History of Chinese Literary Criticism - (Basic University Textbooks for Liberal Arts. Literature)

Author: Zou Ran
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: As a teaching course, "History of Chinese Literary Criticism" is a designated elective for undergraduate majors in "Chinese Language and Literature" at ordinary higher education institutions. It covers literary theory and criticism from the pre-Qin period to the modern era. The teaching objectives and tasks are: through systematic instruction and training in this course, students will gain basic knowledge and a general impression of the development history of Chinese literary theory and criticism, understand the of major literary critics and their works in different historical periods, master representative conceptual categories, ideological propositions, and critical forms, enhance their aesthetic appreciation and analytical judgment, and improve their practical abilities in theoretical thinking and academic writing.
As a textbook for university classrooms, "History of Chinese Literary Criticism" has higher or different requirements compared to academic monographs by researchers. It demands a relatively comprehensive and complete knowledge system, avoiding bias toward the researcher's professional expertise or interests, and ensuring no omissions or deficiencies. It requires a relatively rigorous and innovative structural framework, avoiding monotony and uniformity. It calls for distinct theoretical perspectives and concise expressive language, avoiding lengthy and obscure exposition. It demands appropriately detailed textual interpretation, without overemphasizing high-level arguments while neglecting analysis of primary sources. It requires a sense of time and length, achieving conciseness from breadth, avoiding endless citations. It necessitates a guiding philosophy aligned with contemporary social theoretical contexts—such as the literary criticism principles advocated by the theoretical community, which take "the philosophy and humanism of Marxist practice theory" (Lai Da-ren, On the Forms of Literary Criticism) as their theoretical foundation—rather than outdated or stale viewpoints.