Historicity Of Categories Of Fiction:Virginia Woolf’s Concept "Modern Fiction"

Virginia Woolf’s concept of "modern fiction" is one of the most significant concepts in literary criticism in the20th century, which is closely associated with the world crisis in the west. Scholars generally believe that the concept of "modern fiction" is constructed with the tradition of anti-realism as its connotation and the crisis of modernity as its dimension. This thesis attempts to construct Woolf’s concept of "modern fiction" in modern context within the two dimensions of fiction’s category and historicity.The thesis consists of three major parts, introduction, body part and conclusion. In introduction, the literature review is included, the research questions are set forth, the methodology is introduced and the outline is briefly stated. The body part is classified into three chapters. In Chapter One "Virginia Woolf s Concept ’Modern Fiction’", relying on the essay "Modern Fiction", it tries to construct the connotation of "modern fiction". In modern historical and cultural context,"modern fiction" takes "historical consciousness","the duration of life","man’s subjectivity","the complexity of psychological structures" and "the relativity and pluralism of reality" as its contents. Woolf endows the "modern fiction" with specific restorative and integrating forces in order to dissolve the dichotomy of man and self, man and the other, man and nature. In Chapter Two, it mainly demonstrates the categories of "modern fiction", which is employed to reveal the properties and attributes of fiction and regulates the fundamental mode of existence. Woolf’s "modern fiction" serves as a substance, around which the categories revolve. They are composed of "look within","impression","memory" and "feeling","the moment of importance","the psychological time" and "the flow of consciousness". In Chapter Three, it attempts to discuss the historicity of categories of "modern fiction", namely the finiteness and openness of categories. For Woolf’s part, the categories of traditional fiction in historical vision can no longer undertake the task of representing the present reality due to its conditionity and finiteness, they thus must be replaced by new categories. In the discontinuity of the historical process, Woolf proceeds with the openness of categories of fiction, endeavors to reconstruct the categories of modern fiction. In reflecting the mental disorder of people, she instills order in literary works and aims to fulfill the reconstruction of the relationship of man and self, man and the other and man and nature. Finally, the thesis reaches the conclusion that in Woolf’s literary criticism and creation, the categories of fiction should an open system. The historicity of age leads to the change of fiction. Woolf reconstructs the concept of "modern fiction" and its categories in modern condition, which guarantees the openness of categories.