Abstract
Contemporary Chinese scholars usually take the linguistic turn as a major watershed in Western literary criticism, and this view takes the intrinsic transition in literary criticism and theory as a revolutionary change. The paper argues that the "scientific turn" of the 19th century weighs more in the literary criticism history, and that the linguistic turn is merely a necessary consequence of the scientific turn. The epistemological turn of 19th century's literary criticism redefined the objectives and functions of meta-language in literature, while the creation of modern universities and the evolution of scientific discourse also led literary criticism to the epistemological direction, and the use of meta-language shifted from aesthetics to epistemology. It can be argued that criticism on literary history established the "scientific requirement" of literary criticism while the linguistic turn came to be the manifestation of the requirement. The paper concludes that one of the major reasons behind current literary crisis is deprivation of value judgment from literary meta-language.
First Page
90
Last Page
94
Recommended Citation
Qian, Han. 2012. "The Significance of Literary History in the Evolution of Literary Meta-language." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 32, (6): pp.90-94. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol32/iss6/15
