On The Idea Of Modern Western Literature

The idea of modern western literature has roughly gone through three periods:the concept of general appearance, the theory of general appearance and the idea of exit.First, it’s as an academic with a different sense of the concept of appearance. This appearance has a profound historical background:the oral tradition and the written tradition. The former makes the literature with original features of the oral form and private property. The latter with the popularity of printed books make the literature of a possibility being read. The departure of the two traditional laid out the factual basis for the concept of literature. On a perspective of the material carriers, literature underwent the changes from oral language to written language.Second, it’s with the rise of the theory, the idea of literature becomes the diversified forms coerced by theory from a single concept. On the one hand, the literature gets constantly advancing as the result of the theory in depth exploration; on the other hand, the own development of the theory has overflowed the threshold of the literary research and turned to other cultural forms as the focus of attention. Whether in the knowledge of linguistics or sociology or philosophy to seek the legitimacy basis of defining literature, are just as the ways of thinking of looking at literature.Third, at the later period, the theory including feminism, post-modernism, new historicism, postcolonial and cultural studies, shifted the focus of attention to the many areas outside of literature. This not only illustrates that literature no longer appeals the consciousness of discrimination, and also announces the arrival of the idea of exit. But this does not mean the demise of literature. Despite there are so-called arguments about the end of literature and the expansion of literariness, the scholars still attempts to make literature and literary studies to obtain a degree of continuity by defending the classic and return to reading.This article from the angle of the idea, briefly discusses the development of the idea of modern western literature. Its purpose is eventually pointing the future of literature.On the basis of the studies of literature above-mentioned, we can know that since the beginning of the occurrence of literature, there are many possibilities, such as the concept, the theory and the idea. This means that the literature is not only existing, but open to future.