Introduction to Literary Theory

Author: Dong Xuewen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-04-01
Features: From the perspective of literary theory, why did it also transition to this point, beginning to study "the theory of literary theory"? The reasons are, of course, complex. Briefly speaking:
1. The discipline of literary theory develops and updates very quickly.
2. Facing the new situation of literary theory and the new demands of the times, we need to design a new "structure" for the content and form of literary theory.
3. In the in-depth study of literary theory, many profound and valuable paradoxical phenomena have indeed been encountered.
4. Whether adhering to ancient literary theory or being enthusiastic about Western literary theory, we are actually facing an era of theoretical "synthesis and innovation."
Chapter 1 discusses the question of "What is literary theory?" in order to explain its ontological characteristics, which serves as a starting point for literary theory studies.
Chapter 2 explores a starting point for literary theory studies.
Chapter 2 explores the object composition of literary theory, primarily involving object evolution and object reconstruction, which is related to the study of theoretical ontology.
Chapter 3 attempts to explain the characteristics of theorists and the "theoretical community," examining how the subject of literary theory treats its research objects and how the relationships between subjects are structured.
Chapter 4 focuses on exploring the driving forces, generation process, and generation methods of literary theory, with the aim of providing a deeper understanding of the characteristics of the theoretical subject's work.
Chapter 5 studies the morphology of literary theory.
Chapter 6 is a study of the paradigms of literary theory.
Chapter 7 discusses literary theory as a major discipline, its system of branch disciplines, and its unique characteristics in various aspects. This chapter has a natural connection with the chapter on "What is literary theory," but in order to provide a more specific explanation of disciplinary differentiation and disciplinary status, it is placed after the chapters on the subject, object, morphology, and paradigms of literary theory.
Chapter 8 discusses the structural characteristics of literary theory, the significance of methods, the relationship between concepts and methods, as well as the construction and expression of literary theory discourse.
The final chapter explores the possibility of building the hermeneutics of literary theory, and from another perspective, it can also be said to explore the criteria and evaluation systems of literary theory. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 adopt a static study of theory, although this also involves the variability of issues, it is more focused on analyzing the basic characteristics.