A Study On Rene Wellek’s Literary Criticism Views

Wellek is famous for his rich academic works in the educational circle. This paperaims to discuss systemically Wellek’s literary criticism views including three parts,the conceptualism, ontologism and development theory.This paper firstly makes analysis of Wellek`s conceptualism including hiscognition about the importance of literary terms and concepts. Since the20thcentury,the western literary criticism becomes more diverse under the influence of twothought trends in philosophy Scientism and Humanism. The increasing amount andvagueness of literary criticism terms arouse the attention of Wellek. Guided byPerspectivism, he defines the fundamental connotation of literary criticism, but theapplying of the specific context causes the vagueness of literary criticism. ThatWellek defines the Goethe’s “Romantic” and “Classical”, James`“organic form”the concepts embody the applying of this method.Secondly, the ontologism refers to Wellek`s understanding about the existing wayof literary works and his advice about how to understand literary works.Wellek`scriticism towards Bakhtin`s Polyphony Theory and Brandes biography indicates thathe insists the ontology criticism. In the view of Wellek, literary works is anempirical object, which is not one specific work but one ideal abstract object. Literaryworks have multilevel structure. The symbol, value and structure form the threeaspects of the literary works. Wellek opposes the impressionism criticism method andpositivism criticism method which will cause the criticism absolutism and relativism.Perspectivism is the right solving method but arouses easily the impression thatWellek opposes the causality because it weakens the relationship except the literaryworks.Finally, the paper discusses development theory that refers to Wellek`sunderstanding about how the literary criticism develops. The criticism developmentneed take reference of the previous theories. Wellek also does the same way. Theextending field of literary criticism, such as literary history, comparative literature and the history of literary criticism and so on, are helpful to promote the wholeliterature study. The subject of literary criticism is the organizer of criticism activity.The entitle quality of the subject of literary criticism relates to the healthydevelopment of the literary criticism. Take the Mario·Raz for example, Wellek offersthe suggestion that the literary critics should improve the entitle quality.Under the observation of Perspectivism, the unity of Wellek literary criticism iscentering the ontologism, and consisted of conceptualism and development theory.They have close relationship and are indispensible. Wellek is worth of deep thoughtand study.