Traditional Realism

Modernism is a literary (cultural) concept, do not see the word "modern" as the name suggests, although it covers a wide range but basically has little to do with our lives.

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The modernist movement emerged in the late 19th century, and modernism believed in those "traditional" forms of art, Modernism believed that "traditional" forms of art, literature, social organization, and patterns of daily life were outdated, and that it was necessary to sweep them away and recreate culture. Modernism encouraged people to re-examine every aspect of existing things, from business to philosophy, to find out what was "holding back" progress, and to replace those things with new and better ones that would accomplish the same goals that the old things had hoped to accomplish. Essentially, the modernist movement believed that the new status quo of the 20th century was timeless and intrinsic, and that people had to adjust their worldviews to embrace these new and wonderful things

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Forerunners of Modernism

The first half of the 19th century saw a series of wars and revolutions in Europe, resulting in the formation of a number of currents of thought that we now call Romanticism. that we now call Romanticism. Romanticism emphasized the experience of the individual subject, standard artistic themes of "nature," revolutionary and radical forms of expression, and personal freedom. By the middle of the 19th century, however, a synthesis of these ideas emerged, with the belief that what is "real" governs the experience of the subject. This idea can be found in Bismarck's realpolitik and philosophical concept of "positivism," as well as in the cultural norms of what came to be known as the Victorian period.

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The term "modernism" is often used to talk about the literature and art of the late 19th and 20th centuries. It identifies a literary ethos or "modern sensibility" unlike anything seen before, and is an umbrella term for genres such as Symbolism, Futurism, Imagism, Expressionism, Stream of Consciousness, and Surrealism. Similar to the evolution of many literary terms, the earliest "modernism" was a pejorative term with critical and mocking connotations. According to Carinescu, in 1755, Samuel Johnson included modernism in the Dictionary of the English Language as a neologism coined by Swift. In a letter to Pope, Swift said, "The craven man of letters has brought us this garbage in prose and poetry, by clumsy abridgment and quaint modernism." By the end of the 19th century, the use of the term shifted from pejorative to neutralization, becoming widely accepted and gaining legitimacy after the 1920s. Rubén Darío was the first to use the term "modernism" as a positive term to refer to the modern aesthetic revolution, as early as 1888, when he praised Mexican writer Carlito Gontreras for his "radical modernism of expression."[1] In the 19th century, the term "modernism" has been widely accepted and legitimized. [1] In modern Western literature and criticism, the term modernism is used in five ways: (1) as an aesthetic tendency; (2) as a creative spirit; (3) as a literary movement; (4) as an umbrella term for a loosely defined genre; and (5) as a principle of or method for creativity. These usages have their own favorites, but **** the same thing defines the meaning of modernism as a reaction to realism. As Peter Faulkner puts it, "Modernism is part of the historical process of art's liberation from nineteenth-century assumptions that seem to have become, with the passage of time, rigidly conventional." [2]

In the history of 20th-century Chinese literature, there were four high points in the introduction and development of modernist literature: the May Fourth period, the 1930s and 1940s, the Taiwan period of the 1950s and 1960s, and the new period of the 1980s. In the May Fourth period, there was no such word as "modernism", and even the word "modern" was rare. It was common to use the word "new" to express the demands of modernity, such as "New Youth", "New Wave", or "New Literature", "New Culture", and so on, and it was with the word "New Romanticism" that modernism was first used to express the demands of modernity. It was in the name of "New Romanticism" that modernism first entered the field of vision and discourse of Chinese literature. Zhou Zuoren, Mao Dun, Guo Moruo, Tian Han, and Hu Shi all coincidentally referred to the late 19th and early 20th century literary genres of symbolism, expressionism, and mysticism as the "New Romanticism". There are three points worth noting about this designation: (1) It is obviously a product of the May 4th evolutionary view of literary history. In Zhou Zuoren's A History of European Literature (1918), the history of European literature since the Renaissance is described as follows: from the First Legendaryism, which emphasized sentimentality, to the First Classicism, which favored rationality; from the beginning of the nineteenth century, the revival of Legendaryism to the reaction against Realism; and from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, what naturally appeared was the anti-Realistic "Neo-Legendaryism". "New Legendism" emerged at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Maodun similarly summarizes the history of Western literature as: classical - romantic - realistic - neo-romantic ...... changes In "My Views on the Introduction of Western Literature In My Opinions on the Introduction of Western Literature, Mao Dun found a place for "New Romanticism" in the framework of literary evolution: "Western classical literature was broken only by Luso, Romanticism ended with Ibsen, Naturalism began with Zola, and New Epigrammatism was started by Medellin. The new representationalism was started by Medellin. Until now the new Romanticism,...... from subjective to objective, and from the objective back to the subjective, but is no longer the former subjective, the order of evolution during this period is not a step can be heaven." In his vision, what is new is progressive and good, so "the literature that can help the new trend of thought should be the new romantic literature, and the literature that can lead us to the true view of life should be the new romantic literature." [3] ② The May Fourth Literature Theory regarded modernism as a modern variant of Romanticism, believing that both favored the subjective, but the people of the time did not have a deep understanding of the "newness" of the New Romanticism. Tian Han said, somewhat vaguely, "The literature of Neo-Romanticism is literature that is not obsessed with reality, but is inseparable from it." In contrast to the old Romanticism, it is "not in heaven, but on earth; not in dreamland, but in reality." [4] ③ Focus on New Romanticism from the Enlightenment context of individualism and human liberation. In Lu Xun's early treatises, "On Cultural Parochialism" and "Moro's Poetical Power," the spirit of romanticism of Byron and Shelley and the neo-romantic philosophies of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Stirner, and Kierkegaard were merged into one, and were regarded as a means to revitalize the "vitality of the society," "to establish the human being," and then "to establish the human being. They were all regarded as important ideological support for revitalizing "social vitality" and "establishing a man" and then "establishing a nation". In short, in the literature of the May Fourth Movement, modernism was generally understood and interpreted within the framework of Enlightenment modernity. At the same time, modernism's various schools and methods of expression, such as symbolism, expressionism, aestheticism, and psychoanalysis, were given full attention. However, the anti-Enlightenment modernity and abstract transcendence of modernism have been neglected. People are also wary of the mystery, emptiness and detachment from social reality of "New Romanticism". Hu Shih once warned that Western New Romanticism would not produce the "bad side of emptiness" only after the baptism of realism; Lu Xun also felt too little for Nietzsche in Hot Wind. "In fact, in China in the 1920s, the modernist schools earned nothing more than the status of a certain method or technique." [5]

The term "modern" appeared in the 1920s and became popular in the 1930s and 1940s. For example, Modern Review edited by Ying Chen Xi, Modern Novels edited by Ye Lingfeng and Mu Shiying, Modern Literature and Art, and Shi Jingshu's Modern Magazine, to name a few. In the advertisement of Chen Yuan's book "Gossip", Mr. Xu Danfu said in "Learning Lamp": "Beijing is the birthplace of new literature, with deep-rooted roots, and is the leader of the literary world in the whole country". What exactly is the Beijing literary circles? In essence, the Beijing literary circles of the previous one or two years were the battleground between the Modernists and the Silk School. The righteousness of Mr. Lu Xun (the leader of the Language and Silk Faction) and his strategy must have been recognized by those who have read the Huagai Collection. But we have not yet understood the righteousness of the Modernist flag, and the strategy of its main general, Mr. Perry West. Now we are discussing with Mr. Perry Xiyi about the collection of 'Gossip' and printing it as a special book, so that those who have paid attention to the history of literature and art will be able to have a first look at it." Lu Xun responded to this by writing "Ge" chief: "I have never paid attention to the modernist literature and art, and I have never mentioned it in the Huagai Collection. Only when a certain lady stole the paintings of the 'Piya Couple', a few words were said in the 'Yusi' (or perhaps the 'Peking Gazette Supplement'), and later, looking at the tone of the 'modernists', it was as if they thought that I had written these words."[6] In response to this, he wrote "The Chief": "I have never paid much attention to the literature and art of the modernists, and I have never mentioned it in the Huagai Collection. [6] The term "modernist" had already formally appeared in the debate between Chen Yuan and Lu Xun.

Shi Jingsheng said of the poems in Modern, "They are modern lines of poetry arranged with modern words in modern moods felt by modern people in modern life. The so-called modern life, which contains all sorts of unique forms: harbors that bring together big ships, workshops that roar with noise, mines that go deep into the ground, dance floors that play Jazz, skyscraper department stores,...... and even the natural scenery that is different from what it was in previous generations." [7] The shift from "new" to "modern" suggests a further understanding of the concept of modernism: 1) Modernism was seen as "modern sentiment". 2) Modernism was seen as "the modern mood". 3) Modernism was seen as "the modern mood". 4) Modernism was seen as "the modern mood". 5) Modernism was seen as "the modern mood", Modernism is regarded as a symbol of "modern sentiment", "modern sensibility" and "urban sensibility", which is related to modern people's subjective experience of modern urban life and material civilization; (2) there is a deeper understanding of the spiritual characteristics of modernism in the West and the social background of its emergence. Modernism "grew skeptical of science and tended to turn to the subjective senses for the solution of everything." "At the end of the century, the small producers in general, increasingly threatened by the development of capitalism and urban growth, were induced to live with extreme nervousness, which led them to fantasize that there was another irresistible force behind them that dominated them and from which they could not escape." ...... "Thus the new romantic school, which was different in tone from naturalism, arose;[8] ③ Shi Jingshun's "modern poetic form", Mu Mutian's "mentalism", Liang Zongdai's "pure poetry", Mu Shiying's "modern poetry", and Liang Zongdai's "pure poetry", and Mu Shiying's "pure poetry". Shi Jingshu's "Modern Poetic Form", Mu Mutian's "Mentalism", Liang Zongdai's "Pure Poetry", Mu Shiyin's "Urban Montage", and Xu Xu's "Aestheticism" all specifically explained the concept of "modernity" at various levels. In 1935, Sun Zuoyun's "On "Modernist" Poetry" divided the development of new poetry into three stages: Guo Moruo's era, Wen Yiduo's era, and Dai Wangshu's era. He called the poems of Modern magazine "Modernist Poetry": Dai Wangshu, Shi Jincun and other representatives of "this school of poetry is still growing, but only a *** with the same tendency, but no obvious flag, so we have to use the name of 'Modernist Poetry'. ' The name 'Modernist Poetry' is used because most of the poems in this category are published in modern magazines." [9]

The Nine Leaves Poetry School of the 1940s called itself "a group of self-conscious modernists". Chen Jingrong said, "At present, Chinese new poetry is still picking up the dregs of the Romantic and Symbolist schools," which clearly expressed the self-expectation of the Nine Leaves poets to transcend Symbolism and advance toward mature modernism; Yuan Kega, a poet of the Nine Leaves, put forward the proposition of "modernization of new poetry", from the ontology of poetry, to the organicism of poetry, to the modernization of poetry. Yuan Kega, a poet laureate of Nine Leaves, put forward the idea of "modernization of new poetry," explaining the meaning of poetic modernism in terms of poetic ontology, organic synthesis, and poetic dramatization. Later, he understood the history of Chinese new poetry in this way: from Romanticism to Symbolism and then to "Chinese-style modernism. [10] Indeed, the modernism of this period was closer to the Chinese reality and incorporated more traditional Chinese elements, such as Qian Zhongshu's Siege and Zhang Eiling's novels.

However, after the 1950s, such useful explorations came to a complete halt, and the modernists were rejected and criticized as "bourgeois decadence," and were generally regarded as a bourgeois scourge. Yuan Kejia's 1960 article, "T.S. Eliot, the Imperialist Literary Warlord of American and British Imperialism," which politically rejected the modernists, is a case in point. Mao Dun's Occasional Records of Night Reading not only established the absolute authority of realism, but also put modernism into the cold house completely. In his view, the form of modernism is "abstract formalism" and its philosophical foundation is irrational "subjective idealism", and it is the most reactionary form of "subjective idealism" since the end of the 19th century. It was the most reactionary school of "subjective idealism" since the end of the 19th century. This represents the basic attitude towards the concept of modernism in that period. But "modernism" gained full momentum across the Channel. One of the poets of Modern magazine, Luis, who changed his name to Ji Chien, brought the seeds of modernism from the mainland, founded Modern Poetry and the Modernist Poetry Club in Taiwan in the 1950s, put forward the "Six Creeds" of modernism, and proclaimed: "We are the spirit of all the new schools of poetry that have come into existence since Baudelaire, which have been abandoned and carried forward," and "We are the spirit of all the new schools of poetry that have come into existence since Baudelaire. "We are a group of modernists who have abandoned and carried forward the spirit and elements of all the emerging schools of poetry since Baudelaire." [11] "In contrast to the "horizontal transplantation" and intellectualism of the Modernists, the Blue Star, led by Qin Zihao, took on the gentler side of the Modernists, merging the style of the more lyrical Crescent Moon School on the mainland at the time. From the westernized modernism of Ji Chuan to the combination of surrealism and Zen aesthetics of Genesis and the greater Chinese poetic outlook of the 1980s, the Chineseization of the concept of "modernism" was put into deeper practice in the field of modern poetry. In the field of fiction, Modern Literature, founded in 1960, emphasized artistic experimentation and innovation, believing that old artistic forms and styles were insufficient to express the artistic feelings of modern people, and that it was therefore necessary to experiment, explore, and create new artistic forms and styles. Bai Xianyong and Wang Wenxing advanced the process of modernism in Chinese novels. The former continued the tradition of combining the classical and the modern in Eileen Chang's novels, while the latter was an artistic cosmopolitan and pushed the experimental spirit of modernism to a certain extreme.

In the vernacular literature debate of the mid-to-late 1970s, the concept of modernism across the strait was also widely questioned and criticized, and many thought that modernism was divorced from reality and national traditions, and that it was an imitation of Western modernism, a subcurrent of subcurrents, with Chen Yingzhen even sniffing out the implication of Western cultural colonialism. after the 1980s, the concept of modernism was integrated into a diversified literary trend, and gradually receded, only to be replaced in the new mainland Chinese novels. After the 1980s, the concept of modernism gradually faded away in the diversified literary trends, but it reappeared in the new-period literature of the mainland and gained aesthetic legitimacy in the heated debates. After years of isolation from the world, people eagerly looked to world literature, especially Western modernist literature, and many writers began to introduce new forms of expression. These attempts at openness inevitably touched off an entire ideology of aesthetics and triggered a debate on modernism. Xu Chi's Literature and "Modernization" (1978) and Modernization and Modernism (1982) put forward the concept of "modernization of literature" in line with modernization, and considered modernism to be the path of literary development in the new period: "The modernization of socialism that is bound to take place in our country in the near future will still eventually bring us modernist literature and art based on the two combinations of revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism." [12] This was the first attempt to legitimize "modernism", and it put the question of "China's need for modernism or not" before the people. Xie Coronation and Sun Shaozhen's "Rise" forcefully challenged the long-dominant realist poetic conventions; Gao Xingjian's "An Initial Exploration of the Techniques of Modern Fiction" and Feng Jicai's, Li Tuo's, and Liu Xinwu's correspondences about the modernists*** shared the same view that: "The modernists are the reflections of history and the products of the times! ", "Chinese literature needs modernism", and modernism has the significance of literary revolution. Although these ideas were fiercely resisted by the ideology of realist aesthetics, the notion of modernism still appeared sensuously in front of people in the tide of "hazy poetry" and the practice of stream-of-consciousness novels. Subsequent debates, such as whether modernism can be divorced from technique and content, the "pseudo-modernist" controversy and so on, are the aftermath and deepening of the polemics of the early 1980s. When Liu Sora was called by some as the "real modernist novel" and You Have No Choice was published, when Remnant Snow pushed irrational surrealism to the extreme, and when Ma Yuan began to play the "narrative trap", the concept of modernism was fully legitimized and canonized. It has become "a tradition of new Chinese literature".