Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.1, 2022 

Theoretical Self-Consciousness and Its Misunderstandings of Contemporary Literary Criticism

(Abstract)

Xu Yong

Theoretical self-consciousness of literary criticism, which sprung up in the mid-to-late 1980s, was motivated by two forces. The first is new changes in literary creation and their challenges to criticism. The second is the foreign theories’ impact and their influence on critics. Historically, theoretical self-consciousness of literary criticism is an important achievement of the theorization trend of criticism, but the by-product is the “excess of theory” phenomenon in literary criticism. Theory can lead to a consciousness of literary criticism, but it has intrinsic limits. To be effective, literary criticism needs to connect with realities and promote dialogues between all aspects of literary activities for the significance of interaction and communication.