A Review Of Transformation Genesis Of China's Literary Criticism

In recent years many scholars have been studying the modern transformation of China's literary criticism. But how on earth should China's literary criticism transform? As for this issue, different scholars have different views. In the author's opinion, in order to understand this problem really, we should return to the origin of the transformation genesis of China's literary criticism to study why China's literary criticism has made the transformation, how the literature critics have made the transformation, why they have acted like this and also the enlightenment that the transformation has showed on the development of China's literary criticism nowadays.However, to study the modern transformation genesis of China's literary criticism, we should at first make clear two problems, that is what the modern transformation of China's literary criticism is and when the modern transformation of China's literary criticism took place. In any times the literary criticism mainly consists of criticism subject, criticism target, criticism text and criticism function, etc. Generally speaking, the change of literary criticism method doesn't mean the "transformation" of literary criticism. Because the basic "pattern" has not changed yet if the subject, target and function has not changed. For example, as to the western literary criticism of the 20th century, all kinds of criticism methods rise one after another but they all belong to the western "modern" literary criticism. Only when criticism subject, criticism target, criticism text and criticism function has changed essentially we can say literary criticism has made the transformation. It has been a controversial issue when on earth the modern transformation of China's literary criticism took place. Among all the opinions, the "May Fourth" version has the most powerful voice, which is represented by all versions of modern Chinese literature history and part of China's modern literary criticism history. However, the author doesn't agree with it. The modern transformation of China's literary criticism is not originated from the "May Fourth" period. For long time China's academic circles have fallen into a mistaken idea. The modern transformation of China's literary criticism should be dated back to the late Qing Dynasty period between the beginning of the 20th century and the end of the 19th century.Why has China's literary criticism transformed in the late Qing Dynasty? First it is because of social history crisis. In the end of the 18th century, the governance of Qing Dynasty began to decline and gradually fell into the serious social crisis. But facing the serious social crisis, the scholars who study the Confucian classics of ancient Chinese prose were at a loss what to do. The decline of the Confucian classics of ancient Chinese prose in Qian Long and Jia Qing period caused the rise of gentle study of Confucian classics of today, which made the ideological trend of causing to use by generation revive. The ideological trend requires that the function of literary criticism changes.Second it is because of the spread of western science in China. In late Qing Dynasty the western literature poured in in a large amount, thus traditional Chinese literature was in a crisis and the Confucianism's orthodox status lost gradually. While the loss of the Confucianism's orthodox status caused the rise of new-type education, which in turn fostered a large number of modern intellectuals. The modern intellectuals become the subject, which inevitably leads to the transformation of China's literary criticism. Lastly, it is because of the change of style. The main style of traditional Chinese literature is poesy and novels are not paid much attention to. While in the late Qing Dynasty the status of novels was improved gradually. There is much close relationship between literary style and literary criticism style, that is the development of literary criticism style depends on the change of literary style. Therefore when the target of literary criticism changes, the transformat...