ABSTRACT
According to Marxism, existence determines consciousness while the latter reflects and reacts on and transforms the former. This is the basic principle of dialectical materialism. Analysis of the relationship between literature and reality should be based on this principle. In theory, the relationship between literature and reality is a controversial proposition. How to properly understand the relationship between literature and reality is essential to the development and prosperity of literature and art. Works of literature and art, as ideological forms, are products of the reflection in the human brain of the life of a given society. Revolutionary literature and art are the products of the reflection of the life of the people in the brains of revolutionary writers and artists. For decades, Chinese literary theories utilized the materialist epistemology of reflectionism to deal with the relationship between literature and reality in the 20th century.
