Reborn, I achieved legendary status with a single book.

This famous quote immediately caused a stir among the students in the room.

"The Legend of Wukong is a classic."

"I want this sky to no longer be able to block my view."

"I want this land..."

Not just at the scene.

This sentence sparked a frenzy among countless viewers in the live stream.

"Back then, I read The Legend of Wukong before I started reading online novels."

"Me too, even after more than ten years, I still remember this sentence."

"Where is Jin He now? The Legend of Wukong... This is already a legend."

Why is online literature worth studying?

It's not that we've discovered much literary value in recent research.

The fact that it has attracted so many readers is already an incredible thing.

Chen Yang nodded in agreement.

In fact, he was also influenced by The Legend of Wukong.

Back when he read The Legend of Wukong, he didn't know it was an online novel.

After he finds out.

Jin Hezai has become a legend.

"I want the sky to no longer obscure my vision." I believe everyone is familiar with this quote. Such a classic line is rarely seen in traditional printed books. It's not that people lack talent or their abilities are limited; it's simply because the medium is different.

"The different medium allowed the authors to write sentences that were different from traditional paper works. Perhaps, even when they were writing these sentences, they did not expect that these sentences would become so classic, and that people would still mention them more than a decade later."

Chen Yang was not born to do theoretical research.

But having written and read a lot of online novels, he already had a high level of understanding of them.

Or perhaps it's not even an opinion.

He was simply expressing his views on online literature.

"The internet, as a completely new medium, allows writers to speak freely online. They are not bound by tradition; they write whatever comes to mind. Naturally, this distinguishes them from traditional paper writing. It's like writing on bamboo slips. Because bamboo slips were inconvenient to carry, people writing on them naturally hoped to record the most knowledge with the fewest words. Thus, the Tao Te Ching, the Analects, and so on came into being. If we change the medium to the internet, I think the Tao Te Ching might not be 5000 words; it might be 50 words, 500 words, or even 5 million words."

Speaking of it.

A thoughtful student raised his hand and asked: "Professor Chen Yang, if that's the case, doesn't it mean that online writing is unrestrained, allowing people to write as many words as they want? This would make the writing less concise and too amateurish."

"Theoretically speaking, yes."

"Wouldn't such lighthearted, simplistic writing be inferior to traditional classic works?"

"Well, literature is very difficult to compare. Different periods produce different literary works. Just like Tang poetry and Song lyrics, Tang poetry is obviously more concise than Song lyrics, but comparing Song lyrics to Tang poetry and concluding that Song lyrics are inferior to Tang poetry is not a fair comparison."

"Then came Yuan drama, Ming and Qing novels... In terms of expression, the closer we get to the present, the less concise the language becomes; this is the development of the times. But it doesn't mean that Ming and Qing novels are inferior to Yuan drama, Yuan drama is inferior to Song lyrics, and Song lyrics are inferior to Tang poetry. On the contrary, being too concise can hinder the spread of literature. For example, many people may not understand Tang poetry and Song lyrics, but they can understand online novels."

"Take the Spring and Autumn Annals for example. Because this historical book is so concise, often a few words represent a major historical event. But many people simply cannot understand such a historical book. Later, some people made interpretations of the Spring and Autumn Annals, which led to the three commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals: Zuo Zhuan, Gongyang Zhuan, and Guliang Zhuan. So the standard of conciseness alone cannot be used to evaluate the quality of literature."

of course.

Literary criticism, by its very nature, is not like physics or chemistry, which have formulas.

There are a thousand Hamlets among a thousand readers.

Everyone has a different opinion.

"Actually, there might be a certain hierarchy of contempt here. For example, poets look down on novelists, novelists look down on essayists, essayists look down on other writers... and online literature happens to be at the bottom of the hierarchy of contempt. But to be honest, there is no distinction between different types of literature. As long as a work is well-written, it is a good work of literature."

Chen Yang writes online novels.

same.

He has often done things to enhance the influence of online literature.

Although online literature had previously won over the public in the market.

but.

In reality, many people still don't really respect online literature.

Chen Yang knew.

It takes time.

but.

Since Chen Yang is conducting research on online literature, he wants to correct everyone's misconceptions about it.

The carrier that Chen Yang mentioned earlier is only one of them.

then.

Chen Yang continued his lecture.

"I just asked a question: what is online literature? One student answered that any work written online is online literature. While this has some merit, let's look at some of the writers from Rongshuxia back then: Li Xunhuan, Annie Baby, Guo Jingming, Han Han... Apart from Jin Hezai, the media would no longer refer to most of them as online writers... Why is that?"

This said.

Everyone was stunned.

Yes.

why.

Didn't they grow up writing novels online?
Logically speaking.

They were the first generation of online writers, and also renowned online figures.

They must be online writers.

However, their current identity is not that of online writers.

"Professor Chen Yang, are there any writers who feel that online writers are not presentable and are embarrassed to call themselves online writers?"

One student raised his hand to answer.

Chen Yang said approvingly, "That's right, that's one of the reasons."

Chen Yang wanted to raise the status of online literature.

But he wouldn't just spout nonsense.

It is what it is.

"In the early days, online writers and online literature weren't very popular or considered very respectable. It's only slightly better now, and even now, many people still look down on them. So it's normal that some well-known writers don't call themselves online writers. However, this is only one reason, not the most important one."

"The most important reason is... In fact, from our current perspective, the works written by these online writers back then may not be considered true online literary works."

As soon as these words came out.

What puzzled everyone even more was: "Wait a minute, aren't they just writing online novels? How come they're not online literary works?"

Without waiting for feedback, Chen Yang said directly, "Because what everyone said before, that works written online are all online literature, is too broad. For example, if I post my diary online, does that make it online literature? Or, if I post my traditional prose, modern poetry, or even classical poetry online, is that also online literature?"

"Clearly, something's not right. Because in our eyes, it doesn't seem like that. Online literature seems to be those serialized, updated works of various genres, like Jade Dynasty, The Journey of the Immortals, The Great Thousand Worlds, I Come From Billions of Light Years... those kinds of works should be the ones."

Applause erupted from the audience.

The pressure is on again.

"So, if I really want to define it, I would say that online literature is those works that are published on traditional online novel platforms, updated in serial form, and written for commercial purposes. That is online literature."

Chen Yang proposed a new definition for online literature.

of course.

This definition is not entirely accurate, but it basically covers 99% of online literary works.

"This definition is something I came up with, and it may not be entirely accurate yet, so it needs to be supplemented by everyone in the future. But this definition is very important. How important? So important that when you don't even understand what online literature is, you may not even know how to operate a website."

That's why it's not entirely accurate.

Because some works are not included in Chen Yang's definition.

For example, "Those Things of the Ming Dynasty".

This is a web novel.

However, this work possesses both traditional literary attributes and online literary attributes.

But it is different from traditional online novels.

In addition, the author did not write the novel for commercial purposes at the time.

He was just writing for fun, but he never expected it to become so popular.

But it is indeed a web novel.

However, it is actually quite difficult for him to fully summarize what online novels are.

In a broad sense, novels written online are called web novels.

There is some truth to that.

But his approach is too broad and not suitable.

In a narrow sense, it is suitable, but some unique works fall outside this definition.

Chen Yang can only use a definition that can somewhat encompass most online novels.

"Let's take Rong Shuxia as an example. Although Zhu Weilian founded Rong Shuxia, he didn't understand what true online literature was. In his mind, he shared the same idea as many other great writers: that any work written online was online literature. So he followed that path. But in reality, looking at Annie Baby, Li Xunhuan... what they wrote can't really be called online literature; it should still be considered traditional literature. Or rather, it was traditional literature with online attributes. But these online attributes weren't particularly strong, and ultimately... when online literature developed to the 1.5 era, Rong Shuxia didn't keep up and gradually declined."

……

The decline was a long process, which Chen Yang did not go into detail about.

But it's also quite obvious.

Rong Shuxia doesn't even know what real online literature is.

How could he possibly run a successful online literature website?

In his view, any work written online is considered online literature.

Then.

How could he have given birth to so many groundbreaking schools of thought, and all sorts of imaginative and diverse online novels in later generations?
"Teacher Chen Yang, what is the 1.5 era of online literature?"

A student stood up and asked.

Chen Yang nodded: "That's a good question, the 1.5 era. Why 1.5? I don't call it the 2.0 era. It's because this era was somewhat chaotic. He gradually figured out what online literature was, but his understanding of it was still insufficient. At the same time, he hadn't established a commercial logic for online literature."

Chen Yang opened the PPT and continued, "After Rongshuxia appeared, other online literature sites also emerged one after another. For example, Golden Book House, Xilu Forum, Sky Network... and so on. At the beginning, these websites, like Rongshuxia, also accepted a group of works written online. At that time, they also believed that this was online literature."

"But later, they gradually discovered that as more and more online works appeared, a large number of readers began to favor fantasy works such as those with superpowers, fantasy, and magic. Gradually, these websites, which originally collected all kinds of works, eventually became one after another base for online fantasy works."

"At this time, some websites saw the emergence of Western magic, alternate history, urban fantasy, and other classic works such as Feng Zi Wu Yu, Tian Mo Shen Tan, and Sou Shen Ji. These works were completely different from the works of Jin Hezai, Annie Baby, Li Xunhuan, and other online writers that people originally thought of, and they embarked on a completely new path for online literature."

"Because this era has truly clarified what online literature is and what online literary works are, online literary works have experienced tremendous development. A series of classic works have emerged, and various pirate bookstores have also continuously printed these online works, which has accelerated the spread of online literature."

So much for that.

This concludes Chen Yang's first section, "The History of the Development of Online Literature."

Of course, the rest is not yet finished.

There are still several classes to go.

……

“Vessel, hehe, Bu Yangshen has put forward a completely new concept.”

"As expected of a top student from Aurora University. I never thought about online literature, but I didn't expect there to be so much truth in it."

"Bu Yangshen is also impressive. He went from oracle bone script to bamboo slips, then from bamboo slips to paper, and then to the internet. After analyzing it this way, I suddenly realized that our online novels are the choice of the times."

"That's right, the idea behind not exalting God is to convey this concept to everyone."

The authors in the industry who attended the lecture nodded from time to time.

Don't underestimate this viewpoint.

Once you accept this idea, your entire worldview will change.

Just like you think Tang and Song poetry is awesome.

But if you write a classical Chinese poem now, will people still think you're amazing?
Is it really true that with so many modern writers, none of them can write classical poems that are as good as Niu?
No.

It's not that I can't write it.

Rather, Tang and Song poetry is no longer suitable for this era.

Of course, not being able to adapt doesn't mean that this era doesn't need Tang and Song poetry.

This era no longer provides fertile ground for the survival of Tang and Song poetry.

No matter how brilliant your classical Chinese poem is, if no one feels the same way, they won't appreciate it.

"I have a feeling that the lesson on not showing off the gods might be hiding some deep martial arts secrets."

"How to say?"

"Didn't Bu Yang Shen mention the vessel?"

"Yes. He said that the form of expression of a work will be different depending on the medium. I think whether or not one can become a god in the future depends on this statement."

"Damn, now that you mention it, I think I understand a bit. The medium that Bu Yangshen mentioned also applies to our internet, except that he divides it into large and small mediums. The large medium is the internet, but the internet is also divided into various platforms. For example, Qidian is a platform, and other websites are also platforms. Each platform is a small medium, and each small medium has a different style."

"That's right. So when we write, we have to write according to the style of each medium. It's possible that your novel flops on Qidian, but it can become a hit on other platforms."

"So you mean I can't even get a contract with Qidian, but I might become a legend with one book on another website."

"Ahem... Theoretically speaking, it's still possible. Why don't we give it a try?"

"Get lost...you're trying to fool me again." (End of Chapter)