Qi 's Three "faces"

In introduction, this paper respectively sorts out Wang Zengqi'life and his researches in New Era. With the purpose to describe the status of his acceptance, we conclude Wang's three images—the last scholar-bureaucrat, patron saint of tradition, and cultural celebrity. By researching on the three appearances, we try to answer three questions, i.e. how the intellectuals self-identified in New Era? How did people change their attitudes toward tradition and moderness? Since 1990s, especially since mid and late 1990s, how did the mass media influence people's cognition about literature and intellectuals?The first chapter discusses the first image of Wang——the last scholar-bureaucrat. After sorting out the formation of Wang's image as scholar-bureaucrat and the high praise of his description on the rough scuffs, there also comes a question:why the descriptions on the lower people, in contrast, give him the title of the last scholar-bureaucrat? As a matter of fact, Wang always describes his country life from the view of intellectuals; however, the critics are constructing the self-identification as intellectuals when they identify Wang as the last scholar-bureaucrat. The mystery in it locates in that Wang's works cater for the need of intellectuals'reconstruction for self-identification——adherence to self-independence. Otherwise, "the last scholar-bureaucrat" itself faces the irresolvable contradiction and paradox.The second chapter discusses Wang'second image——patron saint of tradition. After sorting out his various relationship with "colorful" "traditions", another question comes into mind, i.e. why does the critic circle so interested in his "tradition" tint? Are the tradition found or invented recently? When we put this question into the cultural context in New Era, we find that the relation between tradition and moderness has become very subtle. No matter positively seeking or strongly against tradition, they are the same on the goal of realizing modernization. What is different is they choose widely different ways to get there, which is especially obvious in the complex relationship between Wang and seeking-root literature. In fact, the mining of Wang's traditional factors, in a sense, is the process of re-invention of "tradition" in critics, which reflects people's ambiguous attitude towards tradition, or moderness.The third chapter researches on Wang's third iamge——master of culture. Since the New Era, especially since the mid and late 1990s, Wang appears in the public view with various manners, during which his image has changed from "old writer" to "master of culture". This change reflects that after market economy entering into China, mass media has become increasingly stronger and begin to lead production and consumption of cultural market, or even create readers'consumption need. Under this background, the relationship between intellectuals and mass media has become very subtle. By analyzing Wang's biography, this paper also try to sketch a Wang Zengqi romanticized by mass media in order to show small but completely how Wang product and consume in cultural market as a symbol.In the conclusion, this paper tries to point out that the status of Wang's acceptance has leaned to immobilization and essentialization.