Literary Modernity in Perspective

Modern Chinese literature needs to be understood in its social and historical conditions at the turn of the nineteenth century to the twentieth, which witnessed the end of Chinese dynastic history and the rise of modernity in China. The concept of “modernity” was defined against the old imperial system, and literary modernity manifested itself as the vernacular replaced the classical language, and a whole set of new genres, ideas, and values prevailed over the traditional ones. In a very different world today, there is much rethinking of modern Chinese literature and literary history since the May Fourth new culture movement, a revaluation of tradition, and a revived interest in Confucianism. This must be understood in the global context economically, politically, and culturally, in particular with regard to the critique of modernity in Western postmodern and postcolonial theories. To understand literary “modernity” in China therefore calls for a contextual approach that puts the concept in perspective and sees it in its historical circumstances, past and present.