Modern literature originated from the May 4th New Literature Movement and the literary revolution. As early as the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century, with the increasingly serious national crisis caused by imperialist aggression, China's advanced intellectuals, inspired by western new thoughts and new literature, put forward the enlightenment requirements of reforming literature to arouse national awakening, and made preliminary attempts to improve literature in various fields such as theory, poetry, novels, drama and prose, making ideological and literary preparations for the May 4th literary revolution. Around the First World War, with the development of China's new capitalist economic relations, the new democratic forces in China society-proletarian, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intellectuals-developed greatly. The October Revolution brought China new hope for Marxism and national liberation. Under such economic, political and ideological background, the May 4th New Culture Movement against imperialism and feudalism was triggered. As an important part and breakthrough of this movement, the May 4th literary revolution launched a fierce attack on the old feudal literature with the main banner of opposing the old dogma of feudal obscurantism and absolutism, advocating science, democracy and socialism, opposing classical Chinese and advocating vernacular Chinese, which made great changes in content and form and began the historical process of literary modernization. This new literary movement flourished in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities with developed minority cultures, and gradually penetrated into all parts of the country during the development of China's modern history. The same or similar literary changes have taken place in Taiwan Province Province, Northeast China, Hongkong and Macau under Japanese rule.
In the development process of more than 60 years after the May 4th literary revolution, with the evolution of China's revolution and social nature, modern literature has experienced two historical stages: the new democratic revolution period and the socialist period, with the founding of 1949 10 People's Republic of China (PRC) as the turning point. The two stages of literature have their own historical characteristics, showing differences in different stages; There are also traditions and characteristics of * * *, which have inherent continuity. The socialist factors bred in the new-democratic literature ensured the socialist development direction of literature, and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, it formed a torrent of socialist literature.
The historic changes caused by the May 4th literary revolution in China's literary history are mainly manifested in the great strengthening of the combination of literature and the masses, and the conscious connection between literature and progressive social thoughts, national liberation and people's revolutionary movement. This constitutes the basic historical features and traditions of modern literature in China. The May 4th literary revolution began with advocating vernacular Chinese, which reflects the historical requirement that literature must be accepted by the broadest masses. The pioneers of the literary revolution also put forward the slogans of "national literature" and "civilian literature", taking expressing the lives of ordinary people and transforming national character and social life as the fundamental tasks of literature. In the creative practice, new anti-feudal themes and figures have emerged that have never been seen before in the history of China literature: ordinary peasants and the lower classes, as well as new intellectuals with democratic tendencies, which have replaced the common emperors, generals, gifted scholars and beautiful women in the old feudal literature and become the protagonists of literature, showing "criticizing the old feudal morality, tradition and system", "expressing the misfortune of the lower classes", "transforming the national character" and "striving for individual liberation".
After the May 4th Movement, the proletariat, as an independent force, stepped onto the political stage and showed its strength in social life more and more. In line with this historical development, in the middle and late 1920s, it was put forward that "the masses of peasants and workers" should be the main service and object of literature. After the establishment of the League of Chinese Left-wing Writers, it was more clearly defined that the center of the proletarian literature movement was popularization. In his creative practice, he made an artistic attempt to actively express the mass struggle led by China's * * * Production Party and shape the awakened image of workers and peasants. The works of intellectuals have gained new exploration; From the perspective of the relationship among intellectuals, people and revolution, this paper discusses and shows the historical fate of modern intellectuals, and points out the road of combining personality liberation with social liberation. During this period, revolutionary writers and progressive writers also tried to popularize and popularize literary forms, showing the new development of combining literature with the people.