Society, Language and Pictures: the Paradigm Change of Literary Theories

Because of the close relationship between literature and society in the early time, the study of the literary theory paradigm mostly began from the relationship between literature and society. This literary idea takes literature as the imitation, reproduction or refl ection of reality. In modern times, literary theory witnessed a linguistic turn, forming a new theory paradigm, such as Russian formalism and New Critics in Britain and America. In post-modern literary theory, with the development of picture civilization, literary theory began its new turn – the picture turn. Up to now, literary theory has experienced two turns, existing in three theoretical forms: literary sociology, literary linguistics and literary iconology.