, the art's modernity. Xiandai writers didn't separated the two meaning in their understanding, and this understanding were expressed in their literary works. It can be concluded that the two kinds of modernity were mixed in Xiandai. The sophistication was displayed in three respects: In the first place, Xiandai depicted the modern metropolis life by modern means of artistic expression. In the second place, Xiandai introduced and created some new forms of expression. In the last place, Xiandai contributes a lot to modem Chinese poetry.Chapter four focuses on the cultural debates in Xiandai. Almost every culturaldebate occurred from 1932 to 1935 could be found in the journal, the most famous one is about "the third type writers". Su wen divided the writers into three types, the first type is revolutionary writers, the second type is liberalism writers, and the third type is pure writers. The debate between the revolutionary writers and liberalism writers in essence is due to the different understanding of freedom. The revolutionary writers seek freedom in ethics sense, the liberalism writers seek freedom in noumenon sense.Chapter five has a survey ofXiandai's cultural idea. The liberal trend of thought in modem Chinese literature had two branches, one is cultural liberals which paid more attention to cultural and social construction, writers of this kinds regards literature as a tool to realize their social ideal, Hu shi was their representative figure. The other is liberals in noumenon sense, they holds the decree that artistic action is completely individual action, writers should choose freely the subject and article style, nobody has the right to interfere with them. Xiandai writers belong to the first type. Therefore, though being liberals in literature, they didn't a...