Literary Formal Criticism Since The New Period

Since entering the new period of the 20 th century, Chinese literature has ushered in the spring with its vitality. In the field of literary criticism and theory, ideas are blooming and the formal criticism is a wonderful one. Since entering the new period,with the social background of the reform and opening up and the ideological emancipation, the theoretical background of scholars’ rebellion to traditional social and historical criticism, the creation background of exploration to modernistic technique,the motivation of the methodology of literary and art studies, formal criticism arose(1979-1989).The rise of formal criticism mainly manifested in two aspects: the awakening of criticism consciousness and the translation of western formalism literary theory with its own characteristics as well. For example, the rise of formal criticism came with strong political demands; the development of formal criticism was just stay in the stage of translation of literary theory formalism at that time and few scholars carried on the analysis and evaluation, etc.Entering the 1990 s, the development of the formal criticism went into the prosperous period(1990-2000). Formal criticism developed with the coexistence of translation and interpretation, criticism practice and migration applications,transformation and construction, reflection and development. The development of the formal criticism also showed its won characteristics which were different from those at the beginning period. For example, the formal criticism mainly focused on the interpretation of formalism literary theory and criticism practice; the formal criticism had not really built a local Chinese own theory system, although theory construction of formal criticism could be treated as a relief. At the same time, the development of formal criticism had a distinct breakthrough to formalism literary theory and a unique contribution to the whole literary theory in the new period which can be showed in the following four aspects: the confirm of literary self-discipline, the study of literary form, the study of Chinese narrative art, the combination of the formal criticism with society, culture and psychology.Since entering the 21 st century, the formal criticism has walked on the way of decline and transformation. Obviously we can see that, on the one hand, a group of formal criticism research scholars are losing; on the other hand, the study also lack ofnew angles of view. More than one factor should be responsible for the decline of formal criticism. Not only was the formal criticism faced with its difficulties, but also the rise of "cultural studies" made an impact on the formal criticism. Nevertheless, the basic reason lies in the fading charm of formal criticism with the change of social development. But the good news is the formal criticism is just declining but not disappearing. Formal criticism continues existing and developing in the new century. It is rooted in the consciousness of literature research scholars and existed with its new transform.In more than thirty years, from the beginning of new period till now, the formal criticism has experienced a process, including rising, developing, declining and transforming, and has formed a trend in the research of literature with the enthusiasm and expectations of many scholars. At the same time, there are some problems left for our more consideration. What is the breakthrough of between formal criticism theory and traditional one? What is the influence of it on the present literature? Why does the formal criticism lose its advantage in the later? What is the future direction for the development of formal criticism? What is the way to come out? As for these questions,the author also gives the following answers, for example the author thinks that the reason why formal criticism has lost its advantage in the later mainly lies in three aspects: the Marxist literary theories cannot pay more attention to the form; since the new period, the various literary and artistic theories have bloomed; the literary values of Chinese ancient traditional literary theory has profound influences.The author puts forward three suggestions on the direction of the development of the formal criticism in the future: connecting the formal research with cultural psychology, society and political factors; excavating the value of "form" in ancient literary theory; expanding the study of formal research and the exchanges with other subjects.As a new literary criticism theory trend since the new period, the formal criticism has profoundly influenced the development of today’s literature from its emergence.It left us much memories full of hope and pities to reflect. It is necessary and worth to study the formal criticism.