Validity and Limitation of the Science of Literary Criticism——Discussion with Dr. Ma Jianhui

The reason that literary theory is a science lies not only in its trueness, its objectiveness and its logical abstractness, but also in that it embodies the spiritual essence of science. The school of literary theory has the natural ties of blood with modern science and western rational culture. Now if we want to discuss the scientificness of literary theory, we must be ready to face the fact that the science itself bears both validity and limitation, and must be alert at the cultural traps of European and American modernism and humanism.