“BETWEEN ELEGANCE AND EARTHINESS”: ON THE WRITING AESTHETICS OF ACADEMIC AND FOLK LITERATURE

Abstract

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, contemporary Chinese literature has gradually developed two representative writing orientations: academic writing and folk writing. These two literary approaches demonstrate significant differences in language style, narrative strategy, thematic sources, and aesthetic orientation, yet they share profound commonalities in their commitment to realism, humanistic concern, and reflection on social transformation. Yuan Ping's Xiao Shijing can be regarded as a representative example of academic writing, characterized by intellectual refinement, cultural literacy, and structural sophistication, while Zhu Renfeng's Jinshui Hujia exemplifies folk-oriented rural writing rooted in lived experience, colloquial realism, and emotional immediacy. By taking these two works as comparative case studies, this paper examines their differences in writing techniques from four perspectives: language expression, narrative strategy, material selection, and aesthetic orientation. It further argues that despite stylistic divergence, both writing traditions converge in their literary spirit through shared realism, concern for human complexity, and sensitivity to the transformations of contemporary Chinese society. This comparative study contributes to a deeper understanding of the coexistence, interaction, and potential mutual enrichment between elite literary writing and folk narrative traditions in contemporary Chinese literature.