The three basic social functions of literature are: cognitive function, educational function, and aesthetic function
The aesthetic education of literature acts on the reading subject through intuition. Anyone who enters the aesthetic realm When it comes to reading, readers all have a "doing nothing" mentality and treat literary works as independent and insulated images, which do not contain any practical purpose or scientific understanding. Because of this, the aesthetic educational role of literature is completely different from the cognitive and educational role of literature. The author believes that when we talk about the aesthetic education function of literature, we should not include the cognitive and educational functions of literature. Even though the entertainment function of literature is closely related to aesthetic education, the aesthetic factors and non-aesthetic factors should be distinguished. This will be more conducive to our reading and appreciating literary works, and it will also be more conducive to guiding students to read. and appreciating literary works.
People understand things in a rational way, using a scientific analysis method. The purpose is to guide people to understand society, nature, and life. Literary works have an impact on people's souls. The influence of the world certainly has this cognitive function, but this is not the main function of literary works, nor is it its essential feature. The educational function of literary works is of course obvious. The ruling classes of all ages have used this function of literature to exert ideological control over the working people. However, due to the obvious political purpose of this mode of action, education is essentially different from aesthetic education.
For thousands of years, the deep-rooted interpretation of literary functions in Chinese Confucian culture has always treated literature as an appendage of politics and morality. "If you don't learn poetry, you won't be able to express it." This is not to warn people to build their lives in a poetic way, and to speak poetically, but to say that "poetry" as a political and moral classic, among which Many poems have become political and moral maxims, which can be effectively applied to social interactions between countries and people. Although people also attach great importance to the "literary" color in this poem, it has nothing to do with the modern sense. The aesthetic approach is still out of place. "Poetry can be exciting, contemplative, group-building, and resentful. Those who are near serve the father, and those who are far away serve the king. Know more about your husband, the names of birds, beasts, and trees." These sentences mainly talk about the understanding and educational role of "The Book of Songs". Obviously, Confucius at that time did not interpret the Book of Songs as a literary style.
However, the Confucian tradition of interpreting the function of literature in a “little way” has a profound influence. Even today, some of us are still far from understanding the aesthetic educational role of literature. Including the cognitive and educational functions in the aesthetic education function effectively proves this point. This way of interpreting the functions of literature, which indiscriminately mixes understanding, education and aesthetic functions, has greatly weakened the aesthetic education function of literature. Its obvious legacy is: when people read literary works, they first pay attention not to their aesthetic form, but to their ideological content; the way people absorb literary works is not perceptual experience, but understanding cognition; people are not accepting While the literary form is beautiful, it is subtly influenced by the content of the work. Instead, it conducts a precise "scientific" analysis of the content of the work based on preconceptions of the theme and ideas, so as to achieve the purpose of "education". People ignore the artistic characteristics of literary works and ignore their ambiguity, ambiguity, subjectivity and uncertainty, but instead give more one-dimensional interpretations and objective conclusions. In short, under the premise of emphasizing the cognitive and educational functions of literary works, the difference between people's literature and other article styles is blurred. Understanding is placed beyond feelings, and cognition replaces perception, which greatly reduces the benefits of literary reading and education. Therefore, people are not accustomed to aesthetic appreciation, but are keen on analysis and induction; therefore, "novels reflect the social reality of...", "scripts reveal the system of...", "poetry expresses the spirit of...", "prose spreads These hegemonic discourse methods have always been like a black cloud hanging over the field of literary interpretation, lingering. Especially when educating the next generation about literature, Chinese teachers’ perspective on interpreting literary works cannot escape the scope of outdated literary theories that are subject to mainstream consciousness. The relationship between form and content, the relationship between thinking and language, and the relationship between image and life On issues such as relationships, concepts are aging and modern awareness is lacking. Most teachers know little about new literary interpretation theories such as ontological hermeneutics and reception aesthetics, let alone guide students in reading and appreciating literary works from a new perspective.
The aesthetic education of literature affects the reading subject through intuition. When reading into the aesthetic realm, readers have the mentality of "doing nothing but doing something" and regard literature as The works are treated as independent and insulated images, which do not contain any practical purpose or scientific understanding. Because of this, the aesthetic educational role of literature is completely different from the cognitive and educational role of literature. The author believes that when we talk about the aesthetic education function of literature, we should not include the cognitive and educational functions of literature. Even though the entertainment function of literature is closely related to aesthetic education, the aesthetic factors and non-aesthetic factors should be distinguished. This will be more conducive to our reading and appreciating literary works, and it will also be more conducive to guiding students to read. and appreciating literary works.
People understand things in a rational way, using a scientific analysis method. The purpose is to guide people to understand society, nature, and life. Literary works have an impact on people's souls. The influence of the world certainly has this cognitive function, but this is not the main function of literary works, nor is it its essential feature. The educational function of literary works is of course obvious. The ruling classes of all ages have used this function of literature to exert ideological control over the working people. However, due to the obvious political purpose of this mode of action, education is essentially different from aesthetic education.
For thousands of years, the deep-rooted interpretation of literary functions in Chinese Confucian culture has always treated literature as an appendage of politics and morality. "If you don't learn poetry, you won't be able to express it." This is not to warn people to build their lives in a poetic way, and to speak poetically, but to say that "poetry" as a political and moral classic, among which Many poems have become political and moral maxims, which can be effectively applied to social interactions between countries and people. Although people also attach great importance to the "literary" color in this poem, it has nothing to do with the modern sense. The aesthetic approach is still out of place. "Poetry can be exciting, contemplative, group-building, and resentful. Those who are near serve the father, and those who are far away serve the king. Know more about your husband, the names of birds, beasts, and trees." These sentences mainly talk about the understanding and educational role of "The Book of Songs". Obviously, Confucius at that time did not interpret the Book of Songs as a literary style.
However, the Confucian tradition of interpreting the function of literature in a “little way” has a profound influence. Even today, some of us are still far from understanding the aesthetic educational role of literature. Including the cognitive and educational functions in the aesthetic education function effectively proves this point. This way of interpreting the functions of literature, which indiscriminately mixes understanding, education and aesthetic functions, has greatly weakened the aesthetic education function of literature. Its obvious legacy is: when people read literary works, they first pay attention not to their aesthetic form, but to their ideological content; the way people absorb literary works is not perceptual experience, but understanding cognition; people are not accepting While the literary form is beautiful, it is subtly influenced by the content of the work. Instead, it conducts a precise "scientific" analysis of the content of the work based on preconceptions of the theme and ideas, so as to achieve the purpose of "education". People ignore the artistic characteristics of literary works and ignore their ambiguity, ambiguity, subjectivity and uncertainty, but instead give more one-dimensional interpretations and objective conclusions. In short, under the premise of emphasizing the cognitive and educational functions of literary works, the difference between people's literature and other article styles is blurred. Understanding is placed beyond feelings, and cognition replaces perception, which greatly reduces the benefits of literary reading and education. Therefore, people are not accustomed to aesthetic appreciation, but are keen on analysis and induction; therefore, "novels reflect the social reality of...", "scripts reveal the system of...", "poetry expresses the spirit of...", "prose spreads These hegemonic discourse methods have always been like a black cloud hanging over the field of literary interpretation, lingering. Especially when educating the next generation about literature, Chinese teachers’ perspective on interpreting literary works cannot escape the scope of outdated literary theories that are subject to mainstream consciousness. The relationship between form and content, the relationship between thinking and language, and the relationship between image and life On issues such as relationships, concepts are aging and modern awareness is lacking. Most teachers know little about new literary interpretation theories such as ontological hermeneutics and reception aesthetics, let alone guide students in reading and appreciating literary works from a new perspective.
The so-called aesthetic function of literature is the entertainment function, that is, the effect of literary activities on making people happy. After Lu Xun accepted the concept of Western literature at the beginning of the century, he once pointed out: "From a purely literary perspective, the essence of all art is to make the viewer feel happy." What he emphasized is exactly the same. It is the entertainment contained in literature and other "arts", that is, art. Our country's literary tradition has always emphasized "writing to convey the truth", and the understanding of the entertainment function of literature is mostly limited to non-authentic genres such as novels and operas. In the development of modern literature, the political utilitarian nature of literature and art has been emphasized for a long time, while the entertainment function of literature and art has been ignored, rejected or even absolutely denied. In recent years, with the development of social life, the entertainment function of literature and art has gradually been paid attention to, and the rigid face of literature in the past has become more approachable.
However, at the same time, there are also some misunderstandings that cannot be ignored.
One-sided emphasis on the realization of the entertainment function of literature at the physiological level
Happiness is a psychological phenomenon, and the causes of happiness and the ways to obtain happiness are diverse. Physiological pleasure caused by vision, taste, hearing, etc. is not unique to humans. Animals also have this instinctive function, but this pleasure itself has no social content. As a unique human feeling, beauty is accompanied by rich social content and is a kind of spiritual pleasure that is connected with perceptual experience and rational understanding. Entertainment is a non-utilitarian activity for human beings to obtain happiness in addition to basic survival and production activities. It includes physical pleasure, and more importantly, psychological pleasure. It is an overly narrow understanding to attribute entertainment only to perceptual recreation and sensory pleasure, and to believe that entertainment activities only satisfy a low-level physiological desire and cannot be a high-level psychological need.
We do not rule out that some forms of human entertainment or some people’s entertainment activities are limited to the level of physiological pleasure, but we should not conclude from this that the entertainment function of all literary works can only or should stay at this level. On the other hand, we should not accept vulgar, ugly or even immoral entertainment methods and tastes that distort human nature, and abandon the entertainment methods and tastes that promote healthy, elegant and perfect human nature.
As a special aesthetic activity, literature has an obvious entertainment function, but after all, it appears and exists as a social phenomenon and is one of various human practical activities. It runs through the characteristics of human freedom and consciousness, should be consistent with people's basic survival requirements, be beneficial to the survival and development of social life, and achieve the unity of law and purpose. Therefore, in literary activities, entertainment and rationality, as well as the individuality and sociality of entertainment, should not be opposed. Entertainment does not mean that it excludes rational thinking, nor does it mean that it excludes social content. Literature and other art forms, like other forms of entertainment, can certainly satisfy people to a certain extent. However, this kind of sensory satisfaction can not only cause people's ideological fatigue, but also cause ideological shock and thinking. The key lies in whether the work has profound ideological nature, and in what the writer writes and how he writes. In our current literary and artistic production, many people are keen to show the love between men and women, highlight incest, adultery, and murder, and talk about high-end hotels, beachfronts, and luxury villas, in order to stimulate consumers' vision and hearing, and arouse Strong physiological reaction. Its purpose is of course related to the commercial effects caused by it, but it is also related to the misleading publicity of entertainment functions, and its negative impact cannot be ignored.
Isolate and oppose the entertainment and educational functions of literature
Some people think that in the past, literature mainly played a political enlightenment function, but now it should mainly play an entertainment function. This view is one-sided. The entertainment function of literature is not an accidental and peripheral function, nor is it an isolated and single function. It is one of the universal effects inevitably brought about by the aesthetic observation function of literature, and is one of the many functions of literature. The social function of literature is a multi-level and multi-faceted system: the first level is the aesthetic observation function, which is the most basic and core social function determined by the basic nature and characteristics of literature. Only when it has this basic nature and characteristics can it be a true literary work and literary activity; and only when it has this function can it become the social function of literature. The second level is some other social functions that must be produced by the aesthetic appreciation function of literature, which mainly include cognitive, educational, entertainment and communicative functions. As for the third level, it is a literary function derived from the first and second levels and subject to certain time and space restrictions. For example: the function of literature as a weapon of class struggle, the function of literature as a tool of religious propaganda, etc. In this system, entertainment and education are functions derived from the function of aesthetic contemplation. If they are regarded as the basic functions of literature, it may lead to neglect or even obliteration of literature's own characteristics, thereby weakening the social function of literature.
What is the purpose of literature and art? This is a long-standing debate in the history of European literature and art. Pleasure, education, or pleasure and education? Each of the three answers has many advocates. It should be said that the latter is more in line with the general situation. Just because it is impossible for literary works not to reflect the author's thinking about the world and life, it is also impossible for literary works not to have an ideological impact on readers and audiences, that is, to play the role of ideological education. Model plays have the function of entertainment, and so-called purely entertainment films such as "A Play on Qianlong" also have the function of ideological education. Although there are individual art styles or works of art that basically do not involve ideology, for example, acrobatics basically brings people an appreciation of pure skills. But literature is the most ideological form among all kinds of arts. Just imagine if the fresh and profound ideological content of literary works is removed, its ideological and social nature is completely eliminated, and only entertainment is left. What entertainment function can it achieve? The taste and value will also be greatly reduced.
Equating the entertainment function of literature with general entertainment activities
Playing ball is entertainment, playing cards is entertainment, watching a play is entertainment, and reading novels is also entertainment. The role of various forms of entertainment There is a consistent point, that is, it causes happiness, and this kind of activity is different from human activities with clear utilitarian purposes. For example, sleeping when you are extremely tired, eating when you are hungry, you can get great happiness, but These activities are generally not considered recreational. At the same time, in the process of participating in or watching these purely entertainment activities that seem to escape reality and forget everything, people also gain a certain amount of free enjoyment, and may also gain some transcendent experience of reality. In this sense, even in these purely entertainment activities, it is entirely possible to include aesthetic factors. Entertainment and aesthetics are obviously not completely opposite. However, various recreational activities are different in terms of the nature of pleasure and the effects they produce. Pure entertainment activities such as mahjong, billiards, and poker bring people physiological stimulation, but it is difficult to say that they are just physiological pleasure. Sitting still all day long playing mahjong and playing cards may not be physically comfortable. What people mainly get from these activities is psychological compensation, pleasure and excitement.
Different from the above-mentioned pure entertainment activities, the fun of literature mainly lies in free enjoyment and aesthetic pleasure through aesthetics.
As Wellek said: "The pleasure that literature gives people is not one randomly selected from a series of things that may please people, but a kind of 'higher pleasure', which comes from a high-level activity, that is, "From this point of view, the entertainment function of literature and other entertainment activities cannot be equated; the entertainment function of literature and the aesthetic function cannot be completely equated, and they cannot be determined by aesthetics. When happiness is generated, aesthetics is considered to be equal to entertainment, and the essential characteristic of literature and art is entertainment. These entertainment functions of literature cannot and should not replace the functions of other forms of entertainment. Therefore, literature should not be required to play the same entertainment function as other entertainment forms such as mahjong and poker. This requirement is inappropriate and unrealistic. If there is no clear awareness of this, it will easily encourage the kitsch tendency in literary production.
One-sided emphasis on the self-entertainment function of literary creation activities and neglect of the social effect of literature on entertaining people
After the mid-1980s, some people in the Chinese literary circle emphasized the self-entertainment function of literature and regarded literature as writers The so-called "game", the so-called "playing literature", the so-called "writing is my way of entertainment" and other statements are reflections of this tendency. Literature indeed not only has the function of entertaining people, but also has the function of entertaining oneself. Bai Juyi once described the relationship between himself and his poetry friends this way: "Xiaotong uses poems to warn each other, Xiaoqiong uses poems to encourage each other, Suoju comforts each other with poems, and people in the same place use poems to entertain each other." It can be seen that even in quite a lot of people. Among the ancients who emphasized the utilitarian nature of literature, writing and reading poetry could also be a form of entertainment; however, writing for self-entertainment was a personal matter for the author, and writing for mutual entertainment with friends was a matter between individuals, which outsiders often did not know and found difficult to comment on. However, the works of most writers are not only for themselves or a few people to read. They are usually published or published for the public to read and buy, so as to entertain people. And self-entertainment and entertaining others are not separated from each other. What kind of self-entertainment you pursue will naturally have what kind of entertainment effect you have. In this way, the distinction between high and low literary and artistic interests in self-entertainment cannot but be connected with the social effect of entertaining people.
Different audiences have different entertainment requirements. The connotation of entertainment is inherently multi-level and multi-faceted, and as far as personal entertainment interests are concerned, it is also multi-level and multi-faceted. Therefore, whether a literary and artistic work can play an entertainment function, what kind of entertainment function it can play, and how much of an entertainment function it can play, not only depends on the work itself, but also depends on the attitude of the recipient, that is, how the recipient views and treats the work. As far as social groups are concerned, the needs are also multi-level and multi-faceted. Appreciators of symphony music and fans of popular music both derive pleasure from their respective appreciation activities. The chess players on the streets and the golf players all get pleasure from their respective participation. Readers of Western modern literature and Chinese classical novels alike appreciate the brilliance of literature from the black and white words on paper. However, these pleasures are all significantly different. Authors should not ignore the diversity of readers' tastes and requirements and condescend to vulgar readers, nor should they impose their own artistic tastes on readers, which are not noble and healthy.
Needless to say, while overcoming the ascetic tendencies of many years, hedonistic tendencies in life and culture are growing in our society. Hedonism regards the pursuit of sensory pleasure as the only value goal of life, while cultural hedonism regards the satisfaction of sensory pleasure as the only function and highest goal of culture, interpreting advanced and complex aesthetic processes as simple and vulgar senses Stimulus and response. The various one-sided understandings of the entertainment function in literature are adapted to the needs of the development of cultural hedonism and hinder the construction and development of advanced culture. This cannot but attract our attention and attention.