The Expression Idea Of The Historical Changes In Western Literary Theory

The expression idea is an important theme throughout the history of Western Literature. From diverse and historical aspects, combined with Western various historical periods of social, cultural, aesthetical, and other backgrounds, this article specifically analyzed the idea of expression and it's inheritance relations theory, explained and imaged its developmental trace and historical clue.In general, the development of expression idea that can be summarized as three basic steps: First, it is the expression idea which is contained in the traditional theory of imitation from Ancient Greece to Modern classical period. In the long period, literary theorists generally accepted the idea of the arts imitating nature, but the inner world of human emotions(like feelings) is also within the scope of imitation, many people even think that imitation has close relationship with the character, emotions of the artists. These theories clearly have the factors of the arts expressing emotions. Second, it is the expression idea which is contained in the theory of expression, in which theorists accept the idea of the arts expressing the artist's inner world since the romantic. Some theorists advocate that the arts express human universal emotions, some theorists advocate the artist's disposition and feelings, some advocate world will or human collective unconsciousness , and some advocate individual unconsciousness or other deep psychological structure. Third, it is the expression idea as a method of the arts, which is contained in the theory of form in the 20th century. It cuts off the relationship between the content of works and the artists'emotions. To it, the important thing is not the content of expression, but formalizing, configuration and symbolizing of emotions. Easy to see, historical evolution of expression idea maybe approximately concluded as follows: First, in the content of expression, from expressing universal human nature, human emotions to artists'disposition and feelings, even human unconsciousness and other deep psychological structure. Then back to expressing world will, human collective unconsciousness and human universal emotions. Second, in the essential meaning of expression, from focusing on the importance of the content and artists'emotions to the importance of the form of expression and form itself.So the idea of imitation and the idea of express in western literature are not mutually exclusive. Because you will find there are many common place between them after carefully analyzing. And even some arguments are just a word problem. There is no essential difference between expressing universal human emotions and imitating human nature or universal human emotions.