Xie Zhiqing's A History of Modern Chinese Fiction and the Acceptance Limit for Zhang Ailing in the Literary History of China's Mainland

Through a case study of Zhang Ailing's position in the Chinese literary history,this paper attempts to explore two diverse generative environments for Xie Zhiqing's A History of Modern Chinese Fiction and the history of modern Chinese literature.As Xie's book is a research-oriented literary history while the history of modern Chinese literature is for the major part the literary history intended for textbooks,their respective orientation in compilation has resulted in two diverse choices in the paradigms of writing:the conflict between the style history and the spirit history.Starting with the disputes over Zhang Ailing between Xie Zhiqing and Liu Zaifu since the new century,this paper reviews how the history of Zhang Ailing's acceptance in China's mainland before and after the founding of the People's Republic of China has been centered round the disputes over and impact of Xie Zhiqing's A History of Modern Chinese Fiction.Finally this paper compares,analyzes and examines the descriptions of Zhang Ailing in A History of Modern Chinese Fiction and in dozens of modern Chinese literary history books since the new period.It is pointed out that the writing paradigm for the spirit history,colored by ideology,has affected the description of Zhang Ailing in modern Chinese literary history books,thus having retrained the fair portrayal of Zhang Ailing in modern Chinese literary history.