Transformation of Literary Styles: Contemporary Chinese Prose in the Social-Historical Depth

Author: Li Linrong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: The Transforming Style: Contemporary Chinese Prose in the Depth of Social History, this book collects the main achievements of my recent ten years in studying and exploring the research of contemporary Chinese prose. The earliest chapter, Chapter 6, was drafted in December 1994, while the latest-formed Chapters 24 and 25 were finally completed at the end of 2005. The study of contemporary Chinese prose became a major focus of my professional work, starting from the autumn of 1994 when I enrolled in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Beijing Normal University for my master's degree. At that time, the field of Chinese literature research was undergoing a strong impact from Western 20th-century literary theories. The study of novels, poems, and even dramas was showing a dynamic and noisy scene of ever-changing new terms and concepts, while prose research, especially the study of contemporary prose, seemed particularly quiet and desolate in comparison. As a Chinese literature major with an undergraduate background in science and engineering, I could not help but cautiously follow my advisor's advice and chose prose research, which was said to be at least the easiest and with the lowest difficulty coefficient among all literary genres, as my main research direction.