Literature In Language Or In Text-Restatement Of “Literature”

The dispute between “The Fade of Literature” and “The Eternity of Literature”leads us to pay more attention to the development of modern literature and rethink the meaning of literature.In chapter one,after having a simple research in the origin of literature,we have a framework about the involvement of literature from ancient times till now.Different people in different times have a different understanding on literature.Thus the dispute between “The Fade of Literature” and “The Eternity of Literature” arises from the change of the connotation of literature in modern times.At first,the connotation of literature was involved under the background of classic aesthetics.However,after a century or two,it became out of date and failed to explain the increasing number of literary phenomena.And the explorations of the concept of literature before the arising of classic aesthetics as well as the connotation of literature among traditional Chinese academics and culture provide us a breakthrough for the problem.That is literature should be understood based on characters instead of just leaning on language or speech.In chapter two,we have an analysis about the relationship between characters and language.It is generally accepted that characters is the carrier of language that is characters is subordinate to language.However,we have found that characters and language was not just in the simple relationship of subordination,but integrate with each other while maintaining its own independence after we have a study on the formation of characters and the reference of the study of anthropology and philology.In addition to the connotation of language,characters has an expressive function while language itself lacks,like the functions of picture,symbol and other visual functions.Thus in the era of picture,the visual functions of characters are highlighted and prospering with the multimedia development of human's expression ways.In this sense,the rise of the multimedia writing isn't coming out of thin air.In chapter three,we analyze and summarize the new expressive ways of multimedia writing and have a review of the development of human's expressive ways before the birth of characters when people use substances,pictures and symbols to express their ideas.Those primitive ways of expression is the origin of today's multimedia writing.However,with the development of multimedia writing,nowadays,most of its writing is based on characters though its forms are various.If we want tounderstand literature through characters or study the connotation of literature based on characters we can not exclude the multimedia writing.Based on the research of the historic evolution of the concept of literature,we conclude that literature should based on characters.And with the study of human's different expression ways before and after the emerging of characters as well as the coming of modern time,we work out that characters is the hub of humans expression ways.So we can better handle the direction of literature development if we study literature based on characters.