Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.5, 2014

Identification of Issues Concerning Contemporary Western Literary Criticism—With Concurrent Reflections on the Reconstruction of Chinese Literary Criticism

(Abstract)

Zhang Jiang

While fully affirming the positive influence that contemporary Western literary criticism has exerted on the construction of Chinese literary criticism, it is necessary to exercise discrimination with regard to contemporary Western literary criticism itself, to review its effectiveness when applied to Chinese literary practice, and finally to consider the reconstruction of Chinese literary criticism. Contemporary Western literary criticism has the following major limitations: it is detached from literary practice, interpreting both literary texts and literary experience in the light of the ready-made theories of other disciplines and generalizing them as universal literary rules; its criticism and even demolition of previous theories and methods mean that views with some reasonable elements are carried to extremes; and it uses a fixed one-size-fits-all model of scientism to expound particular texts. Contemporary Western literary criticism grows in the soil of Western culture, which differs from Chinese culture in terms of language, ethics and aesthetics; that determines the limitations of its theoretical application. The basic points for the reconstrution of Chinese literary criticism are as follows: firstly, it should abandon its excessive reliance on foreign theories, and return to Chinese literary practice; secondly, it should uphold our national direction, return to the Chinese context, and fully absorb the heritage of traditional Chinese literary criticism; and thirdly, it should understand and handle appropriately the relation between internal and external research and should build a research paradigm for the dialectical unity of the two.