On the Urgent Breakthroughs in Literature Study from "Novels of Exposure

The concept of of exposure (Qianze Xiaoshuo), which was initiated by Lu Xun, has acquired some general meanings after being used to describe novels of social satire in the late Qing Dynasty, and almost represented the late Qing novels as a whole. In fact, the concept included some provisional meanings, and would ignore the characters of some late Qing novels, such as Flowers in Evil World (Nie Hai Hua) by Zeng Pu and The Brief History of Civilization (Wen Ming Xiao Shi) by Li Bo-yuan. The historic role of the writers of the May Fourth generation is to deny the former literature, rather than to give the lasting conclusion. So the study of 20th century Chinese literature has faced a challenge of May Fourth tradition. Keeping a position beyond history is thus the key to some academic breakthroughs.