Dispute And Limitation Of Two Views About The Nature Of Literature

There are four obvious views about the nature of literature in western Theory of literature and art area since the beginning of literariness, that is, Image,Emotion,Language and Formalism。This paper only discuss Language and Image。The first reason is, they are broadly recognized in our Theory of literature and art area since recent years. The second reason is, Language make a sharp and furious critique towards the image of imitation theory from the beginning. The dispute between them never stop and decide. The discuss about the two typical views about the nature of literature will help us to understand literariness better.Literature is an art. Poets and writers to express their emotions in whatever shape or image, it will make full efforts in the language through Words, syntax, Speech and language structure of a certain language, the greatest results in language arts. Then, to consider the literature from the perspective of language seems reasonable. Moreover, Jacobson invented the " literariness " concept first,and in his book named "The Two Poles of Metaphor and metonymy" ,he said, the more the character of the poetry function and the smaller the language point to the external reality, apart from the practical purpose and more point to the language itself in the form factor. Modern language and literature experimented on the vanguard literature, and this made people misdoubt the content is the literature's centre, and the language is the key element. It tends to transcend language as a factor in the form of all forms, and even the nature of literature. On the other hand, has greatly enhanced the development of Linguistics, a language research in the literature, literary theory to explain the literary language with a strong domestic support. Therefore, in the last century, poets and writers not only have a great interest in the language, philosophers, language linguists have begun to actively concern, the 20th century has been called the century of language. The relationship between language and literature has been the most conspicuous phenomenon in the 20th century. Russian Formalism, Fresh Criticism and Structuralism, these three types are holding a "self-discipline" literature view. They think the existence and development of literature are determined by the law and the internal factors. Stress the literature and the form must lead to the recognition of the language in literature. Language has been continuously developed and deepened in Formalism, Fresh Criticism and Structuralism. Overall, the logical thinking of Formalism, Fresh Criticism and Structuralism is: the literary equivalent to the works then works equivalent to the form, eventually form the same language. They denied it depends on the value of literature links with the outside of the world that the value of literature on their own. On the language is apparent, it is necessary to pay attention to the literary works in order to understand literariness, rather than pay attention to reality of the entries concern of the traditional theory; In order to determine the qualities of the literature on the basic point is to be recognized literary techniques and literary practices, instead of thinking in terms of images used. Manifest itself only through language skills and literary skills in the use of language skills. Ultimately literariness is lying in language. Literature is not only language because other texts but also use language. Therefore, we can not simply equate literariness to language. Then the language of literary texts should be limited, as is a literary version of the language, namely poetic language or poetic narrative form. Therefore, the Russian Formalist brought forward defamiliarization principles to achieve this ideal. Fresh Criticism thought the literary language was an affective language. Structuralism believed that the literature was the structure of language.The literary theory of western has always been affected by the imitation theory before 20th century. From the humanism of Renaissance to the 17th century classic, and then later realism and naturalism, in spite of Creation or epistemology, are all subject to the domination of this theory. Maybe it is precisely because this is omnipresent, and the language on the development of a clear thread, the Image formation system is not representative of the theory, but in a fragmented among different periods of literary theory books. This is the most powerful support from Hegel on the image of the exposition, Belinskiy Later, is based on Hegel's theory to have an in-depth discussion on the image. On the image that is being formally signs. In their eyes, the literature is not a series of games of language. And literature is the reproduction of the objective reality, language is the tool of shaping the image in literature. They believe the Image is the essence of literature, emphasize language forms excessively will cause the thought dissolve and the image scatter. But the Image quickly discovered that the traditional sense of image equivalent to the visual image in a large extent. Then Image would not be covered all over works, for example, the philosophic articles. So, like what Emotion does, the Image began to expand the connotation of image. They believe the visual image is not just visual image, or even resorting to people's senses completely, sometimes resorting to the human soul. And like external actions, the psychological can reflect the personality. Some writers who just describe the psychological figure will be able to create distinctive characters.Although the two views about the nature of literature are reasonable, but both sides have obvious limitations. For example, the Image's elaborate around the relationship between the works and reality, criticize the Language scatters the real meaning of the literature, makes works flimsiness, language and format will overrides everything. Literature will inevitably lead to decay if this situation developed further. And the theoretical foundation of Language is not firm enough, they ignore the relationship between language and structure and definition of the literary language in a negative form; Language believe that if literature always point to the outside like the Image, it will overlook the internal factors, disappear the literature's identity. But the Image also has some disadvantages, like fragmented the form and content, blurred the relationship of language and image, extended content of the image. Therefore, the two theories have their own inescapable Achilles heel.This is not to say that the scholars of the theory of language and image have not yet ripe, it seems to me, this is because two views about the nature of literature above are unable to cover the defect. Each of the four elements of literature may become the center, it all depends on the angle from which we look at. And establish any element could reveal some literary nature, but this is not the all essence of literature. Only those elements together inspected before they could approach the full essence of literature. Meanwhile, the literature itself is a historical and cultural building, it is changing with the changing times. So the literariness, which the concept marking literature is difficult to define naturally. Therefore, it is impossible to use the literariness to explain the existent works or predict the future of literature.