Publishing And The Occurrence Of Modern Literary Modernization

This paper explores the impact of publishing on the evolution of modern Chinese literature, and the interaction between the two. Modern Chinese literature (1840-1919) was the stepping-stone between classical Chinese literature and contemporary Chinese literature, and thus played an important role in the evolution of Chinese literature. During the period, classical literature which had been dominated by poetry and essays was gradually replaced by modern literature characterized by the rise of novel-writing. The modern literature underwent significant changes not only internally (i.e. language, style and narrative structure, etc.) but also externally (i.e. production, dissemination and marketing, etc.). The driving forces of such changes consisted in the transformation of conceptions about literature, as well as the partnering between publishers and writers. The development and prospering of modern publishing industry accelerated the production and dissemination of literature, and contributed to the prosperity of novel writing; and meanwhile, the development of novel-writing also stimulated publishers to create a great number of magazines to serialize novels or to publish offprint. This provided market for the development of modern literature, and promoted the classical literature to evolve towards contemporary literature. On the basis of historical materials, this paper will look closely at the evolving trajectory of modern literature in light of its relations to the publishing industry.This paper first reviews previous literature and introduces the structure of the present research.Part one looks at the decline of traditional literary publishing sector in two chapters. Chapter one reviews the traditional literature publishing pattern featuring xylograph printing and dominated by poetry and essay collections. Chapter two analyzes the dissemination of novels and dramas, with a special focus on the "book ban policy" in late Qing Dynasty. We try to explore how novel-writing was suppressed by the Qing authority and describe the basic situation for literature publishing back then.Part two approaches the new type of publishing before the 1911 revolution in light of the changes of publishing policies and technologies. Chapter one describes the joint efforts of both the Qing authority and the civil society in promoting the new type of publishing. Topics involved include Qing authority’s policies and initiatives in creating translation bureaus and the private initiatives and practices in bringing about new types of newspapers and publishing. Chapter two summarizes the stages and characteristics of new publishing technologies introduced into China as well as their impact on the publishers and literature publishing. Chapter three is about the publishing boom of translated literature. With the call for a "revolution in novel-writing" and the creation of private publishers, the translated literature prospered. The Commercial Press, Xiaoshuolin Press and other publishers witnessed the peak of translated literature around 1907. Chapter four investigates the development and prospering of novel-writing and analyses its shortcomings. We also explore the interaction between serialized novels and the offprint separate edition.Part three focuses on the period 1912 to 1919, and explores the characteristics of the publishing sector at the beginning of the Republic of China, and its interaction with literary developments. Chapter one includes case studies of the Commercial Press, and the Zhonghua Press, analyzes the offprint separate edition and discusses the direction and strategy of novel publishing. Chapter two targets the huge number of newspapers and magazines hosted by the publishers. Many novel writers are also journalists and the philosophies of the magazines also effected the transformation of literary writing. Meanwhile, the plain Chinese language movement also prepared for the May Fourth New Culture Movement.