The Interpretations Of Kant’s Notion Of "Mere Form" In Anglo-American Literary Formal Theories

"Form" is an important term that has long and extensively been employed in the Western aesthetics, including in the Anglo-American literary theories of form. In the past two centuries, literary form is unprecedentedly emphasized in many schools of Anglo-American literary theories and criticism. Sometimes it is even regarded as one of the core concepts in the Anglo-American literary formal theories, such as Aestheticism, New Criticism and Structuralism. It is widely recognized that the Anglo-American stress on artistic form is influenced by Kant’s notion of "mere form". While researches into Kant’s aesthetics and the Anglo-American literary formal theories are voluminous, the study of the Anglo-American interpretations of his concept of "mere form", their causes, their agreeableness to Kant and their influences on the Anglo-American literary formal theories is comparatively insufficient. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct further study of these important theoretical issues.First, the author makes a brief theoretical examination of the term as in.Kant. In Critique of Judgment, Kant leaves "mere form" undefined, and only provides extensional stipulations for the term, so the author observes it by exploring its historical origins, its textual backdrop in his critical philosophy and its extensional relations to other core aesthetic concepts and notions in Kant. Second, the author explores in two perspectives the interpretations of "mere form" rendered by Anglo-American literary formal theorists, critics and scholars. On the one hand, the author examines interpretations regarding the extensions of the Kantian term, elucidating their relation to the development of main Anglo-American literary formal theories. On the other hand, the author scrutinizes four representative interpretations concerning the connotations of "mere form" respectively as a priori pure form, empirical features, a mental mode related to conceptual cognition and as "free play of sensations."(Kant’s words) All these interpretations are very different, if not always contradictory, but all of them can find support in Kant’s texts. Thus they are inevitably subject to further analysis and evaluation.Third, according to Kant’s contextual and extensional stipulations of "mere form", the author tests and evaluates these interpretations in his texts. It is thus illustrated that most Anglo-American extensional interpretations of "mere form" as a significant stress on the disinterested and autonomous value of art are in agreement with Kant, but many of the multifarious connotational interpretations of the term are not congenial to him. While it is safe to contend that the Kant exerts significant influence through his "mere form" on Anglo-American literary theories of form in accordance with the extensional interpretations, it is problematic to presuppose such influence in terms of the connotational readings. Therefore, many academic arguments with respect to such influence lack dialectic distinction between extensional and connotational influences, and are thus subject to further evaluation. Last, the author analyzes the causes for such diverse and even opposed connotational interpretations in four-fold perspective:the intrinsic requirements of the development of literary theory and criticism, lack of clear definition of the term in the third critique, Kant’s delicate philosophizing methods to mediate between Rationalism and Empiricism, and his problematic use of language. In the final analysis, as a stress on the autonomous value of art, the extensional interpretations ground most Anglo-American literary formal theories. In the meantime, though the diversity and complexity of connotational interpretations suggests considerable misreadings of the term, they are helpful not only in understanding the evolution of modern Anglo-American literary formal theories under the influence of Kant, but also in construing properly the term itself.