Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.1, 2025

Dialogue between Literature and Phenomenology

(Abstract)

Guo Yongjian

After the birth of phenomenology, the ancient tradition has changed: the “lawsuit between philosophy and poetry” has become the “dialogue between literature and philosophy.” The “lawsuit” is based on disagreement or strife, while the “dialogue” tends to be consensus and convergence. The dialogue between literature and phenomenology can be examined from three levels: (1) a review of the previous dialogue; (2) a reflection on the possibility of dialogue; and (3) an outlook on the dialogue between literature and phenomenology in China. Existing such dialogues are all-encompassing, with fruitful results in literary theory, literary criticism, literary history, and literary creation. The possibility of dialogue lies in the fact that both literature and phenomenology try to “say the unsayable.” Phenomenology’s intention to “return to the thing itself” and its “non-objective thinking” indicate that it wants to reach the pre-conceptual, pre-linguistic world of experience, which happens to be the space of literature. By allowing phenomenology to have a dialogue with Chinese literature, we can form an unprecedented vision and understanding of the latter.