Critical of the critics -- Educational fiction

Author: (French) Tzvetan Todorov, Wang Dongliang, Wang Chenyang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-03-01
Features: Part of the "Modern Western Academic Collection." The book narrates the intellectual evolution and growth process of the French literary theorist Tzvetan Todorov, tracing how he transformed from a Bulgarian "literary theorist" into a formalist and structuralist, and later into an advocate of dialogical criticism. It also discusses many of the major critical schools of the 20th century, involving important literary theorists and writers from different countries such as Russia/Soviet Union, Germany, France, Canada, etc. Additionally, the author himself explains in the "Preface" of this book that he attempts to examine the major ideological trends of the 20th century and their reflections in literature and criticism, as well as to find a "more reasonable" "ideological stance," an "almost correct" "literary perspective and critical view." Alternatively, this book can be seen as a reflection by a renowned critic on the Western literary criticism of the 20th century in which he was involved. Each chapter of the book is written in the same way: first, I will identify the elements of romanticism that influenced the discussed writers; then, I will identify the ideas that intentionally or unintentionally negated and surpassed this ideological framework. The final chapter of the book appears somewhat different from the others, as here I take myself as the subject of study, attempting to synthesize the findings of the previous chapters. However, this difference is merely superficial; in a sense, the other chapters also narrate my personal history: my past and present are still a "romanticist" who attempts to transcend romanticism by analyzing the writers I have always admired. The repeated shifts in each chapter blend with the rest and evolve continuously until reaching a peak, which is not a synthesis. It can also be said that what follows is an unfinished educational novel.