The Profound Influence of Linguistic Change on the Development of Modern Chinese Literary Forms

Abstract

Literature is the art of language, so in the light of the profound influence of linguistic transformation on the development of modem Chinese literary forms it is appropriate to present the history of the development of modern Chinese literature as the art of language. Modern Chinese literature starts with the linguistic transformation of the May Fourth Movement’s rejection of classical Chinese and promotion of the vernacular. This language revolution and the transformation of literary language during each subsequent historical period have exerted a profound inf1uence on the overall development of modern Chinese literature, including literary forms, and hence have become an inner source of the development and evolution of modern Chinese literary forms and of the shaping of their main characteristics. An in-depth discussion of the interaction between linguistic transformation and the development of modern Chinese literary forms as well as the rules governing this process will not only disclose the universal linguistic context of literary creation created by the transformation of language but will also enable us to find the historical sources of the phenomena of literary genres and forms, writers’ choice of literary styles, the formal characteristics of literary works, etc., and will offer a correct explanation and evaluation of the May Fourth vernacular movement and the subsequent series of new literary forms and styles. This is instrumental to achieving a better summation of the experience and lessons of the development of modern Chinese literary forms and to finding historical clues to the development of our present-day literary forms.