A Brief Comment On The Chinese Culture Criticism Since 1990s

The cultural criticism since 1990s is a critical idea and method that China contemporary literary theory can not ignore. It appears on the historical stage under the influence of the dual context settings both in the West and the East. Adding to the literary theorists'concern on it, cultural criticism developed so quickly in China that later became a hot topic in the field of literary theory. The emerging of cultural criticism indeed expanse our vision of literary theory and improve its capability of solving practical problems. However, the cultural criticism has reached a stalemate after a short period of blooming. In recent years, more and more scholars begin to question it and reflect it.For cultural criticism, it is improper to totally affirm everything or to negate everything blindly. Only make it clear whatever it refers to, how it occurs in China, what experience it has undergone and what the predicament are, can we have a thoroughly understanding of the China cultural criticism since 1990s. What's more, we can get some enlightenment on the construction of literary theory.The whole thesis is divided into three chapters except the introduction and conclusion.The first chapter describes how cultural criticism occurs in China. Firstly, from the analysis of the relationship between cultural criticism and cultural studies, it defines the cultural criticism and confirms that it is not the "pan-cultural" studies. It is the study of literary texts and cultural event by the achieved literary theories. Moreover it coexists with the traditional literary studies and integrates within each other. Then it focuses on analyzing its context of cultural criticism in China; the social environment changes and literary urgency.The second chapter describes the development of cultural criticism and the predicaments appeared during the procession and then analysis the causes of the predicaments. It firstly skips through its development from the seminars on the cultural criticism over decades. Then look at it from two sides both as a literary theory and as a critical method to discover the develop process. In the analysis of the causes for these predicaments, it summarizes the following aspects such as its object is too general, the method it applied not fixed and the main research area a little simplistic etc. The third chapter is about the reflection of cultural criticism in China since 1990s, First of all, through specific case studies, it affirms the significance of cultural criticism in enriching literary field and the ability of dealing with the realistic problems. Then it makes the comparison of cultural criticism's development between China and western so as to exhibit that China has a long tradition of studying literary from the outer factors like the social environment but lack of the "internal research." Therefore, Chinese cultural criticism is not a retort of formalism and it lacks sufficient ingredient for development. Finally through the development of cultural poetic, the paper concludes that the appropriate way and the right choice for literary theory as well as for the development of literary theory lie in improving the creativity of the theory.