| Chapter : | Introduction |
What has been put into question here is a literati mentality since the May Fourth movement that sees literary history as evolutionary or revolutionary. In addition, what must be seriously reconsidered, according to David Der-wei Wang, is the project of modernity embraced by enlightened Chinese intellectuals throughout the entire twentieth century. Interestingly, the success of Jin Yong’s novels in the later half of the century has greatly challenged the traditional view of the “obsolete” native literary tradition; more importantly, Jin’s success urges us to reexamine the influence of Western-influenced modern discourse in modern Chinese literary history.
The most striking change brought by the May Fourth Movement was that most writers discarded native literary language in favor of a modern literary language explicitly based on the grammatical construction, sentence cohesion, narrative format, and rhetorical conventions of Western models. What has been largely affirmed is the positivity of this change, which helped the Chinese people to transit from the traditional to the modern. No doubt, the adaptation of Western models retains great significance because it gave impetus to the formation of a new modern Chinese language (xiandai hanyu). However, what has been neglected is the consequence of this transition, marked by an “ouhua” or “Europeanized” Chinese language, a consequence that abruptly interrupted the tradition of the classical essay and created a huge gap between the modern and classical Chinese languages. One may wonder what an “ouhua” or “Europeanized” Chinese language means to modern Chinese literature; what forms of ideology lurk behind a “Europeanized” language, which so abruptly abandoned the substance of classical language and literature? How can the spirit of classical language as well as its cultural value be preserved in modern Chinese language?