“小品文”是中国现代文学文体研究的一个重要命题，学界已取得一定的成果，但尚有开拓的空间，尤其是“小品文”这一概念的提出语境及其内在的文化逻辑值得深入探究。周作人“小品”概念的提出应缘于1921年他在西山养病时对佛经的阅读，以周作人为代表的小品文实践对以左翼文学为代表的革命话语构成另一种回应，它隐含着以个人理性对抗革命狂欢，以文学的审美性对话革命文学工具性的企图，以及对各色“八股”的反动和解构，周重“实行”“事功”，而轻“空言”“气节”，开创了一种以平和冲淡、博识理趣、闲适苦涩为特征的文体范式。

The academic circle has gained some achievements in the research of “essay”, an important subject in the research of modern Chinese literary forms. However, lots of issues remain open to discussion, including the context where the concept of “essay” was put forward and its essential cultural logic. ZHOU Zuoren put forward the concept of “essay” after he read Buddhist sutras during his stay in the West Mountain to recuperate his health in 1921. The writing of “essays” of ZHOU Zuoren et al. formed a response to revolutionary discourses represented by leftwing literature. Such literary practice implies an effort to resist revolutionary ecstasy with individual reason, object the instrumentality of revolutionary literature with literary beauty, and deconstruct various forms of “eightpart essays” as stereotyped writing. ZHOU attaches great importance to “practice” and “affairs” while depreciates “empty words” and “moral integrity”. He consequently creates a literary paradigm, which is full of wide knowledge and philosophic wisdom and is characterized by peace, calmness, leisure, ease and bitterness.