Studies Of Chinese Literary Criticism In The 1980s

The dissertation mainly combs and explores the Chinese literary criticism studies in the 1980s from the following aspects.To begin with,the paper discusses the influence on literary criticism imposed by social transformation starting at the end of the 1970s.Since the 1970s,the authoritative ideology confronted an imminent and pressing task brought by a variety of social events,that is,the ideology must make adjustments itself and comply with the public opinions so as to maintain its prestige or validity.This authoritative ideology needed a newfangled aesthetic feeling and literary style to serve its purpose in the process of these adjustments,which in turn contributed to the advocation of "Literature and Art for People,and for Socialism"instead of the so-called "Literature and Art for Political Affairs".However,the opposition and tension between literary arts and politics were not settled thoroughly,and the divergence of the "Line" of literary arts within the political ideology made it difficult and time-consuming for the literary criticism and theories to be constructed."The Fourth Member Representative Congress of the Chinese Writers’ Association"was held at the end of 1984,and it stressed "the freedom of creation" and examined the "Pro-leftism" of the CPC’s leadership of literary arts which further prompted the development of theories of literary criticism.Afterwards,although confronted with the political pressure,it was ineluctable for the literary criticism theories to enter the age of diversification.Secondly,the classical literary theories and traditional critical paradigm which focused on political practicability would not reconcile to be marginalized,and attempted to make various powers(such as "Trauma Literature"dispute,"Modernism" dispute and "Eliminating Spiritual Contamination Movement")to have the control of the development of literature and the direction of the construction of critical theories.Thirdly,the paper explores the influence of the return of humanist ethos on literary criticism.The past period,especially the bruising experiences resulted from the "Cultural Revolution" accelerated the pace of the imminent humanist ethos,and the cardinal point of the literary criticism and theoretical construction was to realize human "nature" and "freedom".The assertions of "Governing Literature by Non-interference","Literary Subjectivity","Ontology of Literature and Arts" and "Belles-lettres" and so forth,all best embodied the humanist feelings.These three aspects intertwined and shaped the course of literary criticism in the 1980s.The introduction mainly illustrates the research scope,the available research results and shortcomings as well as the research goal,the path and the main contents of each chapter.The first chapter and the second chapter summarizes the development of the"left-wing" theories of literature and art criticism and the process of its centralization,and the adjustments to the literary policies made by the authoritative ideology at the end of the 1970s and the debates triggered by those adjustments.The prerequisite for apprehending the thinking resources and purposes of the range of literary criticism debates in the 1980s is to have an insight into the development and centralization of the "left-wing" literary criticism.Generally speaking,the whole train of the 1980s’literature and criticism disputes are in nature the specific characterization of the confrontations and conflicts among diverse literary notions and discourse powers after the collapse of the former literary patterns,in which the most conspicuous is the stalemate and clash between the "revolutionary"(or political)literary view and that of"human".If the conflicts are put in the light of the long-term historical background,the nature can be boiled down to the historical consistency of the clashes between literature as a "struggle weapon"(for the purpose of some "criteria and order")in the hands of different classes and organizations and that as the "human" free and conscious activities.The third chapter expounds the clash and switch of the two paradigms of 80s’literary criticism.Since "the May Fourth Movement",human nature,humanism,creation approaches and forms had been the dispute focus of the literary arena.In the following historical evolution,these disputes were taken very seriously for discussion.In the range of "revolutionary" literary criticism,arguing consistently "human nature"and the validity of writing approaches and forms from a macro point of view is not only a matter of the success or failure of literary arts,but also the success or failure of the revolutionary cause;from the micro viewpoint,the attitudes toward human nature,humanism and creation approaches and forms frequently reflect a writer’s ideological state.Consequently,theory of human nature,humanism and creation approaches which did not conform to the "revolutionary" requirements were ineluctably labeled as "backwardness" and "reactionary",while the writing approaches which violated the "revolutionary" demands were tagged different labels on,such as formalism of modernism,idealism and anti-realism and so forth.In the 1980s,the above-mentioned "traditional" views gradually lost their charm,and literary criticism with the kernel of "humanism" resonated in the literary world.The fourth chapter explores the key words and popular terms in the 80s’ literary criticism,such as "the criteria for literary criticism","new approach","20th century Chinese literature","subjectivity","ontology of literature and art","belles-lettres",the historical background of "rewriting literary history",theoretical significance and theoretical blind spots.The fifth part examines the historical limits of the 80s’ literary criticism from its implement and thinking features of the "Double Hundreds" principle(the short form of the principle of "letting a hundred flowers bloom and letting a hundred schools of thoughts contend").The historical situation of the "Double Hundreds" roughly reflected the "toplimit" of the academic development and contention.In the 1980s,the practice of the "Double Hundreds" was tinged by the tendencies of politicization and toolization,which impeded the profoundness and broadness of the "contention" and the updating pace and the innovative power of the literary criticism;meanwhile,the overall thinking features reflected the degree of its literary consciousness.The literary criticism witnessed in its gradation an unconscious and new-fangled thinking mode in the 1980s,forming a thinking logic of China and the world,traditional and modern,politics and literature,external and internal,society and individual,and in each contrasting pair the former meant conservative and backward while the latter modern and advanced.These contrasts illustrated that the 80s’ literary criticism lacked the"self-criticizing" consciousness in reflecting on the classical criticism and maintained a "criticism within its own system" without the adequate theoretical consciousness of"art totality".The last part concludes the theoretical significance of the literary criticism in the 1980s and points out the criticism put an end to the long-term sole pursuit of the tendency of literature and criticism for governing people and practical purposes,and initiates a comprehensive exploration of "literature for literature itself" and its own nature.