An overview of literary criticism
Literary criticism is a theoretical style that focuses on writers, works, literary creation and literary thoughts. By writing comments, writers express their understanding and evaluation of the aesthetic value of works, inspire and help readers to improve their appreciation level, and put forward correct and beneficial criticisms and suggestions to the authors of works. Russian poet Pushkin said: "Criticism is science. Criticism is a science that reveals the beauty and shortcomings of literary and artistic works. " (On criticism) This kind of comment is "a gift to gain insight into the past and enlighten the future". "Only when comments are harsh, destructive, right or wrong, or misleading, are they harmful. In most cases, people welcome comments and accept useful (constructive) comments. " (William W. West, improving his writing skills)
To comment on a literary work, a writer or a literary phenomenon, we must master the criteria of criticism. The standards of literary criticism include political standards, ideological standards, historical standards, social standards, artistic standards, aesthetic standards and so on. Using different standards to comment on literary works and literary phenomena will lead to different conclusions. Aesthetic standards and historical standards should be used to measure the ideological significance and artistic value of works. The so-called aesthetic standard refers to the law of art and the principle of beauty. Belinsky pointed out: "It should be the first step for critics to determine the aesthetic quality of their works. When a work can't stand aesthetic analysis, it is not worth historical criticism. " (On Criticism) The content of aesthetic standards specifically includes the following four points:
First, the authenticity and vividness of the image. Without image, there is no literature and art, and the analysis of works should start with the analysis of artistic image system, so as to fully grasp the works and examine whether they are true and vivid. The authenticity mentioned here includes not only "objective truth" but also "subjective truth". For example, Kafka's Metamorphosis describes people as ants, or it comes from people's thinking about reality. It is a "distorted reflection" of "objective truth", permeating the author's "subjective truth" and still truly revealing a certain aspect of human nature in real relationships.
Second, the typical degree. Typicality is an important symbol of a work's artistry. It is necessary to examine the height of the typicality of the works and see whether it has reached the realm of "taking one as ten". Typicality refers not only to the typical characters in the typical environment, but also to the typical emotions and psychology.
Third, the perfection of form. Literary works are the unity of content and form, and the quality of form affects the expression of content and the strength of artistic appeal. It is necessary to examine the writer's exploration of art form to see if it is original and perfect. The view of neglecting formal beauty is layout, because the ideological content and artistic form of the work are interdependent.
Fourth, the aesthetic effect of the work. Literary works are emotional, and works that lack artistic appeal cannot play the special function of literature and have no vitality. Creation is "writing for love", not "writing for love". Creation needs passion, criticism and passion. Without passion and beauty, it is impossible to enter aesthetic criticism. The so-called historical standard refers to the viewpoint of historical materialism, that is, to examine a work in its historical background and reality. Literary works are always the reflection of social life in a certain era. Without a certain historical environment and social atmosphere, it is impossible to make a fair evaluation and scientific explanation. This requires us to put writers and works in the historical development and in the living environment of a certain era, society and nation. In China's old saying, it is "knowing people and discussing the world". To measure a work by historical standards, we should examine the objective and subjective factors that produced the work. Objectively speaking, it is necessary to examine whether the social life reflected in the works is true, how deep and wide it is, and whether it shows a profound sense of history and vivid sense of reality. In addition, we should also examine the writer's subjective situation, study the writer's creative practice and personality, and find out under what circumstances and how the writer wrote this work, his thoughts, personality, temperament and so on. In short, we should make a comprehensive analysis of all this, instead of grasping one point, making a one-sided summary, arbitrarily praising or criticizing it. Aesthetic standards and historical standards are unified and should not and cannot be separated. Put it alone in front, for the convenience of expression. It is more appropriate to express the criticism standard as "aesthetic-historical" standard. In short, literary critics should combine aesthetic standards with historical standards, and combine ideas with art, content and form to comment and write.
Literary criticism writing
There are roughly four steps in the writing of literary criticism: reading-choosing a topic-commenting-writing.
(a) reading reading for literary criticism, is the process of possession of materials, investigation and research. Only through reading can we lay a solid foundation for writing. 1. Reading range. Judging from the writing requirements of literary criticism, reading should be combined with both point and surface and depth.
The so-called "point" combining point and surface refers to the work. The so-called "face" refers to the writer's life, other writers' works and other writers' works. Here, the reading of works is the most important, which is the most important basis for obtaining the right to comment. Only by reading the works can you know the object of your comments like the back of your hand, get to the point and avoid one-sidedness. The so-called combination of depth and depth means that the works should be read deeper, drilled deeper, and deep enough to produce feelings. In order to have depth, you have to watch it several times. Engels read La Salle's Flantz von Bauhinia Root at least four times. In Ferdinand Lasalle, Engels said: "In order to have a completely fair and critical attitude" and "make detailed comments and clear opinions after reading", I spent a long time expressing my opinions. For another example, Lenin read the novel five times in one summer in order to comment on it. "Every time I can find some exciting new ideas in this work." (Lenin's Literature and Art, p. 897) Mao Zedong also said that A Dream of Red Mansions should be read five times, and if you don't read it five times, you will have no right to speak.
It can be seen that superficial reading is impossible. For the object being commented, we must study it thoroughly and be close to the work as we treat people. Look at other works and materials simply, just browse and have an intuitive impression, otherwise, you can't guarantee the depth of the "point". 2. Reading methods. Generally, the step of "whole-part-whole" is adopted. First, generally speaking, it is to read it from beginning to end. Get a preliminary impression. Second, the part is to carefully read, analyze and study the important parts, deepen the impression, find the characteristics (or problems), and initially form opinions. Third, on the whole, we should have a complete understanding of the essence and make our own judgments on the tendentiousness and artistry of the works. In the process of reading, you should take notes in time. There is a "comment method", that is, reading and commenting with a pen in one hand. Such as Jin Shengtan's comments on Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It is also necessary to cultivate the ability to retell excerpts through reading. This is because the content of the work is often summarized in the comments, which is the basis for the comments.
(2) Choosing a topic The so-called topic is to select and determine the topic (center) of the review on the basis of reading and collecting materials. The topic selection is also called "topic selection".
Beginners who write literary criticism often make the following mistakes when deciding on a topic: First, they judge for the sake of evaluation, without aiming at the goal. A critic takes a work casually, with no clear goal and no serious comment. Second, be greedy for perfection and cover everything. At the beginning, it is often mediocre and superficial not to write such a big topic as "on XXX's novel creation" Third, lack of new ideas, platitudes, follow the footsteps of others and learn from others. How should I decide the topic? First of all, choose the right work. There are standards for choosing whose works are. The criteria are:
(1) The value of the work. When you get a work, you should weigh it and ask yourself: is this work valuable? Is the value worth evaluating? Chernyshevski, a Russian literary critic, said, "If you want to be a thorough person, you should pay special attention to the value of your works, instead of sticking to whether you think the works of the same writer are good or bad before." This shows that literary criticism should evaluate literary works, and the value of the works themselves is an important basis for us to decide whether to comment or not. The so-called value of a work refers to its aesthetic value, that is, the ideological and artistic level of a work should be very high or relatively high; In addition, it is a certain kind of work that represents a noteworthy tendency, or a bad work. Both kinds of works are worthy of comment. Because good reviews can improve readers' aesthetic level, let readers enjoy beauty, let the author realize his own characteristics, develop in a good direction and improve one step; Bad comments can prevent a slight delay, remind the author, and let the reader know the false, the evil and the ugly.
(2) the needs of reality. Realistic needs refer to the needs of national cause, people's life and social development. As a critic, we should assume the responsibility of commenting on any works that need to be commented in reality.
(3) personal expertise. You should choose your works according to your hobbies and specialties. In other words, we should choose those who have learned, are sure, have learned and will comment. Especially for beginners of critical writing, we should foster strengths and avoid weaknesses, otherwise it will be difficult to evaluate and evaluate well. Second, we must set a good center. There are two principles to determine the theoretical center of evaluation: First, different genres should be treated differently. Different schools should set up comment centers from different angles. For example, the criticism of narrative literature should focus on characterization and contradictions. Comment on lyric literature should pay attention to artistic conception and emotional expression. Second, innovation is very important to have true knowledge. The center of criticism must be based on one's own unique views and opinions on the works. Because it is your own insight, you can avoid similarities, innovate and judge a new level. For a work, whether it is commenting on characters, plot arrangement, a certain detail, overall structure, ideological significance or language style, critics need a pair of discerning eyes. There are two ways to cultivate "eyesight": one is choice. Select meaningful points in the work to evaluate. Because this is the way the author chooses the material when writing. Lu Xun said: "The task of a correct critic is to choose meaningful points, point them out, and make that meaning particularly clear and expanded." You should be able to skillfully select meaningful points from critical works. At first, you can choose some famous articles, determine a specific scope by yourself, and select some meaningful points. If we evaluate Lu Xun's novel Blessing, we can determine a range: comment on Xianglinsao's image-building skills. In this way, we can't just choose from the general aspects-what kind of typical Xianglinsao is, where is the success, and so on. It can also be selected from local aspects-how Lu Xun describes Xianglinsao's eyes, language, personality and so on. The second is screening. Exercise your discriminating ability mainly from three aspects: First, what are the meaningful points to be selected and what are the meaningless points to be discarded; Second, what is your own opinion of the work, and what are the old sayings and platitudes that pick up people's wisdom; Third, when commenting, what you can control and what you do is too big and too difficult. In short, the topic selection is a "leap process" from perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge on the basis of reading works and through the thinking of critics. To successfully complete this "leap" process, we need to make great efforts and deep efforts. Some critics can accurately determine the topic, not overnight, "Rome was not built in a day."
(3) Comments Most comments are based on the following five questions:
1. What does this work say?
2. What does this job mean?
3. How is this work represented?
4. Is this work well expressed?
5. Is this work worth creating?
The first comment only deals with some superficial phenomena of the work. We should give correct answers to who, what, where, when, why and how. The purpose is to clarify the specific content reflected in the work and connect the author's experience with his own.
The second comment is about defining the theme of the work. This ability can only be possessed after reading and appreciating experienced literary works. A correct comment on the theme of a work should generally be from: 1. Content interpretation; Second, feel the feelings; Third, language adjustment; Fourth, the author's intention and other four aspects to understand the work.
The third comment is about the author's skills in getting the expected response from readers. Skills are the means and tools for authors to achieve their goals. As a literary work, unless these special skills can be valued and applied, readers can't fully understand and evaluate it. Evaluating the expressive skills of works is of interest to both readers and authors.
The fourth critical question is to evaluate a literary work's ability to communicate with readers fairly and correctly on the basis of studying the first three questions. This evaluation is largely subjective-the critic's personal feelings about this literary work. However, if he can correctly judge whether the author's artistic expression is successful or not, and make due evaluation on the application of his works' skills, he will get the approval of the author and many readers.
The fifth comment is about the value of the work. A literary criticism can only be called a good literary criticism if it correctly points out the cognitive value and artistic value of the work. In addition to bringing pleasure, expanding knowledge, providing new insights, promoting positive actions and promoting a more correct attitude towards life, literary works also gain writing value, as well as language description (through color, shape, light and shade, scene description), grandeur, historicity (description of another era) and rhythm of ideas, structures or languages that exist in many essays and poems (William W. West, improving writing,
The critical works published in literary criticism, literary newspaper and other newspapers provide us with model essays for studying critical works, from which we can learn useful critical methods.
(D) Writing literary criticism is argumentative. It must have the general characteristics of argumentative writing, which is the same as other argumentative writing. But because it is a comment on literary works, it is different from other argumentative papers, but it should be a little literary, which is its personality. Therefore, a good literary criticism should not only have the characteristics of general argumentation, but also pay attention to literariness.
1. Have a correct and distinct point of view (argument). When we comment on a literary work, there is always a basic view: is it good or bad? Is it basically good and has shortcomings, or is it basically bad but still has some merits? This basic point of view is the central point of the article, which must be correct and distinct.
2. Have accurate, sufficient and convincing arguments. The arguments of literary criticism should mainly be found in the characters, plots and artistic descriptions of the works, that is to say, the characters, story plots, artistic descriptions and language use of the works should be analyzed in detail. In order to quote enough materials to illustrate their arguments as arguments. These arguments must be accurate and reliable, not to be taken for granted, not to be misinterpreted or even taken out of context, so that they are inferior to the rest.
3. Scientific logical reasoning methods should be used. Whether to use induction, deduction or analogy should be carefully considered. Moreover, whether to write an argumentative essay or a rebuttal comment needs to be determined according to the purpose of writing, starting from the reality of the work and starting from the needs of readers.
4. Have the contemporary consciousness of literary criticism, and be able to write according to the laws and characteristics of literature in combination with work practice. We must use the knowledge of literary theory, literary history, aesthetics, linguistics and rhetoric to analyze specific works. Otherwise, if such comments are unprofessional in the article or make unrealistic demands on literary and artistic works, it will certainly be difficult to convince people.
5. Literary ideas are constantly updated in creation, so the theories and terms of literary criticism are also constantly updated. To this end, we must strive to make the language of comments accurate, rigorous, scientific and theoretical, but also distinctive, novel, literary and vivid. Through the use of language, the reason, emotion and text of comments should be perfectly combined.