| The discussion about artistic authenticity has been a hot topic for a long time in artistic literature. The point of view about'artistic authenticity'can be classified into objective authenticity and subjective authenticity since ancient Greece. The former originates from Aristotle's Mimetic Theory, while the latter begins with Socrates'spiritual alike theory. Objective authenticity thinks that art take nature as a reference and what art should imitate is not human's personality or idea but activity. This kind of imitation is not a copy of things or mirror response but a complex handling to reality; Subjective authenticity pursues spiritual and emotional authenticity. It thinks that imitation of reality is trivial while only individual's mind and feeling is most important. After objective authenticity went through renaissance, classic literature period and the Enlightenment period, It finally developed to its extreme in realistic period in nineteenth century and became the core theory of realistic literature; Subjective authenticity has once been emphasized in romantic period, but quickly submerged in the realistic literature. It didn't develop quite a lot until modernism appeared in twentieth century. From viewpoint of history, the theory of artistic authenticity has been a process of from objective authenticity to subjective authenticity and from experience authenticity to mental authenticity.In fact, we can not tell which viewpoint about authenticity is superior or not, they are just two different ideas. But because philosophical view has impact on literature concept, philosophical view of dialectical materialism which was admired in our country in last century made us to take positive affirmation on realistic literature and think it is far superior to other literature style. Meanwhile, this point of view put the theory of realistic artistic authenticity to a supreme position. We thought that whether a work is excellent or not is totally depended on whether it shows this kind of'authenticity'or not. Our comprehension of realistic artistic authenticity was mainly based on Marx and Engels'viewpoint of art. Different from traditional realistic authenticity's emphasis on counterdraw about nature, we put more emphasis on discovery of life's essence, social rules, shape of representative environments and characters as well. After we went though wars and complex situation, literature was closely connected with politics and made to disseminate party's policy. Then we resorted to Soviet'social realism'literature which equaled author's world view and orientation with work's authenticity. This kind of view once became a universal standard to judge whether literature work is excellent or not. Under the impact of Marx and Engels'viewpoint of art, our theory of realistic artistic authenticity was not satisfied with work's imitation of nature and life, but put more emphasis on discovery of life's essence, social's rule and emphasized that reappearance of representative characters in representative environments was'realistic'. So we excluded other literature style and concentrated our mind on producing and researching this kind of realistic literature. Under the impact of Soviet'social realism'literature view,'authenticity'began to embrace more meanings in the initial stage of our country's construction.'Authenticity'was equaled to'author's orientation'and world view. Literature'organon'evolved to its extreme. People thought the mission of literature is to educate people and author as educator should have communist world view. Because people took it for granted that society will develop towards socialism and communism, literature theory in this period requests works to portray the bright side only and can not uncover the dark side of life, or else they are not authentically reappearance of reality or'portray reality'. At this time, literature theory had already deviated for the original intention of realism which is criticizing society. This view had been a long time controlled our attitude towards literature and developed to an extreme point.'Artistic authenticity'became the most'unauthentic'. Just under this circumstance which Marxism Philosophy dominates, our religion of Marxism had been reinforced repeatedly. So, researchers turned a blind eye to internal problem of our theory of realistic artistic authenticity.The theoretical system of our theory of realistic artistic authenticity is not as rigorous as imagined, the internal of which have a lot of problems. First, in spite of the discussion about artistic authenticity had gone through the whole contemporary literature phase, there is no positive answer to what artistic authenticity really is. It is compared to'life authenticity'to illustrate its meaning in academics. This definition based on'life authenticity'makes the concept of'artistic authenticity'more confused because scholars have different understanding about'life authenticity'. Second, scholars unanimously think that artistic authenticity originates from life authenticity (or life reality) but higher than life authenticity (or life reality). This saying evolved to 'art originates from life, but higher than life'afterward. This view is not logical since art is subjective which is created by human and life is objective which is real, so they are not in the same level and can not be compared. Third, the function of'artistic authenticity'as a universal standard to judge whether a work is excellent is very limited. Landscape poem, prose and so on which do not reflect reality essences are still excellent literature works. Those'unreal'literature such as Fantastic literature, Fantasy literature and so on which emerged in recent years are still welcomed by readers. At last,'artistic authenticity'is a concept that can not be validated. The question of'What is authenticity'is subjective, so everyone have different feeling about'authenticity'which is related to personal subjective factors such as philosophy view, literature view and values. The discussion about'artistic authenticity'should concentrate in philosophy level and return to aesthetics level. More precisely, artistic authenticity can not leave from the dynamic process which is from author to work then to reader. The meaning of the word'authenticity'in literature critics is confusing, sometimes it means truth; sometimes it means the feeling of authenticity. The former is related to'life essence', while the latter belongs to return to aesthetics level. When the experience showed by works is corresponding to receiver's experience and all imagination based on it, the receiver will have a feeling of authenticity.The center stage of realistic artistic authenticity received challenge in mid eighties. Under the effect of the reform and open policy and market economy, the connection between politics and literature is relieved. Innovation of society made authors and readers'mood change rapidly, so literature art which has modernism character received sufficient development. Under the enlightenment of western realistic literature, authors of pioneer literature, modern novel and new realistic novel made brave attempts to violate realistic principles which overthrew the viewpoint of realistic literature authenticity fundamentally. They claimed that they were trying to break up the'false image of authenticity'of art; they didn't intent to uncover the essence and meaning of life but to tell fake stories. In their opinion, feeling and authenticity of spirit is the most important. The breakup between pioneer literature authors and realistic'authenticity'showed authors'respect to individual spirit and mind. They did not only deny the base of realistic literature--literature is a reflection of life essence, but also destroy the position of'authenticity'take in literature critics. The following new realism literature trend is regarded as a return to realism by some people. They paid attention to 'art originates from life, but higher than life'afterward. This view is not logical since art is subjective which is created by human and life is objective which is real, so they are not in the same level and can not be compared. Third, the function of'artistic authenticity'as a universal standard to judge whether a work is excellent is very limited. Landscape poem, prose and so on which do not reflect reality essences are still excellent literature works. Those'unreal'literature such as Fantastic literature, Fantasy literature and so on which emerged in recent years are still welcomed by readers. At last,'artistic authenticity'is a concept that can not be validated. The question of'What is authenticity'is subjective, so everyone have different feeling about'authenticity'which is related to personal subjective factors such as philosophy view, literature view and values. The discussion about'artistic authenticity'should concentrate in philosophy level and return to aesthetics level. More precisely, artistic authenticity can not leave from the dynamic process which is from author to work then to reader. The meaning of the word'authenticity'in literature critics is confusing, sometimes it means truth; sometimes it means the feeling of authenticity. The former is related to'life essence', while the latter belongs to return to aesthetics level. When the experience showed by works is corresponding to receiver's experience and all imagination based on it, the receiver will have a feeling of authenticity.The center stage of realistic artistic authenticity received challenge in mid eighties. Under the effect of the reform and open policy and market economy, the connection between politics and literature is relieved. Innovation of society made authors and readers'mood change rapidly, so literature art which has modernism character received sufficient development. Under the enlightenment of western realistic literature, authors of pioneer literature, modern novel and new realistic novel made brave attempts to violate realistic principles which overthrew the viewpoint of realistic literature authenticity fundamentally. They claimed that they were trying to break up the'false image of authenticity'of art; they didn't intent to uncover the essence and meaning of life but to tell fake stories. In their opinion, feeling and authenticity of spirit is the most important. The breakup between pioneer literature authors and realistic'authenticity'showed authors'respect to individual spirit and mind. They did not only deny the base of realistic literature--literature is a reflection of life essence, but also destroy the position of'authenticity'take in literature critics. The following new realism literature trend is regarded as a return to realism by some people. They paid attention to to whether the works are real or not. In spite of some scholars does not admit network novels'literariness, the fact that numbers of our country's net citizen is more than three hundred millions and even amount to four hundred millions make us have to face network literature. When people discuss these novels warmly on the internet, and even more people begin their creation, the boom stage of literature is coming. For literature researchers, it is a complex thing. What we face not only are those limited classic literature works, but also should embrace these network literature works emerged everyday; what we face are no longer close but open texts; what we face are no longer public who need to be civilized but new readers who have independent thoughts and take literature as recreation. Some literature works are not related to reality, history and authenticity, many of which even came from games. The theory of artistic authenticity can not explain all literature phenomena and why these literature works get close to mainstream more and more, so it is the time to take off the aura made by critics. We should abandon'elite ideal', pay attention to the development of these new emerging literatures and develop new literature theory. We can not use the theory of realistic artistic authenticity to evaluate these works and restrict their development. Literature theory came from the development of literature works from the beginning, thus it can not and should not restrict the development of literature.
|
PDF Full Text Request