Literary Criticism: Aestheticism and Its Historical Horizon

Many critics call for a return of aesthetics in literary criticism.“What is aesthetics” has not been fully resolved and cannot have a unified standard.Literary criticism must examine both the composition of literary works and why this composition produces strong aesthetic pleasure.The social-historical school of criticism introduces the concept of “history” to participate in the interpretation of aesthetics,emphasizing the special nature of “history” as a continuous whole.The literary discourse restores the vivid face of the individual at close range is another kind of historical cognition.The problem that “typicality” tries to solve is the relationship between individual and universal.The postmodern context is dissolving the various theoretical conditions behind “typicality”.Fredric Jameson tries to re-propose “cognitive mapping” to save historical totality theory.Jacques Rancière’s attention has long been focused on the category of “sensible”,emphasizing the impact of aesthetics on the established rules of “distribution of the sensible”.However,the reorganization function of “distribution of the sensible” is much weaker than criticism.Aesthetics can only act as seeds of future life,making dialogues actively with various life concepts.The aestheticism of literary criticism promotes the continuous expansion and deepening of these dialogues.