Literary Theory Studies On British Cultural Conservatism

"Cultural Studies" has become one of the major paradigms in the domestic and international academics. However, its source of academic thought came from British cultural conservatism study with Matthew Arnold, F ? R ? Leavis and T ? S ? Eliot as the representatives. As a result, it makes a great value and Significance to clearly definite and systematically study British cultural conservatism thought.Based on the theoretical perspective of modernity, this article starts from cultural perspective and takes the cultural works and their important theoretical scopes of the British cultural conservatism representatives as study object. By closely reading the important original texts on the basis of previous studies and clearly classifying consciousness of problem, the article aims not only to grasp the history clues of the development of the British cultural conservatism, but also to compare the synchronic ideas of representatives of the British cultural conservatism in order to highlight a deeper cultural meaning and theoretical characteristics of the British cultural conservatism.The first part discusses the evolution of modernism and the rise of British culture conservatism. This section mainly explores theoretical predicament caused by modernism in its evolution. With the consciousness of reflection, criticism and repair of the modernity, the British cultural conservatism came out. It emerged out of the influence of critical tradition of modernity and intellectual caring awareness of the cultural conservatives. At the same time, this section also discusses the theoretical purport of British conservatism.The second part discusses the Matthew Arnold's literary theory, in which four parts are involved, namely bad spiritual culture, culture is the pursuit for perfection, culture guides humanity into the perfection through cultivating the Hebrew and Greek spirits, and culture's social functions lie in resisting the chaos of anarchism and ensuring national authority construction.The third part discusses the F ? R ? Leavis' literary theory, in which four parts are, involved, namely the overflow of mass culture and the memory of the past culture, culture is something created by the minority, criticize the mass culture and save the spiritual crisis by restoring literary tradition.The fourth part discusses the T ? S ? Eliot's literary theory, in which four parts is involved, namely dilemma of human spiritual "cultural wasteland", culture is a kind of"whole concept of culture", to save the spiritual crisis by restoring the literary and religious traditions and to criticize the mass culture.The fifth part discusses the theoretical evaluation of the British cultural conservatism. It not only focuses on its own theoretical characteristics of cultural conservatism, but also indicates its theoretical meaning and historical position, trying to build up the comparison of culture view in the internal culture conservatism from a synchronic point. At the same time, it also places the cultural conservatism into the whole development processes of the cultural study.The last part discusses the theoretical reference significance of modern British cultural conservatism to the contemporary literary construction in our country.