The Cognitive Function Of Literary Form:Nativeness And Worldliness

Form,always seen as a keyword in the literary criticism in the twentieth century,has never secured the “key” position but been reduced to the carrier of content in the binary opposition between form and content.Form always serves the content,or meaning,or feeling,a taken-for-granted view.However,there exists a novel and deep voice uttered by some Western Marxists.They aim to restore the autonomy of literary form.Either it be Marcuse's “content becoming form”,Goldman and Benjamin's“mental function of form”,or Luckac and Jameson's “intervening role of form”,they all contribute to the cause of establishing the autonomy of form and attach great importance to its function.Based on this theoretical thought,this thesis centers on the cognitive relationship between literary form and the social reality and proceeds from the following three aspects.First of all,the autonomy of literary form resides in its cognitive structure.Through the arrangement of literary and social materials,the literary form constructs a way of cognition and conveys a certain understanding of the reality.Secondly,literary form,more than or instead of a reflection of the reality,reacts forcefully to the reality.Thirdly,literary form does not evolve according to content,but has its own mechanism and route of development,and plays a critical role in the transmission of literary works.The themes of literary are limited in number and common for all human beings.They constitute the basis for literary transmission but couldn't explain fully the reception and variation in transmission.It is the literary form,being a way of cognition towards the reality,that triggers the reception and influence the handling of literary and life materials in the local literature.The variation presents the localization of a foreign literary form to better grasp the local reality.On the basis of theoretical sorting out and construction,the cognition significance of literary form is further illustrated through actual literary phenomenon,namely magical realism and its reception as well as variation in China.The illustration is divided into three parts:Chapter Two,The Cognitive Function of Magical Realism,presents a detailed illustration of the cognitive significance of literal form as well as its relationship with the social reality.The three formal features,magical reality,allegory history and broken time,are explored to shed light on the fact that magical realism arised to satisfy the need for a renewed cognition in the changed social situations.Being a way of cognition,magical realism in return works on the reader's perception of the reality.Chapter Three,The Formal Voyage of Root-seeking Literature——Magical Root-seeking Consciousness,is divided into two parts.The first part explores the appearance and development of root-seeking literature in the system of Chinese literature,aiming to explain the internal mechanism of a certain literature form.The second part focuses on the influence of magical realism.It is not the similar social dilemmas that prompt the reception of such a foreign expression,but the cognition embedded in the form.It is the cognition in the form that enables the writers to cope with the similar social dilemmas.In this way,the internal development mechanism is merged with the foreign factor.Literary form harbors a unique mechanism of development and plays a key role in literary relations.Chapter Four,The Localization of Magical Realism in China——A Chinese Narration of Marquez style,places emphasis on the localization of magical realism in China,namely what differs root-seeking literature from magical realism and why are all the differences.The diversification of national appearances presents a deconstructing posture,the literalization of the formerly illiberal conveys an awakening of the language awareness,splattering narration implicates a brand-new consciousness of time and space,and the de-political local family story displaces the political ideology with the provincialism and sense of life.Chapter Five,The Worldliness of Root-seeking Literature,places root-seeking literature in the midst of world literature and its significance to world literature.It's an endeavor to review the Sino-foreign literary relations in the twentieth century from the perspective of the cognitive function of literary form.The Conclusion,based on summarizing the former content,illustrates the process from the worldliness of magical realism to the nativeness of root-seeking literatureand then to the worldliness of Moyan.The literary form plays a significant role here and to some degree,complements the influence and parallel studies.That art arises out of life doesn't mean solely that the materials of art come from life.The form of art also comes from life and interacts with life.That art prevails over life doesn't mean solely that art achieves catharsis.The form of art provides a solid way of intervening into life.The focus on literary form in this thesis proceeds from the fact that the significance of form is underestimated or misplaced in the frame of dual opposition,without any intention to dismantle content.The thesis aims to reshape the significance of literary form and on the other hand provides new perspective of cognitive form into literary phenomena and relations.