Chinese Modern Impression Criticism

Like the Chinese literature, the Chinese literary criticism entered the modern transitional period in the early 20^th century. The modernization process of modern Chinese literary criticism is the result of the struggle of shedding the confinements of classical Chinese criticism and identifying whole-heartily with the Western arts and literature, and a process of saying good-bye to the classical and embracing the Western and using the Western theories of arts and literature and literary criticism as referential parameters.Absorbing the features of Western Impressionist Criticism emphasizing instinctive impression and the role of the critic as subject, the modern Chinese Impressionist Criticism combines the thinking mode of both aesthetic appreciation and spontaneous impression of the ancient Chinese Imagist Criticism, couples it with the critical concepts of the modern man, and manifests its own unique features, including both instinctive impression and rational analysis, maintaining social concern while stressing aesthetic impression, thus transcending the confinements of instinctiveimpression and broadening its vision to cover the whole era.In terms of the Beijing-based literary critics such as Zhu Guangqian, Li Jianwu and Li Changzhi, although their critical styles differ, they share a common ground in identifying with Impressionist criticism. They take the stance of reconstructing the national culture and restoring the traditional national heritage and handle seriously the critical resources of both China and the West. In the actual practice concerning individual literary texts, they treat the texts of criticism in an equal and fair manner and emphasize critical experience. They also hold on to the literariness, aestheticness and experiencingness of criticism and embrace literary criticism with heart and feelings.In the wake of the 21^st century, and the acceleration of social modernization process, great changes have taken place in the daily life of the people. And with those changes, literary creation, literary reading and literary criticism also experience a process of transformation. In the cross-cultural communication between China and the West, the Chinese literary criticism can still feel, tangibly or intangibly, the pressure of the Western hegemonic discourse. As far as literary criticism is concerned, while major achievements have been made, there are challenges existent. Certain phenomena in literary criticism are worth the serious consideration of the critical circle, such as the non-literariness of criticism, theory-oriented criticism andmedia-oriented criticism.And so how to construct a literary criticism with Chinese features and Chinese styles while reasonably utilizing the critical resources of China and the West? Bearing in mind questions like this, and reassessing the complicated landscape of literary criticism and searching for the affinity of the historical and the contemporary, we find that the modern Chinese Impressionist Criticism is of unique significance to the contemporary literary criticism.