Study On Modern Times

First published in Shanghai in 1932, with its broad and tolerant cultural spirit, the magazine of Modern Times immediately became the most powerful large-scale literature and art publication that could reflect the literature and art state of the early 1930s. At the same time it was also one of the most influential magazines, which had offered a wide field for the prosperous development of various styles of modem Chinese literature after the Battle of Songhu. Opening a window to the world literature with an open posture, Modern Times fostered and brought up the first comparatively ripe modernism school of modern Chinese literature, and made enormous contribution to the modernization of Chinese literature. Based on the study of some predecessors, using the theory of "gatekeeper" from Western communication theories and the theory of "public sphere" from Western history, this diesis probes into the editorial ideas and the shaping and influence of the style of Modern Times according to China's domestic experience. It tries to revert the authentic features and historical orbits of development of the new literature in the 1930s, and explore the impact of media on the historical development of modern literature in a particular historical period.This thesis can be divided into three parts. The first part analyzes the cultural ecological environment in which Modem Times was deeply rooted. In the 1930s Shanghai had already established its position as the center of China with its political, economic and cultural advantages. The strong resultant of various abundant cultural resources hastened the birth of Modern Times, which became the most modernized pioneer literature publication at that time. Modem Times drew nutrients from the pluralism, commercialization and openness of its cultural matrix, which had influenced its whole life procedure and formed its unique editorial style and cultural spectacle.The second part studies the editorial staff of Modern Times. The editor's role as a "gatekeeper" had not only activated the creative motivation of the modern writers, but also standardized the development of modem literature. With Shi Zhecun as its chief editor, the unique cultural characteristics and editorial style of the editorial staff of Modern Times directly led to its editorial ideas, i.e., it kept a neutral posture and free characteristics, persisted in its reader-oriented faith, and made itself a kind of a "kaleidoscope" that permitted various schools contend, introduced many foreign literature works systematically, and made great contributions to the modernization of modern Chinese literature. Modem Times smashed the monotony of other magazines of the 1930s and opened up a "quasi-public space" for the existence and development of various kinds of modern literature. It greatly promoted the pluralistic development of the literary circle of Shanghai in the 1930s.The last part probes into the formulation of modernistic Chinese literature in Modern Times. In the open layout space of this magazine, every text was an open unit, which was full of abundant interlocution and symbiosis. In Modern Times, the interlocution between Chinese literature and foreign literature cultivated the imagist poems directly; and the interlocution between literature theory and creation raised a climax of symbolist poems all over China. What's more, modernistic poems and new-sensual novels learned from each other and influenced each other through the interlocution between their styles. Based on an extensive exchange of creation, theories, and editorial thoughts, the translation of foreign modern literature works reached a prosperous and active situation, which had built an open and evolutive literature ecological environment. From this environment the roots of difTerent styles drew the same nutrition. They existed and developed together and finally grew into a big flourish tree of modernistic literature in a validly interactive atmosphere.