Hsia Literary Criticism

Without question, as a literary critic, Chih-tsing Hsia is the well-know Pinko dogmatism in the history of Chinese Literary criticism during 20th century. His work is regarded as what is full of bias by critics but favored and appreciated his insights by his supporters. Chih-tsing Hsia's literary criticism is a complicated phenomenon. It should be considered as a developing period which is criticizing. This article mainly discusses three aspects, conceptions of criticism, space of criticism and methods of criticism.The primary characteristics of Chih-tsing Hsia's concept of literary criticism is criticism of pure literature Through which,Chih-tsing Hsia contends with the literature of Pinko dogmatism literature and the utilitarian literature. But his criticism of pure literature also have the complicated connotation, such as rephrasing humanistic care, advocating for Realism, and putting emphasis on the perspective of the human nature of individuals and the morals, etc. Knowing this will not only help us further understand his"Bias"of"left-wing literature", but also will provide insights into the pure literary controversies and the"grass-roots writing"in the new era.Having a a Comprehensive understanding of characteristics and complicated connotation of Chih-tsing Hsia's pure literary criticism is an important prerequisite through which we can kown and reasearch Chih-tsing Hsia's literary criticism well.Moral vision is an important concept in Chih-tsing Hsia's pure literature criticism。His literature criticism widely focuses on all kinds of moral problems. And it often presents a very complicated vision because his ideological standard and artistic criterion are twist with each other at the moral level. Owing to Chih-tsing Hsia'deep digging of the characters'mind and questioning of the infinite possibility of the human moral conflict, his literature criticism does not fall into the trap of moral preach and dogmatism. What we draw enlightenment from Chih-tsing Hsia's literature criticism is that literature criticism should shoulder moral responsibility, pay more attention to the expression and reflection of morality, and bear the moral consciousness of"reasserting humanity, rebuilding honor".Religious spirit is embodied in the concepts and criteria of Chih-tsing Hsia'criticism of iterature. This is manifested in his paper named: a general discussion of Chinese modern literature, in his scan and critics on traditional Chinese literature and literature tradition, as well as in his remarks on a large amount of the writers and their works. Though his comprehension to the religious sprits in Chinese modern literature is not very comprehensive, he manageds to find balance between"for holy spirit"and"for earthy life"in his critics practice. Thus it would facilitate us to fully understand and master the problems related to the religious, spiritual and divine-based writing in modern literature.Chih-tsing Hsia also has an outstanding contribution in the field of literary criticism of Chinese classical novels, where he Criticizes the main features from the arts standards of Western Modern Novels.While criticizing Chinese Classical Novels ,he makes efforts to construct the criteria of aesthetics of realism novels and humanism His novel views of characters embodies unique insight of a literature critic. We should appreciate his heart of surveying the gains and losses and complementing each other and admire his peculiar aesthetic foresights influenced by western humanism.Chih-tsing Hsia's outstanding contributions are in the field of criticism of Chinese Modern Novels ,including Theory of Worrying about the current situation and fate of mother country and Four New Greatest People of letters. He gives overall descriptions of characteristics and connotation of Chinese Mordern Literature From the first perspective of Worrying about the current situation and fate of mother country and deeply reflects upon the fluctuation of realism and satiric tradition following generalised spirit of the age. All of these can help us get ride of rigescent thinking modes ,such as The Class , The Dichotomy and ect,concerning Interpretation Theory of New Literature,refer to the western ,even the world literature tradition and rethink spirit burden inheritd by Chinese Literature of the 20th Century in all respects to promote Modernization Progress of Chinese Literature. The latter one,Chih-tsing Hsia's Four New Greatest People of letters, rearranges the outlines of literary masterpieces ,directly enlights upsurge of rewriting the history of literature and fertilizes contents of the History of Modern Literature and concepts of literary criticism.Chinese-American and Hong Kong-Taiwan contemporary fiction is also an important area of literary criticism of Chih-tsing Hsia. His important findings of criticism to Chinese-American writers are the classifications of "Wizards" Bai Xianyong's fictions, the interpretation of "Adonis" complex and the detailed analysis of the psychological and cultural connotations of "rootless generation" in Rika works. His criticism on Chen Ruoxi reflects a strong sense of caring women. He summarizes the style and content of Chen'fictions as "the most simple, sober realism". He always frankly comments on other writers in Taiwan and Hong Kong. All that he has done is an important contribution to the development of literature in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Chih-tsing Hsia comments on all kinds of writers and topics, but in general, his works are mainly about "local Chinese" and "Modern Chinese" which are on historical and cultural subjects. He analyzes Chinese literature under the setting of the world literature, neither boastful nor low self-esteemed which reflects his magnanimous mind and wide vision in comment.Literary criticism and literary history of writing have different, but close relations. Literary criticism provides point of view and materials for the writing of literary history. and Literary History lays the foundation for the development of literary criticism .The book titled mordern Chinese fiction history written by Chih-tsing Hsia is not only his most representative text of criticism but also an excellent one of literary history,which , to the method of literature history composing, shows its contributions in three aspects.The one is the comparative method which he used in different cultures and different novelists providing a macroscopic view to general literature history composing;The second is the accurate reading to the item of the text strengthened his individual style in composing literature history;The third is the comprehensive materials used to analyse the novelists going with the unity of the standard in his judgement.If the positive concept of"sharp comments"can be used , we can sum up the characteristics of Chih-tsing Hsia literary criticisms as"Xia's sharp comments"which can be illustrated that he likes judging and prefers to using"most"and"first"; he always holds opposite opinions; he always has macro and novel comments; he has firm judgments of what is good or bad; his language is very lively and witty. Nowadays, in the situation of lacking literary criticism and with the development of commercialization, our society is still in lack of a witty"sharp commentator"who has the courage to say, not just following the others."Xia's sharp comments"tells us that critics should build the awareness and character of criticism; literary criticism should establish the standards and value systems of criticism which put aesthetic criticism as the center; and Chinese and Western, ancient and modern literary criticism should interrelate with each other.