Abstract
When Wang Yuanhua was widely acclaimed as a distinguished literary theorist who excelled in both Chinese and Western theories before the 90s, scholars tended to neglect the fact that Zhdanovism which originated from the former Soviet Union had always been his guiding principle and methodology all through his academic career. When he first embarked on literary theory, Zhdanovism was his main theoretical anchor which can be evidenced by his works like Luxun and Nietzsche and On Realism which were produced in 1939 and 1940 respectively.He began to reflect upon Zhdanovism in 1943 for he found that Zhdanovism tend to impair the individuality of the writers. Regretfully he didn't negate Zhdanovism from a methodological level, which paves the way for its revival when he wrote his On the Creation of "The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragon". In 1976, his familiarity with the insights of Hegel could have aided him in subverting Zhdanov's notion about the essence and function of literature and art, thus rewriting the history of modern Chinese literary theory. However, this chance is lost owing to his limitations resulted from his intimacy with Zhdanovism.
First Page
114
Last Page
127
Recommended Citation
Xia, Zhongyi. 2012. "On the Evolution of Wang Yuanhua's Methodology for Literary Theory." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 32, (1): pp.114-127. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol32/iss1/14
