The long and the short: May fourth contestation of fiction form

This article discusses how intellectuals and writers wrestled with the generic problem of fiction writing in the early Republican period. In the 1920s and early 1930s, the education and popularization of new fiction constituted a significant agenda for both cultural conservatives and radicals. May Fourth critics made an effort to displace the format of traditional popular novels, which they found "obsolete" and incapable of conveying new thoughts and ideas. In theory and practice, May Fourth writers attempted to institute a new brand of fictional genre–the modern short story–by using fictional manuals, handbooks, and theoretical treatises from Western sources to reinterpret the aesthetic function of modern Chinese fiction.