On Su Xuelin’s Early Literature Criticism

People from mainland of China were not quilt familiar with Su Xuelin until1980s, there was almost no trace of her in the textbooks of Chinese mainland. With the implement of reform and opening up policy, backing her hometown AnHui n1998and her death in1999, Su Xuelin gradually appeared in people’s horizons since late nineties and brought a research storm in the academic world.As a writer, Su Xuelin started publishing her works in the twenties, her autobiographical novel The Thorn Heart and prose Green Day caused a significant impact. As a scholar who had a great interest in academic research, Su Xuelin obtained great achievements on the research of Qu Fu and Tang Poetry. As a professor who had a thorough knowledge of both Western and traditional Chinese culture, her life experience is also attracted many people’s attention. People tried to interpret her by her various identities, however she also has another important identity——critic, although it always be forgotten.Su Xuelin who started her literature criticism writing in early30s is not only the representative critics of that time, but also a pioneer in the history of literary criticism, her influence on the history of Chinese modern literary criticism is undeniable.Su Xuelin’s literature criticism activities can be roughly divided into two periods, the period before the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, especially during the years when she taught at Wuhan University from1931to1936, and the period when she settled in Taiwan after leaving Chinese mainland in1949. Her literature criticism in the later period was mainly focused on Lu Xun, but since it has broken away from literature criticism and turned into political criticism, the early period holds a higher literature value.The study on Su Xuelin’s early literary criticism, not only meaningful but also necessary. First, it can help us to get a deeper understanding into her inner world, because compared with literature creation and academic research, literature criticism can reflect a person’s literary thought more thoroughly. Second, the fact is Su Xuelin’s early literary criticism leaves us a lot of space to explore, for example, what on earth her early literature criticism thought are about? What’s the similarities and differences between her and other critics? What kind of influence the forgotten Su Xuelin and her words had on the history of Chinese modern literature criticism? These prospectives provide the author not only a complete and clear way of thinking, but also a general frame of Su Xuelin’s early literature criticism study.The Paper holds the opinion that the ideology of Su Xuelin’s early literature criticism is tend to new humanism, there are mainly two factors that influenced its formation. The objective reason is the promotion of new humanist, which we can find Liang Shiqiu’s as representative, and when it comes to Su Xunlin herself, these reasons are included her feudal family surroundings, Confucian impregnation and new humanism ideological influence which she accepted after her coming to Bejing in1919. The basic concepts of her early literature criticism can be reflected in three aspects:ordinary human nature, rational restraint and moral value.The second part of the paper presented the characteristic of Su Xuelin criticism by giving a comparison to her and some other literary critics of that time. For example, her tolerant attitude to the critics, attention to both the ideological content and artistic form of criticism works, and last, her flexible using of critical method, such as, classification, comparison and quotation.The last section summarized the significance of Su Xuelin literature criticism. Firstly, it enriched the form of Chinese literature criticism in the1930s. Secondly, as a female critic, Su Xuelin’s female perspective displayed an unique style which was totally different from the male critics and become the symbol of her female critic identity. At last, the author puts Su Xuelin literary criticism into a historic background, setted up a bridge between literary history and literary criticism, confirmed Su Xuelin literary criticism’s pioneering value to the writing of literary history.