Abstract:

 Numerous literary histories have been turned out since there appeared the genre of literary history that records literary happenings and developments. The styles of extant literary histories are, to a great degree, mixed-up and unsystematic. Yet, the questions that need to be seriously considered remain unanswered: what is a literary history? What is the nature of it? And how to write a literary history? René Wellek and Austin Warren argues in their Theory of Literature, which remains quite influential on us and is even regarded as a Bible of literary theory from various aspects the nature of literary history and the methods for writing it, and criticizes the faulty notions of literary history in the past and at present. In a sense, Wellek inherits the historical sense of literary history initiated by Eliot, a tradition that looks at literary works macrocosmically and dynamically. In reference to the theoretical nature, Wellek develops his notion of literary history, including a systematic notion of value, on the basis of Eliot' s and Ransom' s ontological poetics and Eliot' s "organic wholeness" and "impersonal theory of poetry". Starting from this point, Wellek constructs a theoretical framework of literary history: literary history is a kind of literary theory in a sense that expresses structure of determination or system of value synthesized or "refined" in the criticism of an object of experience. The framework of literary history is thus structured under the guide of this theory and on the basis of logic relations between the internal literary system and "a simultaneous order" and synthesis of readers' and critics' literary criticism. As a matter of fact, Wellek' s notion of literary history is not perfect. First, on the whole, Wellek is biased in terms of literary existence; second, his notion is also mixed with some basic ideas proposed by hermeneutics and new historicism; last but not least, Wellek' s notion of literary evolution is problematic. In the final analysis, Wellek'  s notion of literary history insists on an internal study of literature rather than historical, social or ideological, or not even psychological studies of literature. His, in short, does not transcend beyond what New Criticism proposed, which we have to be alert for.

Key words:  Wellek, literary history, literary theory, literary criticism, "perspectivism", New Criticism, "literary reconstructionism"