Study Of The Organic Unity Conception In The History Of Western Literature Theory

PrefaceOrganic Unity is a perfect combination of organism metaphor and Holism, It wasinfluenced by different literary ideas and times, and has been increasingly knot withthe essence of literature, and becomes an important clue to understand the concept ofwestern literature. The introduction introduces the root of organic unity theory, basicresearch fields, and current research status, and explains the research methods of thisarticle.Chapter I The Ancient Greek Poetics: The Germination Time of Organic UnityPlato was the source of organic unity, and his concept of organic unity was wellreflected in his analysis of the city construction and the soul theory. His theoryinvolves the relationship between the whole and part, the connection between thewhole of body and the coordination of the soul, the role of reason in the form ofintegrity, etc., which were later adopted as the base for exploring various areas by theorganic unity. But Plato, after all, consist merely a prehistoric part of the thesis, whichis why we call his organic unity “pre literature”. It was in his poetics that Aristotlefirst built up a complete literature organic unity theory system. His theory, on the onehand, reflects the consistency of wholeness in various disciplines; on the other hand,also well versed within the literary creation theory, theory of ontology, acceptancefrom three aspects: the work itself is the interaction between each part as a whole; Apoet is a creator who puts together distracting things and complicated phenomenonaccording to the principle of form; The audience is the discoverer of integrity and thepotential practitioners of it. We can say that organic unity of literature was laid abroad foundation from the beginning.Chapter II Neo-Platonism: Era of Theology in Organic UnityPlotinus unearthed a new interpretation based on inheritance of Plato’s main topicfor the organic unity: emanation. His theory provides a new perspective for organicunity; obsess not over the relationship between the whole and part, but directly fromthe angle of creator‘s view to explain the gain of entirety. In this way, it changes theprinciples of organic integrity from a kind of objective structure of the text into a subjective ability of creativity, thus laying a foundation for the subjective era of theorganic unity. He also gave an unprecedented affirmation for the role of aesthetic,promoting its status to a kind of one, the sublimation of the soul.Chapter III Historicism: Full Growth Era of Organic UnityHistoric ideology, in the late18th century, provides a new development opportunityfor organic unity; especially making the integrity of the literature involved in thediscussion. Herder, one of the advocates of historicism and founders of Germannational literature, first utilized organic unity in the field of history of literature,regarding an era and its current literature as a whole, which effectively maintains therelativity of history, and has played a positive role in fighting against the attack of theneoclassicism in ancient culture and defending the independence of national literature.The entire lifespan of Goethe’s is the reflection of his value of organic unity. Heregards the world as the creation of the vitality of nature, and literature and art arefurther acts to natural creativity. Natural creativity gives all things integrity, literarycreativity makes astronomers breakthrough unceasingly, absorbing more aliencomposition into a whole. Under the guidance of organic unity conception, Goethesees the world literature as a whole, thus the discussion about literary organic unityextends to an unprecedented scale.Chapter IV Romanticism: Era of Subjectivity in Organic UnityTill the Romantic era, the organic unity began to face its turning point: subjectivity.Kant, a pioneer of organic unity, sees imagination as the recognizing function foruniting a variety of senses, and locates art a new position on this base. On the basis ofKant’s theory of the subjectivity of organic unity, German romantic scholarsapplicated it into the internal of literature, believing that only the author’s individualspirit can give integrity to various parts of the works. Following romantic poets,Schelling, continuously pushed the subject spirit to the integration power of the world,and regards literature and art, along with other artistic and disciplines, as the samekind of spiritual product on different stages. Hegel’s continuation of Schelling’s pointof view, evolutionary of art, also pays appropriate attention to the object of art formthrough the sensible appearing of rational theory. Coleridge further promotes literarywholeness falling back to the direction of the object, focusing on the variety of unityof the text, and started a new era of the context theory.Chapter V Philosophy of biology: Peak Times of Organic UnityBergson’s Philosophy of biology leads organic unity to its peak. In order to show his attitude against traditional western metaphysics, Bergson takes the world as anindivisible organic flow of life, advocating the integrity of the world could only beheld in irrational intuition, and treats literature as the key to reclaiming the machineryof survival, calling for organic life. Croce further emphasized the equality of art andintuition, trying to cancel the difference between form and creation, also the boundaryof art categories. Bergson and Croce derived the identity of the organic unity theory tothe extreme of logic.Chapter VI Psychology: The Organic Unity Era of IntrospectionRechards, inspired by modern psychology, no longer pursues the shadow of life outof individuals, but left organic unity in their life experience. The seek of wholeness, ashe argues, is one’s psychological need, and creation in literary is a way in whichpeople make breakthrough in individual experience. Gestalt psychology providesscientific support for Gestalt Richards’s literature organic unity, therefore in thissection of the Gestalt school situated in psychology, aesthetic theory and art theory, asa supplement to the theory of Richards.Chapter VII New Criticism: The Objectivity Era of Organic UnityHaving seen the limitation of the Subjectivity, Eliot and new criticis began to focusorganic unity back to the literary object. Eliot‘s "objective correlative" theory,Ransom’s “Texture/structure" theory, and Cleanth Brooks’s metaphor---"exquisiteurn" imply organic wholeness of literature text itself from different angles. In thehands of the latter, organic unity gradually become isolated off the world, criticized bydeconstruction criticism.EpilogueOrganic unity once declined under the blow of the deconstructionism, but then theDeleuze, and other “Body” Aesthetics injected new blood to the advancement oforganic unity. Over two thousand years’ history of Organic unity tells us that thistheory has a close tie with person’s survival, thus we can predict that it will neverdecay, and the context of new ideas will emerge as phoenix rises from the ash.