The Concept Of Literary Essence And Evaluation Since The 1990s

People have always been keen on discussing literary essence, about which different people have different views. The explanations for it differ from each other in different periods, thus forming various concepts of literary essence. From the early theory of imitation, performance to the later theory of acceptance, aesthetics, and so on, people's understanding about literary essence has undergone a historical development. The process of exploring the literary essence also needs our continuous thinking and reflection. People could have a more thorough ponder on literature and life in the process of asking"why"and"how".Literature is always closely linked with the era and social development. Since the 1990s, great changes have taken place in the discussion on literary essence, into which the changes of the context of the era, the literature shape and concerns of the theorists are involved. Discussion about literary essence since the 1990s includes thinking about the literary context of the era, the features of the literary theory expression way and the literary essence itself as a question.This thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter described the new situation of the literary essence since the 1990s. As a result of changes in the social environment, literary concepts and knowledge pattern, the literature circumstance has been quite different. The literature was of great prosperity in the 1980s, which was playing the leading role in the society and was the first carrier for elite culture during the special period. But after the 1990s, the literature presents a popular tendency. The emergence of electronic media led to the birth of a new literary style, which as a result gave rise to changes in people's understanding about literature. The second chapter analyzed several representative views of literary essence since the 1990's. Affected by post-modernism and cultural studies, some scholars began to avoid the problem of literary essence, but the discussion on the literary essence didn't come to an end. Instead, several representative views emerged. What was most striking was the debate revolving"the literature esthetic ideology". Others explored the literary essence from the systematic or comprehensive perspectives or from the height of literature itself. The third chapter inspected the literary essence of anti-essentialism. Anti-essentialism opposes the literary essentialism. However, in the process of analysis of literature, the inspection of literary essence has already been included, thus, it could still be considered a concept on literary essence. In the fourth chapter, we briefly teased out the concept of literature and its development, and particularly discussed the post-modern"literariness". The post-modern"literariness"provides a new interpreting space for the generalization trend in literature, causing people to think about the status and significance of literature in the structure of social culture. Through the analysis and discussion of"literariness", understanding and contemplation of literature could also be obtained. However, the studying of"literariness"could not replace the exploration of the essence of literature. The problem of literary essence will never end, instead, the understanding of it will deepen whenever it is explored.