Wang Guowei's The Thorn on Earth shows a clear concept and a high degree of speculation, which marks the transition of China's literary criticism from tradition to modernity. Liang Qichao praised him as "a man of the four seas, not only in China", and Guo Moruo spoke highly of him, saying that he "left us the product of his knowledge, like a pavilion in Cui Wei, which brilliantly released a strange light on the old-school barriers for thousands of years".