The Origin and Form of China's Vanguard Novels in the 1980s——A Concurrent Discussion on the Location of Wang Zengqi's Novels in the Literary History

In the then cultural context,the Chinese vanguard literature in the 1980s aimed to oppose such requirement and norms as the utilitarian and enlightening functions of literature and art,etc. Despite the core art spirit embodied by the avant-garde—rebellion and negation,there has been in the literary history a rather confusing definition ofavant-gardeliterature. While Wang Zengfeng has been revered as thesourceof literature by writers of that school,they have arrived at different destinations respectively. In a broad sense,avantgarde literatureis regional and time-bound,and theavant-garde literaturein the history of contemporary literature is approached in line with the then Chinese experience,so Wang Zengqi's novels are not outdated,because they have attained some significance in the literary history in times of their creation. Moreover,with the passage of time,Wang's novels have still remained unique and have enjoyed high literary value. Wang Zengqi is virtually different from writers of avant-garde literatureunder his enlightenment,which is of help to a recognition of China's avant-garde literature.