In fact, some criticisms are often copies of ready-made arguments. Copying more ready-made arguments becomes the conclusion of "in a word". Therefore, this definite theory is "for people to use", and so on, the belief will be firm. However, the deeper you know about this school, you will inevitably have doubts about the past "critical conclusions." Whenever the tide of historical change or the eve of revolutionary wave strikes, the fighting function and educational function of literature and art will always be emphasized to the extreme. In modern literature, Liang Qichao is a representative figure who advocates this function. He said: "If you want the people of a new country, you must first create a novel of a new country. Therefore, if you want new morality, you must have new novels; If you want a new religion, you must have a new novel: if you want a new politics, you must have a new novel; If you want new customs, you must have new novels; If you want to learn new skills, you must learn new novels; Even if you want a new heart and a new personality, you must create a new novel. Why? Novels have incredible power to dominate mankind. "
Liang Qichao promoted the novel to the height of "the avenue in the avenue", and the novel became a panacea for the theory of "greatness" and saving the country and the people. However, in China's literary tradition, novels have always been regarded as "novels in the alley". Zhu Ziqing, a new literature writer, saw this: "In the tradition of China literature, novels and lyrics (including operas) are all novels in the alley, just because they are entertaining and not serious. Not serious is not serious; Novels are usually called "leisure books", not serious books ... The novels of Yuanyang Butterfly School are for people to entertain after drinking, but they are authentic novels of China. China's novels have always been based on "strange stories from a strange studio" and "legends", while "strangeness" and "strangeness" are not serious things. The collection of novels compiled by people in the Ming Dynasty is called "Three Words and Two Beats" ... Obviously, Jing Jing focuses on "strangeness." Sanyan "... although it focuses on" persuading the vulgar ",it still needs to surprise people to receive the effect of" persuading the vulgar "... Ancient and modern wonders still belong to" strangeness ". This kind of "strangeness" just makes people enjoy themselves after drinking. "
The members of Yuanyang Butterfly School are the conscious successors of this traditional functional view. Yao Hechu quoted the classics in Introduction to Fiction: "According to Liu Xiang's Seven Laws and History of Han, novels are based on gossip and hearsay, and most of them are anecdotes." Looking at the records in Qilue and Sui Shu Jingjizhi again, we can see that' all works with a slightly ordinary artistic concept and a slightly smaller scope can be classified as novels'. It's just a path. "This functionalist view of literature conflicts with revolutionary writers who advocated blood and tears literature and had a sense of historical mission at that time. The Literature Research Association initiated by Shen Yanbing and Zhou Zuoren criticized the literary view of "treating literature and art as a game when you are happy or as a pastime when you are frustrated" and the literary phenomenon under the guidance of this literary view. If this criticism is "contextualized", the literature regarded as a game or a pastime undoubtedly refers to the so-called "shady literature" and "narrow evil novels" since the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, and refers to the "Yuanyang Butterfly School" and other popular literature relying on newspapers, magazines and readers' markets. Before and after this, Shen Yanbing and Zhou Zuoren published many rhetorical articles criticizing "Saturday School" and "Yuanyang Butterfly School" and other game entertainment literature.
Moreover, not only the people in the literature research society, but also almost everyone in the new culture camp criticized and denied that the literature of Yuanyang Butterfly School was a remnant of the old feudal literature and an obstacle and antithesis to the establishment of new literature. The writers of new literature believe that the literature of Yuanyang Butterfly School is not only a stumbling block to the creation of new literature, but also their ideas and tendencies of leisure games are not conducive to the transformation and reconstruction of national character, the improvement and renewal of life and society, China's efforts to return from the "periphery" to the "center", the realization of a modern nation-state, and in a word, the realization of China's historical goal of modernization and the dream of "becoming a powerful country". Therefore, out of the position and pursuit of this enlightenment literature view with the nation-state as the ultimate concern, the literature research society and the new literature camp have issued fierce criticisms on urban popular literature such as Yuanyang Butterfly School. Moreover, after the May 4th Movement, the contempt and criticism of urban popular literature by the new literature did not end. The martial arts novels, detective romance novels and so-called "citizen literature" represented by the martial arts film Burning Red Lotus Temple included Lu Xun and Mao Dun.
The criticism of the new literature camp on the above-mentioned urban popular literature has its historical rationality and necessity in terms of its enlightenment literature view and opening up a road and space for the creation and development of new literature. They criticized and cleaned up urban popular literature such as Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School, because they thought that this kind of literature was not conducive to or even hindered China from becoming a modern nation-state and hindered China's progress. Therefore, they have to criticize and clean up the "old world" as the fundamental mission of this modernity. In the eyes of these pioneers who pursue the modernization of China's literature, the literature that aims at entertainment and consumption games, although it was born before or existed at the same time as the new literature, has no modernity at all, and is the garbage of history and times. The mission of revolutionary writers is to inspire and cultivate a generation of national elites with their novels. Therefore, in the historical stage of modern literature, the functions of games and recreation are often regarded as the negative effects of playthings and are repeatedly denied. However, since "entertainment" is one of the functions of literature itself, people can only deny it for a certain period of time and exercise restraint to highlight other functions, but can't completely deprive the function itself. Even in the era when the fighting function of literature is particularly needed, readers at other levels in the city still stay on the steps of treating novels as "paths in the path", that is, ordinary people, or "ordinary people". First of all, in the eyes of ordinary people, playing the role of games and entertainment is their need to adjust their lives. With the formation of a new metropolis and the acceleration of industrial machinery gears, the demand for urban popular novels has also soared. With the unprecedented increase in the pace and frequency of life, people feel that the strings of the brain and muscles are too tight, and they need to relax their nerves that are too tightly twisted by machinery after work or at night. This requires recreation, and reading novels is one of the ways of entertainment and adjustment. Secondly, when the surrounding environment is like a kaleidoscope, especially in a new city like Shanghai, it is bizarre, colorful and full of surprises. Ordinary people also hope to know the surrounding environment through urban popular literature, so as to enhance their adaptability and avoid falling into the trap of life. Third, these "ordinary people" generally lack new consciousness, but they have also received some kind of popular literature education, that is, reading popular literature after drinking tea and drinking, and being subtly taught and punished in anger and surprise. Therefore, in the modern literary revolution, this first-class genre is not oriented to the national elite, but mainly to the general public, so it can be called a kind of citizen literature and art, "civilian" literature.
However, it is not out of reach with intellectuals. Among intellectuals, there are obviously two kinds: one is readers who love new literature and art, and they often reject popular literature because of the contradiction of literary functions; The other is the readers who dabble in old and new novels on weekdays. They are often attracted by the interest and readability of popular literature, firmly controlled by its fascinating storyline and nervous suspense, and are also timid in the face of excellent popular literature works. But the problem is that they will not praise or introduce popular literature in public and create a benign public opinion for it. It seems to be beneath your dignity to be attracted by popular literature, because some intellectuals have always regarded popular literature as synonymous with low taste. This constitutes a contradiction of duplicity: "I read it with relish in the dark, but I don't want to talk about it in the light", "I was moved by it and thought it was inferior emotionally and intellectually". This subtle mentality is a kind of schizophrenia that hides half of her face in front of us behind her guitar.
Whether ordinary people or some intellectuals, the attractive magnetic force of popular literature comes from interest, which is an essential element to achieve the purpose of game recreation and the soul of entertainment function. Interest is also the medium and bridge for popular literature to "persuade the vulgar" and "educate". However, interest was once regarded by new writers as an anesthetic for "playing with things and dreaming of death", so that Zhu Ziqing also felt this way: "But if serious works pay attention to seriousness and people's nature, regardless of artistry, rigid long faces make people close, readers will probably hide in those publications. Lu Xun said: "In fact, people who are sad and angry and writers need rest and happiness from time to time. "This just shows that fun and entertainment functions are innocent. Popular literature pays attention to readability and plot. Pay attention to the twists and turns of the plot, the twists and turns, the ups and downs, and the climax. Among the readers of China's modern popular novels, there are fans of "Marriage in distress situation" and "Golden Powder Family", that is, they gradually enter the intoxicated state from fun, thus achieving the effect of entertainment. This has something to do with our fans of "Martial Arts" and "Jin Yong" in the 1970s and 1980s. " Fans of Gu Long; Very similar to the fans of the romance novel Qiong Yao. This also shows that popular literature has its vigorous existence! Objectively speaking, this school of urban popular literature, which inherits the traditional innovative development consciousness of China's classical novels, has made some contributions to the development history of modern literature, although it has its limitations. Many of these literary works are very good, and compared with some new literature with similar themes, they are not inferior. The "dark and narrow evil" literature of Yuanyang Butterfly School is basically the product of China's pursuit of social modernization and literary modernization, and they are modern things in themselves.
In fact, when Yuanyang Butterfly School first came out, it even advertised itself as a "new novel", directly inherited the "new novel" in the late Qing Dynasty, accepted the influence of western novels, and made important contributions to the development of China's novels: China's first novel describing the love of monks was written by Su, the founder of Yuanyang Butterfly School, as Zhou Zuoren called it. China's first novel praising the widow's love is the masterpiece of Yuanyang Butterfly School, The Soul of the Jade Pear. China's first diary novel is the History of Snow Tears written by Xu Zhenya, the author of The Soul of the Jade Pear. China's first epistolary novel is Ming Hong written by a master of Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School. Mandarin ducks and butterflies have made innovations in both content and form. In the literary world in the early Republic of China, the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School represented the level of China literature at that time, whether from the extensive use of classical Chinese or from the innovation of content and form. It creates both pure literature and popular literature. The rise of new literature in the May 4th Movement and the appearance of new pure literature forced Yuanyang Butterfly School to go to popular literature completely. Xu Zhenya, Li and Wu Shuangruo, who resisted this transformation, left the ranks of writers successively, while Bao and Zhou Shoujuan, who adapted to this transformation, occupied the popular literary world. The change from pure literature, popular literature to complete popular literature determines that popular literature accepts the influence of pure literature, which is manifested in the infiltration of pure literature into popular literature. China's popular novels, for example, are inherently plot-oriented. At this time, psychological description and scene description are widely used, and attention is also paid to expressing the inner world of the characters. From the 1920s to the 1940s, we can see the transformation of popular novels from the traditional "chapter and sentence style" to modern novels, which is full of the infiltration of pure literature into popular literature. Qiong Yao and Jin Yong's novels only follow the traditional "romance" and "martial arts" in subject matter. Compared with traditional popular novels, the thoughts, feelings and forms of novels have been completely modernized. In contemporary novels, the boundary between pure literature and popular literature is increasingly blurred: some works regarded as pure literature should be regarded as popular novels according to western standards; Some works that have never been regarded as popular novels, such as Jin Yong's works, are regarded as pure literature by some university forums. Perhaps, this in itself can prove to what extent the gap between pure literature and popular literature has narrowed.
Although according to the standards of the May 4th New Literature, these innovations are not enough. Writers dare not overthrow feudal ethics, dare not let monks and widows in love marry their lovers, and tend to be kitsch. However, the evaluation of literary history is based on the fact that it provides more things than the predecessors. Therefore, the new literature has reason to criticize the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School, but today's literary historians cannot deny the contribution of the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School. In the past, there were some unfair or misleading comments on Yuanyang Butterfly School, and the conclusion was biased, which was a total denial of it in the name of "revolutionary literature" and the product of unscientific academic atmosphere. When we treat this school today, we should correctly understand its history and status and affirm its historical significance. Look at him objectively, and look at the history of modern literature in China objectively. Today, with the emancipation of the mind, many people have seen the value of Yuanyang Butterfly School again, and the Yuanyang Butterfly School, which had already died out, revived at the end of the 20th century. Many works of the new era have emerged. The evaluation of Yuanyang Butterfly School is also fair. It is very common that literary groups or literature and art decline in a certain period and recover after a period of time, which is usually called "rebirthing".