Abstract: Previous studies have primarily recognized Zhu Ziqing's significance in modern hermeneutics of poetry, literary criticism, the establishment of literary studies as a discipline, etc; and they tend to pay much attention to the influence of Richards and Empson's semantic criticism on Zhu's methodology of appreciation. However, in the historical context of post-revolution Zhu's literary appreciation is not just for "appreciation" or "knowledge", but originates from his anxiety about the cultural and political conflicts between the new and the old. That the two literary events between him and Gu Sui and Zhu Guangqian reveal Zhu's uniqueness on his theoretical framework of literary appreciation: he emphasizes analysis instead of taste, semantics instead of psychology; he also emphasizes historical and aesthetic analysis. With his selective reception of Western theory, Zhu, by drawing on both Chinese and Western experience, established his own poetics of appreciation. As a result, the true meaning of Zhu's literary appreciation is "Engaging in literature for life".

Key words: Zhu Ziqing, literary appreciation, post-revolution era, "literature for modernization", "literature for China", "literature for life"