1.3 Ethical Literary Criticism

Since the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy, western literary theories and critical methods have been introduced to China and widely used in literary criticism, such as structuralism, feminism, post-colonialism and so on. Great academic achievements have been gained in the interpretation and application of the western literary theories and critical methods, which have promoted the development of literary study in our country and played the leading role in the circle of literary criticism. Nevertheless, some problems have also arisen in the process of applying the western literary theories to the research of literary works. 

First, literary theory and criticism is gradually separated from literary works. There exist some serious tendencies such as “theoretical complex”, “preordained theme complex”, “term complex”. These tendencies are characterized by neglecting or abandoning the study of literary works and authors. Second, the western new literary theories are applied mechanically. Some critics only care about fame and money, regardless of their moral responsibilities. They desire to publish articles and pursue the quantity rather than the quality of articles. Third, literary criticism has gone too far by totally rejecting the traditional critical methods, which is considered to be out of date and cannot attract the world’s attention. Against the background, Professor Nie Zhenzhao from Central China Normal University firstly put forward “ethical literary criticism” at an academic conference, which was held in 2004. At the conference, Professor Nie Zhenzhao made a systematic exposition on ethical literary criticism and came up with the basic theoretical framework.