In addition, abrams also put forward the theory of four elements of literary criticism, namely (1) works (2) universe (3) artists (4) audience.
In addition, the title of the book puts two common and relative metaphors together to describe the mind: one compares the mind to a reflector of external things, and the other compares the mind to a luminous body, believing that the mind is also a part of what it perceives. The former summarizes the main thinking characteristics from Plato to18th century. The latter represents the dominant concept in the hearts of romantic poets. In a word, romantic criticism contains unity in diversity. The relationship between the four elements can form a triangle, and almost all theories obviously tend to have only one element. According to one of the elements, the main categories of works of art are defined, divided and analyzed, and the main criteria for judging the value of works are generated. Therefore, using this triangle diagram, these attempts can be roughly divided into four categories: three of them mainly explain the work with the relationship between the work and another element (the world, the appreciator or the artist), and the fourth category studies the work as a self-contained ontology in isolation.
It is worth noting that the research method of this book is analogy.
Abrams in the mirror and lamp that literary theory as a whole can be divided into four categories:
Imitation theory: paying attention to the relationship between works and the universe.
Practical theory: pay attention to the relationship between works and audiences.
Expression theory: pay attention to the relationship between works and authors.
Objective theory: pay attention to the close reading of the text.
basic thought
Frank criticized the prevailing method of western literary criticism at that time: "Until a few decades ago, the discussion of aesthetic issues in modern aesthetics was based on the relationship between art and artists, without considering the relationship between art and the outside world, the inherent requirements of appreciators and works."
Abrams is not only different from those "practical critics" who are only good at text reading, but also disapproves of "meta-critics" who specialize in pure theoretical deduction. He is essentially a humanist, or a theorist with poetic temperament like Northrop Frye (his academic colleague) and harold bloom (his student). Therefore, reading his works, on the one hand, you can feel his profound knowledge, on the other hand, you can also appreciate his magnificent and elegant style. Mirror and lamp belongs to such a theoretical work. As for the metaphorical meaning of mirrors and lamps, as the author points out in the preface, "The title of this book describes the mind together with two common and relative metaphors: one compares the mind to a reflector of external things, and the other compares the mind to a luminous body, thinking that the mind is also a part of what it perceives. The former summarizes the main thinking characteristics from Plato to18th century. The latter represents the dominant concept of romanticism about the poet's mind. I try to treat these two metaphors and other metaphors equally seriously, whether they are used in literary criticism or poetry creation, because the purpose of using metaphors is different, but their functions are basically the same. " In fact, there are countless examples of using mirrors as metaphors at all times and in all countries. However, abrams's metaphor consciously links Romantic literary theory with Plato's tradition, which plays a finishing role in our comprehensive understanding of the various stages of the development of western literary theory.
In Mirror and Lamp, Ai Shi put forward four literary elements: author, universe, readers and works: "Every work of art always involves four points, and almost all theories that strive to be thorough always distinguish these four elements, which makes people clear at a glance. The first element is the work, which is the art itself. Because works are man-made products, the second factor is the producer, that is, the artist. Third, it is generally believed that a work must have a theme directly or indirectly derived from real things-it always involves, expresses, reflects some objective state or something related to it. This third element can be considered to be composed of characters and actions, thoughts and emotions, matter and events or feelings. It is usually expressed by the general word' nature', but we might as well use a neutral word with a wider meaning-universe. The last element is the appreciator, that is, the audience, the audience and the reader. The work is written for them, or at least it will attract their attention. " This statement is still in use today.
Undoubtedly, critics who advocate the principle of realistic criticism pay special attention to the world reflected by the works, that is, the large social and cultural context on which the works are based. In fact, no matter realistic works, romantic works, even modernist works and post-modernist works, they are inseparable from the naturalism or typicality, irony or absurdity or exaggeration of the world, but the writers with these creative tendencies have different emphasis on the authenticity of the world. Some people focus on the truth of design in the writer's mind, others emphasize the objective truth that is close to the truth and nature reflected in the works, while others simply promote the creation of literary works. The romantic literary theory discussed in this book focuses on this last aesthetic tendency. Even the anti-reality view of aestheticism (that is, Wilde's so-called "all novels are lies") reflects the writer's attitude towards why his works should reflect the objective world from a certain aspect.
Among these four elements, the relationship between works and artists (and their authors) is also the focus of the author's discussion. Because this is the creative feature of romantic writers, critics who advocate the principle of romantic criticism can easily get a glimpse of the author's figure, personality, style and temperament in romantic works, which is what we often call China's classical literary criticism. In critical theory and practice, influenced by romantic aesthetic principles and their works, traditional Freudian psychoanalytic critics especially emphasize the unconscious motivation of writers' creation, and even publicly declare that creative writers are "daydreamers" and all arts are "mentally ill", which is probably due to their great interest in the close relationship between literary works and their authors. Therefore, these four elements of abrams were later revised and developed by comparative literature scholars Liu Ruoyu and Ye, and then widely used in Chinese and Western comparative literature and literary theory, which influenced many scholars engaged in the study of Chinese and Western comparative literature.
Value influence
Although the mirror and lamp mainly discusses the romantic literary theory, its universal guiding significance and value to today's literary theorists far exceed his discussion of the romantic literary theory itself, and are reflected in the four elements of literary criticism he put forward to a greater extent, namely, the universe, works, artists and appreciators. Together, these four elements can almost cover the critical characteristics of various theoretical schools in the history of western literary theory, so that people who have dabbled in the field of western literary theory will soon have a general outline of the historical evolution, school disputes and their current situation of western literary theory. Among these four elements, the work is undoubtedly the center, which also reflects that the author's critical position is always closely related to reading literary works, which is why he uses the meta-criticism method of deconstruction to demonstrate, and all kinds of formalism criticism theories focus on one aspect most closely related to the work.
The relationship between the work and the work itself may be the focus of lyric poetry works that get rid of the big social and cultural context and devote themselves to expressing pure personal feelings and aesthetic ideals. To the authors of those works, literary works are regarded as closed objects of complacency, which seems to have nothing to do with the outside world. Almost all writers' creations are based on the purpose of "art for art's sake", and these works are often regarded as "texts" that have been read repeatedly by critics and critics in Britain and the United States.
This text-centered criticism mode was later pushed to an inappropriate extreme by structuralist criticism, and was countered by various post-structuralist/post-modernist literary theories. Abrams advocated the pluralistic value orientation of criticism, taking into account various factors of criticism. Of course, this is also the reason why he can have a dialogue with various criticism schools, but his criticism tendency is not so clear.
As for the relationship between works and appreciators, it was highly valued in early pragmatic criticism, but emphasizing the role of readers in the process of criticism and pushing it to the extreme was a great contribution of accepting aesthetics and reader's response criticism in the second half of the 20th century. In the postmodern literary theory, the reader himself has the right to actively and even creatively interpret the text, and a work that has not been read and appreciated by the reader-appreciator can only be regarded as a "text" woven by language symbols, and can only be completed after the reader reads and explains its meaning, so the participation of the reader-appreciator actually forms a "second creation" of the work. Although Abram put forward this relationship, reception aesthetics had not yet arisen in the theoretical circle, but his theoretical foresight was confirmed by the later development of literary theory. This is why mirrors and lamps have not become "past tense" with the passage of time.
The publication of Mirror and Lamp undoubtedly set up an insurmountable monument for the study of romantic literary theory. It can be said that northrop Frye, a contemporary of the author, and other literary masters who later devoted themselves to the study of romanticism benefited from this book to some extent, or were directly inspired by it. Therefore, I think another reason why this book can have a great influence is that the author knows the development of ancient and modern literary theories like the palm of his hand, and also sums up the paradigms of historical and contemporary literary theories from a longitudinal diachronic perspective: representative theory, which is not only the lofty aesthetic ideal pursued by realistic literary theory, but also the goal pursued diligently by romantic literary theory; Pragmatic theory often emphasizes the direct guiding role of art, which is pushed to the extreme in western pragmatic criticism, and then further promoted in the criticism school that pays attention to the role of readers; Expressionism is the basic feature of romantic literary theory discussed in this book, and it is also the focus of traditional Freudian psychoanalysis. Objectively speaking, it emphasizes the objectivity and scientificity of criticism, which is especially reflected in the practice of various formalism criticism schools in the 20th century. It can be said that abrams's macro summary is quite comprehensive.