Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

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Studies in Western Literary Theory

Literature and the Therapy of Passion: Catharsis against the Extreme Violence

Jean-Charles Darmon, Xiao Xi

2015, 35(4): 6-14.

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Jonathan Littell's novel The Kindly Ones describes the process and details of the holocaust from the perspective of a Nazi officer and in doing so it depicts the protagonist as an ancient Greek tragic hero. This way of appropriating the antagonist to the empathy effect and literary catharsis and sympathy tries to achieve therapeutic purpose, but this way invokes much criticism. How can fiction interact with the (re) construction of emotions associated to mass extermination, especially when such emotions are reactivated from the point of view of an SS officer? After reexamining some of the questions raised by Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones, and after reconsidering the recurrent reference to tragedy when fictions dealing with mass extermination are at stake, the paper tries to compare two types of critical approaches to the notion of catharsis. The one is the ethical reluctance to connect the experience of extermination with the effects of "tragedy" in the post-Auschwitch context. The other is that the heterodox attempts questioning the nature (and even the possibility) of the cathartic process and demystifying the "paradigmatic scenarios" tragedies provide to stimulate and share certain kinds of emotions. Can such a detour help us to analyze from a different perspective the impact of art on the way we experience, and characterize and evaluate emotions such as "pity" and "terror" today?

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Studies in Western Literary Theory

Art and Annotation: On the Relationship of Visibility and Annotation in the Visual Arts

Stefan Majetschak

2015, 35(4): 15-24.

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Works of the visual arts in the tradition of European and American modernism have lost many of the features that were considered for a long time to be obvious characteristics of the artistic constitution of art works as such. In fact, it proved to be the case early in the modern period that there did not have to be any features or characteristics — neither material nor phenomenal — by means of which artistic artifacts could be distinguished from non-artistic objects. For works of art and humdrum everyday objects can in borderline cases appear identical to the eye of an observe, as early works of Marcel Duchamp have clearly shown. Works like this demonstrate that modern art is essentially what Arnold Gehlen terms as "kommentarbedürfig (need for annotation)" since background information seems to be necessary even to identify a certain object as an art work. This paper argues that it is not only modern art, but rather all art that intrinsically requires annotation. Annotations highlight the historical identity of the work, which is determined not only by visual but also by nonvisual conditions, such as the place and time of the creation of the works, the intentions of the creators, the discourses important in the art world at the time when the work was created etc. It will be shown that the aesthetic concepts, which we are able to ascribe to the works, are largely dependent on this identity which we construe by interpretations and annotations.

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Studies in Western Literary Theory

The Genealogy, Objects and Subjects of Visual Culture Studies

Wu Qiong

2015, 35(4): 25-38.

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The rise of visual culture studies in the 1970s and 1980s in the academic field benefited from postwar French New Theory and was linked with the Western critical reflection on modernity/post-modernity, and it has brought about some fundamental changes in the methodologies and problematic in many areas of humanities research. This paper attempts to delineate the development of visual culture studies in the West, and describes the basic issues concerning its genealogy, objects and subjects．

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Studies in Western Literary Theory

A Thematic Research of Merleau-Ponty's Le Doute de Cézanne

Zhang Ying

2015, 35(4): 39-49.

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This paper examines the theme of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Le Doute de Cézanne and tries to trace his early thoughts and question consciousness. Albeit a well-known essay, Le Doute de Cézanne is generally regarded as a phenomenological casual essay, but this label does not explain the paradoxes from the perspective of detail and structure of the essay. Merleau-Ponty argued for the discard of personal character, life experience and artistic inheritance in the research of Cezanne but also points out that Cezanne's life and his works shared the same adventure. The essay has also devoted many words to the life of Da Vinci, which seems completely off the main point. This paper argues that the two parallel themes of Merleau-Ponty's essay are "expression" and "freedom" which are united by the more interior theme(s): "body" and/or the methodology of art history study.

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Studies in Western Literary Theory

Ihab Hassan: The Pioneer of the Theorization of Postmodernism

Mao Juan

2015, 35(4): 50-56.

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Ihab Hassan is a pioneer and key figure in the theoretical debate on postmodernism in the late half of the twentieth Century. In a relative stagnant period of literary criticism theory, he surveys various types of pioneer literature, proposes for the first time the theory of postmodernism, and elaborates on the characteristics and theoretical implications of postmodernism. He extends the theory of postmodernism further to the fields of culture and philosophy, and with it his influence has also spread from the United States to Europe and other parts of the world. Hassan defines the fundamental characteristics of postmodernism as "indetermanence." After exploring the complex relationships of the continuity and discontinuity between modernism, avantgarde and postmodernism, he puts forward the concept of "paracriticism." Hassan's contributions to the theory of postmodernism lie mainly in proposing, defining, propagating and practicing the theory of postmodernism．

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Modern and Contemporary Literary Theory and Criticism

Yan Lianke and Chinese Literature in the Perspective of World Literature

Yingjin Zhang

2015, 35(4): 57-64.

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This paper delineates Yan Lianke's literary status in line with David Damrosch's tripartite definition of world literature, and then reexamines the bipolar assessments of modern Chinese literature in Western Sinology in terms of international cultural politics as represented by the Nobel Prize in Literature． With reference to two key words in Mo Yan's Nobel acceptance speech — "human" and "transcendence" — the paper further explores the contemporary transformation of realism and Yan Lianke's "spiritual realism" in theory and practice．

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Modern and Contemporary Literary Theory and Criticism

Western Literature or Western Learning? On Wang Tao's Experience and Practice

Duan Huaiqing

2015, 35(4): 65-75.

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The communication between Wang Tao (1828-1897) and protestant missionaries in the Late Qing Dynasty focused on the Western religion and learning. When discussing Western learning, Wang Tao also used the term "literature," a term that would have great influence on the developmental history of pre-modern Chinese literary thoughts. While he had a systematic exploration into the development of Western learning and the Jesuits' works in the Late Ming, Wang Tao didn't elaborate on the concept of the term "wenxue (literature)," although he had mentioned Western poetry and other genres as well as some important Greek, Roman and British poets. Wang Tao's experience and his understanding of Western literature were developed after the protestant missionaries introduced the Western concept of literature into China and recognized the term "wenxue" as the equivalent to "literature." The historical significance of the term still holds value to contemporary academic explorations into literary and intellectual history．

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Modern and Contemporary Literary Theory and Criticism

On the Idea of Progress in the Literary Criticism in the Seventeen Years after 1949 and Its Influence

Kou Pengcheng

2015, 35(4): 76-88.

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In the field of pre-modern Chinese literature, progress usually referred to the countercurrent of the revival of the ancient styles or practice and it often came with the claim that each era should have a literature with its own new spirit. The concept of progress in modern literature, however, was developed fundamentally with Darwin's evolutionism, which in literary studies displayed a temporal linear development. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the idea of progress in literature implies the literature which serves the masses and the revolution, with a proletariat ideology and a realistic approach. Progress, therefore, refers mainly to the ideological aspect while the temporal linearity of progress becomes a horizontal advancement of ideas. The conflict between the richness of literature and the mono-dimension of progress, together with the direct conversion of political discursive power within the institution of literature, leaves little space for the freedom of literary creation and binds the variety and richness of literature in the Seventeen-Year Period (1949-1966). While the idea of progress in this period has its necessity, it leaves much for academic reflection.

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Modern and Contemporary Literary Theory and Criticism

Karaoke-Style Rituals and Music: On the Practice of Karaoke and the Problem of Modernity

Wu Guanjun

2015, 35(4): 89-101.

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As one of the key parts of metropolitan life and popular culture in contemporary China, Karaoke has so far eluded the scope of scholarly study. This paper aims not just at analyzing the phenomena spurred by Karaoke activity but essentially at developing a structural analysis of this activity itself. By juxtaposing Karaoke against the Confucian thought on music, this paper argues that the structure of Karaoke constitutes a key feature of modernity and manifests what I call the "crisis of sincerity."

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Modern and Contemporary Literary Theory and Criticism

Desire, Currency and Modern Urban Space: A Rereading of Shi Zhecun's "The Spring Sun"

Song Xiaoping

2015, 35(4): 102-110.

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With Shi Zhecun's (1905 年-2003 年) story "The Spring Sun" as an example, the paper aims to examine the two aspects of female experiences. The first is to explore the unique experience of the flaneuse in modern urban space and the symptoms of the female body in the heterogeneity of the traditional township space and modern urban space. The other is to analyze how the urban consumption space and the gaze evoke female desire and how money in the process of consumption constructs and deconstructs the female day-dreaming．

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Issue in Focus: Studies in Contemporary Western Frontier Literary Theory

Reading Narrative: Deterritoralization and Becoming

Yu Daizong

2015, 35(4): 111-118.

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Modern fiction narrative does not simply rely on the plot for centralized meaning condensation, and the narrators or protagonists in the modern fiction may often be seen to reflect, reinterpret or re-aestheticize the meaning of preconfigured theme or thematic fragments in the text. This may undermine the existent boundaries of meaning field and present a multiple perspective and a dynamic thematic wandering in the process of meaning deterritorialization. Self-interference and self disintegration contribute to the prominent features of modern fiction. Therefore, the interpretation of modern fiction should not begin with how theme is reinforced but should focus on how the aesthetic sense of the narrative in modern fictions is produced in the multi-system of meaning in fictions during the process of interactive deterritoralization．

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Issue in Focus: Studies in Contemporary Western Frontier Literary Theory

Žižek and the Repoliticization of Western Contemporary Literary Theory

Liu Xinting

2015, 35(4): 119-129.

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By focusing on Žižek's narrative of "post-politics," the paper elaborates on Žižek's politics of enjoyment and his reflection and critique of multiculturalism and identity politics, as well as his refusal of simplistic intervention and action. The paper maintains that Žižek rethinks the relation between the particular and the universal and opens a way of repoliticizing the political philosophy and cultural theory．

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Issue in Focus: Studies in Contemporary Western Frontier Literary Theory

Between Language and Time: Yale School's Theoretical Generation and Its Location in the Intellectual History

Dai Dengyun

2015, 35(4): 130-138.

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The Yale School constructed a new mode of poetics research through its departure from the New Criticism and imbibitions of Continental thoughts, and its contribution to poetics lies in its generative poetics that shifts the focus of literary studies from the scientificalness of literary criticism, the literariness of literary texts and the factualness of literary history to the generation of literary criticism, literary text and literary history. The fundamental reason behind the Yale School's achievement lies in the fact that the Yale School theorists, under the context of linguistic turn and time philosophy turn in modern Western philosophy, with their distinctive sensitivity to the complexity of literary language and literary time, found a theoretical departure point in the one-dimensional thinking stereotype of Western literary theory and philosophy by taking a ontological perception of the multi-dimensional nature of literary language and the multi-orientational nature of time．

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Issue in Focus: Studies in Contemporary Western Frontier Literary Theory

Representing the Unrepresentable: Rancière on the Ethical Turn of Aesthetics．

Rao Jing

2015, 35(4): 139-145.

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Rancière scrutinizes the obsession with "unrepresentable" from postmodernist sublime aesthetics, and after a critical reflection on the ethical turn of aesthetics, he proposes to break into the indistinct isolated space of ethics by way of dissensus. This approach plays down on the redemption appeal and reinforces the promise of emancipation, and it reverts the critical perspective of ethics to the active aesthetics of practicum．

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Issue in Focus: Studies in Cognitive Poetics

Cognitive Poetics as a Bridge Between Formal and Impressionist Criticism: On Reuven Tsur's Toward a Theory of Cognitive Poetics

He Huibin

2015, 35(4): 146-154.

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In Reuven Tsur' Toward a Theory of Cognitive Poetics, cognitive science is used to explain why certain literary text can produce certain aesthetic effect, and hence a bridge between formal criticism and impressionist criticism is built. In Tsur's book, convergent and divergent styles are set as the two extremes of stylistics, while wit and emotion as two extremes of aesthetic effects. Tsur can then discuss poetry from seven aspects, giving fresh explanations to such aesthetic terms the sublime and the grotesque from the perspective of cognitive science．

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Issue in Focus: Studies in Cognitive Poetics

The 18^th-Century Theories of Reading and Contemporary Cognitive Narratology

Jin Wen

2015, 35(4): 155-163.

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The 18^th century is a crucial era for the rise of the novel in English and the formation of modern conceptions of narrative immersion. Engaging existing scholarship on early modern and modern theories of reading, this paper primarily discusses two issues. First, it traces the discourses of narrative immersion and narrative impact in 18^th-century England, bringing together moral philosophy, aesthetic theories, brain science, literary criticism, and scenes of reading from notable 18^th-century novels. The second part of the paper concerns the ways in which contemporary cognitive narratology resonates with 18^th-century theories of reading, while providing the latter with productive theoretical frameworks. It introduces in particular contemporary theories of narrative immersion based on mirror neuron and the possible-worlds theory.

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Issue in Focus: Studies in Cognitive Poetics

Art, Brain and Aesthetics: On the Development, Significance and Vision of Contemporary Western Neuroaesthetics

Hu Jun

2015, 35(4): 164-172.

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The process of aesthetic activity is an important part of aesthetic research, and aesthetic activities concerns the people, or specifically the human brain. In order to examine the process of aesthetic activity, the neural mechanisms of human brain become an important scientific basis for aesthetic research. Neuroaesthetics, emergent in Europe and America in recent years, provides not only a new perspective but also a very important scientific basis for aesthetic development. This paper intends to elaborate on the methods, scope, field, findings, aesthetic sense, deficiencies and future prospects for neuroaesthetics．

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Classical Literary Theory and Criticism

Ideas of Poetry Study and the Paradigms of Chinese Poetry Studies

Zhong Shilun

2015, 35(4): 173-181.

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From "the study of poetry and prose" in the pre-Qin period (before 221-207 B.C.) to "the study of The Book of Poetry" in the Han Dynasty and to "the study of poetry" in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the idea of poetry study in China undergoes constant change from the earliest concept of "expressing will (yanzhi)" in the antiquity. "Expressing will" is "recording events (jishi)" and "writing down the speech (jiyan) ," and fictionalization has no value in the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties. The act of recording contributes the main content of Chinese ancient poetry, while the appropriation of poetry for moral teaching, communication, and illustrating history and geography to poems contributes the main purpose of Chinese ancient poetry. This results in a theoretical system of poetry study very different from the Western poetics and criticism, and in this system can be found at least nine ideas and concepts such as "poetry essence (shi ben)," "poetry use (shi yong)," "poetry thinking (shi si)," "poetry schema (shi shi)," "poetry story," "poetry comments (shi ping)," and "poetry rituals (shi li)" etc. These categories in Chinese ancient poetry study may provide a unique approach to ancient Chinese poetry before the Tang Dynasty．

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Classical Literary Theory and Criticism

Telling, Telling Style Essay and Storytelling

Zhou Jinfeng

2015, 35(4): 182-191.

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In ancient China, storytelling (xiao shuo, literally, trivial telling) was considered as trivial in terms of the scope of the story, and in the pre-Qin period a type of "telling-style essay" was formed on the basis of telling. With "telling" as a link, the telling-style essay was related to "storytelling." There were different types of telling-style essay, each type having different stylistic features and functions. Among these types, the one that emphasized the exposition through imagistic narrative became the transition from "telling" to "storytelling," and this type of telling-style essay exhibited some stylistic connotations and features that profoundly influenced the concept, stylistic features, raw material development and compiling method of the later genre of story.

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Classical Literary Theory and Criticism

"Lament" as a Genre in Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons and Selections of Refined Literature

Zhao Junling

2015, 35(4): 192-199.

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Liu Xie's Literary Mind and Xiao Tong's Selections of Refined Literature had different definitions and understanding of the genre to lament. Liu Xie's aim was to distinguish different style, so he defined the lament as a genre with the features shown in the earlier writings such as Pan Yue's lamentations over pre-mature deaths, and he did not include into the genre the later stylistic development. Xiao Tong took Pan Yue's more ritualistic Elegy for His Wife as an example for lament style. The main reason behind their differences lies in the fact that Liu Xie's expounding covered only to the West Jin Dynasty when lamentation was not a type of popular ritual writing, while Xiao Tong's time had more ritualistic elegies.

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Classical Literary Theory and Criticism

On Lou Fang's Concept of Moderation in His Prose Compilation The Recipe for Classical Prose

Yu Xiaochuan

2015, 35(4): 200-208.

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Lou Fang's prose compilation The Recipe for Classical Prose was one of the most representative anthologies of ancient Chinese prose since its print in the Southern Song Dynasty, and Lou's commentaries in the anthology and his idea behind the compilation were emulated thereafter. The central rationale for selecting a piece of prose writing was Confucian moderation, emphasizing on the orthodoxy subject matter and moderate aesthetic taste, while the scope of selection was broad and the comments laconic and pertinent. His selection emphasized on the deliberate digression and implicitness of expression and the structuring of meaning delivery in the text, and highlighted artistic taste (wei) as the aesthetic effects of the text upon the readers．

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Classical Literary Theory and Criticism

The Origin and Development of Verse Structure of "Introduction, Development, Contrast, and Conclusion"

Zhang Xiaowei

2015, 35(4): 209-214.

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The existent scholarship shows that the compositional structure of the four couplets in a regulated poem as "Introduction, Development, Contrast, and Conclusion" was first proposed by Yang Zai and Fan Peng in the Yuan Dynasty. Yang Zai summarized various comments and arguments on metric prosody in the Tang and Song dynasties, modified by his own views, while Fan Peng argued that the structuring might apply not only to regulated verse but to all the literary creation. Fan Peng had also proposed his own criteria for the structuring of regulated verse, based perhaps on his own Jiangxi local poetics. Fan Peng's structure for regulated verse became more prominent and was later debated among the Ming and Qing dynasties poetic scholars, with the revivalists in the Ming dynasty generally accepting Fan's proposition and Xu Zeng and Wang Shizhen in the Qing dynasty disapproving it on the basis of their own poetic agenda. While being ridiculed for its rigidity by such scholars as Feng Ban and Wu Qiao in the Qing dynasty, Fan Peng's structure for regulated verse was generally believed to be sound as an introductory approach to enlighten children, which was practiced in the Ming and Qing dynasties till today．

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Classical Literary Theory and Criticism

A Synopsis of the Conference of "Literary Theory and Criticism in 1980s"

Zhang Chunxiao

2015, 35(4): 215-216.

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