The Dialogue Dimension Of Literary Criticism

Tzvetan Todorov is one of the representatives of French Structural Literary Criticism,who has made a transformation in literary criticism,setting up the Dialogical Criticism with novelty.This theory relates to his normal life and academic experience,and it is his unique response to the dilemma in the development of literary criticism.This dissertation aims to study the generation,connotation,essential feature and practical principle of Dialogical Criticism and draw a conclusion on the value of this theory which bases on his practice and development in the 20th century's western literary criticism.The dissertation consists of three chapters except for the introduction and conclusion.The first chapter concerns the theoretical preparation of his putting up Dialogical Criticism.It can be seen in the vision of the historical perspective that it is Bakhtin's thought(especially the Dialogical Principle)that makes him jump out from the previous structural criticism and advocate Dialogical Criticism.The second chapter then demonstrates his theory with detail on three aspects basing on the perspective provided by Critique de la criticism.They are the connotation,essential feature and practical principle.The third chapter emphasises the transfonnation of Dialogical Criticism diachronically from the aspects of literary concept,critical position and method.It then analyses the contribution of Dialogical Criticism on the development of the 20th century's literary criticism synchronically and concludes its value on the era.The idea of parallel doing internal and external research with both diachronic and synchronic logic is adopted in this dissertation.It explores the theoretical framework and basic content of Dialogical Criticism on the basis of examining the relevant theoretical works of Todorov.Dialogical Criticism has set a new direction for literary criticism in the 20th century.It also tries to break the closed and monologic critical pattern and conforms to the strong demand for dialogue contained in the wave of the times.