Written In The History Of Literature In The Humanities Perspective

Literature history take literature facts as it's object. so literature history is a science. However literature is the outcome of practice activity, it differs from the history of nature from the view of historical materialism, it is a reflection of social existence, be conditioned by social existence. So it can be said to be heteronomous on a certain degree. But it has the special regulation of itself, so it is also autonomic. Since literature is a science, it must handle this contradiction appropriately. Taine, Brandes and Plekhanov all stressed to explain the development of literature from social circumstance, but they were impercipient to the importance of the inner factors of literature system. While on the contrary, Russian formalism and Wolfflin stressed to investigate the development of literature from the form of literature. But they plunged in formalism unconsciously, so they couldn't explain the development of literature. Hauser insist that the development of literature is conditioned by external social circumstance and internal formal factors. At the same time, he didn't patch up these two factors automatically. He searched the mechanism of transformation actively. On one hand, our theory of literature history must adhere to historical materialism; on the other hand, we must also absorb the instructive part of the above theories. We should note not only the economic base determines the development of literature ultimately but also the social psychology's role as a medium and the impulse of interior elements of literature. At the same time, we should also pay more attention to the mechanism how social elements affect literature.The history of literature is a science. The latter can be divided into threes kinds: natural science, social science and human studies. According to this classification, the history of literature belongs to human studies. Human studies should explore knowledge, with the law of existence, development and change of objective things. Meanwhile, it should explore value, viz. the significance of objective things for human beings. Thus, human studies are science of value and meaning in nature. As a sort of subjective reality, value arises from whether object can satisfy the need of subject and it depends on the existence and the change of the need of subject. So, human studies pay more attentions to the particularity and individuality of object. Value relies upon human beings, shaping from the activities of human being and changing with whether the object can satisfy the need of subject, so, we cannot entirely use the methods of demonstration and logic. In order to master this point, we should also employ appraisive knowledge, such as the 'understanding' and 'interpreting' of hermeneutic.Science is objective, so does human studies. Therefore, we must respect the stipulation of literature works in the history of literature. However, from the humanistic view, researchers always understand literature works with their own esthetic interests and experiences. Because their experiences and interests are different, so, the things that they get from the works are not completely identical. For researchers of the history of literature, on one hand they must object positivism, on the other hand they should also object the view that wholly denies the objectivity of literature history and regards it as the history of reception.