Abstract: The continuous changes in the reading mechanism of Chinese and English fictions have enriched novels in aesthetic features, artistic functions and forms. With the reader group infiltrating from the nobility in the early period to ordinary citizens in the 17th and 18th century, the genre of novel completed the combination of elegance and popularity, entertainment and enlightenment. Novels have always been closely associated with readers’ lives as the genre of great modernity. In the 20th century, the elite consciousness of the modernist writers severed the connection between the novel and the ordinary readers. Then the reality that the former readers changed into film and television audiences under the media reform further deepened the fate crisis of the novel. However, by drawing lessons from the art forms such as movies and television programs, Chinese and English novels broke through in a brand new reading environment and continued their own evolution.

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Key words： Chinese and English novels, aesthetic entertainment, expression of anxiety, narrative variation, “final conclusion of novels”