Jinyong's Wuxia Novels In Mass-cultural Context

As the influence of Jinyong's Wuxia novels increasing, how to comment on it has been an unavoidable question. During the recent twenty years, the studies of it are all simply based on the text's self to appraise its ideological, cultural and artistic value, link no concrete context to make a macro-examination, and lay no stress on its particular value and significance in mass-cultural context. The purpose of this paper is to put it in the mass-cultural context to examine its value and significance, and inquire into its enlightenment to the construction of mass-culture.This paper falls into five parts: The first part puts forward that the study of Jinyong's novels must be based on the mass-cultural orientation. Jinyong's novels show the obvious commercial writing purpose. The catering to mass aesthetic interest manifests it falls into the mass-cultural category. The achievement of recreational function and the implication behind that function makes it an essence among mass-culture. Only basing it on this sort of cultural orientation can we make a just and reasonable comment.The second part inquires into the innermost agreement of Jinyong's novels with the popular recreational requirement from two aspects: thirst for the truth of life and yearning for heroic adventure, and reveals the secret why Jinying's novels have unusual recreational value. The constraint of life makes people be thirsty for returning to the true life, and the idealized artistic creation in Jinyong's novels satisfies people in an aesthetic state. This paper discusses this question from four aspects: the wild satisfaction with armed annihilation of the enemy, the unbosoming of sentiment impassionedly and forcefully, the mythological character in some degree, and the stimulation of the readers' imagination because of the novels' magical color and the obvious recreational character. Influenced by the ideology of Confucian active entering into the society, relieving the society and helping others as well as worship of the heroes, people are endowed with strong thirst to be a hero, but in reality the identity of being common people makes people very disappointed. In imagination people may become a character in the novel to experience heroic adventure and acquire mental satisfaction through appreciating the creating of heroes with human nature.The third section is about the novel's ideal construction that is based on the achievement of recreational function and the demand of society, arousing mass' idealism and humanism feeling, and revealing the character that the essence of mass-culture should own. On one hand this ideal construction is manifested as a pursuit of ideal personality, on the other hand as a construction of the social Utopia. The writer's pursuit of ideal personality emphasizes people's social responsibility and respects people's personality independence as well. Meanwhile, it also stresses the component: honesty, justice, sympathy, pity which are needed for ideal personality. The construction of social Utopia emphasizing "sentiment" and "righteousness", devotes to constructing a moral and sentimental society and shows intention against the reality of the society which is exclusively concerned about money.In the fourth section this paper discusses the significance Jinyong's novels have in inheritingthe traditional culture modernly in mass-cultural context. Usually, the westernizing color and attraction to the mass will damage the inheriting of traditional culture. The display of magnificent expression and essence of traditional culture arouses mass' national sense of pride and thirst of inheriting traditional culture, which has crucial significance in post-colonialism context. But Jinyong is not satisfied with this, furthermore, he attempts to reform the traditional culture on the basis of critical inheriting.The fifth section is a thinking about the criticism Jinyong's novels sustains, and analyzes one by one the three representative views the critics hold to Jinyong's novels and points out their bias and misunder...