Literary Theory: A General Course

Author: Ge Hongbing
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-05-01
Features: This book is based on my six consecutive rounds of teaching Literature Theory courses to Chinese Department students. Over the six rounds, I tried out three of the most popular textbooks currently available. I found that each textbook has its own merits worth learning from, but can there be a textbook that is both profound yet accessible, explaining the principles without adopting a theoretical tone? This book was rewritten based on the lecture notes of several students, largely retaining the teaching oral style I used in class. The format of "Main Text and Appendices" was adopted to enhance the systematic knowledge of the book while, at the same time, guiding students to read the original works.
The characteristics of the book's knowledge system are:
(1) Novelty: For instance, the chapters on network literature theory, film and television literature theory, comparative literature theory, and literary history theory—these studies on new literary phenomena are not found in domestic and textbooks of the same type.
(2) Comprehensiveness: The book covers all theoretical issues in four major areas: literary basic principles, literary criticism, comparative literature, and literary history. The discussions are relatively thorough, from the coverage of conceptual knowledge points to the historical retrospection of theoretical propositions.
(3) Uniqueness: The system of the book is not only reflected in its knowledge but more importantly in its literary concepts. It is a monograph-style textbook, with each part shrouded in the author's personal understanding of literary issues, demonstrating the author's pursuit of a personalized literary theory system. This is evident not only in the new concepts of the book but also in detailed issues. For example, the book places the "literary development" issue in the "Literary History Theory" chapter, reflecting the author's academic intention to explore "literary development" as an internal law of literature; placing the "creative problem" in the "Author Theory" chapter demonstrates the author's academic thought that creativity can be attributed to the subjectivity of the author, and so on.
(4) Easy to difficult, gradual introduction: Whether in language style or theoretical depth.