Transmutation And Evolution

The most important key factor of Chinese historical novel in 20th century is the modernization of the concept on history science. The concept on history science is not only the basic question of history, but the decisive factor which both promotes and restricts the development of historical novel. It influences and decides the evaluation system on value as well as historical novelist's cognitive structure on history science. Therefore, historical novel in fact is a work of art in which historical novelists'restore human beings'history according to their historical concept, measure of value and aesthetic judgment. Thus, historical novel itself will be restricted by historical novelists'ideology, cognitive structure, attitude, feeling and visual angle of evaluation. In general, there are four modern historical concepts that influence and restrict and development of Chinese historical novel in 20th century. They are historical concept of evolution, historical concept of enlightenment , the historical concept of class struggle and the historical concept of culture. Each popularity and appearance of modern historical concept has greatly changed the general condition and artistic form of the historical novel at the same time. Also it gives us some advice on later development of historical novel.The modernization of the concept on historical novel is the product of the change when the whole Chinese culture changes from tradition to modernism. In the traditional society, historical novel, limited in the field of aesthetics, is mixed together with history science and moral instruction. As a sign of the modernization of literature, historical novel should be free from such a condition and find its own living space, evaluation system and value category. From the exploration of Wu jianren in late Qing Dynasty to the new ideas of Luxun and Yu Dafu and so on, from system construction of Yao Xueyin to the summation of experience of lots of historical novelists in the contemporary era, the concept and theory construction of modern historical novel supplies the theoretic support to the acquirement of the independence of historical novel and its development, and it becomes the motive force of the modernization of Chinese historical novel.During the period of the change from tradition to modernism of Chinese historical novel in 20^th century, novelists, the subjects and history, the objects, greatly changed. In the past, the novelists'own ideas were completely controlled by history itself, for which novelists'subjective initiative on historical cognition and aesthetics got less development. Modern historical novelists, however, try their best to make a breakthrough at such a kind of limit and restriction and put forward their own ideas. So, they make a large difference between modern historical novel and traditional historical novel, and make the modern historical novel get its value function which traditional historical novel doesn't have. Modern historical novel not only echoes the summon of the times, participates in the spiritual culture construction, but also the artistic carrier of subject thought, spiritual world and feeling of modern novelists. Furthermore, modern historical novel makes the same progress with modern literature on characterization and plot design, and reflects the appearance and development of the ideological trend of"The Find of Man"and"The Consciousness of Literature"in this field since the May 4^th Moment of 1919.It is the historical novelists'consciousness to pursue"The Nature of Epic". At the same time it is the standard of evaluating historical novel and the achievement of national literature. So, on the base of defining the exact connotation, this paper evaluates and analyses the success and failure of the historical novel writing style which has the nature of epic ,such as the political history, ideology history and custom history, taking"Li zicheng"written by Yao Xueyin,"River novel"of Li Jieren and"Pillow at the Bai's gate"written by Liu Sifen for instance. If"Li Zicheng"belongs to the normal form of"The nature of epic", then the writing style of the other two should belong to an irregular from in this aesthetic category. To explain and unearth the aesthetic form and its meaning of these three historical novels can help to promote the development of the contemporary historical novel as well as the academic standard when using this kind of aesthetic category to evaluate and research the long historical novel.In brief, contemporary writers and researchers need to make joint efforts in the course of the modernization of Chinese historical novel though they have already got lots of great achievement.