Network Literature And The Problematic Of Literature

Human life has been changed comprehensively and profoundly with theemergence of network and cyberspace, which similarly effect literature, including itsexistence and mechanism, subsequently some new phenomena occur and theoreticalproblems are rising up in the sphere of literature. We argued that it is necessary forcontemporary scholars to connect the phenomena of network literature and theproblematic of literature while exploring the literature theory. We do not make aprediction for literature, but only presuppose and believe that literature will continueto be. This essay is precisely such an effort to justify this belief and presupposition.The difficulties modern literature confronted with should be examined firstly inthe contemporary study of Aesthetics and literature theories, which determinate thelife/death of literature itself. We take the general conditions of the network(consumer)society as our research background, starting from Hegelian idea of “the end of art”, orthe pastness of arts, and explicate the contradiction between the development ofliterature and civil society with a discovery that the face of today’s literature does notcome from the network but from the civil society. We note that literature has gotfreedom of a new kind from the combination of literature and printing to the marriagebetween literature and network, with the descending from the ideal to the secular.Such freedom will be comprehended until it has finished its historical task. To anextent, literature without old classics has various new directions.Literature remains its limited being and substance in the process of itstransformation. The end of literature implies that an alternative moment has begun,transcending itself, changes taking place in the form and content, and thereforebecomes a literature with different characteristics. Thus, literature appears to passaway while not being dead, appearing to be dissolved while not a dissolution. That is,literature still is literature though being literature of a new kind with different qualities,forms and functions as its existence. There exists different literature in different times.Modern situation never put literature to an end but produced a beautiful literature,which seemed to decline while in fact being a rebirth of literature. In such a sense,apparently it is network literature that is the most possible form of literature inmodern China and in fact the endangered literature is confronted with a chance toliberate its real life.The essay is divided into three parts. The first is preface which describes thedomestic status quo, the significance and the way of thinking about our theme: therelationship between network literature and the problematic of literature. The second part is the main body, including three chapters: the first chapter gives the reader abrief statement of the nomination problem and the status quo of network literatureresearch; the2nd chapter tries to make a solution to the core problem＂whethernetwork has change or participate in literature activity＂through examining suchproblems as what is literature, what aspects of literature network has changed andfrom what time people make a distinction between mass and class. The3rd chapterfocuses on the problem whether network literature to literature is a terminator orredeemer, presenting the existence of literature in modern civil society, analyzing therelationship between literature and commodity and concluding that literature willcontinue to be. The third part is a summary of this essay.