The future trend of literature

Modern linguistics holds that literature, as a signifier, has no fixed eternal reference. In other words, literature is not a transcendental objective research object, but is constantly given a new look and posture with the development and changes of the times and society. Liu Xie said in "Wen Xin Diao Long Time Series" that "the change of literature takes the world as the change, and the rise and fall takes the time series as the change", which is the truth.

Literature has experienced great changes since its evolution, and the rapid development of modern information society is still playing a revolutionary role in the mode of production, communication and reading of literature. In the new context, two important issues, "What is literature" and "What is the essence of literature", have been re-examined and reflected. Undoubtedly, with the advent of the consumer society and the internet age, traditional literary concepts and literary forms have been greatly impacted. What kind of discourse mechanism and ideology is the meaning of literature and its rules subject to, which has once again become the focus of writers and literary researchers.

In fact, since Plato, the legitimacy of literature as a discipline and its boundaries have been questioned from time to time. Plato thought in The Republic: "Literature and art are imitations of nature." This kind of nature is "nature" based on "principle", so it is "copy copy", "shadow shadow" and "separated from truth by three layers"1At the beginning of the 9th century, Hegel once pointed out that art has no position in front of industry. "As far as its highest function is concerned, art is a thing of the past for us modern people, so it has lost its true truth and life, and it can no longer maintain its necessity and lofty status in reality." In his view, art originates from feeling, emotion, perception and imagination, and is the product of human irrationality. It expresses and reaches the truth in perceptual form. On the one hand, the progress of science and technology enriches the material life of human beings, but also makes the spiritual life of human beings poorer. In the era of emphasizing rationality, reason, rules and technology, the fate of art is death and end.

Since19th century, the literary concept in essentialism has been shaken unprecedentedly. Nietzsche, Derrida, Barthes, Fromm and others all questioned the literary view of essentialism. In recent years, the disintegration of traditional literary concepts has accelerated, posing a severe challenge to contemporary literary theory. Under this background, the new trend of literary research mainly includes the following aspects: first, the change from grand narration to private writing; Second, from value revaluation to value reconstruction; Thirdly, from aesthetic appeal to cultural text; Fourth, from elite literature to civilian literature.

From the specific text forms, there are mainly new literary types such as ecological literature, network literature, cultural text and short message literature.

(1) ecological literature. Ecology originally belongs to the research field of environmental science or biology, but with the consequences of global warming, resource shortage and environmental degradation brought by industrial society, human beings have to bear their own ecological responsibilities. When this responsibility is embodied by writers in the form of literature, ecological literature or environmental literature comes into being. As a discipline term, "ecological literature" was first put forward by American scholar Mikel 1974 in The Tragedy of Being: An Ecological Study of Literature. At that time, he adopted the term "literacy ecology". From 65438 to 0978, American scholar Rucker published Literature and Ecology: An Experiment of Ecological Criticism, and used the term "ecological criticism" for the first time. Since then, ecological literature and ecological criticism have gradually established their own theoretical framework in the field of literature. With the gradual development of eco-literature, in the future literary landscape, its existence may not only be a literary style, but also a view of existence and world outlook.

(2) Network literature. The appearance of computer network has brought great changes to the world today. Canadian scholar McLuhan summed up this change with "global village" and "information age". Network has its own advantages in interpersonal communication. In this new environment, a new category-network literature has also appeared in the field of literature. Many writers and critics have begun to classify and study it theoretically, and the criticism, research and debate about online literature are also developing. The appearance of network literature has caused many challenges to traditional literature and literary concepts. However, the future development trend and prospect of online literature is still a controversial and worthy of study.

(3) Cultural texts. Nowadays, literature is regarded as a branch or dimension of culture, and literature is only the most aesthetic artistic expression. However, as far as the evolution of literary concept itself is concerned, an important feature of miscellaneous literature is its cultural nature. The disciplinary boundary of traditional literature is dismantled and integrated by the broader concept of "culture". This change in literature is closely related to the trend of western semiotics and cultural studies. The main feature of cultural texts is the fusion of literature and culture. The style of classic literature is often an artistic world with independent personality created by elite intellectuals, while cultural texts form the temporal correspondence between literature and popular culture. There are many forms of western cultural texts, such as post-colonial literature, female literature, urban literature and so on. In China, there are fashion books and cultural essays. The so-called fashion reader refers to the naming of a newly formed novel form, which is a summary and identification of the novel form that appeared in the early 1990 s, rose in the late 1990 s and formed in the era of literature marketization. As far as its narrative style is concerned, it is often a simulation of the original ecology of a society; Its aesthetic characteristics are: fashion, complexity, market planning consciousness and urban popular style. There are many forms of cultural texts. Generally speaking, it presents a situation of diversity and noisy language. The so-called cultural prose refers to the gradual narrowing of the space-time distance and cultural differences between individuals under the guidance of the cultural market in the consumer society. Prose has changed from a gentle hometown of the traditional individual world to a literary prose that writes the cultural character of the great era, and it often reconstructs the current subject personality with heavy cultural and historical reflection.

(4) SMS literature. The popularity of the Internet and mobile phones has made human communication more convenient and faster, especially the number of mobile phones owned by the public has doubled in a short time. An important result of the popularity of mobile phones is the diversification of communication methods, such as talking, texting and surfing the Internet. In the era of mobile phones, literature has also become widely popular in the form of short messages. Short message literature (or mobile phone literature, "thumb literature") was originally a short message in the language of life communication, and then gradually established a simple, concise, humorous and humorous basic discourse mechanism, which can spread to all directions in an instant. At first, short message literature was just simple, lively and literary sentences or doggerel. Later, short and pithy poems, essays and novels appeared, and even serious writers intervened in creation and awards. This shows that short message literature or mobile phone literature has attracted the attention of literary circles, and it may enter the study of literary theory in a more mature form in future social life.

[Selected readings of original classics]

The so-called ecological responsibility is human's responsibility to nature as a whole, and the so-called return to nature is to return to the ecological whole, reconfirm the correct position of human beings in nature as a whole, restore and rebuild harmony with nature as a whole and other components in the whole, and the close relationship between life and death and * * *.

Ecological literature is a literature based on ecological holism, with the overall interests of the ecosystem as the highest value, which investigates and expresses the relationship between nature and people and explores the social roots of ecological crisis. Ecological responsibility, civilization criticism, ecological ideal and ecological early warning are its outstanding characteristics.

The core question that eco-writers and eco-literature researchers want to discuss is: What has gone wrong with human civilization and development, and what big mistake has caused such a serious ecological crisis that endangers the whole earth and all life? What is the relationship between heaven and man? How should human beings treat nature? In order to effectively alleviate and eventually eliminate the ecological crisis and ensure the sustainable existence of ecology and all life including human beings, what should human beings do and change?

The prosperity of eco-literature and its research is an inevitable manifestation of human beings' urgent need to alleviate and prevent ecological disasters in the field of literature, and it is also an inevitable reflection of writers and scholars' deep concern for the earth and the fate of all life on it in the field of creation and research.

Wang Nuo. European and American ecological literature [M]. Beijing: Peking University Publishing House, 2003: 206, 1 1, 2.

It is the ecological writer (Leopold) who laid the foundation of ecological thought, and the key figure who set off this trend of thought is the ecological writer (Carson). Eco-literary research or eco-criticism began in 1970s, and quickly became a prominent study of literary research in 1990s.

Wang Nuo. European and American ecological literature [M]. Beijing: Peking University Publishing House, February 2003.

Facing the coming 2 1 century, there are two different predictions: the next century will be an era of "prevalence of mental disorders" and the next century will be an "ecological era".

-Lu Shuyuan. A Lynx's Speech —— Reflections on Literature, Spirit and Ecology [M]. Beijing: Social Science Literature Publishing House, 200 1.247.

The so-called "ecology" seems to be no longer just a specialized knowledge. It has evolved into a viewpoint, a viewpoint integrating nature, society, life, environment, material and culture, and a brand-new world outlook that needs to be further improved.

-Lu Shuyuan. Ecological literature and art [M]. Xi 'an: Shaanxi People's Publishing House, 2000: 26.

Because the rhythm form and rhythm induction on which the aesthetic characteristics of literature and art depend are everywhere in the factors of literary ecosystem, literature and art can be directly ecologically related to the level of ecosystem and various factors.

All the factors with life soul and form in the human ecosystem can establish their own corresponding forms in literature and art, including those ideal realms that do not exist in people's real life, and can also project their postures into literature and art to create a "virtual reality" and form people's psychological environment.

-Zeng Yongcheng. Green thinking of literature and art —— Introduction to literary ecology [M]. Beijing: People's Literature Publishing House, 2000: 148.

The so-called environmental literature, based on strengthening people's environmental awareness, not only exposes the bad guys who destroy the environment, but also exposes the ugly and stupid things with weak environmental awareness. It also vigorously eulogized the vast number of environmental protection workers who silently contributed to the vigorous development of environmental protection, and praised the newcomers, new things and new moral fashions who care about the ecological environment and are enthusiastic about environmental protection. At the same time, it describes the magnificent mountains and rivers of the motherland and the wonderful and harmonious relationship between man and nature, thus sublimating people's patriotism and environmental ethics.

Environmental literature is the most cutting-edge and forward-looking literature in China, and it is the root of literature that is closest to life.

-Zeng Yongcheng. Green thinking of literature and art —— Introduction to literary ecology [M]. Beijing: People's Literature Publishing House, 2000: 325.

What is network literature? This is an ongoing controversy. I think network literature is popular literature in the new era. The infinite extension of the Internet has created fertile soil, and the popular free creative space has broadened the world. Without printing, without the complexity of paper, without the restrictions of publishers and booksellers, countless people began to write, and an ordinary article could enter thousands of households in an instant.

Traditional literature is very cultured, elegant and quiet, but it needs to be approached slowly. However, online literature is like a lady with heavy makeup, and anyone can say it. Perhaps this is the attraction of online literature, which has more leisure and self-expression elements and is very easy to read. However, compared with traditional literature, online literature is still rough and random in art, and its mode is still single, which is far from meeting people's higher requirements for beauty.

Network literature not only uses written language, but also uses multimedia voice language and image language. And with the help of some new hardware, software and online literature media, we can develop people's sense of smell, taste and touch, achieve real aesthetic synaesthesia, and let people experience subtle psychological changes such as heartbeat, body temperature, dizziness and allergies on the computer.

The broadening of the choice channels of popular aesthetic culture has changed many people's appreciation habits and cultivated a new generation of "media family", which combines text reading with audio-visual viewing such as sound, pictures and animation, and its all-round acceptance through multi-sensory channels is far more intuitive and enjoyable than simple text reading. Therefore, some experts predict that future literature will exist more as an integral part or accessory of comprehensive electronic art, such as scripts of TV dramas and subtitles of video games.

The rise of network literature has quietly changed the classification of traditional literary types: here, the four-point boundary between documentary literature and fictional literature, literature and non-literature, or poetry, novel, prose and script in traditional literary types has become blurred.

In terms of creative means, network writers need to change pens by machine first, so that hard "code words" can be easily input through the keyboard, or they can use Wantong pen or wireless pressure-sensitive pen for handwriting input, or make voice input on the interactive voice platform.

In the way of conception, the traditional literary conception is completely personalized artistic thinking. Even for collective creation, the scope of brainstorming is very limited, while online creation is not. The original author can set a certain literary theme frame or literary style type, so that many netizens on the Internet can express their opinions on this topic, carry out group artistic conception, and then concentrate their artistic wisdom to create.

The value orientation has changed from artistic reality to virtual reality. The objective reality of realistic literature, the emotional reality of romantic literature and the subjective reality of modernist literature tend to disappear in the network age, because online literature only pays attention to the virtual world created by the text itself and its true expression.

When measuring the value of online literature, netizens seldom have meaningful exploration and metaphorical delay, but only have all-round open multimedia or hypermedia feelings. At this time, personal interests and current feelings will become the basic yardstick for selecting and evaluating online works.

-Ouyang Youquan. Introduction to network literature [M]. Beijing: People's Literature Publishing House, 2003: 8, 9, 44, 45, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49.

In the 20th century, Chinese and foreign literature experienced an evolutionary process from miscellaneous to pure, and then from pure to miscellaneous. First, from miscellaneous to pure, ancient humanistic writing in a broad sense is not only divided into different ways such as literature, history and philosophy, but also the distinction of style is becoming more and more detailed. In the late 20th century, literature broke through from the purity of this style to miscellaneous literature with blurred boundaries.

-Jiang Shuzhuo. The road of critical culture [M]. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2003: 2.

Postmodernism holds that the trajectory of art and culture has shifted from an independent work to an artist's personality, from an eternal object to a short process, and art is no longer an object of observation, but an act and an event, which shows that the artist's emotional artistic charm is lacking and has degenerated to the point of directly shocking the senses.

Wang Yuechuan. Postmodernism culture and aesthetics [M]. Beijing: Peking University Publishing House, 1992: 10.

In his speech, Jameson distinguished the similarities and differences between pan-anthropological culture and daily life culture, and pointed out that the proliferation of cultural industrial products forced researchers to treat objects as cultural products in order to realize their meaning and essence, and modern and post-modern social facts turned these objects into "cultural texts".

Yang Junlei. Research on the Discourse Transformation of China's Contemporary Literary Theory [M]. Beijing: Renmin University of China Press, 2003: 186.

..... Reading means multiple meaning spaces, multiple information contents and multiple technical means. Compared with novels, readers have multiple functions. Just like a platter, or a treasure chest, whenever the content elements and artistic elements related to "fashion" are used by writers, the collage skills of post-modern art are integrated and constructed, thus forming a multi-tone and multi-meaning space complex-"fashion reader".

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..... accurate market research, clear fashion content positioning, rapid writing and production, novel packaging and diversified work promotion methods are the market awareness reflected in the creation process of Fashion Reader.

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The aesthetic feeling and meaningful function of fashion readers match the urban physical landscape such as skyscrapers, antique buildings, boutiques, pedestrian streets, supermarkets, bars and so on. , forming an urban popular style fashion landscape for people to watch, play, relax and enjoy. In this sense, fashion readers are the reflection of the popular style of urban culture in literary creation, and urban fashion is the theme and style that fashion readers can trace back in time. ...

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From the perspective of literary sociology, fashion readers' writing, as a symbolic text of urban desire and fashion, can become a documentary text for us to study contemporary urban cultural psychology. In the fashion reader, the combination and changing trend of urban fashion elements are accurately and timely recorded, and the life information of urban cultural mentality, life style and emotional desire space is conveyed.

..... The composite expression of fashion readers also expands the formal boundary and artistic space of the novel style to a certain extent. Although the composite features of Fashion Reader obviously retain the collage under the influence of post-modernism, it reflects the changing trend of literary forms under the background of contemporary cultural pluralism and composite society.

Li Junguo. Fashion reader: a new variety of contemporary novel creation [M]// Chinese and foreign culture and literary theory: series 10. Chengdu Sichuan Education Press 2003: 55-59.

The rise of cultural prose is the main factor for prose to achieve rich and profound connotation. The new trend of prose, represented by Yu, Zhou Tao, Zhang Chengzhi and Shi Tiesheng, represents a new height of contemporary prose cultural reflection and a far-reaching direction of subjective personality reconstruction.

In terms of artistic taste, their prose embodies the momentum of "great quality" and "great prose", which is far above the mediocre works such as weak, delicate and trivial prose for many years.

Prose has become more colorful, profound and flexible in their works. With broad vision, dignified ideological thickness, profound life experience and eclectic writing momentum, they have added heavy and solid strength to the tide of prose reform.

-Wei Tianxiang. Research on the New Changes of Literature and Art in 1990s [M]. Beijing: Central Party School Press, 2000: 67-68, 68, 68.