The Aesthetics Of Lightness: The Stylistic Features And The Aesthetic Value In The Light Novel

Light Novel, a new type of literary genre born in Japan in 1970s, is a style of recreational literary works targeting young generation. The flexible writing skills it adopts make the reading mostly relatively relaxing. Therefore, light novels can literally be interpreted as "easy-to-read novels". Because of the diversity, complexity and openness of the new genre of literature, no clear definition of the light novel has been clarified. Due to their entertaining feature, strong commercial color, and distance from the serious literature, light novels have been long ignored in the world of Japanese literature criticism. Such situation has not been improved until the beginning of twenty-first Century, since which light novels gradually entered critics’field of view.Opposite to its 40-years development, no adequate researches have been done, by now, to analyze and explain light novels, the new type of literature genre, which leaves some basic problems still unclear. For example, the connotation of the name, light novel, still remains unclarified. This essay aims at tracking back to the origin, history of development and current situation of light novel, to find what aesthetic features including stylistic features and aesthetic value of the light novel lies:"lightness". In other words "briskness" in its creating techniques, "legerity" in the form of its carrier, "relaxation" in the reading experience in its stylistic features, and mainly analyzes "lightness" in its aesthetic value which is from connotation and significance starting with. To find out what the connotation on the world outlook, character view, story view and values is and its possibility to the transformation of literature, literature reading, literary theory, literature type, etc, has enlightening significance. With the aesthetic features analysis of light novel, this essay also tends to shed a light on the definition puzzle of light novel.