Multiple Inspirations Of Criticism History: On Wellek's A History Of Modern Criticism

When talking about Wellek, this world renowned scholar's outstanding achievements in literature research, people always mention his co-authored Theory Of Literature, 1949 with Austin Warren. However, in his lifelong academic research, he never built any theory or developed any theoretical school, but rather, he devoted to analyzing, integrating, discriminating and making judgments, aiming at interpreting the Babel Tower in literary study. As a criticism historian, he showed his scholarship, wisdom, dispassion and historical horizon. He devoted all his time to writing the eight volumes A History of Modern Criticism: 1750-1950 . With his broad horizon and great scholarship, he reveals before us a panorama of two hundred years of Western literary criticism. These eight volumes are a study of history of Western literary criticism, which illustrates Wellek's viewpoints on literary theory, literary criticism, literary history and comparative literature. This dissertation analyses and discusses Wellek's theory standpoint, his evaluation criteria, study methodology and his theoretical significance and attempts to review Wellek's study of criticism history in details, from the macroscopic history panorama to the microcosmic idiographic idea.As per the contemporary research on Wellek both home and abroad, this dissertation examines Wellek's study of criticism history from the following perspectives: Chapter One deals with the outline of two hundred years of history of modern criticism (1750–1950) which is to be examined. The viewpoint is not shared by this article that Wellek fails to present a big and complete picture of the characteristics of the times and general literary background. This is a feature and characteristic rather than a problem of Wellek's study on criticism history. Just because the majority of his volumes is invested to the individual case study of critics, and the generalization and description of the characteristics of times are limited, it doesn't necessary follow that Wellek lacks overall and deep insight into criticism history. This dissertation exemplifies how Wellek distinguishes the different phases of the development of criticism history in the past two hundred years, generalizes the historical characteristics of each phrase, and also provides and defines his standards and criteria of doing so. Wellek's generalization on the history of criticism is explicitly stated in the introduction of each volume of his A History of Modern Criticism and is also implified in his arguments and evaluations on specific critics and theoretical issues as well as the arguments on criticism history in general. He mingles his view on history with the detailed and insightful study of the history of criticism, therefore careful reading and clarification is very important. This dissertation analyses Wellek's division on the development of the criticism history, recapitulates the historical features and characteristics in each phase of development, and summarizes his division criteria. Also discussed in this dissertation are the history phases as the framework of the division by Wellek, in order to emphasize Wellek's theoretical standpoint which is derived from complicated historical facts, and presents Wellek's original analyses and exact generalization.In Chapter Two is discussed an outstanding characteristic of Wellek's study of criticism history, that is to review the critics individually, differentiate and analyze the theoretical characteristics of these critics. Through reviewing the study of critics and the criticism issues, we attempt to grasp Wellek's micromesh and acuminous thought and sight, and his theoretical standpoint on literary criticism and criticism history. Wellek insists on treating each critic as an individual rather than putting on them a label of some theoretical school, believing that those critics who are grouped into same theoretical school often hold different or even contradictory ideas, and such categorization would compromise each critic's theory and notion which keeps evolving and developing. By means of case study, different viewpoints and standpoints of each critic within schools and the complication of specific situation can be truthfully revealed, the theoretical characteristics of each critic can be fully illustrated, so are the influences and changes that occur in different periods of time, hence a thorough and complete examination of different critics, which can be inspiring in our own literary study.Also worth abstracting and generalizing are Wellek's values and criteria of selection and judgment on critical issues, literary theories as well as literary history and criticism history implied in his study of criticism history. Chapter Three sorts out Wellek's theoretical standpoints and his evaluation criteria in his study of criticism history; it also discusses the overall theoretical standpoints of Wellek's study of criticism history, concludes and describes the core and basic theoretical framework. The following three perspectives are discussed in this dissertation: 1) Wellek's emphasis on the unique aesthetic characteristics of literature, his objection to positivism and reserved, or rather, negative attitude towards"outside study"of literature; 2) Wellek's standpoints on critical methodology, which is against impressionistic criticism and relativism, emphasizes the importance of critical criteria; 3) Wellek's keen craving for some dialetic, organic and integrated literary theories, and his resentment against literary dichotomy between content and form.Chapter Four examines Wellek's study of criticism history from the perspective of methodology in the study of criticism history. Wellek's A History of Modern Criticism is an overall and thorough examination of Western literary criticism throughout modern times, whose coverage of topics and depths of theoretical discussions are unprecedented in the study of criticism history. However, the significance of A History of Modern Criticism doesn't only lie in its contents, but also in its methodology in the study of criticism history. Studying and writing a history of Western literary criticism of modern times involves not just understanding literary criticism as a discipline, but also such historical and philosophical issues as concept of time and space, historical evolution and historical evaluation. Such topics are too big to be discussed thoroughly in this dissertation, therefore its focus is put on Wellek's study methodology of the history of criticism. i.e. the"perspective theory", his understanding in the study models of criticism history study, his accurate handling of the boundary in literary criticism, and his comparative literature perspective in his study of the criticism history.In Conclusion the characteristics of Wellek's study of criticism history are generalized, also discussed are the enlightenments and benefits that we may gain from Wellek for our own study of criticism history.