Why has Internet literature been able to flourish in the past 20 years when traditional literature has declined, but has inherited and carried forward the fine tradition of Ming and Qing Chinese novels written by relatively pure free writers? Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Many people are subconsciously avoiding a key question, that is, in fact, there were royal literati in court literature in ancient times, but really excellent works, whether it is "Words in the Golden Bottle" or "Dream of Red Mansions", or "The Appearance of Officialdom", or even "Shushan" and "Romance of the Gods", are actually written by completely free online writers now.

It is basic common sense to read a literary work before you can start a critique of it. However, not long ago, a so-called "New Wave" critic reiterated this common sense, arguing that "as a literary critic, you should start by reading a large number of texts and discuss issues on the basis of reading works." Skipping the work and talking about theory is, in the final analysis, sacrificing the basics. In this regard, some media reported on the title of "'Literary Criticism' Can't Ignore Texts", which attracted some attention in the literary circles.

The dissatisfaction of this "New Wave" critic with the current literary criticism's neglect of text and theory actually conceals a more important question, that is, what is the value and dignity of contemporary literary criticism? Where will contemporary literary criticism go? The so-called "New Wave" critics often turn a blind eye to the main problems of contemporary literary criticism -- the paradigm shift of criticism, the change of aesthetic leadership, and so on -- or even keep silent. In fact, these are the most important problems that hinder the upgrading and development of literary criticism at present.

In order to make the problem clear, it is necessary to first support this "trendy" critic and talk about the importance of the text.

The text we are talking about here actually means close reading of the text, that is, before starting criticism, we should first study the work, familiarize ourselves with the work, and taste the work, but unfortunately, this requirement that is close to the bottom line for literary criticism is not done well in the literary world.

This is mainly manifested in the following aspects: First, some master's and doctoral students who graduated from modern and contemporary literature in the Chinese department of some universities, when talking about contemporary literature, they can often only talk about the 1990s, and it seems that contemporary literature ended in the 1990s. This shows that they have basically not paid attention to the current literary creation, but some of them not only do not reflect on it, but instead intensify it, taking ignorance as glory, and are very disdainful of the current literary creation.

This situation reflects the current shortcomings of Chinese education in universities, especially the education of modern and contemporary literature. To be honest, the reason why there are such ignorant and fearless students is mainly because many teachers in the university's Chinese department think that the current literary creation is not worth mentioning, so even if they talk about "contemporary literature", most of them talk about the 1990s.

Second, some "successful" critics in the critic circle are either busy rushing to the scene, or they are in the way, or they have become slippery, and they do not read the work, or they do not read the work seriously, so they rashly participate in the work seminar, or write a review, resulting in a low quality of commentary, and the impact is naturally not good.

I once saw a critic write a review to a writer, and in an article of just 3,000 words, there were more than 2,000 words about the binding and layout of the book, and about the writer's origin and work. In some seminars on writers' works, it is not uncommon to hear statements that are either marginal or upside down, often due to neglect to read the text.

Third, some academic critics, instead of "I note the Six Classics", but "the Six Classics note me", do not study the text deeply, or although they have carefully studied the text, they put the cart before the horse, and do not use their own theories to deepen the interpretation of their works, but use their works to demonstrate the magic of their own theories, resulting in some review articles either digressing for thousands of miles, or being blunt and boring, and their effects and influence are unsatisfactory. For the three types of "critics" mentioned above, the requirement of "not turning a blind eye to the text" is reasonable.

However, just as we must admit that there is a problem of "turning a blind eye to the text" in the world of literary criticism, and as a result, literary criticism is now subject to widespread skepticism and even disrepute – on more than one occasion I have seen some critics laugh at themselves before initiating criticism for the unbearable situation of looking at their works in detail, we must also admit that to a considerable extent this problem has been magnified and obscured the main problem, or rather, the main problem (e.g., "turning a blind eye to the textWhy?), because after all, the three types of commentators who are either "ignorant" or "fearless" mentioned above are only a minority in the critical world.

To be honest, in the world of literary criticism, everyone basically knows who "turns a blind eye to the text", but just tacitly. Sometimes, writers need these "text-blind" critics to write reviews for themselves or invite them to workshops on their work, either because they have already made a name for themselves and their names are a good signboard even though they don't read their works seriously anymore, or because these critics have discursive platforms such as journals in their hands, and with such a platform, whether or not to read the work is a secondary issue.

At this point, the problem gradually emerges: the main reason for the lack of credibility of current literary criticism is the lack of value judgment, which lacks both aesthetic value and historical value judgment.

In today's literary world, the reason why writers need critics to write reviews or invite critics to participate in seminars on their works is of course to see profound critical texts or hear wonderful reviews. But to be honest, this can only be an unattainable hope at the moment, and more often than not, writers are spending money to make money.

They hope to earn fame for themselves through such activities, expand their influence in the literary world, and thus open the way for their future creations.

To say a word of conscience, the number of literary creations is so large now, especially in recent years, there are more than 4,000 novels every year, plus short and medium stories, the number is even greater, and there are still a lot of good works, especially some novellas, which are not inferior to the world.

More than one critic has this idea. But unfortunately, in the face of such literary facts, we rarely see a review article that affirms a certain excellent work from the bottom of our hearts and with a strong sense of appreciation, that is, we don't even have the passion for praise, and what we write is just some lukewarm words.

Correspondingly, in the face of those bad works, we rarely see visceral critical articles. If you read the review articles that are full of sweat, you will find that we seem to have entered the golden age of literature, and every work we face is a good work, a great work, especially the works of famous writers, and it is praised to the sky.

But if you read these works carefully, you will be disappointed, because you will find that the works are very different from the critics' comments. It is precisely this lack or reversal of value judgment that makes our literary criticism lose its credibility. Related to this is the embarrassment of young critics: as a new force in the literary world, especially in the critic world, young critics are often people who read works and write reviews carefully, and their comments have a certain vitality and vitality, but due to the "unspoken rule" of the critics that they value seniority rather than level, these young critics only sit at the bottom of relevant activities, and sometimes even just embellishment.

In the long run, some young critics have gradually "opened their minds" and began to abandon their roots, no longer attaching importance to studying their works and improving their critical ability, but instead trying to manage their networks, accumulate resources, and rely on resources or connections to "mix" the critics' circles and take a shortcut. As a result, a vicious circle is inevitable, and the situation gets worse and worse. This is the root cause of "turning a blind eye to the text".

So, the question arises again: why is there an absence of value judgment in literary criticism?

In fact, the answer to this question is already implicit in the above narrative, in short, because our literary criticism has become overly professional. At present, there are many people who sign articles as "literary critics," and it can be said that they have grasped a large number of them, but the writers know very well who the "real" "literary critics" are: First, leaders and experts at all levels in charge of creative research in the writers' associations; second, editors-in-chief, deputy editors-in-chief, and editors of relevant literary newspapers and periodicals; and third, professors, associate professors, researchers, and associate researchers who study modern and contemporary literature in universities and research institutes, especially well-known universities and research institutes.

After sorting it out in this way, the problem is clear: literary criticism is roughly a matter in this circle, and as long as you enter this circle, there is "work" to do. With such a "system guarantee", the competitive spirit of "critics" will naturally fade, and the quality of works will gradually become "relativistic".

In this way, it is no wonder that the value judgment is not absent. At present, one of the major opinions of the critics is that "macro criticism, micro affirmation" -- when we talk about literature as a whole, it is full of problems and chaos; when we talk about the works of specific writers, they are all great writers and good works -- this is the symptom of this problem: Literary criticism has become a "face project." In such an environment, what is so strange about the emergence of someone who "turns a blind eye to the text"?

This brings us to a deeper problem, the problem of a paradigm shift in criticism.

The reason is very simple: The above-mentioned strange situation in the critic circles is the result of the "Westernization" and "new wave" of the criticism paradigm that has been formed within a certain range since the 1980s.

On this issue, some "new wave" critics believe that in the fifties and sixties of the last century, not everyone could be called a critic, "at that time, most critics were officials, either editors-in-chief of magazines or newspapers," "they did criticism not to see whether novels were well written, but to see whether they conformed to literary and artistic policies," and "at that time, critics had the power to win over life and death."

When a work is criticized, the work may be broken. Critics said that the writer had a great influence, and that "this situation lasted until the 1970s". This slightly playful narrative shows the basic situation of China's literary and artistic criticism in the fifties and sixties of the last century: Since literature and art are the core undertakings related to the leadership of socialist culture, the party and the state attach great importance to it, and the result of attaching importance to it is to deeply intervene in and strengthen leadership, and the means of strengthening leadership is to strengthen literary and artistic criticism.

Therefore, most of the critics at that time were staff members and managers of the party's and the state's literary and artistic leading departments, and some were even senior leaders, such as Zhou Yang, who served as the vice minister of ****** in charge of literary and artistic work after the founding of the People's Republic of China, but he was also a pivotal literary critic. Mao Dun, Lin Mohan and others, most of whom are also like this, are not only the party's literary and artistic leading cadres, but also indispensable excellent critics.

This paradigm of criticism played a very important role in the construction of literature and art in the early years of New China, and effectively promoted the development of socialist literature and art, especially socialist realist literature and art. However, in practice, some problems have also arisen that cannot be ignored, such as the vulgar sociology in literary and artistic criticism, such as the problem that literary and artistic criticism sometimes evolves into political criticism and even class struggle, which has brought certain harm to China's socialist literary and artistic undertakings.

Therefore, after the new period, as the focus of work shifted to economic construction as the central task, our party and state also appropriately withdrew from the specific field of literary and artistic criticism, and gradually cede specific literary and artistic criticism to university professors, managers of relevant departments, and researchers, so that they gradually became specialized and professionalized.

Against this background, some so-called "New Wave" critics, on the one hand, re-evaluated "revolutionary literature and art" through methods such as "rewriting literary history", and gradually marginalized and even stigmatized it; on the other hand, by praising "scar literature", "reflective literature", "root-seeking literature" and their representative writers, they established the legitimate status of modernist and even postmodernist literature, and realized the replacement of aesthetic leadership, and in the process they also established their prestige and authority in the critical circles.

It should be said that in this process, some "trendy" critics are still very elite and professional, which makes their comments not only "trendy", but also have a certain "standard". However, with the deepening of the process of marketization in Chinese society and the popularity of consumerism, this kind of elite consciousness and professionalism have gradually dispersed, and this specialized and professional criticism paradigm has gradually become invalid, the threshold of literary criticism has become lower and lower, the standards have become more and more arbitrary, and gradually marketized, secularized and even marketized, and literary criticism has ceased to be glorious in the mid-1990s.

Because some "New Wave" critics have replaced realism, especially socialist realism, with the aesthetic leadership of modernism and postmodernism, they are not only unable to maintain objectivity when conducting literary criticism, but are also quite paranoid.

For example, when they "rewrote the history of literature", they almost completely rejected revolutionary literature and art, while sparing no effort to praise and affirm the works of their "contemporary" writers. For example, when talking about "red classics", some "trendy" critics insist that "this concept is not scientific", because "only after a long period of testing, tempering, and excellence, can it be called a 'classic'." In a country like China, where cultural traditions have a long history, if you want to find classic works, they can only be works that have passed down from ancient times and have stood the test of time. The so-called history of contemporary literature has only developed for more than 50 years.

'Red classic', the concept itself is a mockery and deconstruction of the word 'classic'". Here, the length of time is the only criterion for whether it is a classic or not, but when it comes to their "contemporary" writer Jia Pingwa's novel "Qin Cavity" or Yu Hua's novel "Brothers", this time criterion is invalid, and they unthinkingly compare Jia Pingwa's "Qin Cavity" with Shen Congwen's "The Long River", and Yu Hua's "Brothers" side by side with Rabelais's "The Legend of the Giant", bluntly saying that ""Brothers" is a strange book of our time, and for Yu Hua, it seems to be an unexpected creative miracle that fell from the sky.

Such a high evaluation is even more classic than the classics, but they may have forgotten that these two works have only been a few years since he wrote the review article, and I really don't know what standard they used to enshrine them as "classics". This paranoia, which only values "contemporaries", is also a symptom of the confusion of the current critical standards. Their comments on post-70s writers also have such problems implicitly or explicitly.

It can be said that with the development of the times, it is now a critical period for the adjustment of the paradigm of literature and criticism. Therefore, for the current critics, especially those young critics who are aspiring to criticism, the first priority is not to read the text, but to adjust the paradigm of criticism, and to change the aesthetic leadership.

If we fail to achieve a paradigm upgrade of criticism and a change of aesthetic leadership on the basis of the effective inheritance of all excellent literary heritages, including "revolutionary literature and art", even if we carefully read all the texts, we will still achieve nothing in the field of literature, and we will still be complete failures. Conversely, we may encounter difficulties and even failures, but we may also create a new world.

The above is probably the so-called reflection of traditional literature at present. Speaking from the truth, traditional literature is probably from the model drama and "Sunny Day" that began in 1949 to the later scar literature, reform novels, and root-seeking novels are actually slowly changing from closely following politics to staying away from politics. And it is impossible for a hundred flowers to bloom and a hundred schools of thought to contend on these two paths. In fact, this is the fundamental reason for the decline of traditional literature.

The articles are written for the time, and the songs and poems are written for the sake of things. Online literature has probably achieved these two sentences. Pure literati, undisturbed writing, will have a masterpiece.

"Why can't our school always train outstanding talents?" was asked by Qian Lao in 2005 when ****** visited Qian Xuesen. In fact, the answer is that universities are not pure, and the current education system does not think about cultivating masters and talents in the past.

The university is a small society, Vanity Fair. Associations of all kinds have completely lost their original meaning. At this time, online literature may be lucky, like the lotus, to be able to drill out of the mud-like atmosphere. Out of the mud but not stained, clear ripples but not demons!(To be continued.) )