Modernity And Chinese Enlightenment Literature

For a long time, the academia of China has suffered influences from artistic theories of Russia, which confuses the literary trends with the artistic methods which takes literary trends as the product of the artistic methods. The theory of artistic methods confirms the validity of the Realism ( and the Romanticism based on it ) and ignores the existence of other literary trends such as the Enlightenment. Meanwhile, the domestic or foreign literary history doesn't look up the Enlightenment as an independent literary trend, instead, the Enlightenment is just regarded as one of social trends, which leads to the exclusion of one of the most important literary trends. Furthermore, the Wusi literature and the New-period literature are improperly named as the Realism or the Romanticism. The literary trends respond to the Modernity. They are not the outcome of the artistic methods. The Enlightenment approved of the Modernity. It made up an independent literary trend just like other literary trends. Redefining the literary trends from the theory of the Modernity, including the Enlightenment is the premise for studying Chinese literary history. My thesis reviews the history of the Enlightenment from the point of view of the Modernity.The thesis discusses the questions above in three parts. The first part unveils the relationship between the Modernity and the literature trends and describes the history from the Classicicm to the Modernism and their responses to the Modernity. Thus it avoids the influence of the theory of artistic methods. It focuses on analyzing the Enlightenment's background, ideology, characteristics, types and history, which can give a frame of reference for studying Chinese Enlightenment literature. The second part retorts against the opinion that described the Wusi literature as the realism or the romanticism and redefines it from the Modernity to draw a conclusion that the Wusi literature was the Chinese Enlightenment literature. Then the thesis describes its historical circumstances and evolutive courses, and compares it with the western Enlightenment literature and its historical significance. The third part focuses on the New-period literature after the Culture Revolution, studying its historical roles, orientation, themes, evolutive course and styles. The New-period literature is different from the Wusi literature in many ways, but with the core remains similar. At last the conclusion is drawn that the New-period literature belonged to the Chinese new Enlightenment literature.