IDEAS ON THE CURRENT CONSTRUCTION OF LITERARY THEORY

This article puts forward several ideas on the development of literary theory in contemporary China. Firstly, the philosophical basis of literary theory should be shifted from a simplistic epistemology to Marxist ontology with praxis as its theoretical core. Secondly, the mode of thinking in literary theory should be altered from a substantial one to a generative one. Thirdly, literary theory should go beyond the methodological framework of subject-object dichotomy, and adopt a renewed way of dialectical thinking. Last but not the least, it is necessary for us to rediscover the vitality and realistic meaning of the proposition of "literature is the study of humanity" from the perspective of Marxist humanism.