"Romance" In The Chinese Modern Novels

In the history of Chinese literature, romance novel is taken as an important and unique mode of creation whose appeal has been handed down from generation to generation. As a "tradition" it is always kept in modern novelists' aesthetic orientation. Romance requires a peculiar observation, experience of human world and attitude toward life. Romance narrative invents characters' fate and life outside the realistic world, thus forming its own aesthetic elements which are renewed and continued in the process of gradual changes. This paper focuses from the perspective of "Inner Probe" on the continuation, change and novelty of romance as an aesthetic gene in the creation of modern novels by way of sorting out the themes of ancient romances and aesthetic elements. Only in this way can we probe into the historical mystery of Chinese modem novels and literary tradition.The first chapter of this paper mainly sorts out the conception of ancient Chinese "romance" and its development of literary style and summarizes the aesthetic elements of ancient Chinese romance. The second chapter analyses the modern novels in China full of various schools of aesthetic elements and literary creation involving the spreading and distillation of presenting forms. The concluding part mainly accounts for the continuation of romance narratives in times of scientific reasoning.By sorting out of romance elements in modem novels, this paper presents the vigorous life of romance as a novel creation and the reason why romance creation can be continued in modern China on a deeper level.