Abstract: The Chinese literary theory in the recent four decades since China's Reform and Opening-up has been focused on literary enlightenment. As an effort to continue the tradition and to fulfil the unfinished task of the May Fourth literary revolution, literary enlightenment is still an important dimension in the subjectivity of literature. The development of literary subjectivity witnessed a transformation from "literature as a study of humanity" to "literary subjectivity" and "literary intersubjectivity". There are two main theoretical orientations within this historical development: one is the intersubjectivity of literature, the other is the theory of aesthetic reflection or aesthetic ideology. The subjectivity theory constructs the intersubjectivity theory against the ideological background of the theory of reflection and ideology, which gives rise to the theories of aesthetic reflection and aesthetic ideology by absorbing the theory of subjectivity. The innovation of the theories of aesthetic reflection and aesthetic ideology lies in their integration of the concept "aesthetics". Recognition and conceptualization of the aesthetic attribute of literature has vitalized Chinese literary theory in the new era and brought it closer to the truth of art and literature. The four decades of history of literary theory from the Reform and Opening-up onwards enlightens the present and the future in three major ways: First, the subjectivity theory should be considered in a rational and historical perspective; second, literary theory is part of the whole social and cultural organism; third, the results of the adjustment theory have realistic rationality in the logic of historical ontology.

Key words: the May Fourth tradition, literary subjectivity, intersubjectivity, aesthetic ideology, adjustment theory