People: The Starting Point and the Destination of Literary Criticism

Abstract

AbstractThe People is a primary concept of the Chinese form and is simultaneously the starting point and the destination of it. Inheriting historical materialism’s discourse, the concept of people in the Chinese form acquires a novel quality. “The people become a revolutionary aggregation of classes with broad common interests and an association based on but also transcend class,” and the people are all millions of real individuals. The people are the creators of history. Instead of regarding the masses or citizens mainly as the objects of salvation as Western Marxists, the Chinese form adheres to the subjectivity of the people and recognizes the people as the masters of the society. “The priority of people” is the prominent feature of the Chinese form. The relationship between literature and the people constitutes the cornerstone of the Chinese form. The Chinese form concludes and presents creative theoretical views on problems such as whom literature should serve and how to serve, and such clear and systematic inquiry is unprecedented in the history of Marxist literary criticism studies. Today, the relationship between literature and the people needs reconsideration and expansion. Interacting and mutual shaping with each other, the people and literature/art will open a new era.