Knowing what literature is, the distinction between classical literature and modern literature is easy to understand. The so-called classical literature, but refers to the ancient (before the May 4th Movement) literary works, written in classical Chinese. The so-called modern literature also refers to modern literature (after the May 4th Movement), which is mostly written in vernacular Chinese. For example, ancient poetry is simply called "ancient poetry", while modern poetry is generally called "new poetry". That's all ~