The Publishing Platform Of Chinese Modern Literature

This thesis makes a general investigation of the publishing situations of the literature works in late Qing Dynasty and Republic of China by the use of the statistical data analysis method, and then this thesis, based on the statistical data, makes a description and an analysis of the publishing situations of Chinese modern literature works, hoping to provide those people who study the publication of modern Chinese literature works and the Chinese modern literature history with some basic data and macro point of view .In the first chapter, the writer, considering that many people in academic world have doubts about the significance of the study of literature publication, probes into the significant roles of literature publication for the birth and the growth of the Chinese modern literature, and for the literature transformation from four aspects which are related to the whole situation of Chinese modern literature history on the basis of the statistical data attained by the author of this thesis. For example, the academic world has been thinking highly of the decisive role of the theory advocated by Liang Qi-chao or of the "revolution in the circle of novel" initiated by him in the rising of antinovel in late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China. Actually, without the rising of modern publishing industry, the Liang's "revolution in the circle of novel" might have been the same as the Fu Lan-ya's antinovel contest, beginning well and ending up with nothing. In fact, one of the key reasons why Chinese classic literature could be successfully transformed into modern literature in late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China, lies in the great change of the publishing pattern of Chinese literature, that is the manual printing took the place of the type composition and mechanized printing, which enormously reduced the cost of the production and spread of texts. Therefore common people had access to the literature publishing resources which used to be monopolized by the upper class, and Chinese literature entered common people's era. The whole literature system had a historical change. The two major issues in the history of Chinese modern literature, which are the "conflicts caused by the bias of friendship" and the countless literature societies, have much to do with Chinese modern writers' fierce fights for their living and the literature publishing resources. What is more, the unbalanced spatial distribution of Chinese modern literature is mainly caused by the unbalanced geographical distribution of publishing resources. For example, one important reason that Shanghai took a significant position in the history of Chinese modern literature, was that Shanghai owned 70% of the publishing resources; and why most of the Chinese writers were from the provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu and took an absolutely important position in Chinese literature history, was, on one hand, these two provinces had given birth to many a man of letters since ancient times, and on the other, was that most of those writers were overwhehningly influential in shanghai publishing field. The main reason for the transformation of Chinese modern and contemporary literature after 1949 is the transformation of the literature publishing pattern—from the market economy pattern to the planned economy pattern. In other words, through the nationalized transformation of the publishing system, the government of our country successfully controlled the literature publishing resources and the production and spreading approaches of literature works, thus realized the powerful control of the literature development.Chapters two to four conduct a detailed statistics and analysis of the published journals, books and the main publishing institutions in late Qing Dynasty and Republic of China. Chapter two deals with the issues of journal publication, such as general scale, development stages, average survival time, publication forms, geographical distributions. Chapter three to four deal with the issues of book publication, such as general scale, development stages, geographical distributions, the number and distribution of the publishing institutions which were involved in the publication of literature books, the number of writers, number of the published books by famous writers, the distributions of the countries where translated books came from, and so on.This thesis mainly focuses on the general scale, basic characteristics and the spatial distributions of literature publishing resources, trying to get a general knowledge of the publishing situations of the literature works in late Qing Dynasty and Republic of China and to reveal how the spatial distribution pattern of Chinese modern literature and the development of literature history were deeply influenced by the distribution and control of the literature publishing resources. In a word, the rule between literature publishing and literature history is that he who controls the literature publishing resources will have the right to speak in literature circles and take the leading role in literature history.