Wang Zhigeng Wang Xufeng

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With the serious tendency of marketization, literature is experiencing an unprecedented variation movement. The recent debate about the boundary of literary theory is actually a reflection of the abnormal trend of literature itself. The main manifestation of this variation is that we find that the so-called literature occupying the market is not literature in the traditional sense, but a specious thing. We are in contact with "literature" every day, even all the time, only to find that this literature is not that literature. To this end, some commentators are chanting the popularization of aesthetics, while others are lamenting the degradation of literature. Our view is that although existence may not be reasonable, it is unreasonable for theoretical workers not to treat existence with a scientific attitude. Therefore, we should face up to the literary reality. Obviously, since literary theory became a discipline, it has adopted a complete set of strategies to define itself and eliminate impurities. Literary works and writers are named in the disciplinary violence of literary theory, or, only through the certification of certain standards or value standards, can words be labeled as literature, authors be labeled as writers, works can enter the palace of literature as Benjamin said, and be labeled as "halo" of art [1]; If it doesn't pass the authentication, the text is equivalent to waste paper, and it will always be excluded from the narrative of theoretical criticism. Therefore, it can be said that literature is caused by the historical stipulation that marks a specific text. As Derrida said, literature "is a product of the intentional relationship with the text. As a component or intentional level, it is self-sufficient, a traditional or institutional-in short, a relatively implicit sense of social laws." [2] However, today we have to face more complicated and thorny named objects. In the era when popular culture is dominant, the renewal of media and the operation of market mechanism force our long-used naming convention out of order. In this case, we suggest that these works between literature and non-literature should be called "sub-literature" for the time being and judged with a theoretical attitude.

The so-called "subculture" can be divided into three types from the perspective of media: paper media, online media and mobile phone short message media.

In the paper media, subculture works are very close to traditional literature, mainly referring to all kinds of popular novels that are not recognized as popular literature by critics, not to mention elegant literature, such as Shi Kang's Wandering and Mess, and works that have been named as "beauty writing" and "lower body writing" by critics, such as Shanghai Baby and Lala Lala, and the so-called "1980s".

Network subculture is the main form of subculture. In fact, many paper documents were first circulated on the Internet. Sub-literature, which cannot enter the paper media but can only exist on the internet, mainly takes the following forms: first, a large number of erotic novels are unable to enter the paper media text because of their nature and the limitation of library management system; Second, the number of forum posts is huge, too scattered to enter the paper media; Then there are a lot of different kinds of jingles circulating on the Internet, which are fragmentary and some are too sensitive and can only be left on the Internet.

The last category is the sub-literature of mobile phone short messages, also called short message literature or thumb literature. In recent years, short message literature has developed extremely rapidly under the capital operation of telecom companies. Various short message literature awards activities continue, and many famous writers join the ranks of judges. For example, Tianya magazine and Hainan Online Tianya Community jointly held several national short message literature competitions. The 4,200-word mobile novel Outside the City, written by Guangdong writer Qian Changchang, was bought out by telecom operators at a high price of 6,543,800 yuan, and published by Feng Chun Literature and Art Publishing House. Known as "China's first short message novel", Dai Pengfei's Make You Love Onions was also published by China Film Publishing House and bought by Sina.com for two years. The commander who writes outside the city said that the current state of life is to write novels, but he knows that in this era of enjoying material life, it is really cruel for us to take various measures to attract readers to read a heavy novel. The Commander-in-Chief said: "At present, an era of mobile phone novel creation and reading is bound to take shape. Mobile phone novels are literature determined by advanced technology and a new way of reading in the whole information age. " [3] At present, due to the popularity of MMS, MMS literature, a sub-category of SMS literature, also came into being. It is reported that the first MMS literature competition held by telecom operators in 2005 has been announced. [4]

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Subculture has become one of the most widely read texts with its powerful eye-catching power, which makes us have to seriously consider its value as "literature". In other words, we must see that in the traditional literary field of vision, subculture is not completely heterogeneous, and it still conforms to the stipulation of literary naming in some aspects.

Literature is a game of language, which has been recognized as a literary stipulation since the emergence of formalism. Subculture has obvious advantages in this respect, and because it is close to the audience, it will inevitably have a "shocking" effect on the defamiliarization of language. In fact, the popularity of many popular novels at present depends on the affinity between their deconstruction content and the public acceptance, but the characteristics of language "from life, higher than life" are also an important factor to win readers. For example, in Shi Kang's novels, a wonderful spark of thinking about life flashes from time to time in the style of generate with a slight sense of youth and decadence. Anne Baby's writing reveals the subtle inner feelings of modern urban women with a slightly sad aesthetic style, while Han Han's writing, sharp language and slightly joking comments show the ideological depth of contemporary teenagers, and their grasp of language expression has reached a quite high level. In contrast, online literature and short message literature are pure word games, and it is their exquisiteness and wisdom that make them have literary characteristics. Such as the heterogeneous jingle in online literature, "Don't be crazy with me! Easy to die! Don't pretend with me! Easy to get hurt! Beat you up! Nobody! No one-on-one hit! I'll beat you into Zhang Haidi! Or mummify you! Give you some face! Beat you to life and you can't take care of yourself. , with obvious game language characteristics, the grasp of language rhythm is not inferior to some literary works. Another example is the playful change of poetry classics. "The eyebrows on the paper are cold, the eyes on the pen tip are straight, the hero is not afraid of breaking eggs, and the chest is straight and empty." The banter revealed the front of the machine. For example, some famous net posts have obvious parody and irony characteristics, which makes people enjoy it. As for the mobile phone short message novel, it can be called a short mini novel. For example, this next short message novel: "The neighbor's father and daughter quarreled, the adults shouted, and the children howled, making the whole building fall apart." Neighbors hurried to stop the fight, stopping their father here and holding their daughters there, and a war finally came to an end. Everyone asked: What's the matter? Is there anything we can't discuss? The father said first: this unworthy child actually took diet pills! What else is she afraid of eating? Huh? Give her a bomb and she will swallow it! The neighbors were dumbfounded and looked at each other: this father is the manager of a slimming drug company ... "The story is about 100 words, but it is full of twists and turns, and its highly refined plot is also in line with the understanding of typical literary structure.

Literature is a stranger to the present situation of human beings, and it can escape from reality by venting and publicizing personal feelings. In this sense, the popularity of subculture is the result of readers realizing that it reflects the real living state of human beings. No matter how they express the decadence and absurdity of the younger generation, Triple Door or Shanghai Baby always contains the truth of this generation's "confusion". Even more creators of online subculture and short message subculture, as language games, mostly express their rebellious will and critical stance through irony, satire or exaggeration from their own subtle feelings. For example, a short message from Asian Literature wrote, "Dear users, your phone bill balance is less than 0. 1 yuan. Please pay the phone bill in the near future: selling children, women, rice, iron, houses, land and wives. Thank you for your cooperation! China Telecom. " By parodying the working terms of China Telecom, the author vented his dissatisfaction with the high telecom tariff. Another net post reads: "Everyone in the world knows that' profiteering' is good, and it's all sent back and forth. As long as you can make a lot of money, you don't need moral conscience. The world knows that it is good to go through the back door, and this way is used to it. No matter how difficult it was, it was finally finished. Everyone knows that banquets are good, and' four dishes and one soup' is getting fatter and fatter. You invited me, and I invited you. Anyway, the government reimbursed me. As everyone knows, wrangling is good, and it takes no effort and no brains. After three or five years, all the problems are gone. " The author directly borrows the "good songs" from the adaptation of A Dream of Red Mansions to express his criticism and satire on social ugliness, with good intentions.

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Of course, the reason why we put forward the theory of "sub-literature" instead of directly bringing it into the field of "standard literature" is because these literary phenomena still have different characteristics from traditional literature in many essential provisions.

As far as aesthetic form is concerned, subculture is a kind of "halo removal" to traditional literature, which can be said to be a kind of "post-aesthetic era" literature. Traditional literature, even popular literature and folk literature, will form some worship value under the irradiation of artistic aura. Benjamin believes that the art with aura is an unattainable art, "the unattainability actually forms a major nature of worshipping images" [5], but in sub-literary writing, this unattainability of literature has disappeared. On the one hand, subculture has become an exhibit in the era of mechanical reproduction-this phenomenon is most obvious in network subculture, especially blog writing; On the other hand, sub-literature makes creation a common event that everyone can do through the participation of the whole people and network interaction-this phenomenon is most obvious in various forums and posts. As far as literary reception is concerned, subculture not only completed Benjamin's so-called transformation from "preconceptions" to "re-creation", but also enabled the recipients to really participate in literary re-creation. In sub-literature, literary acceptance has become a real DIY (do it yourself). On the aesthetic level, Benjamin once suggested that with the change of art from "art with aura" to art of mechanical reproduction era, it is a change from aesthetic Kunst to nach-astetische Kunst. The so-called beautiful art, in Benjamin's view, "mainly refers to the art with aesthetic attributes and values, which has an independent appearance", while the later aesthetic art "does not have this direct aesthetic attribute", and its aesthetic attribute is indirect and additional. [6] In the subculture, the independent aesthetic function of traditional literature has deteriorated sharply, and the spiritual aesthetics of literature has gradually been replaced by strong sensory stimulation and hilarious effect. The aesthetic attribute of literature is more and more attached to this practical function of works and becomes an addition. In this sense, sub-literature really pushed literary aesthetics into Benjamin's so-called post-aesthetic era.

From the social significance of creation, subculture is essentially a deconstructive writing. Subculture writing does not pursue meaning, and even deliberately dispels meaning. Take a large number of short message sub-literature as an example, many of them are simple displays of language skills. Although they reveal some survival images, they are not for the purpose of realizing the function of meaning intervention. For example, "I wrote your name in the sky, but it was taken away by the wind;" I wrote your name on the beach, but it was swept away by the waves; So I wrote your name on every corner of the street ... Shit, I was taken away by the police! " ; In addition, classic works have also become the deconstruction objects of sub-literary language games, such as "there is such a bright line at the foot of my bed, and there are two pairs of shoes on the ground ..." and other online jingles, which banter the serious themes in classical poetry and turn them into modern vulgar jokes. The disappearance of meaning will inevitably lead to the weakening of the educational function of literature. In fact, both Chinese and western cultures expect the function of literature as a means of education. Plato said in the Republic that our education should "start with fictional literature" and "works should be beneficial to us; You must only imitate the words of good people "; [7] Aristotle also believes that tragedy "cultivates feelings by causing pity and fear"; [8] Even Horace, who emphasized the entertainment function of literature, did not forget to sum up his understanding of the educational function of literature by "entertaining, persuading and endearing readers" [9]. In China, the educational function of literature is emphasized. "Zuo Zhuan said," It's too important to stand up for morality and then speak out. "The article says that if the sun and the moon are bright, they will be like a trip to the stars. The highest ideal of China literati has always been to "make a heart for heaven and earth, make a life for the people, carry forward the past and forge ahead into the future, and make the world peaceful" through the article. However, in the writing of subculture, the educational function of literature has been abandoned many times, and "entertaining" has become "only enjoying without teaching". There is no sense of responsibility, no writer is a serious attitude of social conscience, but only flattens the meaning and eliminates the music carnival after the educational function. A large number of jokes, erotic stories, all kinds of jingles and meaningless language games in subculture are the inevitable result of the separation of literary education function and the entry of entertainment function.

Judging from the relationship between creation and social ethics, an important feature of subculture is to dispel traditional moral norms, thus completing the direct catharsis of desire. An important function of traditional literature is to inherit the core values and moral norms of human beings. In the excellent literary works at all times and in all countries, there are many praises and praises for such excellent qualities as love, friendship, honesty, courage and loyalty. It can be said that no other carrier can preserve and inherit these basic ethical norms of human beings better than literature. However, Asian literature generally does not consider itself responsible in this respect. On the contrary, they tried to establish some kind of alternative ethics with an anti-traditional attitude. For example, when it comes to sex, traditional literature is not without descriptions of sex, from the ancient Jin Ping Mei and Yu Jiao Li to the modern Zhang Xianliang's Half a Man is a Woman, Chen's White Deer Plain and Jia Pingwa's The Waste Capital. However, the attitude of traditional writers towards "sex" is very different from that of subculture writers. The former is more serious about human nature and meaning, while the latter takes exposure and showing off as its ability, and basically writes for sexual excitement. Another example is the problem of "body writing" in Asian literature. In the context of western theory, "body writing" is a description of a specific literary expression in western feminist literary theory. Its essence lies in emphasizing women's perspectives and positions in literary writing and women's unique feelings about life. This kind of expression implies the rebellious psychology of social and historical narrative with strong meaning to men, and holds that private narrative is as important as historical grand narrative. In the eyes of western feminists, "body writing" is an expression of women's position and a kind of resistance to women's feelings being covered up by male words in the literary field, which is not limited to women's physiological feelings, let alone the feelings of women's specific body organs. [10] And the "body writing" of some sub-literature has basically become "naked writing", paying more attention to women's secret physiological feelings and psychological experiences, including a large number of detailed descriptions of women's sexual experiences. From Wei Hui to Mianmian, from Jiudan to Hong Ying, from Muzimei to Zhu Yingqingtong, the so-called "beauty writers" in contemporary literary circles have unscrupulously exposed their physical details and absolute privacy. Everyone is competing to play the card of female "body organs". Not vulgar enough to win buyers, not explicit enough to show pioneers. In subculture, writing has become a direct catharsis of desire, and writing has become a physiological event rather than a spiritual event.

From the perspective of the relationship between the text and the readers, an important feature of subculture different from traditional literature is that subculture has a "sadistic" tendency towards readers. This is most obvious in subculture types such as mobile phone short messages and net posts. For example, this mobile phone text message reads: "Not every flower can represent love, but roses do it;" Not every tree can withstand thirst, but poplar can; Not every pig can read text messages, but you did. Congratulations. " Another example is: "In the vast sea of people, when you receive this sincere blessing, please use all your strength to hit your head against the wall-see? "The countless stars in front of you are my infinite concern!" Such short messages are not actual malicious abuse, nor real personal attacks, but playful abuse with strong folk carnival color. In the illusory abuse, the author and readers are in a carnival atmosphere, dispelling the boredom and depression brought by boring and serious daily life. For example, in some net posts, followers often dissolve the original serious topic into a carnival of banter and ridicule with high writing skills, which makes readers laugh and cry. [1 1] In addition, the behavior of "digging holes" in online forums itself carries some expectation of abuse. In the process of digging a hole and asking someone to irrigate it, the landlord gets a sense of accomplishment not only because the topic is concerned, because such topics are often ignored because of some original ideas, but also because of being "patted". For example, the theme of "please name someone" that has appeared in many forums is a typical theme of expecting abuse. In this kind of topic, participants give full play to their knowledge reserves and imagination, and cleverly insult the landlord. If they are named after Jia's twins, there are "Jia Jia Yi, Jia Mohist Style" in the thread, and "Shu Jia, Lei Shu, Schumacher" in the "Shu" name. We don't rule out that there are serious helpers among the initiators of this kind of theme, but its practical function is to create a space for language abuse and form a readable sub-literary form in the communication between sadism and abuse.

In the case that subculture writing has become a cultural phenomenon that cannot be ignored, literary theory should never turn a blind eye and adopt an evasive attitude. We believe that Asian literature is popular literature in the post-modern era and the consumption era. Although sub-literature is popular and popular, it is different from popular literature and popular literature. First of all, from the perspective of moral bearing, popular literature and its spiritual ideal are embodied in the support, affirmation and reproduction of traditional values, while most subcultures hold a negative and deconstructive attitude towards traditional values. Secondly, Asian literature is more commercialized and consumerized than popular literature and popular literature. Zheng Zhenduo believes that the "first characteristic" of popular literature is popularity. She was born among the people, writing for them and living for them. [12] Mao Dun also believes that "the' vulgar' cloud should be known to all women and children in form, while the content is the feelings and thoughts of the public. "[13] emphasizes the popularity and wide spread of popular literature, and its characteristics have not been reflected in commercialization and consumption. Jameson pointed out that in the post-modern era, "culture has been completely popularized" and "when goods enter culture, it means that art is becoming a commodity" [14], which just points out the unique commercial and consumption characteristics of subculture literature and popular literature. In the writing of subculture, the self-regulation of traditional literature has been broken, and commercial capital has directly intervened in the evaluation of literature with its own logic. Literature and commercial forces join hands to bring subculture into literary writing in the capital age. Body writing, youth writing, short message literature and other sub-cultural forms are ghostly wandering between literature and commercial capital operation, and under the control of commercial logic, they produce and consume in the name of literature. The author of short message literature once admitted that short message literature "is not only for literary innovation, but also for the operation of works as commodities." "[15] In addition, the application of new media, the insight and utilization of modern readers' consumption psychology, the influence of literary aesthetics on daily life and post-aestheticization, and the unique role in relieving the pressure of modern life will make Asian literature a new important field of literary theory research.

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Benjamin, Walter Lighting, new york: Shawken, 1969, pp2 19-220.

[2] Derrida's Strange Organization System of Literature, see Literary Action, translated by Zhao Xingguo, China Social Sciences Press, 1998, p. 1 1 page.

[3] Xinhuanet/Book/2004-09/13/content _1974999.htm, collected on August 6, 2005.

[4] Xinhuanet/Mobile/July 26th, 2005 /Content _ 3269 128.htm, collected on August 6th, 2005.

[5] Benjamin, Walter Lighting Company, new york: Shawken Publishing House, 1969, p. 243.

[6] Ben Mingjie by Chen Xueming, Taipei Provincial Press, 1998, p. 146- 147.

[7] Plato's Republic, see Plato's Literary Dialogues, People's Literature Publishing House, 1980, pp. 22 and 56.

[8] Aristotle's Poetics, see Poetics? Poetry anthology, People's Literature Publishing House, 1984, p. 19.

[9] Horace's poetic art, see Poetics? Poetry anthology, People's Literature Publishing House, 1984, p. 155.

[10] Yan array on the historical context of body writing, Literary Contention, No.5, 2004.

[1 1] You can refer to the following net post collection/book/2004-09/13/content _1974999.htm, August 6, 2005.

(Author: Nankai University College of Literature)