Evolution, From The Sublime To The Plain Spirit

The Root Literature is a regressive symbol of Chinese literature in new era from moral and political level to cultural and literary level. It is also a starting period of promotion focusing and image building of intellectuals from a traditional and unitary way to a rich and complex way. The pursuit, thinking, criticism of the the Root literature as well as the drastic change and replacement of social culture in China afterwards make the literature activities appear pluralistic aesthetic value. The image of intellectuals became more different from ever before and more complicated. These changes reflected the social context at that unusual time, writers' state of mind influenced by subjective and objective circumstances and historical characteristics of intellectuals in spiritual evolution.The change and development of the image of intellectuals since Root Literature shows a process of intellectuals' spiritual change. With the development of market economy, the image of intellectuals became more secular. The image of intellectuals has become from the images of social conscience, moral enlightenment and rational consideration in the mid 1980s to the fringe images with poor life and petty characters in the late 1980s and then many kinds of complex literary images in their characters, states of mind, and value concepts in the 1990s. The spiritual intension of intellectuals experiences a process from sublimity to simplicity and nature, and reconstructs their new value of life. Then the great changes of value and conflict of their ideas and puzzlement of their minds are fully reflected in Root literature in which the spiritual world in intellectuals' minds and characters are clearly shown. "Saving others" in the Enlightenment has become "being saved" in their real life. After some senses of depravity, loneliness and resistance, intellectuals have exceeded themselves and a new sense of life value has been reconstructed and ability of "seeing" the world has been strengthened and the deep sense of culture and strong sense of history have therefore enforced. The aesthetic change from sublimity to simplicity and nature has its enriched implications. The balance of contradictions between moral lessons and knowledge among their value system is reconstructed. The image of intellectuals in Root literature has enlarged and enriched the images in temporary literature.