| [Visitor (112.0.*.*)]answers [Chinese ] | Time :2023-06-17 |  The views of the new novel school are more advanced than the understanding of ancient scholars, especially the views of "Jue I" and "Jiao Mu" are closer to the characteristics of popular novels, however, they do not study popular novels in the context of popular culture, so this understanding inevitably has a certain ambiguity, making it difficult for us to judge what is wrong with these views, but we feel that they are inaccurate. Following the New Novel School, Chinese society had decades of great turmoil, such as the civil war and the Japanese invasion of China, and for a long time, there was no discussion of the understanding of popular fiction.It was not until the rise of popular fiction in the early days of reform and opening up that Mr. Song Wugang, a popular novel critic, published an article in the Yangcheng Evening News on January 20, 1985, talking about what is popular fiction:..
Popular novels should be written in traditional Chinese artistic techniques based on the favorite themes of the people, and are not yet valued by pure literary scholars and theorists.
This is only an extension of Zheng Zhenduo's statement about the popular literature world, and the extension leads to a bit of the inferiority and desolation of popular novels.
Based on the various statements about popular fiction quoted above, it shows that it is very difficult to grasp popular fiction more accurately, or to give a more accurate definition of popular fiction. Is it possible, then, to give a definition that is closer to the characteristics of popular fiction? I thought it was possible.
Popular fiction is a relative concept, and if we want to grasp popular fiction more accurately, we cannot fail to compare it with "pure literature" fiction as a whole.
First of all, we should see that popular fiction and "pure literature" novels are both different and incompatible, and this situation of confrontation and compatibility makes people's understanding of the two novel styles have a certain ambiguity. Some of the points quoted above are enough to illustrate this point.
The distinction between popular fiction and "pure literary" fiction can be seen from the development trajectory, creative method, creative motivation and value orientation. From the perspective of the origins of the two novels, although they jointly originated from ancient mythology, popular novels have developed and tended to be perfected along the line of legends-oral history--city novels-talk-word novels-popular novels, and the cultural accumulation of popular novels in the process of development is mainly the curiosity and vulgarity of the secular people." Pure literature" novels are developed along the line of pre-Qin prose--zhiren, zhiwei-tang legend-notebook novels, literary novels, and its cultural accumulation form is mainly manifested as the elegance and curiosity of literati and inkers.From the perspective of creative methods, the selection of "pure literature" novels has the characteristics of breadth and typicality, while popular novels focus on occasional, special, tortuous, and novel materials that are occasionally seen in history and real life, and the selection of materials is relatively narrow, so the plot and characters have a sense of déjà vu." Pure literature "novel disdains stylization, has a strong innovative spirit, pays attention to the exquisite text, the exquisite structure, the profoundness of the connotation, and the plot does not constitute its essential characteristics. That is to say, "pure literary" novels do not rely on the ups and downs of the storyline to please the reader. Popular novels tend to follow the traditional model, the plot is dense, the suspense is stacked, rich in drama, and the entertainment is more intense.In order to enhance the communication effect, popular novels pay more attention to the popularity of language, and use village slang as much as possible to create language with the characteristics of that era, but language does not constitute its essential characteristics. From the perspective of creative motivation, "pure literature" novels pursue the elegance of aesthetic taste, implicitly expressing the author's always unique and profound aesthetic thoughts on human beings, society and even the natural world, so "pure literature" novels can show a distinct beautiful literary style.Popular novels mainly meet and adapt to the spiritual and cultural consumption needs of the secular public, and do not attach importance to the expression of personal spirituality, so the author is often driven by some utilitarian purposes, using workshop-style production methods to compile some legendary and interesting stories, so popular novels show heavy commodity attributes. From the perspective of value orientation, "pure literature" novels often overflow with rational beauty, which has the significance of shaping the human soul and improving the quality of national culture.Popular novels can sometimes play the role of life textbooks, but they do not have the task of providing enlightening or metaphorical artistic images to society, it is mainly to promote popular culture and national spirit centered on theory and morality, and express the moral beauty, human beauty, worldly beauty, and customs beauty in the world...
Through the comparison of the two novel styles, we can basically see the major difference between popular fiction and "pure literary" novel, these two forms of fiction cannot be confused, with this difference, the question of "what is Chinese popular novel" can be answered or defined as follows:
Popular novels are created in simple and easy-to-understand language and certain programs, and express the aesthetic ideals and theoretical concepts of the secular public with a large density of plot art, and serve the society with this as a characteristic.
The vulgarity of the language of popular fiction is an important feature of popular fiction, not its essential feature, and it is unscientific to identify the attributes of fiction only from the fact that the language is vernacular or literary style. For example, many modern and contemporary "pure literature" novels are written in the vernacular, and the Europeanized sentence structure or lengthy sentences that are not punctuated constitute an obstacle to acceptance by the secular public, which shows that not all vernacular texts are popular. Most of the texts in classical popular novels are written in shallow literary language, and the language, sentence structure, and style can adapt to the acceptance ability of the secular public. Still vulgar.Language is a variable in the development of social history, different eras have different linguistic characteristics, different ethnic groups have different language habits, and different writers often show different language styles. With the development of society, language symbols have become more and more sophisticated and secular, and many classical literary works were created in colloquial languages at that time, such as the "Book of Poetry", "The World Speaks New Language", etc. In our view today, some languages and scripts have become ancient and difficult to understand, and some can only be understood but cannot be conclusive. Therefore, it is not possible to detach from the characteristics of the era of language and accept the habit of determining the attributes of popular fiction...
The plot factor is one of the essential characteristics of popular fiction, and so far, we have not found a literary style that is more dense than the plot of popular novels, that is, popular novels delight readers by enriching novelty and large-density plots. Of course, the plot is not the assembly of parts, but to follow the laws of popular novel creation and the needs of the theme to organically assemble in the work, as for whether the popular novel created is welcomed by readers, it depends on the writer's artistic cultivation and ability to "make up lies". Therefore, that kind of artistic techniques such as psychological time and space, stream of consciousness, and plot dilution are not suitable for the creation of popular novels.
The aesthetic structure of popular novels is generally composed of themes, themes, plots and other factors. From the perspective of subject matter, popular novels mainly select realistic themes and historical themes, and there are very few works with surreal themes, even surreal gods and demons novels like "Journey to the West" are also real life expressed, not surreal novels in the ontological sense. The realistic theme of popular fiction focuses on showing the living conditions and social contradictions of the secular public, although the historical theme is based on the past and the present, but it must also be given a certain practical significance, and the selection of both themes is to place the aesthetic ideals of the secular public, such as "great reunion", good and evil habits have rewards, and so on.From the point of view of theme, popular novels mainly praise justice and goodness, criticize all ugly phenomena in the world, although good people have suffered and experienced ups and downs, there will be good rewards, although bad people succeed for a while, they will eventually be punished. In this way, popular fiction tenaciously expresses the unchanging ethical concepts of secular society for thousands of years. Therefore, aesthetic ideals and moral concepts are important parts of the essential characteristics of popular novels, the former determines the aesthetic style of popular novels, and the latter determines the survival state of popular novels.Although morality is an independent category in the overall movement of social history, as an important part of the world view, it has a guiding and determining role, so that in the creative practice, the writer's ethical view must show his moral tendency in the work, and the moral tendency determines the survival state and value choice of popular novels. One of the reasons why many popular novels have suffered bad luck in Chinese history is that the so-called manifestation of "thiefdom and adultery, and bad customs", and historical experience should attract the attention of popular fiction writers. Morality is a social emotion, which is mainly manifested in the judgment of love and hatred and right and wrong.The excessive description and rendering of "wine, color, wealth, and qi" in secular society in popular novels has lost the grasp of "degree", resulting in a moral tilt, and the negative impact brought about by popular novels is very unfavorable to the development of popular novels. The dependence of popular fiction on plot is mainly formed by the accumulation of aesthetic psychology in history. As early as the pre-Qin era, there were disabled people in the courts of princes and kingdoms, known as "Zhi Shi", who were professional storytellers, and their profession was followed by "speaking" people in the Tang and Song dynasties, but the latter turned the object of service from the court to the people.In order to attract the audience and meet the audience's expectations, the stories they tell must have a dense plot, vivid language, and a certain routine (mode) to facilitate the teaching of "speaking" skills, due to the accumulation of history, so that popular fiction pays more attention to the pursuit of plot factors than any literary style...
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Generally speaking, popular novels do not provide the society with philosophical thinking about life, but serve the society in an all-round and multi-level manner with its popularity, interestingness and entertainment, high-level readers can use popular novels as "adult fairy tales" to entertain, workers, peasants, citizens can also do their "daydreams" in the atmosphere created by popular novels, seek solace and stimulation, and obtain the pleasure of psychological balance.There is a view that "popular novels can be appreciated by both elegant and popular", for example, Bai Juyi loves to use "a branch of flowers" to speak, Song Renzong also summoned folk speaking artists into the palace, mathematician Hua Luogeng loves to read martial arts novels, etc., these examples do not prove that "elegant and common appreciation", their preference for popular novels is based on its entertainment and fun, not to obtain a certain value and power. Therefore, "elegant and common appreciation" is an illusion, which is not what this article will discuss, and it is not discussed...
Through a simple combing of popular novels, the explanations (or definitions, definitions) of Chinese popular novels in this article basically cover the essential characteristics of popular novels, and can effectively distinguish popular novels from "pure literary" novels. My explanation is just a family statement, and I welcome and am willing to have in-depth discussions with the academic community on this issue. |
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