「純文學」是二十世紀以降中國文學研究的基礎觀念。通過這個源自西方的觀念，我國學者開始擺脫涵義籠統的傳統文學觀，逐步確立中國文學史、中國新文學，以至中國文學批評史等現代學科的範疇。然而遺憾的是，不少學者對這個重要觀念在中國形成的過程並沒有足夠的認識，竟因而誤以爲王國維早已引入以文學文本爲本位的文學自足論。這些說法不但爲王國維添上不虞之譽，還犯了「時代錯置」(anachronism)的毛病。針對這些誤解，本文首先會建立後設的評量架構，然後逐一考察王國維各個文學觀念的純粹程度，藉此爲他的實際貢獻作出恰當的定位，澄清各種不恰當的過度詮釋。我們相信，這些討論能夠深化大家對中國現代文學觀念形成過程的理解。

Since the twentieth century, pure literature has been one of the fundamental ideas in the studies of Chinese literature. With this imported idea from the West, Chinese scholars were able to get rid of the traditional ambiguous views on literature, and eventually established the scope of modern literary disciplines, such as the history of Chinese literature, modern Chinese literature and the history of Chinese literary criticism. Unfortunately, due to the lack of knowledge concerning the development process of that important idea, quite a lot of academics wrongly hold that the autonomous text-oriented literary theory had already been introduced to China by Wang Guowei. These views not only give Wang Guowei false praise, but are also anachronistic. With regard to such misunderstanding, this article will begin with a meta-evaluation framework. Under this framework, every single literary idea of Wang Guowei will be examined so closely that we can rightly position his authentic achievement and clarify all of the improper over-interpretations. We believe that these expositions can also deepen our understanding of the development process of the concept of modern Chinese literature.