The Archetypes and Literary Activities

Author: Xia Xiu
Publisher: China Social Sciences Press

 

Different cultures merge into one another in the world to form a common community of destiny, interest and life. It is certain that cultures around the globe all share some characteristics and values, though each nation has its own distinctive traits.

As for Chinese culture, everyone in the contemporary media era, especially academics, needs to learn about exemplary traditional characteristics, which provide people with a better understanding of their own culture and sense of identity.
 

As a sort of cultural subconsciousness, archetype theory establishes a framework for human culture and shapes the different temperaments of nations and individuals. The Archetypes and Literary Activities by Xia Xiu systematically examines and analyzes relevant documents in China and abroad.
 

Building upon existing achievements, the book offers an overview of how the concept has been formulated and developed. It also explores the recognition of these theories in China while reinterpreting the connotations and features of archetypes.
 

Also, it presents an in-depth discussion on the theory’s application in literary creation, acceptance and criticism, insightfully exploring the relationship between individual identity and national characteristics as well as the interaction between literature and human culture.
 

Archetype is regarded as one of the three critical theories in the 20th century. The author focused on its transmission to and influence on China. Explaining its powerful vitality in China, the author commented that “the acceptance and proliferation [of archetype theory] in literary study are attributable to the concept’s intrinsic compatibility with Chinese literature, in particular, classical works.”
 

In addition, the book strives to give new answers to a number of questions. For example, the author divides the “familial” concept into a “primary caring archetype” and a “secondary caring archetype,” with the former including all the basic elements that are vital to everyone, such as “love,” “beauty,” “life” and “death.”
 

All cultures pay special attention to these factors and consider them divine. This classification the author created will make readers better understand the stability, guidance and trans-cultural humanity of archetypes while increasing its practicability and operability in analyzing heterogeneous cultural attributes.
 

Chinese culture has a long history and legacy. The continuity of Chinese literature and art is quite a rare phenomenon in the world. In light of this, archetype theories, compared to other Western theories, are rather inspiring to Chinese literary studies.

 

Li Yanzhu is a professor from the School of Literature at Shandong Normal University.