As a result, some people in academic circles put forward the goal of writing Qi Fei's "Great Literature History" with the wings of pure literature and popular literature. This is, of course, because the history of literature in the past strictly rejected popular writers, and at most combed history as how popular literature "surrendered" to pure literature and elegant literature (Note: Zhang Henshui, a popular literature, is generally interpreted as gradually "surrendering" to new literature. If we discuss the formulation of "the history of great literature" in the future, it is estimated that it will lead to a useful debate. For example, I personally think that in the history of modern literature, the renewal of literary concepts, the emergence of experimental and avant-garde creations, and the constant exploration of forms are all purely literary things. This has to determine the direction of literary history. Popular literature is not mandarin duck and butterfly school, but also includes some Shanghai schools, some liberated area literature and various popular literature. Even with the theory of Yuanyang Butterfly School, its main function and contribution is to push literature to the market and the public, and to gradually adjust (improve) traditional literature and accumulate some experience for modern literature. However, Bi Jing's role in the development of literature cannot be said to be completely equivalent.
The idea of juxtaposition of two kinds of literature can stimulate imagination and thinking, although it can be questioned. Shanghai School in pure literature is closely related to urban cultural environment and popular literature from the day it was born (according to Lu Xun and Shen Congwen, Yuanyang Butterfly School is Shanghai School, or Zhang Ziping of Shanghai School is simply the remnant of Yuanyang Butterfly School, etc.). (Note: For Lu Xun's remarks about Shanghai School and Zhang Ziping, see A Glimpse of Shanghai Literature and Art, Zhang Ziping's Novels, etc. ). Shen Congwen's Talk on Shanghai School, Zhang Ziping's On Shanghai School in China's Novel Creation, and About Shanghai School were respectively included in the Collected Works of Shen Congwen, Volumes 1 1 2, Huacheng Publishing House1July 1984. )), then, in order to write a literary history in which pure literature and popular literature coexist and penetrate each other for a long time, it is necessary to distinguish the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School in modern popular literature from the Shanghai School with pure literature as its main nature, and to clarify the relationship between them should also be a frontier topic that cannot be ignored.
one
The literature of Yuanyang Butterfly School and Shanghai School are not related to each other. Just as the old literature of the Republic of China cannot be naturally transformed into new literature, the Yuanyang Butterfly School cannot naturally extend to the Shanghai School.
This can take novels as an example. Among the old novels of the Republic of China, the novels of Yuanyang Butterfly School are the most influential. After carefully searching for the seeds of modernity in recent years, this school of novels has roughly identified the following aspects: first, it has a certain progressive consciousness to expose the disadvantages of feudal ethics; The second is to learn some foreign literary techniques, not to be completely closed; Third, the literary language has been greatly improved, using the modern classical Chinese that has been loosened and can be transferred to the vernacular. With these three conditions with modern factors, an important reason why the novels of Yuanyang Butterfly School have not been accumulated and adjusted into new literature is their conservative cultural attitude. The novels of Yuanyang Butterfly School refused to completely break with the novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties. Its concept is this, after making some changes, it slides along the old track. Known as the "originator" of Yuanyang Butterfly School, the parallel novel "Jade Pear Soul" is not popular at all now. It combines the tradition of classical poetry and Lin Shu's translation of novels, and it was welcomed by literati readers with old memories for the last time, and then it has been flowing to the conservative public's reading tendency. The May 4th novel is the result of transplanting western novels completely. Although once established, the internal mechanism of "tradition" will be looming, it will never look back, cultivate its own new readers and emerging markets, and enter the ranks of modern novels. When comparing "popular novels of the Republic of China" with "new literary novels", someone once said: "The changes of popular novels of the Republic of China are not necessarily directly related to western novels, but indirectly related to western culture through an intermediate link, that is, the social customs of China influenced by western culture, and the popular novels of the Republic of China change with the changes of social customs." "Of course, this does not rule out that some specific works of some writers in the Republic of China directly borrowed some western novels, but on the whole, both indirect influence and direct copying and imitation are the fundamental differences between popular novels and new literary novels in the Republic of China." [1 ](P25) If the author's tendency to obviously raise the value of "tradition" is put aside, it can also be proved that not "docking" with western novels is a serious difference between mandarin duck and butterfly novels and pure literary novels.
Just like the fate of 19 10, the monthly novel of Yuanyang Butterfly School, which was founded by the Commercial Press, was edited by Mao Dun in 192 1 and changed its course, becoming the base camp for writing modern novels at that time. The Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School of Novel Monthly persuaded the owner of the Commercial Press to create Novel World, so they parted ways. Zhang Ziping was originally one of the four elders of Creation Society, and it was pure literature that gave birth to Shanghai-style Zhang Ziping. Zhang Ziping wrote novels during the period when Mao Dun edited Novel Monthly. After taking the lead in "going to sea", he wrote triangular and polygonal western love novels. It is obvious that he never wrote the romantic novels in which the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School dominated the era of monthly novels.
In fact, although the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School and the Shanghai School are both in the environment of commercial culture and literature with commercial flavor, they both appeared in different periods of modern urban transformation and formed and survived in the multiple dislocation of Shanghai school culture. From the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China to the 1920s and 1930s, Shanghai's original modern material civilization was surrounded by Chinese mainland's vast "agricultural civilization", which was a major cultural dislocation. This dislocation also determines the second dislocation, that is, the internal imbalance of Shanghai's emerging culture. That is to say, there are both ancient China communities and new concession communities. In the historical process of the formation of the Concession, there are not only Chinese and foreign transitional cultural communities near the border of China, but also brand-new modern cultural communities introduced from abroad formed in the "heart of the Concession". In the late Qing Dynasty, the transitional areas between China and foreign countries, namely, Shanghai County (now Shinan District) and Wuma Road and Sima Road, were the living places of Yuanyang Butterfly School literature. In the 1920s and 1930s, the central area of the concession, represented by Nanjing Road and Joffrey Street, was the birthplace of Shanghai style. It is important that the latter can not completely replace the former, because there is the first cultural dislocation circle. In the mid-1930s, with the successful transplantation of modern cultural environment in Shanghai, this scene became particularly conspicuous. If there is "portability", there will be "originality", and the entanglement between the two is like a ghost. At the beginning, Yuanyang Butterfly School and Shanghai School respectively relied on two consumer cultural environments in Shanghai. This is the different material and social basis between Yuanyang Butterfly School and Shanghai School.
It is easy to distinguish the brothel drama written by Yuanyang Butterfly School from the story of love, teasing and mutilation between men and women, and then look at the modern life attitudes of modern men and women who come in and out of the cinema ballroom Warrior Stadium shown by Shanghai School later. In the mid-1930s, the works of Yuanyang Butterfly School also wrote the modern life scene of Nanjing Road. At this time, you should pay attention to their different cultural perspectives, and the difference is not small. Functionally, Shanghai School will carve up the literary market share of Yuanyang Butterfly School, and will learn from Yuanyang Butterfly School's literature to gain "the public". However, in terms of literary value, we are committed to how to understand the modern character of modern people: paying attention to and publicizing personality, understanding the sound, light and shadow of the city, feeling the mental confusion and pressure brought about by material evolution, and then causing people to doubt themselves. The modernity of Yuanyang Butterfly School is greatly out of date, so it is not a slap in the face to slow down. They cannot be confused.
From the very beginning, Shanghai School realized that it occupied a favorable position in Shanghai's cultural dislocation. When it happened, there was a "white-collar" eye (only sympathy for ordinary lower-class citizens). The social life style of foreign markets, the emotional appeal of the high-class living quarters in the west of Shanghai, the atmosphere of cinemas, racetracks, dog farms and expositions specializing in Paramount and MGM films, open social, entertainment, commercial and educational activities, and people's search for new ways to adjust money relations have gradually become symbols of "Shanghai". Just like the typical symbol of Shanghai in those days was the "City God Temple", it has now become the pinnacle of the "First Start Company". Shanghai has become a city dominated by "transplant culture", and China's inherent culture can only gain a firm foothold after it is integrated into "transplant culture". One thing can prove that in the history of Shanghai's development, the national feelings of China people have to change this reality. 1929, the Kuomintang Shanghai municipal government had a plan to build a "downtown Shanghai" in Jiangwan area, with the aim of turning Shanghai on the Bund and Shanghai in the Concession into Shanghai centered on the Chinese community. Some of them were implemented, and government offices and gymnasiums were built. The Sino-Japanese War in Songhu may be one of the reasons for the abortion of this "patriotic" plan, and I think the fundamental reason is that this administrative order violates the urban characteristics of Shanghai. Modern Shanghai cannot be a truly modern city without a worldwide financial and trade system. However, Shanghai's financial trade was in the hands of the colonists, and economic activities took place in the buildings of the concession. Shanghai-style literature takes the concession as the main position and the Chinese border as the edge, which reflects the face of the city. Yuanyang Butterfly School lingered in the "marginal zone" for a long time, until a historical opportunity appeared in Shanghai in the 1940s, when the left wing turned to the rear, and popular literature gained momentum. Yuanyang Butterfly School has some knowledge of Shanghai's cultural environment, found a breakthrough to integrate into "transplanted culture" and sought the possibility of approaching Shanghai School. As long as we carefully study the growth process of Vientiane magazine, we can realize this. Vientiane was first published in 194 1 and was originally edited by Chen Dieyi. Almost all the authors belong to the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School, and their tendency has become "new". However, the influence of the old writers school is too strong, and the interest of the old citizens cannot be removed, which affects the sales market. Two years later, 1943, Ling Ke became the editor-in-chief and took the road of mass culture. The cutting-edge writers in literature and art have become the main body of the writers, and the works of Yuanyang Butterfly School have also been brought into the track of "new citizens", especially the emerging Shanghai writers. Zhang Ailing's name appeared in Vientiane. Now, when my doctoral student (Li Nan) studied the Shanghai tabloids, he found that the tabloids in the early 1930 s were mainly controlled by the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School, and the "social news" there satirized the early Shanghai writers as much as the left-wing writers. It was not until the 1940s that it gradually eased. This is also an obvious evidence.
It can be seen that Yuanyang Butterfly School and Shanghai School are two major literary schools with a long history. Shanghai School has been a part of "modern" literature since its birth. Yuanyang Butterfly School has a long evolution process of obtaining "modernity". Moreover, as long as the old and new consumer cultures in Shanghai overlap and misplace, both factions have a basis for survival.
two
First of all, make some differences from the similar literary themes of Shanghai School and Yuanyang Butterfly School.
Look at the theme of urban material first. The basic motif of Shanghai School is to reveal the relationship between human existence and material under the condition of modern civilization. Then, if we take care of both sides, some people will succumb to the pressure of material and indulge in it, and some people will doubt the predicament caused by mechanical civilization. "Sons of the City" like Liu Naou and Mu Shiying, from the collections of "urban landscapes" and "cemeteries", reveal the feeling of urban life, which is closely intertwined with their admiration and addiction to material things, and they enjoy life and are tired of life at the same time. This is the life experience of Shanghai school, which comes from the insurmountable contradiction of modern cities. It is also the situation that modern people face after they leave the countryside. Shanghai school is a sensitive group in the city, and their resilience to the pressure of modern existence has developed into two emotional forms of Shanghai school: if they can maintain their ideals and rationally examine society and themselves, they will have certain critical power, and literature will also contain melancholy; Otherwise, free venting, depravity, violence, grotesque and recklessness are "circuitous". But in either case, their discovery of modern cities is twofold, and they find beauty in sin. Liu Naou keeps saying that this city is not without "poetry", but "the content of poetry has changed" [2]. "The tram is too noisy. It was a blue sky, blackened by charcoal smoke from the factory, and there was no sound of larks. Muse, the string is broken and I don't know where to fly. So there is no beauty in modern life? No, there is, but the form has changed. " Liu Naou pointed out in the following that the content and form of that kind of beauty is called "thriller and sensual intoxication" (Liu translated this sentence into "thriller and sensual intoxication") [3] This is really a literary declaration of Shanghai style! The new values introduced here are not a simple curse and rebellion against modern Shanghai, but a far more complicated tone, full of people's surprise and fear of material under the shadow of modern consumer culture. For Shanghai school, there is no obvious boundary between heaven and hell in the city, and there is also all the possibility of painting the city as heaven or hell.
How can Shanghai school hope to inherit the concept of such a materialized city from Yuanyang Butterfly School? Looking at the best popular social novels, especially those devoted to Shanghai, such as Bao's Spring and Autumn Annals of Shanghai, Zhu's Xie Pu Chao, Ping Jinya's Crowd, and Bi's Hell on Earth, their attitude towards modern cities is only from the standpoint of agricultural China, exposing evils and drawbacks. These novels seem to give a detailed video to all sentient beings in Shanghai in the modern process, full of current events and secrets, which can be used to save a colorful history of Shanghai's local customs, but they lack unique vision and life experience. Therefore, The Last Month Of Summer An can "admire" the old data of Shanghai customs preserved in Xie Puchao and The Spring and Autumn Annals of Shanghai, but he still criticized: "The shortcomings of such books are: the author has no new understanding of morality, just silently shaking his head and sighing' people are not old'; They don't know much about economic and social changes, but they feel that they are changing. They don't know or want to know why there is such a change. They pretend to expose the' shady', but in fact they only pay attention to the surface. " [4]
Then look at the gender theme. Shanghai school and Yuanyang butterfly school have always been considered as the best literature to express the relationship between men and women. The former writes love novels, while the latter writes romance novels. These are two names and the difference between them is obvious. Under the background of metropolis, the relationship between people, including the relationship between men and women, can be described as the modernity of Shanghai style. If you don't consider gender issues, how can you tell the difference between emerging romantic ways and ugly erotic temptations? The typical performance of these two urban genders in Shanghai style has obvious color. The separation of "sex" and "love" makes "sex" bare some original meanings, which is most easily confused with the description of "sex". In this way, in the metropolis, the beauty and ugliness of sex collide fiercely. Ye Lingfeng's sexual confession, Zhang Ailing's vivid description of women's plight and Xu Luan's consciousness of finding a real way out for sex and love are outstanding in Shanghai literature. Shanghai-style gender literature, from physiological pulse to modern philosophy of life, fully shows the inner psychological conflict of urbanites.
And the affair of Yuanyang Butterfly School has been circling in the circle of "traditional morality" for a long time. At the earliest time, I sympathized with the affair in the brothel, and later exposed the sadness of buying "sex" with money. By Zhang Henshui's Crying and Laughing, Qin's Bony Begonia and Liu Yunruo's An Apricot Out of the Wall, the gender expression of Yuanyang Butterfly School has reached a peak that its literature has never reached. Among them, the first two books are intended to expose the wanton trampling of actors by warlords and evil forces, the destruction of "true feelings" and the destruction of beautiful things in the world, which is the literary value of the whole book. The Story of an Almond is probably the most extraordinary novel of its kind. It is very rare that the reality of sexual love and the inner anxiety and pain brought by extramarital love have been positively expressed. However, the plot design of this novel is rather fancy, and the suspense setting is particularly complicated. The "nature" of popular novels, that is, paying attention to the wonderful stories, often hides the in-depth discussion of gender relations. From this point of view, comparing the gender concepts of Shanghai school and Yuanyang butterfly school, the difference of modernity is also very obvious, not to mention the possibility of direct inheritance.
Let's look at the old and new themes. On the surface, the two factions don't seem to be close. The literature of Yuanyang Butterfly School is old-fashioned, and its feelings tend to be old, while the Shanghai School wants to be new, modern and modern. It's not that simple. In order to seek novelty, the writers of Yuanyang Butterfly School stick to the routine and fall behind, but what they describe is brand-new things that have just entered Shanghai. It is easy and cheap to tell readers that the new will eventually replace the old when the old changes in society. Shanghai's urban story takes place in Shili Yangchang. Mu Shiying's streamlined Shanghai, "Jazz, Foxtrot, Mixed Wine, Autumn Popular Colors, Eight-cylinder Sports Cars, Egyptian Cigarettes" [5], is so fashionable, but it is meaningful that such Shanghai still seems to be surrounded by China. On the one hand, Mu Shiying is a "master" of foreign literature, but on the other hand, he writes "Father", "Old House" and "Sorrow of Bamboo Grove" with the pen of ballroom and bar. (Note: Mu Shiying's "Father" and "Old House" included "White Gold Statue of Chinese Women", Modern Publishing House, July 1934 edition. As a posthumous work, The Sorrow of Bamboo Forest was published in the Macao novel Yuefu 1954+00, No.8 in June. These novels are full of nostalgic stories, and the author seems to be homesick. Another Shanghai-style writer, Shi Zhecun, wrote about his fellow villagers' experiences in Shanghai, such as Chunyang and Seagull, which contrasted with the feelings of pure urbanites in his Night of Plum Rain and Bali Grand Theatre, showing his "local complex" and "folk feelings". Reading Shanghai novels, if you are in the countryside of a metropolis, or open a wider space-time distance, it seems that you are in the marginal city of the macro rural world. The mixture of old and new is more complicated.
Shanghai School describes how old things are attached to the body of metropolis, especially a kind of old family literature in new Shanghai. Zhang Ailing and Dongfang @ ① @ ② have been writing about the sufferings and unpredictable fate of the children of the old aristocrats in the city for the longest time. As Li Hongzhang's great-granddaughter, Zhang Ailing wrote Love in the City, The Golden Lock and The Flower Carving, and turned from the loss of the old family world to the secular life in Shanghai and Hong Kong, looking for a personal spiritual home. Although Zhang Ailing is familiar with the foreign life of cinemas and clothing stores, she found that under this brand-new consumption pattern, the remaining urban feelings are still so old: feudal jealousy almost runs through the grievances between men and women and between generations. What Zhang Ailing really understands is that Shanghai is first a part of traditional China, and then "modernity" is added. She once said: "Shanghainese are traditional China people, tempered by modern high-pressure life. The exchange of deformed products between old and new cultures may not be healthy, but there is a strange wisdom here. " [6] This is a thorough understanding of China's old and new. The works of Oriental @ ① @ ② are a collection of A Picture of a Gentleman and a Lady. His novels are full of children of an old aristocratic family in the foreign market, leaving a mixed footprint from the Manchu aristocrat to the new young master ("Xiao Kai"). Oriental @ ① @ ② shows the transition between the old and the new in Shanghai, and it is also unique.
Regarding the new and old, unchanged and changed in modern Shanghai (Shen Congwen likes to talk about the new and old, unchanged and changed in western Hunan), it is impossible to integrate into literary writing without a thorough observation and understanding of modern China. The scenery of Yuanyang Butterfly School in the city lags far behind. Shanghai school's urban consciousness is ahead of the times, which can only be produced under the influence of world modernist literature and aesthetics, which have experienced industrialized cities and rebelled in advance. Some scholars have pointed out that the aesthetic root of China Shanghai School comes from aestheticism. (Note: See Xie's Deviation from Beauty, Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, August1997; Li Jin's Shanghai Novels and Modern Urban Culture, Anhui Education Press, February 2000. Therefore, comparing the literary urban consciousness of Shanghai School and Yuanyang Butterfly School, their ideological resources are also different. We can only sigh the unbalanced development of modern civilization in China in one place and think of their dislocation, not their mutual inheritance.
three
On elegance and vulgarity, the closest thing between Shanghai School and Yuanyang Butterfly School is that literature is geared to public readers and consumption, so it is totally or partially "popular".
Shanghai's binary mixture of elegance, vulgarity, goodness and evil comes from the duality of Shanghai, a commercial city. On the one hand, it is a brand-new and dynamic modern city; On the other hand, because there are many layers of old culture, because modern cultural consumption cannot exclude the negative side, and modern civilization can also be kitsch, it presents a form of coexistence of good and evil. Because the profit-seeking nature of business in the reading market is an important motive, Shanghai School must develop its own vanguard if it wants to pursue novelty and novelty endlessly. If you follow the crowd, follow the common customs and the bottom, you will pursue interest, oppose the sublime and expand your popular characteristics. The elegance and vulgarity of Shanghai style are also related to the diversion of readers in Shanghai. Elegance is to echo the elegant readers of this city, including office readers of foreign firms, customs, banks and companies, as well as some employees of railways and postal services and some teachers and students of colleges and universities (that is, some Shanghai readers and others constitute radical left-wing readers). Vulgarity is to cater to readers of popular books, such as junior staff, shop assistants and other citizens living in Shikumen houses. In this way, Shanghai-style literature occupies a place on both sides of Shanghai's avant-garde literature market and popular literature market: Shanghai-style literature, which expresses new urban ideas and new lifestyles, is avant-garde and elegant; Vulgar tributaries show eroticism, terror and deception, collect urban anecdotes, create soft words, and be vulgar and kitsch. Above the popular literature market, the Shanghai School in the 1930s finally met the tenacious Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School.
Throughout the history of Shanghai's tabloids and pictorial, it is almost impossible for us to distinguish the Shanghai literati from the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School for a while. The tabloids were born in the late Qing Dynasty. The famous ones along the way are Bao Jing, Social Daily, Li Bao, Xin Bao, Li Bao, Poster, Ji Bao, Tie Bao, Yi Bao and so on, which have a large coverage in cities. Of course, names like Sherlock Holmes, Jin Gangzuan and Happy News are self-evident. There are also newspapers run by "white photographers" and "Hua Bao", just to name a few. The writers of Yuanyang Butterfly School who may have integrity are only willing to show their names in decent tabloids, but some Shanghai writers do not avoid tabloids, such as Zhang Ailing. She read tabloids and wrote small articles in them, saying, "I have never been prejudiced against tabloids by ordinary people." Only China has tabloids; Only tabloids have this special and popular wit "[7].
In the literature books held by Shanghai readers in the 1940s, it is difficult for us to distinguish the works of Shanghai School and Yuanyang Butterfly School. Because in the late 1920s, the old citizens who read the novels of Yuanyang Butterfly School (for example, Mrs. Lu Ruifu, Lu Xun's mother, and her son didn't read the New Literature and Art, but only read the novels of Yuanyang Butterfly School) and the new citizens who read the novel Mu Shiying Style (for example, Shen Congwen disdainfully mentioned "college students who talked about film kissing when watching the queen of a girls' school" in Good Friends [8]), there is a clear difference between them. In occupied Shanghai, the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School understands that the new citizen readers are their only choice, because the younger generation who was born in the 1920s and 1930s and received new education has already started reading novels. Therefore, in the 1940s, popular publications such as Magazine, Novel Monthly (edited by Gu Lengguan), Popular, Spring and Autumn Annals and Vientiane were all edited by scholars of Yuanyang Butterfly School and writers of Shanghai School. In fact, you have me and I have you. In the catalogue of each issue, Zheng, Zhang Haoshui, Cheng Xiaoqing, Zhang Ailing and Zhang Ailing. (Note: It is really too long to copy down the list of two types of writers in these five magazines. Mainly recorded in Vientiane. Separately, the writers of Yuanyang Butterfly School are Zheng, Zhang Henshui, Cheng Xiaoqing, Sun, Zhou Shoujuan, Bao and Xu Zhuodai, while the writers of Shanghai School are Zhang Ailing, Shi Jimei, Shi Zhecun, Ding Di and Zhou Lengga. ) Many Shanghai writers who became famous in 1930s and 1940s blurred the boundary between pure literature and popular literature, and some of them became amphibians of pure literature and popular literature. Most of Zhang Ailing's novels, such as Love in a Fallen City, Red Rose and White Rose, The Golden Lock, etc., are both pure literature and popular literature, while those with shallow ideology, such as How Much Hate and Little Ai, are popular works, and Blockade can only be regarded as pure literature in any case. The situation of giving is much simpler. His short stories such as Ruyi Zhu, Phoenix and Seven Women's Books are inseparable from pure literature and popular literature. From the appearance of a popular literature magazine at that time, we can clearly see the mixed pattern of the two factions at the popular level.
However, heterozygosity is limited to heterozygosity. At this time, both schools of novels can write about family love and marriage, and the narrative style and narrative language can be very close, but the ideology is still not at the same level. Compared with Zhang Ailing's The Golden Lock, Zhou Shoujuan's Haitang is much more influential and well-known, but their reading and acceptance are not at the same level. We can also find this problem by studying several famous publications which were successfully published by Yuanyang Butterfly School and Shanghai School. For example, 1926, the pictorial Companion, which was first edited by Wu and Zhou Shoujuan, was a publication of Yuanyang Butterfly School. From March, 65438 to August, 933, Liang De took over editing and made great efforts to reform. Up to 40,000 to 50,000 copies can be published in each issue, which has a wide influence not only in China, but also in Southeast Asia. The direction of his reform is to make "Good Friend" become Shanghai Pictorial at once, rather than let it naturally evolve from "butterfly" to Shanghai style. Because there are not many places where Liang needs to learn to be thin, even the closest cover girl has changed from a prostitute to a professional woman and a movie star. For example, the introduction of world art photography works, the insertion of modern scientific and technological knowledge, the publication of modernist novels, especially the works of Mu Shiying, Shi Zhecun and Ye Lingfeng's New Sensation School, and the bilingual descriptions in Chinese and English after 25 issues, etc. It can be seen how far it is from the old-school atmosphere of Yuanyang Butterfly School. Vientiane should also look at it this way. We can't just see the articles of the two factions appear in one magazine at the same time, so it is considered as the complete infiltration of elegance and popularity. After Vientiane was edited by Ling Ke more than two years ago, the weather changed greatly and it became a new Shanghai-style magazine with food, clothing, housing and transportation and serious things. But when we look at novels serialized at the same time, such as Tears in the Eyes by Zhang Henshui, Comics by Zhang Ailing and Yuan Ye by Shi Tuo, popularity means popularity, pure literature means pure literature, and intermediary means intermediary. The effective distance between them can not be ignored.
The most significant thing is Vientiane's discussion on "popular literature". Chen Dieyi put forward that "the purpose of advocating popular literature is to break through the strict barrier between the old and the new" [9]. But his idea is to unify the old and new literature under the banner of popular literature. How is that possible? This is the wishful thinking of popular writers. We can say that China literature, which has gone through the "direction of workers, peasants and soldiers" in the past, has, in a sense, gone through a vigorous course under the banner of "popularization", "folk" and "popularization", but what is the situation? There seems to be no sign of narrowing the gap between popular works and avant-garde works nowadays. So it is not feasible to artificially stipulate the combination of pure literature and popular literature. If we carefully study the history of Shanghai literature and the history of Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School, it may be a meaningful topic to see how the new literature between them affects the modernization adjustment of the old popular literature and how the old popular literature affects the marketization and citizenization of the new literature department.