Nie Zhenzhao and the Genesis of Chinese Ethical Literary Criticism

Abstract

The sudden emergence of ethical literary criticism in the twenty-first-century Chinese critical field is said to have emanated from Chinese critics’ eagerness to cure their “theory aphasia” and the Western “ethical turn” promoted by Wayne C. Booth. In response to the Chinese “theory aphasia” and Western “theory recession”—or perhaps even Western “ theory death”—during the early twenty-first century, Nie Zhenzhao constructs a relatively self-contained theoretical system of ethical literary criticism, with “ethical selection,” “ethical taboos,” “ethical lines,” “ethical knots,” and the “Sphinx factor” being the primary concepts of this approach. During the past fifteen years from 2004 to 2018, Nie's ethical literary criticism has been widely accepted in China and other countries, despite some queries from critical scholars. Introduction or interpretation of Nie's ethical literary criticism becomes indispensable for the world to have a better understanding of the contemporary situation of literary theories in China.

[Retracted] Reflections on the Discipline Construction Environment of World Literature and Comparative Literature in the Era of Big Data Analysis

“…Notably, the majority of Chinese translations of foreign literary works from the rst half of the 20th century have a strong utilitarian tone indicative of enlightenment. According to some studies, comparative literature iconography primarily examines the nation's "other image" and "self-image," that is, the nation as it appears in literary creations, literary history, and literary criticism [4]. e goal of image research is to understand how images are created, how they change over time, and how they are in uenced.…”

Ethical Intercultural Communication between the Western World and China

“…The western "Ethical Turn" stimulated the re-birth of Chinese literary theorization and other themes, as "Postcolonialism", "Feminism", "Ecocriticism", came to the fore. In the words of the literary critic Junwu Tian (Tian, 2019), "the Chinese ethics, with Confucianism, had influenced the Chinese culture for more than 2000 years and had helped to maintain the unity and stability of the country. However, because of the Cultural Revolution and the utilitarianism resulting from the opening to the outside world, the Chinese traditional culture decayed… In order to redress this deteriorating ethical anomy, both the Chinese government and Chinese intellectuals called for the return of the tradition of Chinese ethic, particularly Confucianism.…”

The Encounter between Cambridge Literary Criticism and China

“…The large variety of western literary theories, such as Structuralism, Deconstructionism, Ecocriticism, Feminism deluged and dominated Chinese literary criticism. As a result, several Chinese critics suffered from 'theory aphasia', a term coined by the leading Chinese critic Cao Shunqing (Tian, 2019). Things changed at the beginning of the present millennium, when Nie Zhenzhao (聂珍钊), professor of Comparative Literature at Peking's 'Central China Normal University', on the occasion of the "Symposium on British-American Literature Studies: a new perspective" (held in Wuhan in 2004) brought to the fore a new line of literary research, the 'ethical literary criticism' (Nie, 2004), consisting of the analysis of the actions of the characters of a literary work on the base of the moral principles and taboos dominating in the epoch and place where the story evolves, making it quite clearly distinct from the 'moral literary criticism', a censorship of a literary work on the base of the moral principles and taboos to which the critic adheres.…”

“…In his intervention Nie contended that his ethical criticism followed the tradition of the Cambridge professor F.L. Leavis, who focused on moral and political significance of literary works, enriching them with original contributions, derived from the Chinese tradition (Tian, 2019).…”