Cover news reporter Zhang Jie Intern Jiang Ruiyao
Before writing the "History of Chinese Citizen Literature", we must first define what is "Citizen Literature" in the Chinese sense. In the view of Xie Taofang, an expert in lexicology and researcher of the Institute of Literature of the Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences, it is a popular, popular literature that expresses civil society in the city after the rise of the civic class in the late feudal society, and its types and forms are complex and diverse, the data are voluminous and scattered, and the historical clues are vague, especially there are many lands to be reclaimed.
Xie Taofang studying at home (Zhang Jie photography)
"Civic literature" is similar to "popular literature", especially the various popular literature that has been popular in the city since the Song Dynasty, such as scripts, lyrics, palace tunes, dramas, miscellaneous dramas, scattered songs, legends, flower parts, seasonal tunes, flower drum words, bullet words, children's books, pseudo-scripts, as well as historical novels, martial arts novels, and so on.
Xie Taofang has long been committed to the study of lexicology, and has authored "Introduction to Song Ci", "History of Chinese Lexicology", "Song Ci Discernment", "Lexical Discernment", "Song Ci Theory Collection", "Tang and Song Lexicography Correction" and so on. Professor Shi Zhi of the University of Macau listed Xie Taofang as "the representative of the fifth generation of centennial lexicology" in the "General Theory of Lexicology in a Hundred Years". Song ci is a literary style that is appreciated by both elegant and popular customs, and popular lyrics are very popular in the civic cultural and entertainment venues of Washi, which has the nature of civic literature, so Xie Taofang also pays attention to popular literature since the Song Dynasty when collecting lexical materials.
2015 edition
He studied Liu Yong's lyrics and developed an interest in the study of "civic literature"
In the spring of 1985, while studying Liu Yong, a famous lyricist of the Northern Song Dynasty, Xie Taofang intuitively noticed the relationship between Liu Yong and the emerging civic trend. In particular, Liu Yong is generally believed to have "accepted the influence of the ideological trend of urban citizens, and because of the decline of the imperial examination, it was impossible to enter the upper social life of the ruling class, so he had to join the ranks of urban folk popular literature and art and write for the lower class of the people."
This sparked his keen interest in the study of "civic literature".
Although academic research on popular literature since the Song Dynasty is a new field with many difficulties and needs to break the mindset of studying lexicology, it has stimulated Xie Taofang's strong interest and spirit of inquiry. In his view, although civic literature is not orthodox, it is part of the objective existence of history. Why they exist, why they are popular, what are desirable, and what are the major flaws are all worth studying.
Xie Taofang spent several years conducting specialized research on Chinese civic literature. Entering this field has given Xie Taofang a fresh understanding of the more heterogeneous side of traditional culture, and also found that there are things that are very full of vitality.
2022 edition
Academic monographs are full of vitality, and the first edition has been published in the fourth edition in the past 25 years
His strong research interest prompted Xie Taofang to write a history of Chinese Citizens' Literature. In this book, Xie Taofang conducted the first systematic study of literary knowledge that is closely related to the public, such as scripts, rap literature, drama and novels, which have attracted little attention in literary history.
In 1997, after being first published by the Sichuan People's Publishing House, the History of Chinese Citizen Literature became the first academic monograph in China devoted to the study of "Chinese Citizen Literature". It was revised and republished twice in 2003 and 2021. In the spring of 2022, the supplementary edition was once again launched by the Sichuan People's Publishing House, which shows its academic value and vitality.
In this book, we can see Xie Taofang's popular lyrics to the Song Dynasty, the portrait of the citizens and women in the Song Dynasty novels, the formation of the "reunion" pattern of Chinese literature, the secular themes of the Yuanren miscellaneous dramas, the civic interests of the Yuanren Sanqu, the main themes of the four classical Novels in China, the literary nature and artistic value of the small tune songs in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the artistic characteristics of the Fengyang Flower Drum Words, the rise and fall of the recent vernacular Qinglou novels, the modern martial arts novels and Traditional Chinese culture, the investigation of the socialization process of Chinese civil literature, and the psychological analysis of the audience of Chinese citizens' literature , all have in-depth and systematic research.
Since its birth in the 11th century AD, Chinese civic literature has long occupied the mass culture market after nearly a thousand years of development. Civic literature is essentially pastime literature, and the audience experiences a certain sense of beauty from the performance and reading appreciation of literature and art, and to a certain extent satisfies the psychology of curiosity, thereby obtaining pleasure and happiness.
The audience of civic literature is very wide-ranging, and they like not only the real stories of civil society, but also other historical, chivalrous, and worldly stories. From them, they construct an ideal world with ideal figures representing various value tendencies, accept the simple ethical and moral concepts of the people, and obtain various useful cultural knowledge. When combing and writing the history of civic literature, Xie Taofang also does not hide some of his basic value judgments, such as affirming the lively and positive and anti-feudal consciousness in civic literature, and criticizing the negative and vulgar side.