I. Literary Theory-Basic Interpretation
As a superstructure and ideology, the study of literary theory has qualitative stipulation, including its universality with other superstructures, ideologies and all arts, and its particularity different from other arts; Study the social function and function of literature as a social phenomenon.
Literary theory course
Literary theory includes its functions and functions with other social phenomena and its unique functions and functions different from other social phenomena; Study the content, form and relationship of literary works; Study the characteristics of different literary forms (lyric, narrative and drama), as well as their mutual influence and infiltration, as well as the various literary types and genres formed from them; Study the creative process of literature and its laws, including methods, styles and genres.
Literary theory is not a fixed law about literature, but a summary of literary practical experience. It came into being and developed on the basis of literary creation and literary criticism, which in turn promoted the progress of literary creation and literary criticism. Literary theory also absorbs the research results of literary history, which in turn has an impact on the study of literary history.
Literary theory itself has a historical development process. The same is true of the development of China's literary theory (see Criticism of China's Literary Theory) and Marxist literary theory (see Marxist Literary Theory).
Second, literary theory-nature and character
(A) the nature of literary theory
Soviet Russian literary theory
Usually, the subject of studying literature is called literary science or literary science. It includes five branches, namely, literary theory, literary criticism and literary history. Literature and art include literature and art in a broad sense and literature and art in a narrow sense. What is mentioned above is literature and art in a broad sense, and literature and art in a narrow sense mainly refers to literary theory. Literary theory is one of the three branches of literature and art (literary history, literary criticism and literary theory). Taking literary activities as the research object, this paper systematically expounds the aesthetic characteristics of literary activities and the historical law of literary development; On the other hand, it has the dual significance of understanding and practice to literary activities, and provides a systematic value system and method system for literary criticism and literary history research. It is closely related to other branches of disciplines. Taking the basic principles, conceptual categories and related scientific methods of literature as the research object. The four elements of literary activity (world, writer, works and readers) stipulate four tasks of literary theory: concept theory, creation theory, text theory and reception theory.
(B) the character of literary theory
Literary theory has strong practicality and distinct value orientation. Its practical character lies in that it comes from and is tested by literary practice, thus guiding literary practice. The characteristic of its value orientation is that, as a summary of literary practical experience, it always bears the brand of class or stratum and embodies a distinct value orientation.
(3) The same object can form multiple objects, which can be studied from multiple angles and methods, thus forming various forms.
(4) The basic forms of literary theory: literary philosophy, literary sociology, literary psychology, literary semiotics, literary value science, literary informatics and literary culturology.
Third, literary theory-autonomy
The so-called autonomy of literary theory mainly means that literary theory has got rid of the shackles of politics and returned to itself. Under decades of heavy political control, China's literary theory has completely become the equivalent of some constantly changing political behaviors in the hands of some politicians, and literary theory has completely lost its dignity and value. Now, literary theory has been separated from politics, and as an independent science, it has begun to establish its own academic theory. Naturally, politics, as an administrative consciousness and means, may still interfere with literary and artistic phenomena, but it is not easy to get practical results, which is called deconstruction. Deconstruction is also manifested in the fact that many theoretical principles that were regarded as important in the past have now withdrawn from literary theory, which is one aspect.
courseware
On the other hand, the autonomy of literary theory naturally lies in the theoretical construction of the theory itself. The second half of 1980s and the whole 1990s were the periods when China's literary theory established its own theory and subjectivity. In the exploration and construction of literary theory, western literary theory undoubtedly has an important influence; In the early 1980s, western literary thoughts flooded into China, and the westernization tendency in China's literary theory was very popular. However, the internal study of aesthetic research, the form and structure of works in western literary theory, and the great discussion of China's aesthetic problems at that time all played a very good role in the transformation of China's literary theory. At the same time, in the discussion, many scholars critically absorbed the tradition of modern literary theory and tried to get through the ancient and modern Chinese and foreign countries. Therefore, in the late 1980s and 1990s, China's literary theory research presented an unprecedented vivid scene, with new theories and excellent works. The new works in literary theory all appear on the basis of deconstructing the old theory, and at the same time they are new constructions. Therefore, the literary theory of this decade is not blindly deconstructing, not blindly listening to foreigners, not simply transplanting the literary theory of foreigners, but criticizing. On the basis of reference, he not only reformed the literary theory, but also tried to innovate and effectively created some new categories of literary theory. Under the tide of commodity economy, literary theory is constantly marginalized and ignored by people. However, it should be admitted that literary theory is a successful department, and real theoretical innovation will leave its own mark. Naturally, there is no need to overestimate your achievements, but there is no reason to underestimate yourself. The deconstruction and construction of the new rational spirit is the embodiment of the modernity of literary theory.
Fourth, literary theory-the form of viewpoint.
The history of Chinese and foreign literary theories shows that any theoretical science is a rational understanding and logical summary of the practical experience of literary activities. History also shows that so far, any theoretical generalization about literature has not been and can not be recognized by all experts engaged in literary theory research. Up to now, there is still no theoretical form, which has been unanimously recognized by all theorists who hold the same cultural and ideological position.
Literary theory
The repeated appearance of this fact shows that the practice of literary activities, like other objects of human understanding, is infinitely extensive and rich. The possibility, advantages and limitations of human understanding of literature lie in that people's theoretical generalization of literature must obey the general thinking law formed by human rational thinking function in history and culture. The usual theoretical generalization work is often to bring the empirical facts of literature into some rational frameworks. In other words, in theoretical generalization, theorists use a pre-existing rational framework to "get rid of the rough and get the essence, get rid of the false and keep the true" and seek and establish a clear understanding within the framework. In the research and construction of literary theory, the importance of rational framework is far greater than the influence of culture and ideology on literary theory.
Because the pre-existing framework of rational knowledge is a processing tool for human cognition to rise from concrete perceptual experience to theoretical knowledge, and it is a cognitive structure for human cognition of concrete things. Of course, this cognitive structure is formed by human beings in practice, history and culture, not before or beyond human beings themselves. From the perspective of mankind as a whole, yes. But as far as the specific existence of an individual is concerned, it is external and pre-existing. Individuals always understand reality and literature by accepting cultural traditions, forming a relatively stable cognitive structure.
In other words, any formed literary theory has its theoretical framework, its theoretical presuppositions, conventions and assumptions. The fruitful achievements of Chinese and foreign literary theories in ancient and modern times are reflected in the fact that it is not the product of a single framework, but the result of observing, analyzing and summarizing literary experience and facts from various frameworks and viewpoints.
Verb (abbreviation of verb) literary theory-contemporary China
The West is the mirror image of China's culture and literary theory. Only in this mirror image can China literary critics know what step they have taken, what step they have taken, what step their academic growth has taken, and what gaps exist in the study of contemporary China literary theory. The new trend of the development of contemporary literary theory shows China's persistent theoretical enthusiasm of "chasing after the new" for a century, which lasted for a long time, especially in the second half of the twentieth century. Cleaning up this academic history has become the key to the growing point of contemporary new academic thoughts.
History of China's literary theory criticism.
The theoretical problems of Sinology in China's contemporary literature are as follows: the influx of various literary theories in near tenses and the complexity of China's reception context. It is generally believed that literary theory includes four elements: writer, works, readers and social culture: writer theory such as biographical criticism, psychoanalysis and archetypal criticism; Works such as Russian formalism, new criticism, structuralism and so on. Reader theory, such as hermeneutics, reception aesthetics, reader response criticism, etc. The new trends of social and cultural analysis, such as Sima, feminism and deconstruction, cannot be said to be too new. As an ideological trend, postmodernism has become a thing of the past. Post-colonialism applied the post-modernism difference theory and discourse power theory to the study of cultural power mode in international relations between countries, and made some innovations. At present, cultural studies are considered relatively new, but in fact they are only cross-cultural and interdisciplinary interactive studies. Then there are a few words, which actually have a lot to do with third world literature and third world identity. All these contents can quickly find the latest information, and combine with the specific reality of China. Here, I want to ask some questions: In the last twenty years, these new western theories have suddenly flooded into China. What did the intellectuals in China accept and digest? What kind of things produce * * * vibrations and * * * sounds with our bodies and produce new things? What have we eliminated, rejected and rejected?
In fact, western cultural theory provides China with a methodological platform, which makes China scholars feel backward in methods, rigid in thoughts and marginalized in words when analyzing texts. But can they grasp these latest words, go to the center, stop being rigid and be very flexible? Pursuing the new completely may be an ontological misunderstanding, which will make China never catch up with the West and make China repeat a series of mistakes in the 20th century. Therefore, it is impossible for China's literary theory to learn from the West completely, but it is impossible not to observe the West. We can only use western theory as a methodological reference to explore China's local resources ontologically. After all, the reality in front of us is that the study of China's cultural methods is basically in step with that of the West. For example, Russian formalism at the beginning of the century was quite new when it entered China in the 1970s and 1980s, but today feminism and cultural studies have just appeared abroad for a year or two and have been widely used here in China. Since they are basically synchronized, it is meaningless to pursue innovation. At this time, academic competition is not won by quantity, nor by the constant rotation of kaleidoscope. On the contrary, this is an academic competition of essential strength. China must get rid of the psychology of catching up with others, profoundly sum up his own experience and seek differences. This difference may become the main character of China's transformation from "takenism" to "exportation" in the new century.
Sixth, literary theory-literary infiltration
Literary theorists have to face the reality that on the one hand, the decline of literature, on the other hand, the ubiquity of literariness, which means the penetration of literariness into all fields of social ideology. Although most scholars believe that the crazy expansion of visual image culture led by TV media has directly led to the decline or marginalization of literature, scholars have also noticed that TV, a dominant and comprehensive form, has been able to penetrate into all fields of ideology by relying on "literariness". The popularity and sensation of popular culture are often inseparable from literariness, and the taste and level of various popular fashions are often improved by literariness. Simulation scenes often add charm and interest because of literary narration and explanation, reflecting artistic reality and even real life.
Category of medieval literary theory
The penetration of literariness into theory is particularly prominent. Many social science theories themselves multiply their charm because of the perfect combination of their theoretical insights and literary expressions, which not only become external decoration, but also go deep into theoretical thinking and ideological connotation, and become an important symbol of showing theoretical level and theoretical vitality. We know that the vitality of modern theory lies in conciseness, accuracy and directness, that is, strong generality. However, the boring and abstract theory has brought great burden and pressure to modern people who live at a high pace in modern society. Therefore, literariness has become a condiment and tonic of theory and a regulating factor of repression theory. Western academic circles have noticed this infiltration of literariness into theory, and Culler revealed the fact that literariness participated in and dominated the theoretical movement in the 20th century: rhetoric decorated theoretical discourse. He said: "In fact, literature has won: literature has ruled the academic field, although this rule is disguised as something else." As we all know, economics is the "most difficult" social science, but some western scholars said after listing a large number of literary facts about economics: "Economists are self-evident language performers, and her performance can be performed by literary critic Kenneth? Burke's view of drama remains to be discussed, or the philosophers Austin and John? Silny's philosophy of language ","Economic scientists use a lot of equipment to persuade, just like a public speaker ","The final product of science-scientific papers-is a kind of performance ". From its point of view, literariness in economics is actually a feeling, which just confirms the conclusions that "the power of ideology lies in its passion" and "the most important and potential function of ideology lies in inducing emotion".
The penetration of literariness into theory has long been fully reflected in China's traditional academic thought. China has a long history of poetic culture and scholarship. The poetic wisdom in China's ancient literary theory, historical theory and philosophy is a model of literariness infiltrating into academic theory. The harmonious relationship between literariness and literary theory, historical theory and philosophy at that time produced many theories such as literature, history, philosophy, astronomy and geography, which were full of poetry, distinctive features and profound implications. For a long time, the academic evaluation of China's academic theory is used to referring to the western standards, and because of its literariness, it ignores the poetic wisdom revealed by China's traditional academic theory, and regards the speculative nature of western academic theory as a noble idea. This kind of framing "wisdom without thinking" with clear thinking is tantamount to scratching your boots. The reason why China's academic theory hides great flexibility, fuzziness and interest is the infiltration of its literariness. It seems fragmentary and inconspicuous, but in fact it is rich in connotation, witty and euphemistic, beautiful and elegant. It doesn't say what it wants to say clearly, but always uses metaphors, hints and metaphors. There's something in it, and it's not all meaning. This unique thinking mode of avoiding concepts, whether it is an advantage by the standard of China traditional culture or a defect by the standard of the West, has formed the academic tradition of China culture and China, and constituted the literary representation of China's academic theory.
Intriguingly, the penetration of literariness into academic theories and ideas has become the fashion of modern western academic theories leading the wave of globalization. Although some western scholars are eager for the "end of ideology" in countries that implement the socialist system out of disgust at various forms of revolutionary movements and in the face of Eurocentrism or Westernism, no one expected that in the casual process of westerners understanding China's traditional cultural classics and China's ancient "thoughtless wisdom", the "dross" of China's traditional culture, which they vowed to enlighten, made them flock to it again. History is full of irony: a highly developed civilization or culture, after a long detour, will inevitably get the most primitive, pristine and authentic nutrients! Although the fact that contemporary academic theories are nourished by literariness is the result of contemporary popular culture to some extent, compared with modern theories that rely on concepts, are full of speculation and are expressed in western discourse, contemporary academic theories infiltrated by literariness should be more attractive, deeper, more conscious and intelligent.