Abstract： Literary criticism is to evaluate and understand the creative writing. It is a description，

analysis or interpretation to a particular work of whole works of an author. This paper intends to give an overview of the four fundamental theories of critical approaches to literature.

Key Words： literary criticism theories

Literature comes from Latin word “l(fā)ittera”， meaning acquaintance with letters. It refers to all of writing of Human beings and is the product or fruit of creative imagination and is written in a certain literary genre with artistic merits. Literary works involve the authors personal vision， certain feelings or emotions of the world with careful use of language， well-turned phrases and elegant syntax.

Literature is open to multi-interpretation. The purpose of literary criticism is to evaluate and understand the creative writing. It is a description， analysis or interpretation to a particular work of whole works of an author. Any approach to literature may include the following theories： mimetic theories of classical antiquity； rhetorical theories； expressive theories and formal theories.

Mimetic theories of classical antiquity pay attention to the relationship between the outside world and the art. The theory assumes that poetry can be better understood as the imitation of the interpretation of the material world. According to Plato， the founder of Western Thought， artists are even inferior to crafts for artists copy the things existing in the material world without knowing its inner nature. Because of the distance to the truth， art will mislead people even corrupt the society and no matter how well artists imitate， he will never reveal the truth of the human world. But for the idea of art， Aristotle， one of Platos pupils is different from him. For Plato， the world is the one and only one way to know the world， but for Aristotle， the world is not one but many. Art is the imitation of materials and will reflect the nature of the world. Imitation is the instinct of human beings and it can not only bring us pleasure but seek knowledge and different imitation leads to different forms of art.

Rhetorical theories highlight the relationship between art and audience， emphasizing that writers should write works to influence audience and taking delight and instruction as the ends of literary works. The theory holds that criticism has very broad means. Literature and literary criticism both engage in a kind of critique of life. Art is never for the arts sake； instead it is an index and a banner of the society that produce it. Such criticism as reader-response criticism and psychological criticism are based on the theory. Reader-response criticism is centered on the relationship between responses of reader and work of art， believing that text is something that sends signals to readers for interpretation. The reader is the judge， questioning the text. The text is not the words on the pages， but the responses from the audience. The text is detailed performance and resides in the reader. Different readers may have different responses to the text and the interpretation is determined by the subjective experience of the readers in different community. According to the psychological criticism， the individuals response to literature is conditioned by idiosyncratic differences. Reading is the transaction between the text and the reader， and each reading will produce different interpretation of the text for readers are changing. So as a reader， it is necessary to avoid ones preconception or prejudice， responding to what is in the text instead of what is projected into the text.

Expressive theories stress the relationship between the work of art and the artist， the special qualities of the artist to create things. It regards the individual artists experience， genius and faculty as evidences in a text. It has much to do with Romanticism， which dominated literary criticism during the three decades of the 19th century and attached importance to symbolism， myth， symbolic language and imagery. New Historicism emerging at this time attempts to interpret literary works with an eye to history. For New Historicism， history is subjective. History is written by people. Every person must have biases. The bias will unavoidably affect your interpretation of history. It can never tell us the worldview， mind-set of people living in certain period. It is only one of the many discourses that help us to get accurate view of what happened in the past. New Historicism emphasizes interconnectedness among all activities. We cannot evaluate a text isolated from history or cultural context， social concern. Psychological or Freudian criticism stresses the conscious and the unconscious. The conscious refers to what you are aware of， the thinking you can get easily. While the unconscious is the inner drives， instincts which people dare not to show. For him， the conscious is only a small part of our mind， while the unconscious is the most important part. It is the unconscious that motivate most of our behaviors and the conflict between the two results in anxiety. According to Freudian criticism， tt is important to go beneath the manifest content， examining the mind of the author， the mind of the characters and the mind of the audience to find the latent content. But similar to Reader-response criticism， it is also subjective. To decode the text may be just based on subjective view of points， because sometimes the final interpretation readers can get is possibly a kind of speculation. Few will tell everything about himself and the private source is limited. On the other hand， readers understand the characters in the text only by limited lines in the text. They are always more or less than the real person. We cannot find parallel in the real life and real person in mask can be like the character in the text， but cannot find a real one in life. In addition the audience will be limited by their insight in to the unconscious mind. So this criticism is also relatively subjective.

All theories just want to seek the objective view of the text. Formal theories are a reaction against the previous theories， believing that history， the life and mind of the author have nothing to do with the interpretation of literary works and limiting their study only to the form of literary work. Russian Formalism and New Criticism are based on the theory. Formalism is an attempt to establish literary criticism as an independent discipline and wants to make literary criticism exist by itself. It believes that literature is the mode of construction， instead of products of social forces and is to teach people moral by use of its poetic language. Similar to Russian Formalism， New Criticism focuses on the study of the text and rejects historical， psychological approaches， for they are subjective. The only thing that can evaluate the text objectively is text itself. A text has its ontological truth and the meaning of the text lives in the text itself. The task of doing literary criticism is to examine all the elements that have contributed to the meaning of the work， thus achieving objective interpretation. Structuralism is a term in linguistics. In literary criticism， it is an approach to analyzing by examining the underlying and invariant structure. In its sense， text is an objective structure， activating codes and conventions which are independent of the reader and the author. Unlike formalist， the basic task of structuralists is to discover how texts relate to each other， how literature conveys the meaning. It is not the examining of isolated text. To study literary works is not the investigation of individual text， but to make an inquiry into the elements， factors and conditions surrounding the act of interpretation itself， thus helping us achieve a kind of objective interpretation of the work.

Literary works are the authors personal vision of the world， a form of expression and certain feelings and emotions. So they should be read aesthetically. Proper critical approaches to literature will give readers an insight into literary works.

References：

1. 古爾靈（Guerin， W. L.）等，《文學批評方法手冊》，北京：外語教學與研究出版社，2004.

2. Charles E. Bressler， Literary Criticism： an introduction to theory and practice. Beijing： Higher Education Press， 2004.

作者姓名：佟曉牧（1974 - ），女，講師， 英語語言文學碩士，主要從事英語語言教學。

通訊地址：昆明市龍泉路云大教工住宅區(qū)/ 云南大學大學外語教學部

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