A Revaluation Of Wellek's "Intrinsic Approach"

RenéWellek is one of the most outstanding theorists and critics in western literary theory in 20th century, and is one of the most influential western literary theorists in China. Through his famous work,"Theory of Literature","Intrinsic Approach"of literature was brought into China in 1980's, and aroused a heated debate. From then on , the literary study in China has made a profound change both in ideas and methods. This theis wants to made a revaluation on Wellek's"Intrinsic Approach", trying to correct the past misunderstandings on the theory and the current bias in literary studies, so as to improve the current literary research and teaching, and provide reference information for building Chinese contemporary literary theory.This thesis will divides Wellek's"Intrinsic Approach"into three parts, that is, the existence of literary works, the arrangement of single literary work, and the theory of literature as a whole.The first chapter analyses the cornerstone of"Intrinsic Approach", that is, the existence of literature. Some domestic scholars simply equated"Intrinsic Approach"to the theory of the arrangement of literature, and did not notice the cornerstone of this theory. In fact, Wellek's all the theory on literature is based.on the consideration of"how literary exist". Wellek thought that literature is an object of experience, which exists through the readers'experience, but the noumenon of literature is not the experience, but the reason which caused experience, that is, the"dominant structure", and that"dominant"thing is the value of the structure. Wellek thus divided the boundaries of the"Intrinsic Approach"and the"Extrinsic Approach". The"Intrinsic Approach"aims at the"dominant structure"and its value, and the"Extrinsic Approach"aims at the associated experience facts. Only the"Intrinsic Approach"can reveal the fundamental of literature, while the"Extrinsic Approach"can only provide the necessary information for the"Intrinsic Approach". Therefore, Wellek did not deny the"Extrinsic Approach", but he stressed that only the"Intrinsic Approach"can find the literature's fundamental value. Now we are in a era of value nihilism, so Wellek's concern for the value of literature is perhaps a corrective medicine.The second chapter analyses the body of"Intrinsic Approach", that is, the theory of the arrangement of literature. This is not only the most important part in Wellek's"Intrinsic Approach", but the most the influential part in China. Some demestic scholars limited their mind in the"content-form"dichotomy thinking framework, so they misunderstood the"Intrinsic Approach"as a formalism theory. But in fact, Wellek replaced the horizontal analysis of"content-form"by the vertical analysis of"material-structure". According to Chinese scholars as Liu Xiangyu's view, Wellek's theory of literature divided a single literary work into three levels: audio (homonym, rhythm and rhyme), significance (Style and Stylistics), the World (imagery, metaphor, symbol and myth). This chapter points out the domestic scholars's misunderstandings of this theory, and clarifies the referential value of this theory in nowadays.The third chapter discusses the logical extension of the"Intrinsic Approach", that is, the study of the literature as a whole. In Wellek's theory, not only the single literary work is an organic whole, but also all the literary works constitutes a whole, that is,"literature". In this part of his theory, Wellek discussed the types of literature, literature evaluation and literary history. In"The type of literature", Wellek thought a total of literature at the state, the ultimate type of it is impossible, literary types of research should be researches of the literary kind. In history, to this issue"Literature evaluation", Wellek emphasized that literature criticism the evaluation of literary works of literary value, At the same time, he opposed to split the artistic of literary works value and the value of thinking, because the metaphysical quality of literary works is not preaching, but surface of the world from the work itself. In the study of"Literature history",Wellek pointed out that in the preparation of the history of literature, history and the value was in interactive relationship, the history reference value, value came from history.Using that as a guiding ideology , Wellek discussed the history of literature type,the staging and other issues of literature history , and put forward a new vision of the history of literary ,which is to write their own literature,as an art, of literature as literature to emphasize value system literature, to stress the fundamental.The fourth chapter analyses the reference of Wellek"Intrinsic Approach"in domestic literatury theory. as well as the immediate significance of this theory. Wellek's"Intrinsic Approach"has set off a research upsurge in China in 1980s, but it also has misunderstanding and the variability in specific ,and until now , there are still misconceptions. the introduction of this theory has promoted the development of Chinese literature theory, but it has also brought a number of new problems. One of the most important problems is unlimited the study of literature generalization research object , and even there appears a erroneous advocating to replace literature study with cultural study ."Intrinsic Approach"s main contribution lies in concerning the aesthetic value stressing the centre of works. Therefore, in the context of contemporary literary theory, re-explore and re-examine the reasonable meaning Wellek's"Intrinsic Approach"plays an important role in correcting malaise and has significance.In short, this essay is interested in our country's current literary theory, and concerns on contribution of Wellek's"Intrinsic Approach"in contemporary literary theory development in China ,and positive meaning which have not yet been found and paid attention to, Therefore, this essay's conclusion has affirmed the enlightenment that"Intrinsic Approach"brought us, and pointed out its limitations, we also need it to build and improve our own literary theory.