Chapter 94 Endless Epilogue (Postscript)

Last night, when I finished revising the text of the last chapter, I had a vague feeling that my love was still unfinished. Sitting in front of the computer, I seemed to want to write more. What happened?I just typed the word "Conclusion" on the blank screen, and nothing was written in the end.Turning on the computer today, I saw the two words I wrote last night in a trance, and I was secretly surprised: Why did I ever think about writing such an "epilogue"?The "conclusion" I am talking about here is the conclusion about the contemporary literature expounded in this book. Although such a "conclusion" is indispensable in the usual works of literary history, it is contrary to my consistent concept of literary history.I have always believed that the history of contemporary literature cannot be concluded.From a distance, the history of Chinese literature in the 20th century (including the history of contemporary literature) is only a natural concept of time. The tradition and development of new literature cannot end at the "end of the century", and it is impossible to see that contemporary literature will not reach the next century. There will be signs of big changes.Many new literary phenomena generated in the 1990s are still in their infancy, and will still have a chance to be fully displayed in the future. Therefore, it is difficult to draw any "conclusions" on the history of literature at the turn of the century.Speaking more closely, even if I take a step back and admit that there can be "conclusions" in the history of contemporary literature for nearly half a century, my book is not qualified for this job.The reason is that I positioned this literary history from the very beginning: it is not a comprehensive, objective, and profound book, which is determined by its nature as a primary university textbook.

To say that it is "not comprehensive" means that it is not rich. A literary history of more than 300,000 characters cannot "comprehensively" display the literary history of fifty years in detail, and it is impossible to have enough space to discuss regions outside the mainland. Chinese literature, it even intentionally avoids the discussion of some literary genres and styles (such as the discussion of reportage, literary theory and criticism), but only adheres to the outdated concept of "rather deficient than excessive", and only focuses on making some literary works More specific and detailed artistic analysis.It is probably because of the political prejudice in the past that caused serious shortages in literary history. Therefore, the first step in compiling literary history is to collect as much information as possible. In a literary history, the names of authors, titles of works, and literary phenomena are listed as much as possible. Come in, this has virtually formed a standard for judging literary history: the more phenomena of writers’ works are listed, and the newer the content, the more “comprehensive”.But in fact, an ordinary textbook is only used for one semester of teaching (I don’t know the curriculum of other schools, Fudan University’s basic history of contemporary literature is only one semester, three class hours a week), and it can’t explain it anyway. There is a lot of content, and students may not need to master so many names of people and books.Therefore, when I designed this history of literature, I first understood it as a "brief history", and only talked about some representative works in the history of literature, omitting what could be omitted.For some important issues that cannot be explained clearly in a few words, or issues that are still difficult to fully grasp, including the explanation of some creative phenomena and important works, we will not talk about them for the time being.In order to meet the needs of the class, the structure of the whole book is matched with the class hours. There are 22 chapters in total, each chapter is divided into four sections, and it focuses on a literary phenomenon. Analyze three or four works, match them in detail, and take into account various genres, in order to be able to finish the lecture in the remaining two classes.In order to save time and space, only one work of the same type is often selected, and the selection criteria are not based entirely on whether it is excellent (in fact, the understanding of "excellent" is very vague), nor is it only based on whether it has been produced in the history of literature. Great influence (because "influence" is also caused by many accidental factors and has nothing to do with the size of literary achievements), of course it is certain that good works will be selected, but only good works that represent a certain type of creative phenomenon.Some important works that are more complicated and need to be re-understood and interpreted are not included in the analysis of the special section for fear that teachers will be difficult to explain, such as "The History of Entrepreneurship", "Song of Youth" and "Red Flag Spectrum", because this requires sufficient research. It is not easy to explain clearly in short chapters.Therefore, the works included in the analysis of the special section are not necessarily excellent works, and the works not included in the analysis of the special section are not necessarily excellent works.This needs special explanation.

Secondly, although the writing of this literary history is a collective project, it can clearly reflect my years of research experience in literary history, so it must be more subjective.I originally thought that writing a history of Chinese literature in the 20th century would be a handy job because I had taught literary history in class for more than ten years, but when I really got started, I found that there were traps everywhere.Among other things, in order to understand Taiwanese literature, especially Taiwanese literature during the Japanese occupation era, I went to Taiwan several times. With the help of Taiwanese experts, I collected, photocopied, and purchased several batches of books and materials, and sent them home one after another. It took more than half a year to pile up half a study room, followed by cataloging and classification, without reading each book.Sometimes I feel unreasonably irritable when facing the bookcase: when can I finish reading these many books?What's more, this is just a small blind spot in the history of literature.Later, I gradually realized that to truly become an expert in this subject may be the goal of my life's hard study, and it is still far away.So my heart was at peace. Since the 1990s, I have studied the phenomenon of literary history step by step, starting from some specific literary phenomena, looking for words that suit what I want to say.About folk cultural forms, war cultural norms, anonymous and common names, potential writing phenomena... are all the results of some partial literary history research, from which I slowly construct the logic of literary history in my mind.I think it is advisable to study more problems, talk less about doctrines, and not talk about anything else, just in terms of academic attitude.Now this literary history, because it is mainly about interpreting the works, I try to use my own experience to analyze the works and dig out the hidden meanings that may exist in the works.Therefore, there are largely subjective elements here, which are different from the reading and analysis methods that have been regarded as conclusive.Some teachers may find it unfamiliar to use, and may need to refer to some of my other writings. I apologize, but years of research have prevented me from lecturing and writing in popular discourse.

What I also want to explain is that this book on literary history is only a book for literature lovers and students of the Chinese Department of colleges and universities, so I try to write it concisely and easily, and it does not reflect my understanding and thoughts on literary history. Even if it is fully expressed, it cannot be said that it is profound in terms of ideology and theory.In fact, even if I talk about all my research experience, there is nothing profound to say. What I want to say are ordinary things that really existed in the history of literature and are indeed included in literary works. I just say it .Besides, it is not uncommon for the current literary history works to explain works as the main type, but it is not advocated as a literary history genre that can be further explored. When I designed this book, I repeatedly considered "taking works as the What are the real characteristics of the main type of literary history.The result of the consideration is to highlight the textual analysis of the works and the artistic appreciation of the works, without introducing all the creative paths and styles of the writers, and without distinguishing the achievements of the writers themselves. In other words, it does not involve the status of the writers in literary history evaluation of.Talking about the phenomenon of creation is limited to explaining the ins and outs of the phenomenon clearly, and talking about a work is about why it is worth reading and what is so good about it.My expectation is that after reading this book, readers will become interested in the literature of the past 50 years, arouse their interest in further reading, learning, and understanding contemporary literature, and vaguely know some of the history we have gone through (including the development of literary trends. history, the intellectual history of intellectuals, etc.), is enough, and further research on literary history and theory can be put into the postgraduate stage for further study.Since what I am attempting is just such a literary history that is not comprehensive, objective, and profound, I have no intention and cannot make a conclusive "conclusion" for the described contemporary literary history. My research path is still long, just as we The same literature will continue continuously.I hope this is only the first part of my research on the history of Chinese literature in the 20th century, and I will go on step by step in the future.

Now that I have said what I want to say, I would like to conclude by explaining the work of the writers of this book.It took two years from the start of the project to the completion of this book. The writers of the first draft are: I am responsible for the preface, introduction, and chapter one; Wang Guangdong is responsible for the second, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters; Li Ping is responsible for the third chapter. Chapters 1, 4, and 10, Song Binghui is responsible for Chapters 5, 11, 12, and 13; Liu Zhirong is responsible for Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9, and 17; Song Mingwei is responsible for Chapters 18, 19, 20, and 20 Chapter one, He Qing undertakes chapter twenty-two.After finishing the manuscript, I took it to South Korea, and revised the relevant content during the research visit. Some chapters were almost rewritten, and some chapters needed to be replaced, so the final draft could not be completed.After returning to China this year, I printed out the revised draft (second draft), and the doctoral research class I supervised discussed the revised opinions chapter by chapter with the advanced teachers of contemporary literature. many questions.This work lasted for a whole semester, and then I, Song Binghui, Liu Zhirong, and Song Mingwei separately supplemented and rewritten it again, and finally completed three drafts, and I made the final read-through to finalize the work.During this period, Nazhang Yuan, a writer of the Yi nationality, participated in the revision of the "Ashima" section.Therefore, the chapter text of this literary history has undergone the creative labor of many friends and melted the opinions of many scholars. It can be regarded as the collective achievement of many friends working together to learn from each other.Mr. Wang Xiaoyang designed and produced the cover and frame for this book, Qian Yijiao edited a brief author profile for this book, Zhou Weihong carefully proofread the proof of the manuscript, and Sun Jing did a lot of work for me during the editing process. That's what I'm especially grateful for.Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my teachers, Professor Jia Zhifang and Professor Pan Xulan. The "Contemporary Chinese Literature Series" and "New Chinese Literature Dictionary" edited by them respectively are the foundation works of contemporary literature research. I refer to them again and again in the process of writing. I am also grateful to Mr. Shen Yongbao and Mr. Gao Ruohai, He Shengsui, and Du Ronggen from Fudan University Press. Without their support, encouragement, tolerance and urging, perhaps there would be no such research results. This literary history.

Chen Sihe Written in Heishuizhai on July 19, 1999