Interdisciplinary Reflection on Ethical Literary Criticism and Literary Theory Framework

Abstract

Ethical literary criticism is a new theory generated from the trend of ethical criticism. It was founded on the basis of the theory of the three stages of human civilization, namely, natural selection, ethical selection, and scientific selection. Focusing on the analysis of ethical choices in literary texts with terms such as ethical choice, ethical identity, ethical will and so on, ethical literary criticism interprets all kinds of literary writings, dissects examples of ethical choices in different environments and contexts, and emphasizes the ethical value of literature in search of moral enlightenment and instruction for the readers. Through the deployment of its own terms, ethical literary criticism can be used to obtain new interpretations and understanding of literary texts, and effectively solve the problems raised by the literary text. Any theory must have its own theoretical framework. If there is no theoretical framework, arguments cannot constitute a theory. As a theory, ethical literary criticism was founded on the central category of ethical choice. As the framework of ethical literary criticism, it is the basic structure and model of the system. It is not only the underlying logic of literary theory but also its basic principle.