Rationale of Literature and Arts

Author: Hu Youqing
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1996-04-01
Features: Hu Youqing's Outlines of Aesthetics, in addressing major issues such as the relationship between the ancient and the modern, China and the outside world, inheritance and innovation, nationality and worldliness, nationalization and modernization; the social ideological nature theory, aesthetic nature theory, and formal theory of literature and art; the historical materialist method, "subjectivist" method, "ontological" method, and "systematic" method in literary studies; as well as the methodological approaches of Marxism, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, structuralism, semiotics, and other scientistic and humanistic methodologies. In all these significant aspects, the work strives to adhere to the principle of "reviving the past while embracing the present" or "synthesizing the Chinese and foreign," employing dialectical thinking to avoid the metaphysical approaches of "responding to bias with bias" or "overcorrecting excesses" that have repeatedly appeared in previous literary critiques. All of this is aimed at scientifically revealing the dependence and independence of literature and art on society, culture, and life, as well as uncovering the essence and characteristics of literature and art as advanced aesthetic structures in the social, cultural, and vital domains.