What is the Mandarin ducks and butterfly school?

What is the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School? According to the 1989 edition of Dictionary, "a literary genre that flourished from the end of the Qing Dynasty to around the time of the May Fourth Movement. Mandarin ducks and butterflies refers to the metaphorical expression of this school's works, which are often written about talented people and beautiful women. The representative writers were Xu Pillowia, Wu Shuangjie, Li Dingyi, etc. A large number of novels were published in the literary language describing the sorrows of talented and beautiful people. Representative works include "Jade Pear Soul," "Lan Niang Mourning History," "Beauty Blessing," etc." This is a narrow statement; broadly speaking, I believe that all romance novels can be called Yuanyang and Butterfly School novels, which is a simple matter of categorizing novels, and martial arts novels are another category. Obviously, they cannot be categorized as Yuanyang and Butterfly School. However, the Dictionary goes on to say, "After the 'May Fourth' period, romance novels, black-ops novels, detective novels, martial arts novels, etc., were also included and were also collectively referred to as 'Republic of China Old School Novels.' " This, in turn, complicates a simple issue into a logical mess.

The reason for this confusion is due to Wei Shaochang's Research Materials on Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly Pie (first edition in October 1962, revised in July 1984), which was the first book to bring together the old school novels of the Republic of China. The book for the first time brought together a large number of historical materials of the old school novels of the Republic of China, and also appended a bibliography of classification, which provided convenience for researchers, and its merits are indispensable, but its classification violated the basic common sense of logic. Although the Republic of China martial arts novels also have the depiction of the talented and beautiful, but its style is completely different from the mourning novels. 1989 edition of the Dictionary "Yuanyang and Butterfly School" entry writer is based on this book to write the above entries.

There are three other books on the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School: The Butterfly Dream of Saturday, published in June 1989 by the People's Literature Publishing House; and The Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School, edited and selected by Fan Boqun, and The Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School, published by the People's Literature Publishing House. --Saturday" school works, People's Literature Publishing House, published in September 1991; there is also a 16-book letter-bound Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School works anthology, interested readers may wish to find to look at this issue to re-explore the issue. (The author is a director of the Chinese Martial Arts Literature Society and deputy editor of the Xue Lin Publishing House)

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Beginning in the early 1920s, Chinese filmmakers, represented by the Star Company, began to look for sustenance from popular literature, and the "Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School," which was then a popular favorite of the public, became a major source of popular literature. From 1921 to 1931, the Chinese film companies produced about 650 feature films, the vast majority of which were produced by the literati of the "Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School" or were reprints of novels of this school.

The year 1924 was the most important year for the literary involvement of the "Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School" in cinema. In this year, Zheng Zhengqiu adapted Xu Pillowia's novel The Soul of the Jade Pear into a movie, and the novelist Bao Tianxiao was also employed as a screenwriter by the Star Company in this year, and successively wrote scripts such as Poor Daughter, Orchid in the Empty Valley, and The Amorous Vixen, which became the most important literary intervention of the "Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School" in the movie industry. He became a representative of the "Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School" of literati in the movie industry. From absorbing "civilized drama" to adapting popular novels, film has become an increasingly important part of urban popular culture.

The so-called "Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School" is a literary genre that emerged in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republican era. The genre was popular with readers and widely criticized by the new literary circles, and its influence was so far-reaching that even today it is still used as a synonym for the so-called "kitschy, lowbrow culture" that is still criticized.

The authors of this genre numbered more than two hundred, scattered in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi, and later concentrated in Shanghai, Tianjin and Beijing. There was no fixed organization at the beginning, but later the Qing Society and the Star Society were established. Bao Tianxiao was the presiding officer of this school, and the important representatives were Xu Pillow Asia, Zhang Henshui, Wu Shuangjie, Wu Ruomei, Cheng Xiaoqing, Sun Yusheng, Li Hanqiu, Xu Xiaotian, Qin Thin Ou, Feng Yuqi, etc. These writers and writers created a lot of works, such as the "Green Society" and the "Star Society", and the "Star Society". These writers and writers created works on a wide range of subjects, including "love for each other, not split up, under the willow shade, like a pair of butterflies, a pair of mandarin ducks," love novels, martial arts novels of the iron horse and the golden goose, confusing detective novels, social novels of the mystery hunting... ... are all their favorite subjects. Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly" is a figurative name to refer to the romance novels of the early Republic of China, but since the writers of this genre did not only write romance novels about talented women, the name of Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly could not summarize the characteristics of the many subjects, so some people took the name of the most representative publication of this genre, "Saturday", to take its function of entertainment and leisure. The name "Saturday" was taken from the most representative publication of the school, and it was called the "Saturday" school for its recreational and leisure functions.

In the course of the development of modern Chinese literature, many literary schools have emerged, and the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School is one of the most important and special schools. It is important because in the era of literary revolution before and after the May Fourth Movement, it was a school of literature that emphasized inheritance and conservatism, and was repeatedly criticized by the new literature circles. In the arguments and exchanges between the New Literature camp and this school, New Literature expanded its influence in the literary world and grew stronger and stronger. Talking about the New Literature Movement inevitably involves this school. It is said to be special because some of its authors have long refused to recognize themselves as members of this school due to the accusations of various schools of New Literature, a prominent example being the denial by one of its representative writers, Bao Tianxiao, that he was a member of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School. He once said, "Nowadays, there are many books commenting on the history of Chinese literature which regard me as a member of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School. ...... I don't know which novels I have written belong to the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School." . Some authors of this school only recognize themselves as the "Saturday" school, and deny that they are the mandarin ducks and butterflies school, they usually hold a reason is that the mandarin ducks and butterflies school is limited to a few authors such as Xu Pillow Asia, Li Dingyi, and so on, and only those who wrote the four-six parallel romance novels at the beginning of the Civil War are the mandarin ducks and butterflies school of the name and reality match.

Yuanyang Butterfly School novels were one of the most popular popular books in the literary world before the New Culture Movement. One of the masterpieces, Xu Pillowia's The Soul of Jade Pear, was reprinted thirty-two times and sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Famous writer Zhang Henshui's "Tik Liao Yin Yuan" has also been reprinted dozens of times, its five writers "Zhang Henshui, Bao Tianxiao, Zhou Shoujuan, Li Hanqiu, Yan Duohe" works in the newspaper serialization, there was a public queuing up to wait for the release of the newspaper scene.

But the May Fourth New Culture Movement, the left-wing Literary Union under the leadership of Mr. Lu Xun, and other new culture camps, "while criticizing the retro thesis, the new literature camp has been constantly fighting with the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School". They believed that the "literature" of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School, which was born in the semi-colonial "Ten Miles of Ocean Field" and popularized in the years after the defeat of the Xinhai Revolution, was an anaesthetic and confusing soup on the road to the people's awakening. Although a few works exposed to some extent the darkness of society, family tyranny and warlord violence, its general tendency was no more than "36 mandarin ducks with the same bird, a pair of butterflies with the poor worm", as Lu Xun said, "the new talented man + beautiful woman", "love each other, love each other, love each other, love each other, love each other, love each other, love each other, love each other". As Lu Xun said, they are "new talents and lovers", and "they are in love with each other, and they can't be separated from each other, like a pair of butterflies and a pair of mandarin ducks under the shade of willow and flowers". Labeled fun, most of the vulgar content, ideological emptiness, "love is not out of the old set of talent and beauty to steal the jade, politics and society, but not outside the lamentation of the people's hearts, the world is not the same old tune".

However, after reading some of the works of the writers of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School, we can feel that the so-called "extravagant works" of this kind of writers are not all just purely "depicting 'talented and beautiful women' as the main expression of the backward ideology of the semi-feudal and semi-colonial old China, showing the sickly society of the common people. They mainly expressed the backward ideology of the semi-feudal and semi-colonial old China, and showed the artistic interests of the common people in a sick society." Many of them, such as Zhang Henshui's "Cries and Laughs" and Pao Tianxiao's "Cangzhou Road", more or less attacked the dark side of the society at that time, satirized all the ills of the society at that time, and sang the praises of the anti-Japanese youths through the love stories of talented and beautiful people, or poignant and sad stories, reflecting the inequality of men and women in the society at that time, the inequality of the rich and the poor, and all kinds of evils, which were at that time, compared with their contemporaries. At that time, compared with its contemporaries, some of the literary works that advocated feudal restoration and superstition, it had a certain progressive significance.

So why has there been so much criticism of this "genre" for so long?

To reevaluate the "Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School" and to affirm its correct status, it is necessary for us to understand some historical background related to the school.

In 1906, the number of newspapers published in Shanghai, China's largest trading port, reached 66, bringing the total number of newspapers published nationwide to 239. These newspapers published political news as well as poetry and articles of an entertaining nature, which later evolved into "supplements," the development of which led to the emergence of literary journals and their separate publication. Among them, New Novel (1902) founded by Liang Qichao, Embroidered Novel (1903) edited by Li Jiabao, Monthly Novel (1906) edited by Wu Woyao and Zhou Guisheng, and Novel Grove (1907) edited by Wu Moses were the four major literary publications at this time. These urban literary journals, which relied on trading ports, modern cities, the printing and publishing industry, and the mass media system, on the one hand, established a market and readership by adapting to the demands of the urban public for "leisure" and "entertainment," and on the other hand, provided a platform for those who, for various reasons, had broken away from traditional literature. On the other hand, it provided material conditions for those intellectuals who, for various reasons, had left the traditional career format of "learning to excel and serving as an official" to change from traditional literati to modern professional writers, so that the profession of "writer", which depended on newspapers and magazines, readers' market and remuneration, was established, and a group of professional writers were thus established in the city. The profession of "writer" was established, and a group of professional writers gradually appeared at the end of the Qing Dynasty. The History of the Novel in the Late Qing Dynasty, when discussing the prosperity of the novel in the late Qing Dynasty, points out that: "Firstly, of course, due to the development of the printing industry, there was no difficulty in engraving books as in the previous period: due to the development of journalism, there was a need for a large number of copies to be produced for the application of the novel." After the Xinhai Revolution, newspapers and magazines increased greatly, according to statistics, only in 1911, newspapers and magazines reached 500 kinds, from the late Qing Dynasty to 1917 before the literary revolution, alone named after the novel of literary magazines to nearly 30 kinds? This many newspapers and magazines, as well as the corresponding printing and publishing system of production and formation, itself is a product of social modernization, they also **** with the production and consumption of culture and literature system, public media system and "cultural public **** space".

The novels of the Mandarin ducks and butterflies school, which emerged after the 1911 Revolution, relied on such institutionalized newspapers and magazines (the cultural industry and cultural public ****space) and met the needs of urban citizens for cultural consumption and flourished, and the producers of the novels of the Mandarin ducks and butterflies school also became professional and vocational writers relying on the newspapers, magazines, the media system, and the fees for their writings to make a living. (However, although these literati of the late Qing and early Republican period were transformed into professional writers during the modernization and historical changes of Chinese society, they themselves were not yet consciously aware of this modern change in their identity roles, nor did they openly put forward and affirm the professionalization of literature and the professionalization of writers as a clear goal.)

The more famous authors of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School, such as Zhang Henshui, Yan Duohe, Zhou Shoujuan, Xu Pillowia, Pao Tianxiao, and Chen Diexian. Most of them were both editors and creators, and some of them were also translators. Initially, the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School of Literature advocated that fun should come first, and mainly depicted marital problems, with some works reflecting certain social contents and having certain positive significance. The Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School was once a sensation in the literary world, marked by the entertainment, amusement and fun of literature.

The conclusions of some critics of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School are summarized in the following three points: First, in terms of ideological tendency, the school is considered to represent the demands of the feudal class (or the dying landlord class) and the buyer's power in literature, and it is a literary school for the old and the young, or "general countercurrent"; second, it is considered to be the product of the Ten Mile Ocean Farm, and it is a literary school for the old and the young. Secondly, it was considered a product of the Ten Mile Ocean Farm, a deformed fetus of the colonial tenement, and thirdly, this genre belonged to the literature of idleness and amusement, a derivative of the monetarist literary concept of the game of amusement. These arguments are obviously biased, compared with a large number of works, the "conclusions" and the objective reality is far from.

In reality, some of the criticism is often a copy of a ready-made argument. After much copying, some of the ready-made arguments become the "unanimous" conclusion. Then this certainty is "practiced" by the people, and so on and so forth, and the conviction is very strong. But the deeper one understands the school, the more one will inevitably have due and necessary doubts about the "critical conclusions" of the past.

In fact, the correct interpretation of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School should be that it is a genre of popular literature inheriting the tradition of ancient Chinese novels that emerged during the construction of the metropolis in the late Qing and early Republican period. This genre has not been recognized by the new literary circles, is a very complex historical background: the times of the trend of agitation, literary concepts of the evolution of the readers' mentality and other aspects of the reasons, coupled with its own inherent defects, have decided that it is inevitable to go through a period of suppression of the course. The controversy between this school and the "new school" of literature was, in essence, between "popular" literature and "serious" literature, between "common" literature and "common people's" literature, and between "common people's" literature and "common people's" literature.

Bao Tianxiao, one of the representative writers of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School, once talked about his aim of creation as "advocating a new political system and conserving the old morality". These ten words represent in a very condensed and general way the ideological reality of most of the authors of this school. This is contrary to the new literary movement that emerged around May Fourth, which strongly advocated science and anti-feudalism. In terms of form, the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School was characterized by long chapter-and-chapter novels, while the most readable short stories were the legends, i.e., the ancient vernacular novels that they still inherited. On the other hand, the New Literature School, in its initial stage, actively abandoned the chapter-and-verse style and focused on the innovation of the short story. In this way, when the May Fourth Movement unveiled the prelude to the New Democratic Revolution, in the eyes of the New Literature camp, they were still "dragging an invisible braid of old democracy", and their sense of tradition in their works inevitably formed a pair of contradictions with the New Literature camp. Because of the parting of ways in content and form, the initiative of the new literary circles around the May Fourth Movement against this school was inevitable, both as a matter of historical necessity and as a necessity for innovation. In the face of the process of historical development, we can fully understand the necessity and inevitability of this critique.

Another serious criticism of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School during the May Fourth period was the attack on its monetarist conception of literature as a playful pastime. This is a difference of principle regarding the function of literature. The function of literature should be multifaceted. It should have a fighting function, an educational function, a cognitive function, an aesthetic function, an entertainment function ...... and so on.

Whenever the tide of historical change is ushered in or the eve of a great wave of revolution strikes, the fighting function and educational function of literature and art are always emphasized to the point of extreme importance. In modern literature, Liang Qichao is the representative figure who advocates this function. He said: "If you want to reform a country's people, you must first reform a country's novels. Therefore, if you want new morality, you must have new novels; if you want new religion, you must have new novels; if you want new politics, you must have new novels; if you want new customs, you must have new novels; if you want new learning, you must have new novels; even if you want new human hearts and new personalities, you must have new novels. Why? The novel has incredible power to dominate human nature."

Liang Qichao raised the novel to the height of "the great road of the great road", the novel became "big" said, and became the elixir to save the country and the people. But in the Chinese literary tradition, the novel has always been regarded as "the novel in the path". Zhu Ziqing, a writer of new literature, saw this point: "In the tradition of Chinese literature, novels and lyrics (including operas) are even more novels in the small way, because they are for amusement and not serious. Not serious is not serious; novels are usually called "leisure books", not serious books ...... Mandarin ducks and butterflies school of novels intended for people to have fun after tea and wine, but is the authentic Chinese novels. Chinese novels have always been dominated by the "strange" and "legendary", and both "strange" and "odd" are not serious things. The Ming Dynasty compiled a collection of novels. The Ming Dynasty people compiled a novel collection of so-called "three words and two beat" ...... "beat the case" in the "strange" obviously. "Three words"...... although focusing on "persuade the vulgar", but still must first make people "surprised", in order to receive the "persuade the vulgar". The effect of "advising the common people"...... is still attributed to the "strange". This "strange" is exactly for people to enjoy after tea and wine."

Members of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School were conscious hereditarians of this traditional view of function. Yao Hedi, in his Introduction to the Study of Fiction, quoted from the classics and said, "According to Liu Xiang's Seven Lore and the Book of the Han Dynasty's Art and Literature, novels came out of 'street talk and hearsay', so most of the novels contained in them were of course 'idle talk and strange matters'; and View of the 'seven liao' and the 'Sui Shu - Classic Book Zhi' recorded, then 'where the art of writing and speaking a little ordinary and the scope of a little small, can be attributed to the novel'. All of them are not trivial.'"

This functional view of literature was in conflict with the revolutionary writers who advocated the literature of blood and tears and had a sense of historical mission. The Literary Research Society, initiated by Shen Yanbing and Zhou Zuoren, criticized the view of literature as "a game for pleasure or a pastime for disillusionment," and the literary phenomena that arose under the guidance of this view of literature. If this criticism is "contextually restored," the kind of literature that is regarded as a game or a pastime undoubtedly refers to the so-called "dark literature" and "narrow and evil novels" since the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republican period, and to the so-called "black curtain literature" and "narrow and evil novels" since the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republican period. The kind of literature regarded as a game or a pastime undoubtedly refers to the so-called "black curtain literature" and "narrow evil novels" since the late Qing Dynasty and early Republican period, as well as the popular popular literature relying on newspapers, magazines and the readers' market such as the "Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School". Shen Yanbing and Zhou Zuoren published many articles criticizing the "Saturday School" and the "Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School" and other diversionary literature. Not only the Literary Research Association, but also almost everyone in the new culture camp in the historical and cultural context of the May Fourth Movement criticized and rejected the literature of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School as a remnant of the old feudal literature, as an obstacle and an opponent to the establishment of a new literature. Writers of new literature regarded the literature of the mandarin ducks and butterfly school not only as a stumbling block to the establishment of new literature, but also as a concept and tendency of leisure and play, which was even more detrimental to the transformation and reconstruction of the national character, the improvement and renewal of life and society, and China's efforts to return from the "periphery" to the "center", as well as to its efforts to move back from the "periphery" to the "center". China's efforts to return from the "periphery" to the "center," the realization of the modern nation-state, and, in a word, the realization of China's historical goal of modernization and the "dream of a strong nation. Therefore, out of the position and pursuit of this Enlightenment view of literature, which took the nation-state as the ultimate concern, the Literary Research Association and the New Literature camp issued fierce criticism of urban popular literature such as the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly Pie and other game and leisure literature, and the new literature's disdain for and criticism of urban popular literature after the May Fourth Incident has not yet ended. New Literature writers, including Lu Xun and Mao Dun, also attacked the martial arts novels represented by the martial arts movie The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple, the detective romance novels, and the so-called "literature of the common people". The New Literature camp's criticism of the abovementioned urban popular literature had its historical rationality and necessity from the perspective of its Enlightenment view of literature and of opening the way and space for the creation and development of new literature. They criticized and cleaned up the urban popular literature such as the Foundation School because they believed that such literature was fundamentally detrimental to or even hindered China's becoming a modern nation-state and China's progress, and therefore, they wanted to criticize and eradicate it, and it was for the sake of this fundamental mission of modernity that they carried out the criticism and cleaning up of the "old world. It was for this fundamental mission of modernity that they criticized and purged the "old world". In the view of these pioneers who pursued the modernization of Chinese literature, those literatures that aimed at entertainment and consumption for the purpose of amusement, even though they were born earlier than or existed at the same time as the new literatures, did not have the slightest modernity, but were the trash of the history and the times. The mission of the revolutionary writers was to inspire and train a generation of national elites with their novels. Therefore, the function of play and amusement is often regarded as the opposite effect of playfulness in the history of modern literature, and is repeatedly denied. But since "amusement" is one of the functions of literature itself, one can only negate it at a certain period of time in order to restrain it so as to emphasize other functions, but one cannot completely deprive it of its own function. Even in the years when there was a special need to utilize the fighting function of literature, the readers of another level in the city still stayed on the ladder of viewing novels as "the path of the path", that is, the general public in the general sense, or the "common masses". First of all, in the view of the "common people", novels play a game and amusement effect is a need for them to regulate their lives. As the emerging metropolis took shape and the gears of the industrial machine spun faster and faster, the demand for urban popular fiction also surged. With the unprecedented increase in the frequency of the rhythm of life, people felt that the strings of brain and flesh were too tight, and they needed to relax their nerves after work or at night when they were too tightly wound by the machinery. This requires recreation, and reading novels is one of the methods of recreation and regulation. Secondly, when the surrounding life like a kaleidoscope of variations in the environment, especially like Shanghai, such as the emerging metropolis, strange and bizarre, colorful, pupils reluctant to tandem with the Yue, there is no wonder. The general "common people" also hope to understand the surrounding environment through urban popular literature to enhance the adaptability, so as not to fall into the cake of life in a daze. Thirdly, these "common people" generally lacked a sense of emergence, but they also received some kind of education in popular literature, that is, they read popular literature after tea and wine, and they were subliminally taught and disciplined by the surprise of the crime. Therefore, in the modern literary revolution, this genre was not oriented to the national elite, but mainly to the general public in the general sense, and therefore can be called a kind of civic literature, "common people's" literature. However, it is not unrelated to the intellectual readers. Among the intellectuals, there are two types of readers: one is the readers who love the new literature and art, and they often reject the popular literature for the contradiction of the functional view of literature; the other is the readers who read the novels of the old and the new on weekdays, and they are often attracted by the fun and readability of the popular literature, and are firmly controlled by the intriguing story plots and tense and thrilling suspense, and are in the grip of the trembling power of the novels. In front of the excellent popular literature which is full of trembling power, they also can't put down their books and neglect their sleep and food. However, the problem is that they do not praise or introduce popular literature on public occasions to create public opinion for its favorable evaluation. It seems that being attracted to popular literature is a sign of loss of identity, because some intellectuals have always regarded popular literature as synonymous with low taste. This constitutes an apparent contradiction: "secretly read it with pleasure, but openly unwilling to enjoy it", "emotionally moved by it, but rationally recognized it as inferior". This subtle state of mind is a kind of psychological schizophrenia of "holding the pipa and half covering the face". Whether it is the general "popular masses" or some intellectuals, the magnetism attracted by popular literature comes from the fun, and fun is precisely the necessary elements to achieve the purpose of the game, recreation, but also the soul of the entertainment function. Fun is also the medium and bridge for popular literature to "persuade" and "educate". However, fun was once regarded by the new literati as the anesthetic of "playing with things" and "drunkenness", so much so that Zhu Ziqing also had such a feeling: "But if the serious works are all about seriousness and only care about the people's nature, regardless of the artistry, the deadpan works are not the same as the popular works, and they do not care about the artistry. Regardless of the artistry, the long face of the deadpan teach people not to get close to, I'm afraid that readers will be even more to hide to those publications to go." Lu Xun also said, "Speaking of 'fun' is now a crime, but whether it be human or class, I still hope that one day the ban will be lifted, and that literature and art will not necessarily be 'uninteresting'. " At the same time, Lu Xun also said, "In reality, the grieving and the laboring are in need of rest and pleasure at all times." This just shows that the function of fun and entertainment is sinless. Popular literature, on the other hand, is focused on readability and plot. Speaking of plot twists and turns, peaks and valleys, ups and downs, and climaxes. In China's modern popular fiction readers have appeared in the "Crowing and laughing solid edge" gold dust family "fan from the fun and gradually enter the realm of intoxication, so as to achieve the effect of recreation and entertainment. This and our seventies, eighties "martial arts" novel fans, "Jin Yong" fans; "Gu Long" fans. As well as "romance" novels "Qiong Yao" fan is very similar. This also shows that popular literature has its existence of exuberance!

It is said that in the United States, in the past, many scholars also held a negative attitude towards popular culture, that they are only vulgar literature and literary garbage. But after World War II, "Americanism" emerged. Scholars began to change their attitude towards popular culture from contempt to importance, from subjectivity to objectivity, and from one-sidedness to comprehensiveness. They recognized that popular literature could historically reflect changes in readers' mindsets and values over time. "These bestsellers are a useful tool through which we are able to see what is of general interest at any given time and how people's minds have changed over a certain period of time." Hideki Ozaki of Japan, in his book The History of Popular Literature, writes: "When we speak of popular literature, we generally mean commercial literature that can be produced in large quantities, disseminated in large quantities, and consumed in large quantities. As far as content is concerned, it is literature for the entertainment of the masses, but it is not merely merely amusing; it also serves the purpose of giving the masses what they do not know by way of concretization. ...... Due to the breakthrough of daily newspapers in the millions, the creation of weekly news systems ...... The class of people who originally had no connection with novels became receptive to them. A class of people who had no connection with novels became recipients, which expected novels adapted to the requirements of not only the originally enthusiastic literary but also the untrained readers. ...... Popular literature is produced with the masses and is a reflection of the mass consciousness." The words of this scholar, who has studied Japanese popular literature quite extensively, are very informative.

The rise of the Mandarin ducks and butterfly school can be said to have been born at the wrong time, the May Fourth period, in the process of the Chinese novel from the traditional type of rerouting to the modern type of the process, the beginning of the old form of always have to break with the national break with a view to conform to the new form of the world trend. There will be a great revolution, a great change, a great innovation and a great breakthrough in the traditional consciousness of the content and the traditional framework of the form. This will inevitably lead to a great collision with the literary genres that still insist on inheriting the Chinese tradition. Emerging consciousness and innovative forms always have to fight for their own territory in the literary world, otherwise it is difficult for them to have a place to stand. There must be someone to boldly challenge the traditional spiritual products, and someone to shake the foundation of the hereditary literary authority before there can be a great freedom of innovation. In its manifesto, the Society for Literary Studies declared, "The time for treating literature as a game for pleasure or a pastime for disillusionment is now past. We believe that literature is a work, and a work of great importance in life: and that the man who rules literature should make it his life's work, just as the laboring farmer does." The point of this passage is, of course, to take the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School as the target of denial. So the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School bore the brunt of the criticism, and in fact became the antithesis of revolutionary literature.

Objectively speaking, this urban popular literature genre, which inherited the tradition of Chinese classical novels and had little sense of innovation and development, has made a certain contribution to the development of modern literature, though it has its limitations. Many of its literary works are very good, and compared with some similar themes in new literature, they are no less good. The literature of the Mandarin ducks and butterfly school of "black curtain, narrow evil" is fundamentally a product of the modernization of Chinese society and the pursuit of literary modernization, and they are themselves modern things.

In fact, when the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School was first introduced, it was even labeled the "New Novel", which directly inherited the "New Novel" of the late Qing Dynasty and accepted the influence of the Western novels, and made an important contribution to the development of the Chinese novels. The first novel in China to positively depict a monk's love affair was Su Manushu's Broken Hong and Zero Geese, which Zhou Zuoren called the ancestor of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School. The first novel in China to glorify the love of widows was The Soul of Jade Pear, a masterpiece of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School. China's first full-length diary novel is The History of Xuehong Tears, written by Xu Pillowya, the author of The Soul of Jade Pear. The first epistolary novel in China is "The Underworld" by Pao Tianxiao, the main general of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School. The Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School was innovative in both content and form. In the literary world of the early Republic of China, the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School represented the level of Chinese literature at that time, both in terms of its extensive use of the literary language and its innovations in both content and form. It created both pure literature and popular literature. The rise of the May 4th New Literature and the introduction of a newer kind of pure literature forced the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School to move completely towards popular literature. Those who resisted this transformation, such as Xu Pillow-Ya, Li Ding-Yi, and Wu Shuang-Jie, left the writers' ranks, while those who conformed to it, such as Bao Tian-Xiao and Zhou Shou-Juan, occupied the popular literature field. From the pure literature and popular literature amphibious, transformed into a completely popular literature, decided the popular literature to accept the influence of pure literature, manifested in the pure literature to the penetration of popular literature. For example, Chinese popular novels, which originally favored storylines, at this time made great use of psychological descriptions, situational descriptions, and also focused on displaying the inner world of the characters. From the 1920s to the 1940s, we can see that popular fiction changed from the traditional "chapter book style" to modern fiction, which was full of the penetration of pure literature into popular literature. The development of Qiong Yao's and Jin Yong's novels only followed the traditional "romance" and "martial arts" in terms of subject matter, but the novel's thoughts, feelings, forms and contents have been completely modernized compared with the traditional popular novels. In contemporary novels, the boundaries between pure literature and popular literature are becoming more and more unclear: some works regarded as pure literature should be regarded as popular novels according to the Western standard; some works which have never been regarded as popular novels, such as the works of Jinyong, are regarded as pure literature by some university forums. Perhaps this in itself is evidence of how far the gap between pure and popular literature has narrowed.

While these innovations are not enough by the standards of the new literature of the May Fourth, in which writers did not dare to knock down feudal rites, did not dare to let monks in love and widows marry their lovers, and tended rather to pander to the common people, literary history, after all, evaluates the literature on the basis of what it offers more than its predecessors. Therefore, while the new literature has reasons to criticize the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School, today's literary historians cannot deny the contribution made by the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School. In the past, there were a number of unfair or misleading evaluations of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly School that led to the conclusion that the school was biased, that it was a total rejection of the school in the name of "revolutionary literature," and that it was the product of an unscientific academic atmosphere. When we treat this school today, we should correctly recognize its history and status, and affirm its historical significance. Objectively look at him, objectively look at the history of modern Chinese literature.