什麼是文學評論

關於文學的哲學性的、描述性、和評價探究的領域，包括文學是什麼、做什麼以及其價值何在。西方批評傳統始於柏拉圖的《理想國》（Republic，西元前4世紀）。一個世代之後，亞里斯多德在其《詩學》中發展出一套到現在仍舊影響很大的寫作規則。歐洲批評主義自文藝復興以來主要將焦點放在文學的道德價值與自然和現實之間的關係。16世紀末，西德尼爵士（Sir philip Sidney）辯説文學的特質在於提供某些方面優於現實的想像世界。一個世紀後，德萊敦提出比較非理想主義的觀點，他覺得文學主要為提供正確的「人類教導和趣事」的媒介，此假説成為波普（Alexander Pope）和約翰生（Samuel Johnson）偉大批評工作的基礎。由這些觀念來看浪漫主義時期所顯現出來的批評，以華茲華斯（William Wordsworth）的主張為典型，他認為詩的對象要「是真實的……要用熱情觸動到內心的感覺」。到19世紀晚期發展為兩個支派：一個是「為藝術而藝術」的美學理論，和阿諾德（Matthew Arnold）所主張的：假設宗教未普及，文學必須要具備道德和哲學功能的觀點。文學評論的書籍在20世紀大量增加，並在近幾年出現重新評估傳統批評模式的現象，和批評派別多元化的發展。（參閲structuralism、poststructuralism、deconstruction）。

literary criticism

Discipline concerned with philosophical, descriptive, and evaluative inquiries about literature, including what literature is, what it does, and what it is worth. The Western critical tradition began with Plato's Republic (4th century BC). A generation later, Aristotle, in his Poetics, developed a set of principles of composition that had a lasting influence. European criticism since the Renaissance has primarily focused on the moral worth of literature and the nature of its relationship to reality. At the end of the 16th century, Sir Philip Sidney argued that it is the special property of literature to offer an imagined world that is in some respects superior to the real one. A century later, John Dryden proposed the less idealistic view that literature must primarily offer an accurate representation of the world for “the delight and instruction of mankind,” an assumption that underlies the great critical works of Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson. A departure from these ideas appeared in the criticism of the Romantic period, epitomized by William Wordsworth's assertion that the object of poetry is “truth . . . carried alive into the heart by passion.” The later 19th century saw two divergent developments: an aesthetic theory of “art for art's sake,” and the view (expressed by Matthew Arnold) that literature must assume the moral and philosophical functions previously filled by religion. The volume of literary criticism increased greatly in the 20th century, and its later years saw a radical reappraisal of traditional critical modes and the development of a multiplicity of critical factions (see structuralism, poststructuralism, deconstruction).