Modern Literature Magazine

<Modern Literature> magazine is a far-reaching pure literary publication in the history of modern Taiwanese literature and even in the history of modern Chinese literature. There are two types of deep narrative structures in <Modern Literature> novels: deep narrative structures that are mainly composed of a certain sense of time and composite deep narrative structures that are composed of a combination of two opposite senses of time. The former includes modernity time-type, existential time-type, cyclic time-type, contrast between the present and the past, and psychological time-type, while the latter includes personal time in dialog with historical time and personal time in dialog with natural time.

The novels of Taiwan<Modern Literature>Magazine have better realized the artistic pursuit of "integrating tradition into modernity and rubbing the West into China". The novel is in dialogue with Chinese and foreign literature in terms of narrative style, narrative structure, characterization and aesthetic meaning. Dialogue is a process of deconstruction and construction at the same time, and the novel is a field of "clamor".

On March 5, 1960, a group of young students from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at the National Taiwan University (NTU), including Pai Hsien-yung, Wang Wen-hsing, Chen Ruoxi, Ouyang Tzu, Yeh Wei-lien, and Liu Shao-ming, organized the founding of Modern Literature, which marked the rise and maturity of modernism in Taiwan's fiction field. These were mostly young writers who had risen to prominence in the Literary Magazine. The launching address of Modern Literature reads, "We do not wish to devote space to the dialectic of 'literature for the sake of the road' or 'art for the sake of art,' but we believe that a successful work of art, even if it does not set out to 'to carry the Way', but we believe that a successful work of art, even if it is not intended to be 'to carry the Way', has achieved the purpose of 'carrying the Way'. ...... We intend to present in stages a systematic translation of Western modern art schools and trends, criticism and thought, and to select as many of their representative works as possible. In doing so, we do not express our preference for foreign art, but do not merely rely on the progressive principle of 'the stone from another mountain'" to "experiment, grope and create new forms and styles of art" in order to express "as the artistic feelings of modern man", but also to do some "destructive work" on the tradition. This shows that the fundamental tendency of Modern Literature is modern, experimental, and westernized, and it systematically introduces a large number of modern Western art schools and trends. The first issue was devoted to Kafka, and the second promoted Thomas Mann. In the second issue, Wang Wenxing said, "We will continue to release novels with a new style. Whether we are surprised or cursed, we must shock the literary world of Taiwan." This was followed by a special issue devoted to reviews of Lawrence, Faulkner, Camus, Wolfe, Joyce, and other Western modernist writers.

Modern Literature is the home base of the modernist school of fiction in Taiwan, and it has had a profound impact on promoting the creation of modernist fiction in Taiwan. One of its main contributions was to produce for the literary world a large number of writers such as Bai Xianyong, Chen Yingzhen, Huang Chunming, Chen Ruoxi, Wang Tuo, Ouyang Zi, Wang Wenxing, Wang Zhenhe, Yu Lihua, Seven Equal Saints, Crystal, Shih Shuching, and Li Ang. The journal published fifty-one issues from March 1960 to September 1973, containing two hundred and six works of fiction and seventy authors. These people became important writers active in the literary world in the 1960s and 1970s. Modern Literature was more open and had published some good works reflecting the lives of the lower classes with vernacular characteristics, thus it also contributed to a certain extent to the confirmation of the local consciousness in Taiwanese literature. The journal ceased publication in 1973 due to lack of funds and resumed publication in 1977.