Views On Liang Qichao's Novel Theory

Liang Qichao's novel theory plays an important part in China's novel history. It cann't be ignored by researchers of novel theory. Although there are not many words in his novel theory and they are scattered, fragmented, systematic, we can also find that its novel theory has experienced a period of infancy and formation. Liang Qichao's famous paper "On the relationship between novel and Group governance", offers brilliant views on novels feature; such views will promote Chinese novel theory to a mature level. Studying reasons of the formation of Liang Qichao's novel theory, we can get five main points as follow: the incentives of the social reality; the desire of aspiring the World and enlightening civils; the inheritance and absorption of jingshizhiyong's principle; the influence of modern novel theory; the Inspiration of Japan's political novel. Liang Qichao's novel theory has its own characteristics: Utilitarian, Aesthetics and Modernity. Liang Qichao's novel theory has positive impact: promote social and literary position of novel; contribute to the promotion of realistic fiction creation; widen the scope of the novel theory; advocate the language reform of novel. Undeniably, Liang Qichao's theory has its limitations: subjective, biased and narrow-minded. In short, Liang Qichao's novel theory is an important stage in the shifting from ancient to modern theory. Its achievements and shortcomings deeply affected the development of the Chinese novel theory.