A Study On Gerald Graff's Literary Criticism

Gerald Graff is a contemporary American literary critic,educator,is the third generation of the United States on behalf of one of the left.Graff is deeply influenced by Marx's Theory of Alienation and Lukacs' thoughts,and he believes that literature should be closely related to social reality and that literature has a social critical function.Graff insisted that he is from the left camp,he stressed that literature has a negligible political aspect,but he also opposed to the 1970s extreme pioneer literature and some postmodern theories.Gerald Graff's literary criticism can be broadly divided into three stages:First,Graff's early literary criticism mainly refers to 1963 Graff from the beginning of literary criticism to the mid-70s.He inherited the tradition of the early left-wing critics,mainly from the political and cultural aspects of criticism,he advocated literature and the reality of society should be linked,literary criticism should have social criticism.He believes that literary research both internal and external research,both are indispensable.The new criticism does have its positive contribution to the study of literature,but if only the interior of the study text is rejected,literature and society are rejected,and any connection with the author is into the extreme formalism.In 1970 Graff published the book "Poetic Statement and Critical Dogma"(Poetic Statement and Critical Dogma)advocated literary self-sufficiency of the new criticism of criticism school.Second,from 1979 to 1992 can be regarded as the second stage of Graff's literary criticism.After the student movement failed,the left power switched from social activities to academic researches,so the cultural radicalism was intensified.Graff,though a believer in Western Marxist literary theory,did not fully support all the claims of the radicals from the left.He questioned and criticized some views of the prevailing avant-garde ideas.Graff believed that these radical literary creators do not have a true sense of the rebellion of the tradition;is a self-made literary creation;is the loss of social responsibility of literary works.The radical literary creation regards literature as fictional,and that literary works do not need to be socially responsible and have no moral interpretation of the obligation.Graff pointed out that postmodern literature did not realize its so-called breakthrough.In the pursuit of innovation,it lost the original aims of truth and free soul,and coincided with the cultural logic of consumer society.Thus,it turned out to against itself.Graff pointed out that the postmodern literature theory(mainly refers to the structuralism of the 1960s,deconstruction and Marcuse's theory,etc.).Although trying to seek breakthrough,its development is based on the traditional literary concepts,and the new theory can not completely replace or overthrow all the old literary ideas and the research results.Because Graff s strong criticism of the radicals,many of those who did not study Gerard Graff's literary criticism thoroughly often regarded him as a traditional humanist critic.Graff repeatedly stated in his writings that he was a critic from the left,denying himself as a traditional conservative.On the basis of an in-depth study of Graffs literary criticism,we found that Graff did not completely deny the new postmodern literary theory.In his book Literature Against Itself,he analyzes in detail the unreasonable elements of postmoderntheory,but he did not completely deny the value of postmodern theories.Since the 1990s,Graff has put forward the idea of "transcending cultural warfare","teaching conflict" and "political teaching"(hoping to replace the "political correct"principle).His educational proposals caused warm response.Since the 1980s,postmodern theory has been developed and perfected,and the rational factors have been recognized by some literary critics.Graff also affirmed the positive factors of opposing institutional oppression and rebellion in postmodern society.But the new theories still can not reach a consensus on certain issues,and there are conflicts and controversies between various new theories and traditional humanism.Graff believed that this continuous debate will only let the literary criticism go into the abyss of controversy.These debates have often spread from the field of literature to political attacks.Graff pointed out that the endless arguments would only have a negative impact on the increasingly disadvantaged humanities in college.Graff's theory of conflict is difficult to avoid,it will be a variety of literary theories coexisting era.In 1993,he published Beyond the Culture Wars,pointing out literary criticism has entered an era of equal dialogue,multiple coexistence at the end of the 20th century.So he insists the importance of enhancing the dialogue between different theories and discussions in class.It is meaningful to let students and public understand the theories and the content of the debate,then all those efforts will expand the influence of human thoughts.The "Political teaching" advocacy is meant to replace the PC principle in the humanistic education,for literature and education that only "political correct" principle of the supremacy of the practice.Graff believed that though the PC principle has some merits,it is an extreme practice to abandon a lot works of the white male writers from the classics works.And it is for this reason that some commentators believed that Graff had lost his left position and became a traditional humanist to preserve the old classical literature.Some thought he was trying to take an intermediate position between the left and the right.Through the detailed combing Graffs critics,the author found that Graff still insisted on his left position.He advocated a more tolerant,advocate of the theory of dialogue between the leftist literary criticism since 1993.Graff has been teaching at the university,so he concerned about the curriculum of humanistic education.Graff s "teaching the conflict"and "political teaching" all aimed at promoting students to actively participation in different theories of dialogue,thus boost the development of humanities.Graff put his ideas into practice,he applied them to the analysis of some classical works,hoping to attract students to study classical literature and literary criticism.Graff focused on the influence of literary theory on literary classroom teaching.He published two classic essays based on the theory of "teaching conflict"---Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Shakespeare's The Tempest.Therefore,we should reform the old literary class teaching tradition,should be in the classroom to show students the literary critics of some of the different topics or works of criticism.Graff insists that if literary criticism,humanistic education pay more attention and social criticism,then literary theory should not be confined to the ideological clash between literary critics,should show students and the masses of what the literary criticism circle discussed.The foundation of literature and literary theory comes from social reality,and only literary relations with the society and the reflection of literary theory makes sense.Graff,as he claimed,always stands in the leftist position to make his own exploration of literary theory.In 2000,he proposed "politically speakingv rather than "politically correct" principle,and he always insisted that the text had its political nature,even if the author denied that his work had any political stance and color,which reflects a political attitude of the author,so that any text can not avoid the dimension of politics.As a leftist literary critic,Graff focused on the social critical function of the text in his 1970s literary discussion of social values,the literary criticism and educational thought in the later period of Graff are in line with the trend of cultural turn of literary criticism,which provides high reference and reference value for the innovation of literary theory and dialogue with western literary theory.He called on literary researchers to reflect on the neglect of literary ontology.Readers are able to cross the time,space to appreciate literary works,not because of ideology,but because there is a literature beyond the ideological things,the vitality of literature lies in this beyond the time and space of the aesthetic.Graff suggested that people put aside the dispute of literary theories,but first of all to be a good reader,starting from the literary ontology.Not only from the understanding of the content of the text to read the works,but also to understand the different points of view.To guide the students and literary enthusiasts concerned about the works of writers at the same time,to understand what the contents of the discussion of the literary world,the purpose of doing so is to deepen the reader's profound and multi-dimensional understanding of the text,and focus on aesthetic quality and aesthetic ability to cultivate.The only purpose of the development of literary theory is to for the healthy development of literature,not because of different views of the debate but weaken the impact of the humanities of the subject force.The development of literary theory,the debate should be to more students,more people open,so that they can also clear what is the content of the discussion of literary circles.Literary theory should not be confined to the high above the ivory tower,only exists in the professional literature theorists between the exchange and controversy,literary theory of humanistic care and social care side of the role should also play out.Most of the discourse in Graff's most famous works of "self-parodialism" is negativity and admonition.However,the book has a constructive potential and actively explores the political nature of knowledge and attitude of the problem.There is an important truth in the book's argument that knowledge is always related to politics.Of course,in his view,people were always trying to remind the literary militants not to always treat all the objective existence in the form of ideological suspicion.He argues that it is inappropriate to deny that all literary traditions.Because the researchers on the possibility of the truth skeptical attitude to the old literary understanding to be completely abandoned.Judging the authenticity of the facts can not be taken for granted that we depend on whether we are from the left,the right,or the centrist,regardless of who we are or how our social and political directions are.Talking about literature can not ignore ideology,but it should not go to the extreme,and the only ideological theory is biased approach.The American Culture War.which emerged in the 1980s,was uttered on the university campus,initially because of the controversy over the scope of the code of law and the setting of the curriculum,and later evolved into a confrontation between the university and the social conservative forces.Graff argued that the old and new theoretical schools have not made progress since the 1970s.and the new postmodern theory can not completely subvert the old literary theory and traditions.In fact,the American culture war made him feel that it was difficult to reach a minimum agreement on the terminology and assumptions that made the real argument.At the same time,if a person seriously takes responsibility as an educator,then he is ultimately concerned with clarifying the content of the argument for the student and others,rather than winning the argument.Since the 1990s,the direction of his concern has shifted to how to use the theory of"teaching conflict" to better educate literature.He is concerned about the impact of literary classics in cultural warfare,and pointed out that too much emphasis on "political correct"thinking will make humanities education astray,so that the debate of different literary theory schools never end.Graff proposed to go beyond the culture war,with "the principle of politics" rather than "political correct" principle to carry out literary criticism and literature education.The outline of the subject has been put forward in the last section of Chapter 5 of the "self-paired literature",Graff said that only the university curriculum first reached the coherence can become politically radical.For the radical meaning,Graff argues that different schools are using conflicting terms,and if the meaning of these terms remains ambiguous or does not attract the interest of students and the public,the war between academic radicals and traditionalists didn't seem to have reached the expected effect of the researchers involved in the debate.If the students continue to alienate intellectual issues such as "objectivism" and their pre-assumed assumptions,it seems that there's no difference whether objectivists and anti-objectivists to win the current little controversy.The research of American leftist literary theory is meaningful to the construction and development of Chinese literary theory.The advancement of Chinese literary criticism still needs to be constantly explored,and the discussion of abroad literary theories will help the researchers have a wide view.Graff's attitude towards the theory of dispute in the 21st century helps us learn the latest development of American literary studies.Graff's literary criticism and educational thoughts demonstrated how to study and treat the complex post-...