History of Reception of Chinese Classical Literature

Author: Shang Xuefeng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-11-19
Features: The meaning of literary works is continuously generated in the specific process of readers' engagement. The reception activity plays a crucial role in establishing the value of works. Literary history is a process of aesthetic production and reception, not only the history of continuous creation by writers and works but also the history of readers' reading and the history of the effects of literary texts. In previous literary studies, people often focused on how literary works were produced while neglecting how they were received, overlooking the role of readers' reception in the process of literary production, thereby simplifying and one-sidedly interpreting the rich and complex literary phenomena. The study of the reception history of Chinese classical literature helps to grasp the dynamic process of literary history development from the aspects of literary production, reception, and reproduction, gain a deep understanding of the overall development of Chinese classical literature, and summarize its laws and characteristics. Generally, literary history research should also include the history of literary creation, reception, research, and thought. The distinction between the history of creation and reception is relatively clear, while the boundary between reception history and research history is less so, because in concrete literary practice, reception and research are often intertwined. Reception is the prerequisite for research, and research is the extension and deepening of reception. Reception can be divided into general reception and research-based reception, the latter aimed at transitioning to the level of research. The interpretation of works, criticism, authorial theories, theories of appreciation, and theories of style in research are all closely related to reception. However, research also includes richer content such as the collection of materials, the correlation of historical facts, and the summarization of literary development laws. This book includes various reception activities, both research-based and non-research-based, and also involves the interpretation of works, criticism, authorial theories, theories of appreciation, and theories of style by researchers. However, our focus is not on exploring the methods, concepts, propositions, categories, or even the entire theoretical system of researchers, but rather on examining the characteristics of researchers' literary reception activities, thereby summarizing the literary reception tendencies of a particular era. This is explored from the perspective of readers' responses to the special effects of historical literary works in a specific era. This is the difference in perspective between literary reception history and literary research history.