Modernity Of Late Qing Fiction

Since the 1980s,with the joint efforts of scholars at home and abroad,modernity has become an important research paradigm of modern Chinese literature.Under the guidance of this paradigm,discussions about the modernity of late Qing fiction as the starting point of modern Chinese literature have piled up,and the difference between Chinese and western modernity has thus become a hot topic.This paper studies the relevant viewpoints of Leo Ou-fan Lee and Yang Lianfen,two representative scholars at home and abroad,and on this basis clarifies the characteristics of late Qing fiction from three perspectives,namely,the construction,conflict and ideal of modernity.This paper consists of four parts.The introduction gives a general survey of previous studies of Chinese literary modernity,with special emphasis on contributions made by Leo Ou-fan Lee and Yang Lianfen to the research of late Qing fiction,and following the literature review explains the purpose and significance of this paper.Focusing on the construction of modernity in the late Qing fiction,Chapter I discusses the conceptual development of time and space in the formation of modernity.For one thing,Leo Lee referred to the late-Qing modernity as a concept of time running ahead in a straight line and a family-country imagination For another,Yang Lianfen,who stressed the rational and enlightenment spirit,pointed out the historical contribution of late Qing fiction to the formation of modern Chinese literary theory.Chapter II examines the development of modernity as embodied in late-Qing fiction translation and the contradiction between the practice of translation and the aesthetic choice of that time.Specifically speaking,in terms of novel translation by Lin Shu,Leo Ou-fan Lee concentrated on the choice and motivation under the sense of crisis in late Qing period,while Yang Lianfen emphasized the insistence on classical Chinese language in breaking the literary boundary between "elegance" and "popularity",and the significance of eliminating the barriers between Chinese and Western cultures with"misreading".Chapter III explores the expression of the late-Qing modernity in science fiction and interprets the utopia imagination and the family-country emotion,taking as examples Leo Ou-fan Lee’s analysis of Around the World in 80 Days and New Story of the Stone,and Yang Lianfen’s analysis of Story of the Moon Colony and Adventure of Mr.Xin Faluo.Based on the above-mentioned exploration,this paper believes that,despite the different perspectives adopted by Leo Ou-fan Lee and Yang Lianfen in studying the late-Qing fiction with varied conclusions,they have all proved the emergence and development of modernity in the late Qing fiction.In addition,based on the comparison and summary of two scholars’ researches,this paper further expounds that late-Qing fiction highlights an important transition from classical Chinese literature to modern one,which showed the inevitable conflict and fusion of civilizations in the development of China’s modernity.What’s more,this is still an important reference for us to deal with the relationship between native and foreign cultures today.