Draft on Liberalist Literature in China

Author: Liu Chuan'e
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2001-01-01
Features: This book primarily examines the development of the liberal literary trend in China and the creative characteristics of Chinese liberal writers. The basic content of the research includes: the connection between Chinese liberal literature and the liberal trend in the field of thought and culture, as well as its relationship with other literary factions; the evolution of the liberal literary trend in China, including its germination in modern times, its divergence from the Enlightenment movement in the 1920s, its opposition and complementarity with leftist literature in the 1930s, and its struggle and decline amidst the national revolutionary tide in the 1940s; the creative characteristics and artistic achievements of Chinese liberal writers; the contributions and limitations of Chinese liberal literature and its inevitable fate. In the more than ten years since the reform and opening-up, academia has conducted in-depth research on individual Chinese liberal writers and certain factions. However, there has yet to be a monograph that provides a macro-level study of this literary phenomenon as a whole. Based on a thorough absorption of previous research achievements, guided by Marxist views on literature and freedom, and appropriately drawing on both Eastern and Western liberal theories, this paper applies the principle of unifying aesthetic and historical perspectives, primarily adopts a sociological lens of literature, and combines macro and micro approaches with comparative methods to outline the overall picture and fundamental characteristics of Chinese liberal literature, summarize its historical fate, and draw lessons from its experience. It attempts to clarify, through the integration of theory and practice, the issues that have long puzzled modern Chinese writers and literary historians regarding the relationship between literature and freedom, human nature and class nature, the era's mission of writers, and aesthetic creation, with the hope of providing certain inspiration and reference for the prosperity of future literary creation.