Writing For The Purpose Of Enlightening The World

As a well-known Reformist and an Enlightenment thinker in China's modern history, Liang Qichao had never viewed literature as the ultimate purpose of his life. However, his name has appeared in many chapters in the History of Chinese Literature from late Qing Dynasty to May Fourth Movement, so his important existence can not be ignored or bypassed in the study of Chinese modern literature. Liang Qichao's literary works and theories had a far-reaching impact on China's literary scene, widely reflected in the poems, novels, biographies, essays and dramas, and the other types of literature. Thus the research on Liang Qichao's literary activities and his influences on Chinese literature will provide a better understanding and a positive and important enrichment on the study of Modern Literary History of China, especially the occurrence and the development of the Contemporary Chinese History.The main purpose of Liang Qichao's literary activities was to spread his political ideals.Liang Qichao's involvement in the Reform Movement of 1898 ended in failure. One of the main reasons for this was ineffective political propaganda. He was not able to effectively transfer his reformist ideas to the broad masses of the people nor did he have the support of large sections of the populace, thereby leaving painful lessons behind.On the steamer in his exile to Japan, Liang Qichao read a Japanese political novel "Adventure of a Beautiful Woman", which gave him great enlightenment and immeasurable joy. Since then, Liang Qichao produced various literary works carrying his political ideas, aiming to have the understanding and support of even more people about his thoughts and actions. He put forward "Revolution in Poetry Circle", "Revolution in Fiction Circle", " Revolution in Literary Circle", " Revolution in History Circle" and "Revolution in Opera Circle" ,etc. He produced and translated many literary works from Japan and western countries under the auspices of his unique theory of creation. Undertaking a series of literary activities, Liang Qichao effectively disseminated his political ideas through his literary theories and works which greatly influenced and inspired the hot-blooded youth, inspiring them to embark on the path to revolution.More importantly, Liang Qichao's literary activities changed the function of literature, bringing fiction, opera and other light literature on the way of political intervention and idealistic changes and playing positive part in promoting China's "May 4" movement.Liang Qichao's literary theory and creation gave expression to a fusion of Chinese and foreign features.Liang Qichao confessed that he was capricious throughout his life. His capriciousness was reflected in his political ideals and the fulfillment of his ideals. However, he stuck hard and fast to his identification to the distillation of traditional Chinese culture. His advocation of learning from the West was based on the supplementation and enhancement of the traditional culture. He believed that the fusion of Chinese and Western cultures would bring about a brand new advanced culture and vitality to the ancient civilization of the Chinese nation.With such determination, Liang Qichao advocated poetry taking on the responsibility of shaping the national spirit; made every effort to disseminate the political ideas and intervene in the social life through fictions and operas; introduced Chinese and foreign heroes through history and biography works, setting examples and references to the social reform; blended into the prose both the Chinese and Western styles, stating views straightforwardly and infecting the readers with force and power.In the process of translation and introduction of foreign authors and works, Liang Qichao paid great attention to the principle of "making foreign things serving China". He translated Byron's works, using them to carry forward the spirit of national liberation. He introduced Hugo in order to promote his theory of political intervention by way of literature. He compiled "Three founders of Italy" and "Mazzini, the Hungarian patriot" with the aim of evoking more revolutionary heroes of the time. Liang Qichao made pointed translations and introduced activities in line with the national conditions of China at that time, producing good social effects. Enlightened by his revolutionary ideas and expressions, Guo Moruo, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and others took on the road of pursuing national liberation and independence.Liang Qichao set off an enlightenment wave in the literary world through creation and translation, putting forward new theories and setting up magazines and other mutually corresponding ways.China had had some translations of Western novels published before Liang Qichao, but they appeared separately and did not appear to form an overall impact on society. However, Liang Qichao's engagement in literary activities broke through the limitations of attention paid towards individual authors and works. His outlook widened trends in the field and history of literature. He put forward his own literary theories by learning from overseas politics and literature. In the meantime, he carried out his translation and creation works under the guidance of the theories to verify and response to the theories. Apart from this, he set up newspapers and magazines, such as"Qing Yi Newspaper","Xinmin Series Newspaper","New Fictions", etc. and published many academic articles and literary works carrying similar or identical point of views, which greatly promoted and expanded the range of influence of his theories. Liang Qichao was earnest about creating a good air of public opinions in the magazines. Every so often, he published an article pronouncing his arguments and was followed by a number of authors to elaborate on the same arguments and added supplementary remarks to answer the readers'questions and confusion. Their views coincided, their techniques of writing resembled and their common purpose was to spread the enlightenment ideas and improve China's ideological concepts and social trends. These effective methods had a great influence on the literary world of China, and made Liang Qichao a great master of his time, leading the trend of literary development.Aiming at awakening the world, Liang Qichao's literary works was handed down from his generation.Liang Qichao stressed that at the time of social changes, it was their responsibility to create articles awakening the world. He himself had always abided by this principle, so it was a common phenomenon that his works attached great importance to ideological content instead of the artistic quality. His works exceeded the limits of styles, exaggerating the ideological indoctrination function of literature, and showed infantilism in terms of artistic level. However, it was because of his very focus on the ideological content that he was accepted by contemporaries and made the pacesetter and banner of the literature reform at the time. In this sense, Liang Qichao overthrew the fundamental attributes of the literary category such as novels, opera and literary biographies. He paved and cleared the way for the intervention of the life and politics, so that they were highly valued and followed by the succeeding generations. In other words, it was just because of his keen pursuit to awaken the world that Liang Qichao were able to hand down his works to the later generations and win himself a rightful place in the history of Chinese literature.