Scoicohistorical Criticism In Modern China

Sociohistorical criticism is the most important approach to literature criticism in modem China, but in fact; people have a vague recognition about its historical forms .Now it is regarded as a method related more closely to politics than literature, and it is seldom mentioned. But alter taking a view of 20th centuiy抯 sociohistorical criticism in China, we know it is not the truth. The main idea runs as follows: (1) In early 20C, with the spread of western sociology, modern sociohistorical criticism appears. Based on the theory of evolution, it is believed that literature changes every age .It has divertive angles of view in literature study. (2) After learning Marxism, many people put great importance on economics and politics in their critics. In their critics, they always find relations between economics and the author抯 class standpoint and the thought of the works. (3) From 1930抯, politics has been the center of social life, and it becomes the center of criticism too. Soon it becomes the only angle of criticism and shows extreme limitation which makes many critics look down upon sociohistorical criticism later. (4) In 1980抯, sociohistorical criticism take on a new look and it is called 憕cu1tural criticism?by mistake. After comparing sociohistorical criticism and cultural criticism, I come to the conclusion that most of the criticism which is called cultural criticism now is sociohistorical criticism. So, there are four kind of sociohistorical criticism in modem China, which shows that sociohistorical criticism is an open approach to literature. Though sometime it is treated as a simple method, in fact, sociohistorical criticism is a method based on different sociologies, having comprehensive angles of view and still has great vitality now, if only literature is come from sociew Though this method has different patterns in different ages, the line of it has not changed: literature is a social product; and we must find the relations between literature and society, between literature and different social factors with a historical view...