The New Times' Literature of the Past 30 Years:Retrospections and Prospections

In their researches on the new times' literature of the past 30 years, some scholars hold a critical or negative attitude toward its achievement compared with that of the modern Chinese literature of the first three decades in the last century. In this group of papers, researchers such as Wang Hui, Xie Yong and Fan Xing give their understandings of the major issues of the literature of the past 30 years in answer to the attitude held by those scholars. The common position shared by these three scholars when viewing the new times' literature of the last three decades is to be constructive and conducive through justifiable retrospections and prospections. In his paper, Wang Hui makes an observation of the change and development of the literature over the past three decades from the perspective of historical consciousness and writing. He holds that contemporary Chinese writers do not lack the courage to face the history and the power to write a macro-history. There are different phases in their historical consciousness and writing of history: from the beginning to the middle stage, most of them showed a re-awakening of historical consciousness and gave a direct expression to the macro-history; since the 1990s, they endeavored to write a micro-history with their expressions of macro-history more diversified and implicit. To contemporary Chinese writers, the following issues are of greater importance: how to interpret history not only intensively but also extensively; how to inquire into and reflect upon history from the perspective of the ultimate pursuit of humanity; how to reveal historical facts to the highest degree and to illuminate history at artistic and ideological heights. By exploring the new times' literature of the past three decades against the background of ideological emancipation, Xie Yong argues that when observing the genesis of the new times' literature, it is necessary to pay attention to the following three historical backgrounds: the genesis of the modern Chinese literature, the establishment of the literature in the first 17 years after the Liberation, and the characteristics of the literature of the Cultural Revolution. Only in this way can the literature of the period be viewed with more appreciation and sympathy. As a major part of Chinese ideological emancipation, the new times' literature has assumed a relatively big historical responsibility; ignoring the background of ideological emancipation, it is impossible to appreciate its historical contribution and significance. Through a comparison between the new times' literature of the past 30 years and the modern literature of the first 30 years of the last century, Fan Xing explains that the former has a kind of contemporariness with timeless significance. The point where the modern literature is surpassed by the new times' literature, Fan believes, is embodied by the difference between them: the former for the most part tried to transform the nation's character from the perspective of enlightenment whereas the latter concentrated on a thorough examination of the political maladies, which consequently brought about a number of political novels, historical novels and political literary reportages that surpass the achievement of the modern literature. The literature to transform the nation's character in the modern period is gradually replaced by the literature that aims at a re-appreciation of the folk world. That is where some of the contemporariness of the new times' literature is embodied.