A Study On Liang Shiqiu's Ethical Criticism And Its Significance In Modern Times

In the history of Chinese modern literary criticism, Liang Shiqiu represented the pattern of ethical criticism. Derived from classicism and humanism, it contended that literature for the sake of human life, while the essence of human was something called "human nature" which could never obtain its realization but in the moral life. Therefore, the ideal literature, namely "classic literature", should represent "human nature", bear ethical connotation and visualize somewhat of moral significance. Liang Shiqiu argued that literature should be taken as the most ultimate and most serious sentiment in the human life. Moreover, the character of the sentiment hangs on the author's subjective personality and the approach of "ethnical imagination". Based on such a cultural horizon, he made comprehensive survey and value on Chinese modern literature since Wusi epoch. Liang Shiqiu's ethical criticism constituted somewhat cultural tension that possessed modernity significance with romanticism criticism, sociological criticism, aesthetic criticism and scientific criticism, operated on the affection of cultural complementary and neutralization in elucidating literature from dissimilar aspects, and eventually constructed Chinese modern literary criticism system in the 20th century coordinately.