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Full-Text Articles in Chinese Studies
The Two Worlds And The Tragic Sense In Chen Yinque's Poetics, Jingru Pan
The Two Worlds And The Tragic Sense In Chen Yinque's Poetics, Jingru Pan
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Chen Yinque was also a prolific poet, and his poems were full of metaphor and innuendo. Chen's poetry can be traced in spirit and culture back to his father Chen Sanli's influence, and also allows the reader to have a glimpse of his melancholic nature. These two strands of influence contribute to the two distinct worlds of images in his poetry, one pointing to the impermanent yet everlasting realistic world, and the other pointing to the other side of this world. The former world is composed of flowers and people and human affairs, while the latter is composed of the …
On The Literary Ideas Of The Yangming School, Qingtao Xue
On The Literary Ideas Of The Yangming School, Qingtao Xue
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The literary idea of the Yangming School is grounded in their concept of "conscience," which differs in part from Cheng-Zhu school. In terms of relationship between the literature and Confucian ideas, Yangming School's belief is that literary reation may not be necessarily in conflict with those idleas, which is against Chengzhu School's claim of "literalure does harm to Confucian ideas," and Yaming Schol's argument helps to relieve the intense relationship between literature and Cunfucianism. Inlerms of literariness, Yangming School advocates sincerity in expression instead of indulgence in the art of rhetoric. In terms of literary creation, it opposes the simulation …
Dream Of The Red Chamber Internet Fan Fiction And Literary Canonicity, Rojas Carlos
Dream Of The Red Chamber Internet Fan Fiction And Literary Canonicity, Rojas Carlos
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
This article considers the contemporary genre of Internet fan fiction inspired by Dream of the Red Chamber, which is to say Chinese novels published over the Internet that take the plot of Dream of the Red Chamber as their starting point. Through a close textual analysis of thematics of incestuous desire, reproduction, and vestigial remains in two works of Dream of the Red Chamber fan fiction, he argues that these contemporary novels comment allegorically not only on their own relationship to Dream of the Red Chamber itself, but also on more abstract processes of literary production and canon formation.
Humanity-Restoration And Artistic Creation: The Interfusion Of Liu Xizai's Ideas Of Inner Saint And Poetic Virtue, Tao Ma
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The Qing-Dynasty Confucian scholar Liu Xizai (1813-1881) expanded his idea about inner saint in terms of philosophy, literature and arts, and self-cultivation throughout his life. In such works as Private Words to Uphold the Will (Chizhi Shuyan) and Reading Notes from Ancient Tung Tree Studio (Gutong Shuwo Zhaji), Liu explored the ways to integrate life and art, human nature and artificial skills, with strong humanistic concerns. Underlying his concept of inner saint is the fusion of the idea of "literary creation as the study of mind" and the ideal of poetic virtue. Inner saintliness is achieved in the mind’s return …
The Significance Of Hu Yinglin's "Generational Stylistic Degradation" In Poetics And Culture, Minghui Wang
The Significance Of Hu Yinglin's "Generational Stylistic Degradation" In Poetics And Culture, Minghui Wang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Stylistic degradation over the generations is a claim made by Ming-Dynasty scholar Hu Yinglin (1551-1602) on classical Chinese poetic tradition. This paper argues that Hu's claim should not be treated merely as a concept of literary regression but should be taken more seriously as Hu's criticism of the uncontained proliferation of lyricism in poetry and corrosion of "ideal-expressing" poetic tradition. Hu's apparent retro idea of poetics conveyed in "generational stylistic degradation" is closely related with the tradition of "poetic arousal and projection (兴寄)" in ancient Chinese poetics and his reaffirmation of poetic cultivation, while poetic style (格) is a holistic …
The Nature Of Crime And The Role Of The Judge: Judge Bao In Ballad-Stories, L. Idema Wilt, Guanwen Wu
The Nature Of Crime And The Role Of The Judge: Judge Bao In Ballad-Stories, L. Idema Wilt, Guanwen Wu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The character of Judge Bao, which derives from the historical Bao Zheng (999-1062), starts to make his appearance in the various genres of vernacular literature in the period 1250-1450. While vernacular stories (huaben) and plays (zaju and xiwen) on Judge Bao have been widely known throughout the twentieth century and have been analyzed repeatedly, the ballad-stories (cihua) on Judge Bao were only discovered nearby in Jiading, Zhejiang in 1967. While the initial publication of the facsimile edition of the ballad-stories created quite a stir and resulted in a number of publications, this initial enthusiasm soon ebbed away and the new …
The Debate On The Grade Of Tao Yuanming In Zhong Rong'sTastes Of PoetryIn Modern Academic History, Xun Yang
The Debate On The Grade Of Tao Yuanming In Zhong Rong'sTastes Of PoetryIn Modern Academic History, Xun Yang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In his Tastes of Poetry, Zhong Rong (468-518) put Tao Yuanming to the middle grade, which caused much objection from later critics. Wang Shizhen (1526-90) thought that Tao should be put to the top grade, although he had not done any theoretical analysis or produced any evidence from research literature. The recent research on Tastes of Poetry found that Zhong Rong had put Tao Yuanming into the rank of top grade poets, as quoted from Taiping Yulan. The entailed debate evolves round such issues as whether the critics had been reading the original Tastes of Poetry and whether Zhong Rong's …
On The Significance Of "Bone" And The Unique Connotation Of Liu Xie's Concept Of "Wind And Bone", Aibin Yao
On The Significance Of "Bone" And The Unique Connotation Of Liu Xie's Concept Of "Wind And Bone", Aibin Yao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In the structure of life, "bone" is positioned between the inside and the outside of life structure, taking the special position of the inner side of the outside and the outer side of the inside. In The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, Liu Xie's concept of "wind and bone" is composed with multiple combinations of analogies of bone to analog different forms of the overall structure of writing. Main types include the following. First, "bone and flesh-skin (or hair)" is used to refer to the duality of "intent (concept) and words (language)," with "bone" indicating the concept of …
The Audience Awareness In The Self-Annotations Among Mid-Tang Poets Such As Bai Juyi And Yuan Zhen, Zhiyue Yu
The Audience Awareness In The Self-Annotations Among Mid-Tang Poets Such As Bai Juyi And Yuan Zhen, Zhiyue Yu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In Mid-Tang dynasty, self-annotations to poems were frequently practiced in Bai Juyi (772—846), Yuan Zhen (779—831) and other poets. This act as an extension of literary creation became an important means to assist their poetic expression, and it showed strong audience awareness. This act was especially practiced when poets edited their works for an expected interpretation of their works in later reading. Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen's desire to be memorized by later generations appeared to be stronger than other poets of their age. Bai Juyi assumed a relatively lower expectation of his readers, so he made many annotations to …
The Distinction Of Han And Wei Dynasty's Poetry And Its Poetic Significance, Honglin Wang
The Distinction Of Han And Wei Dynasty's Poetry And Its Poetic Significance, Honglin Wang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Poetry critics from the Ming and Qing dynasties explored the different features of the Han and Wei poetries, which resulted in the distinction between the poetries of the Han and Wei dynasties. Their explorations also indicated that the stylistic principles of poetry began to take shape. Wang Shizhen first claimed that Cao Zhi's achievements were lower than Cao Cao's, while Hu Yinglin examined the differences between the Han poetry and the Wei dynasty poetry, maintaining that Han poetry was unadorned and elegantly simple while Wei poetry was embellished with rhetorical strategies. These claims about Han and Wei poetry influenced the …
On The Stylistic Construction Of Wang Guowei's History Of Traditional Opera In The Song And Yuan Dynasties, Yanlin Xu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Wang Guowei's pioneering work History of Traditional Opera in the Song and Yuan Dynasties is both a theoretical summarization of his studies on opera and a systematic exposition of his stylistic thoughts. Influenced by Western studies and inherited from Chinese academic tradition, the book reviews the classification, naming, features, origins of this genre and the debasing social attitude to it, and proceeds to highlight the genre with a strong consciousness of stylistics. It delineates the evolution of Chinese opera from the perspective of stylistics, and proposes that Chinese opera has integrated features of patterns, observable stylistic development from narrative to …
A New Discussion On Kuang Zhouyi's Ci-Poetry Criticism, Keqiang Sun
A New Discussion On Kuang Zhouyi's Ci-Poetry Criticism, Keqiang Sun
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Some new findings about Kuang Zhouyi's critical materials on ci-poetry enable us to review and re-evaluate Kuang's theoretical contribution to ci-poetry criticism which include his explorations into the ci-poetry in the Southern and Northern Song Dynasties and his theoretical explanation of the concept of "big." The paper claims that Kuang should be given full justice as an important ci-poetry scholar in the late Qing dynasty.
The Qi-Liang Poets' Rediscovery And Imitation Of The Han Dynasty Music Bureau And Ancient Style Poetry, Yao Zhong
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The Qi-Liang Period was an important phase in the acceptance history of the Han Music Bureau Poetry and the ancient style poetry. The Qi-Liang poets rediscovered and imitated the Han poetry and through this they had developed a reflective relationship with the Han poetry in terms of technique, style and criticism. Their emphasis on the folk song tradition and on the Wu-dialect ballad (Wu Sheng Xi Qu) had not only highlighted the folk song features but also the lyric genre in the Music Bureau poetry, while their pursuit for lyricism, individualistic style and the expression of personal sentiments led to …
On Liu Shipei's "On The Difference Of The Southern And The Northern China's Literature", Jian Wu
On Liu Shipei's "On The Difference Of The Southern And The Northern China's Literature", Jian Wu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Traditional distinction between the Southern and the Northern China's literature were made on historical specificities, while Liu Shipei in his pioneer essay in modern literary criticism "On the Difference between the Southern and the Northern China's Literature" took a theoretical perspective that viewed the distinction as an ahistorical literary framework a priori. Liu's argument may be read as a point for a paradigmatic breakup, but Liu did not push forward his idea in his practice. Instead, he attached more weight to the essence (zhi) over the literary (wen) in this traditional pair of concepts, and his contribution in the history …
Style-Breaking In Song-Dynasty Ci-Poetry And Its Acceptance In The Context Of "Flexible Method", Xiaoli Wang
Style-Breaking In Song-Dynasty Ci-Poetry And Its Acceptance In The Context Of "Flexible Method", Xiaoli Wang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The idea of "flexible method" in composting ci-poetry in the Song Dynasty has two essential elements of "rule" and "change," and this idea embodies the pursuit of literary innovation in the Song Dynasties. It is an important part of the poetic theory and has profound influence on the literary evolution in the Song Dynasties. The style-breaking methods such as "composing ci-poems like regulated poems" and "composing ci-poems like prose" were in effect the proliferation of the idea of "flexible method" in the field of ci-poetics. There has been much elucidation in the Song and Yuan commentaries on ci-poetry that echoes …
The Duality Of Expressive Rhetoric: The Intention Of Literary Mind And The Carving Of Dragon As Investigated From "Casting And Paring", Baojing Li
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
On the basis of a global reading of Liu Xie's Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragon, this paper proposes a link between the section "Casting and Paring" and the other sections in the book, and maintains that only through such a link can the structural features, cultural efficiency and Confucian responsibilities in Liu Xie's expressive rhetoric. The parallelism in argumentative mode between the section "Affections and Coloration" and the section "casting and paring" informs a two-sided rhetoric with affection as the subjective quality and casting as the textual quality. "Casting and paring" (argumentation and writing) is realized as a …
A Philosophical Discussion On Liu Xie's Concept Of Literary Talent Mindset, Shugong Zhao
A Philosophical Discussion On Liu Xie's Concept Of Literary Talent Mindset, Shugong Zhao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The idea of literary talent mindset was epitomized in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons in the period of Wei-Jin and Six Dynasties. The book contained the most comprehensive and profound knowledge of literary mind as an aptitude, which was seminal to almost all the later discourses on the issue of literary talent, and its theoretical insight remains unsurpassable in many aspects. Liu Xie's philosophical view of the nature and human is reflected in this concept of literary talent mind, which gave both weight to gift and diligence, and the equal emphases on human efforts and born gift …
Gao Ershi's Concept Of The Refined And The Mundane In Calligraphic Art, Bin Zhou, Shuqiang Cui
Gao Ershi's Concept Of The Refined And The Mundane In Calligraphic Art, Bin Zhou, Shuqiang Cui
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The concepts of the refined and the mundane are a pair of important category in calligraphic aesthetics and Gao Ershi's ideas on this are reflected in three aspects. The first is to regard the classical as the refined and the contemporary as the mundane. This is realized by reviving and studying the cursive style for official writing. The second is to regard the cultured to be refined and the crafted as the mundane. This emphasizes the cultural and aesthetic implications and attributes of calligraphy. The third is to take the clear to be refined and the turbid to be mundane. …
The Transformation Of The Ci-Poetry Studies During Late-Qing And Early Roc Period As Exemplified By The Editorial Work On Wu Wenying's Poetry, Xuejun Chen
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The paper examines the phenomenon of the editorial work and critical annotations to Wu Wenying's Mengchuang Ci-Poems during the period from the Late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. During this period, four major scholars, namely, Wang Pengyun, Zheng Wenzhao, Zhu Zumou and Kuang Zhouni, studied Wu Wenying's poetry and, together with their disciples, promoted the fever of "Mengchuang Ci-Poems (Dreaming Window, the Art name of Wu Wenying)". These scholars and their disciples formed a lineage in criticism for Wu's poetry, which set an example for later compilation of ci-poetry anthologies and helped to establish the arguably last …
On The Generic Hybridization Between Fiction And Biography, Qinghua Wang
On The Generic Hybridization Between Fiction And Biography, Qinghua Wang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Biography as a literary genre comes between unofficial history and fiction, although closer to fiction. This paper examines the hybridization between fiction and biography with examples from the public and private catalogues since the Song Dynasty, and it analyzes the common ground between the two genres in terms of generic features, compilation approaches, and raw materials and investigates the boundaries of the genres in terms of functional value, thematic appeal and narrative approaches.
Historical Changes Of The Concept Of Female Beauty In The Pre-Qin Period From The Appreciation Of Ugliness To Beauty, Yongzhen Cheng
Historical Changes Of The Concept Of Female Beauty In The Pre-Qin Period From The Appreciation Of Ugliness To Beauty, Yongzhen Cheng
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The concept of female beauty in the Pre-Qin period underwent a great historical change from the appreciation of "the ugly" to that of "the beautiful." The image of beautiful females in the prehistoric age was characteristically "ugly and muscular," highlighting the reproductive function and death function of the Great Mother, and could be argued to be the embodiment of the victory of "the mother principle." The beautiful and the ugly were blended in the image of the female beauty in the Xia-Shang period, which was mainly because the establishment of patriarchy had turned the female from aesthetic subject into aesthetic …
Lyricism And The Age: The Debate Over The Function Of The New And The Old Poetic Forms And Its Significance In The Modern China, Jianwei Pan
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
An important goal of the New Literature is to reflect the social politics of the age, while lyricism is also an issue for the New Poetry. The debate over the merits of the new and old forms is one of the key issues in the New Culture Movement. Putting the debate into the perspective of the relation between poetry and the age, the paper approaches the issue by examining the differences between the function of lyricism pertaining to the new and old forms of poetry, the reason behind the forms and the influence of the choices on the forms, and …
On Yu Yan's Poetic Thoughts, Shuzhen Yue
On Yu Yan's Poetic Thoughts, Shuzhen Yue
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The poetic theory of Yu Yan, a Ci-poetry theorist from the Ming Dynasty, is mainly presented in his Commentaries on Ci-Poetry from Yuan Garden, in which he claimed that shi-poetry, ci-poetry and qu-poetry had the same origin with ci-poetry as an indispensable developmental phase in literature along the musical aspect. He maintained that ci-poetry declined due to the loss of music for which ci-poetry functioned as the lyrics. He also demonstrated the different tastes of the Northern Song and the Southern Song Dynasties and examined the thematic approaches, styles and compositions in different forms of ci- and qu-poetry. It could …
"Lament" As A Genre In Literary Mind And The Carving Of Dragons And Selections Of Refined Literature, Junling Zhao
"Lament" As A Genre In Literary Mind And The Carving Of Dragons And Selections Of Refined Literature, Junling Zhao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Liu Xie's Literary Mind and Xiao Tong's Selections of Refined Literature had different definitions and understanding of the genre to lament. Liu Xie's aim was to distinguish different style, so he defined the lament as a genre with the features shown in the earlier writings such as Pan Yue's lamentations over pre-mature deaths, and he did not include into the genre the later stylistic development. Xiao Tong took Pan Yue's more ritualistic Elegy for His Wife as an example for lament style. The main reason behind their differences lies in the fact that Liu Xie's expounding covered only to the …
A Synopsis Of The Conference Of "Literary Theory And Criticism In 1980s", Chunxiao Zhang
A Synopsis Of The Conference Of "Literary Theory And Criticism In 1980s", Chunxiao Zhang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
No abstract provided.
On Lou Fang's Concept Of Moderation In His Prose Compilation The Recipe For Classical Prose, Xiaochuan Yu
On Lou Fang's Concept Of Moderation In His Prose Compilation The Recipe For Classical Prose, Xiaochuan Yu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Lou Fang's prose compilation The Recipe for Classical Prose was one of the most representative anthologies of ancient Chinese prose since its print in the Southern Song Dynasty, and Lou's commentaries in the anthology and his idea behind the compilation were emulated thereafter. The central rationale for selecting a piece of prose writing was Confucian moderation, emphasizing on the orthodoxy subject matter and moderate aesthetic taste, while the scope of selection was broad and the comments laconic and pertinent. His selection emphasized on the deliberate digression and implicitness of expression and the structuring of meaning delivery in the text, and …
Telling, Telling Style Essay And Storytelling, Jinfeng Zhou
Telling, Telling Style Essay And Storytelling, Jinfeng Zhou
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In ancient China, storytelling (xiao shuo, literally, trivial telling) was considered as trivial in terms of the scope of the story, and in the pre-Qin period a type of "telling-style essay" was formed on the basis of telling. With "telling" as a link, the telling-style essay was related to "storytelling." There were different types of telling-style essay, each type having different stylistic features and functions. Among these types, the one that emphasized the exposition through imagistic narrative became the transition from "telling" to "storytelling," and this type of telling-style essay exhibited some stylistic connotations and features that profoundly influenced the …
Ideas Of Poetry Study And The Paradigms Of Chinese Poetry Studies, Shilun Zhong
Ideas Of Poetry Study And The Paradigms Of Chinese Poetry Studies, Shilun Zhong
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
From "the study of poetry and prose" in the pre-Qin period (before 221-207 B.C.) to "the study of The Book of Poetry" in the Han Dynasty and to "the study of poetry" in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the idea of poetry study in China undergoes constant change from the earliest concept of "expressing will (yanzhi)" in the antiquity. "Expressing will" is "recording events (jishi)" and "writing down the speech (jiyan) ," and fictionalization has no value in the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties. The act of recording contributes the main content of Chinese ancient poetry, while the appropriation of poetry …
The Origin And Development Of Verse Structure Of "Introduction, Development, Contrast, And Conclusion", Xiaowei Zhang
The Origin And Development Of Verse Structure Of "Introduction, Development, Contrast, And Conclusion", Xiaowei Zhang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The existent scholarship shows that the compositional structure of the four couplets in a regulated poem as "Introduction, Development, Contrast, and Conclusion" was first proposed by Yang Zai and Fan Peng in the Yuan Dynasty. Yang Zai summarized various comments and arguments on metric prosody in the Tang and Song dynasties, modified by his own views, while Fan Peng argued that the structuring might apply not only to regulated verse but to all the literary creation. Fan Peng had also proposed his own criteria for the structuring of regulated verse, based perhaps on his own Jiangxi local poetics. Fan Peng's …
The Concept Of Witty Humor In The Poetry In The Qianlong-Jiaqing Reign Of The Qing Dynasty, Jieling Liang
The Concept Of Witty Humor In The Poetry In The Qianlong-Jiaqing Reign Of The Qing Dynasty, Jieling Liang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In the period of Qianlong and Jiaqing reign of the Qing Dynasty with the relative social stability, the leading poets pursued a style with witty humor, which led to the social fashion in poetry. Though Yuan Mei's taste was looked upon as poetic objective, it would be an interpretation to theoretically generalize it into the doctrine of a poetry school. The connotation of witty humor was the author's poetic sentiments toward social phenomena, which showed the poet's artistic craft. The denotation of the concept was relative to the poetics emphasizing moral function of literature. While the concept of witty humor …