The Interruption And Continuation Of Aesthetic Criticism

As an important bridge connecting writers and readers,literary criticism represents to a large extent a way for "people" to perceive "the world".However,with the increasing prosperity of network media and the continuous improvement of academic system,people’s feelings have been gradually flattened,and the rhetoric of criticism have been subjected to more stringent discipline.Therefore,how to reconstruct the "literariness" of literary criticism and activate the subject’s aesthetic sensibility has become the focus of contemporary critics.In this context,the practice of literary criticism in the 1980 s once again entered the field of view of the majority of researchers.In the early 1980 s,a critical paradigm emphasized subject experience and aesthetic feeling prevailed.They foucsed on the literary text itself rather than the inherent political idea.In additon,they regarded the spiritual course of the writer’s subject and the aesthetic characteristics of the work as the core of the interpretation of the critic,they extracted the personalized aesthetic concept from the specific critical practice.In the vast amount of critical historical materials,the "New Literary Theory" series published by Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House from 1985 to 1989 provides a typical example for the study of aesthetic criticism practice during this period.Due to the particularity of the growth background and knowledge structure of this generation of young critics,their critical practice presents distinct attributes of the times and subject style,from which we can find the track of the establishment and transformation of aesthetic criticism in the 1980 s.However,in the late 1980 s,due to the double restrictions of itself and the times,aesthetic criticism gradually entered an awkward situation of being closed and self-sufficient.In a kind of double paradox between the times and itself,aesthetic criticism finally goes to the decline and returns to the cultural criticism which rises in the 1990 s with the appearance of "unfinished".To return to the 1980 s not only means to return to the noisy literary scene,but also to analyze the critical details obscured by the straight-line narrative of literary history.This paper takes aesthetic criticism in the 1980 s as the research object,and focuses on the critical practice covered by the "New Literary Theory" series,aiming to sketch a section of the establishment,transformation and eventual decline of aesthetic criticism in the 1980 s.Among them,the introduction section defines the research object,and gives a comprehensive description of the literature related to the topic since the 1980 s,so as to further deepen the awareness of the problem and the Angle of entry.The first chapter gives a brief overview of the subject of criticism from the two categories of region and gender,and points out how different critics who have grown up in a particular knowledge background and environment enter the text.In the second chapter,the author’s works and literary events which aroused heated discussion in the 1980 s are selected,and the relevant critical writing is connected and analyzed,and the concrete representation of aesthetic criticism in the paradigm and discourse is presented in this process.The third chapter summarizes the main characteristics of aesthetic criticism in style,mode and theory selection in the eighties,so as to explore the extent to which this generation of young critics have expanded the aesthetic space of literary criticism,and how there are unavoidable limitations.Yu’s theory and conclusion point out that the development of aesthetic criticism in the1980 s experienced a process from the recovery of the prevailing to the transformation and decline,and then returned to the cultural criticism in the 1990 s,and finally settled in a state of "unfinished" development.This "unfinished" not only refers to the interruption of the development of aesthetic theory itself,but also covers various contradictions and splits in the process of the establishment of aesthetic criticism.Finally,this "historical legacy" does not end here,but continues to the current literary criticism: why is the essence of literature gradually fading in literary research?Do we have a set of aesthetic criteria for literary texts? Why does the personality of the critical subject fade away in literary criticism? How to reconstruct the dialogic nature of literary criticism today? These perplexities make us have to go back to the aesthetic criticism practice itself in the 1980 s,looking for the potential veins and cracks in it,so as to try to answer.