Russian revolutionary Democrat and literary critic belinsky, published in 1835. This paper shows his critical realism.
Belinsky believes that literary and artistic works should truly and correctly represent life. We should not decorate life, but copy and reproduce it, just like a protruding mirror, reflecting the complicated and colorful phenomena of life in one vision. On this basis, he divided poetry into two parts: ideal and reality. The ideal poetry is that the poet decides his own inherent thoughts and recreates his own life according to his own views and attitudes towards reality; However, realistic poetry is faithful to real life and reproduces it. Although belinsky thinks that as long as it meets his own conditions, that is, ideal poetry is in harmony with emotion, while realistic poetry is in harmony with life, there is no distinction between good and bad, but he basically prefers realistic poetry. It is believed that realistic poetry meets the "basic requirements" of this era and the life described is true. "Where there is truth, there is poetry".
Belinsky puts typicality in the first place in artistic creation, and thinks that typicality is a basic principle of creation. Without typicality, there is no creation. Moreover, it is considered that this typicality is one of the remarkable signs of literary and artistic creation itself, and it is also the "heraldry sign of the author". Typical is a stranger familiar to readers. This fully reveals the characteristics of the unity of * * * and individuality.
Belinsky expounded the law of literary and artistic creation. He believes that literary and artistic creation is "aimless and purposeful, unconscious and conscious, independent and dependent, which is its basic law". He explained that when an artist is creating, he wants to symbolically express some ideas in his works, so he has a purpose and is consciously acting. But in the process of creation, what he wants to express is not the will dominated by reason. So his behavior is "aimless and unconscious". Regarding "dependence and non-dependence", he thinks that "the poet is the slave of his object, because he has no right to ask about the choice or development of the object, because without it, he is absolutely independent of his inspiration, and neither orders, principles nor his own will can make him create". In this way, in his view, creation is free, not only dependent on the author, the author is in an active and passive position. He is both a slave and a master of creation. But on the issue of inspiration, he basically praised Plato's theory of "ecstasy" and exaggerated the role of the unconscious, which cannot but be said to be his limitation.