Following the implementation of reform and open policy, Western formalist theories of art and literature pour in from abroad
and produce an apparent impact on China's literary creation.These theories fill up to a certain extent the deficiency of our research of the theory of artistic and literary forms.But,for all the one_sidedly deep truth contained in some of their theses,these theories,being responsible for expounding the world art and literature as a whole,expose their own contradictions and biases.Both Susan Lange's doctrine of "creation of symbols of artistic feeling" and Herbert Marcuse's viewpoint of "
new ability of being affected",and even Liu Zai_fu's theory of "the
revolution of the type of writing",are marked by these contradictions.However they,after all,are trying to find a way of artistic and literary self_discipline,whereas the extremist mode of thinking of the post_modernist view of art and literature shows absolute nihilism——from content to form,from subject to object——and slides gradually the literary creation to sheer play of words,which is alien to any ideal and emotion.