| It has been over a hundred years since modern Chinese essay initiated by Lu Xun came into being. That period is teemed with a number of great essay masters represented by Lu Xun, Li Ao, Bo Yang and Wang Xiaobo, who live in different regions and belong to different cultural epochs. This thesis, under the view of the essays within one hundred years, taking the above four most representative masters' works as research object, intends to make a comparative study on their artistic features, aiming at analyzing their similarities and differences as well as exploring the fundamental character, development and inheritance of modern Chinese essay by adopting such research methods as text scanning, comparison, etc.By analyzing the commonness of the essays by Lu Xun, Li Ao, Bo Yang as well as Wang Xiaobo, we can find the fundamental character of modern Chinese essay, i.e. moderate antagonism between individual and society; criticism and critical strategy; individual writing; commanding attitude in writing essays; attributes of the text in the third world.The commonness of them is a foundation for the comparative analysis of their differences, which are the emphases of this thesis. They can be expressed as follows. First, their writing standpoints are different. Lu Xun stands for absolute elite standpoint; Li Ao for crazy and proud elite standpoint; Bo Yang for mundane elite standpoint; while Wang Xiaobo for rational elite standpoint. Second, writer's images reflected in the essays are dissimilar. The image Lu Xun built up is an introspective patient and a doctor. Li Ao represents an image of impetuous and upright prophet. Bo Yang tends to travesty his own image, shaping himself as a silly old man. Wang Xiaobo's image can be described as a Calm rational wise. Third, the whole styles of their essays are distinct for which Lu Xun's is Winding, extreme and introversive; Li Ao's is Straight dew, happy, and informative; Bo Yang's can be summarized as Secular, and possessing the nature of textbooks. The style in Wang Xiaobo's works can be expressed in terms of experience, negative involvement and logic . The works by Lu Xun, Li Ao, Bo Yang and Wang Xiaobo, four peaks in the essay development history, connected, form the development trend of Chinese essay within one hundred years. This research, developed around the comparative study on the artistic features of the essays by the four great masters, will provide a new dimension to the exploration of such issues as the change of essay's artistic features, its fate as well as the fate of intellectuals during that period.
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