Abstract
This essay attempts to survey and critically reflect the development of modern Chinese literary theory. It summarizes the heritage of modern Chinese literary theory in the form of domestic stand that incorporates Western thoughts, modern position that revitalizes Chinese tradition, union between individuals and the mass, the priority of material over mind in the symbiosis of thought and art, and the necessary tension between interior intellectual system and exterior ideological institutions. The history of modern Chinese literary theory also leaves us some lessons to learn, especially such fixations as inclination to dialectic thinking, thinking taking priority over being, over-appropriating, xenophobic self-closing, and suppressing the academic with the institutions, all of which may be fully examined for the purpose of constructing the 21st century Chinese literary theory with unique features. The paper concludes with some suggestions that such a construction could be achieved by holding onto the Chinese stand while absorbing Western theories, reviving the ancient through the contemporary, flexible handling of the individual-mass relationship, guiding the popular with the refined, maintaining balanced relationships between material reality and high taste, between form and thought, and between institutions and academics.
First Page
62
Last Page
67
Recommended Citation
Wang, Yichuan. 2013. "A Critical Reflection on and Construction of Modern Chinese Literary Theory." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 33, (1): pp.62-67. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol33/iss1/1
