Poetics In Residence

Folkloristics is a study of the inheritable life pattern of people that sees lifestyle as the presentation of people's psyche and feelings underneath. Literary folkloristics, however, sets one of its aims to reveal the beauty of the heart and life of ancient people by researching aesthetically on folk life pattern. Traditional residential architecture, a folk phenomenon, 'home' place to people, is of academic value from the perspective of literary folkloristics. The thesis diverts off the conventional path of folklore studies that focus mainly on customs and rituals around residential architecture, surveys the traditional residences in the ancient villages in Huizhou that survive till today from Ming &Qing dynasties and reviews them aesthetically within literary folkoristics, endeavoring to unwrap the aesthetical values of traditional residential architecture as an art of life and illustrate how human psyche is materialized into this art. The thesis attempts, on basis of achievements in the fields of folkloristics, literary criticism, aesthetics, architecture, geography, etc. and with assistance of field investigation, archaeological discoveries and related literature, to cross study multidisciplinarily traditional Huizhou residential architecture within the frame of literary folkoristics.The Preface to this thesis discusses the artistic and academic values of architecture and residential architecture, summarizes what have been achieved in the study of traditional Chinese residential architecture including that in Huizhou and introduces the key concepts and overall thoughts. There are five chapters succeeding. Chapter I sheds light on the making of the artistic style of Huizhou vernacular residential architecture from perspectives of 'right time, right place &right people', viz., natural environment, geographical ambience and human harmony, to demonstrate that this architecture style is a perfect balance of 'Heaven, Earth &Man' achieved by ancient Huizhou people that caters for functional needs of sheltering and inhabiting with a unique poetic air. The art of life is concealed in the way of life and the way of life is unwrapped through the people living in it. Chapter II, by starting from the influences of Chinese traditional culture upon the artistic features and aesthetic taste of Huizhou residential architecture, illuminates through key words of 'governance', 'permeation' and 'nourishing' how three major traditional philosophies, namely Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, leave their marks on Huizhou residential architecture and how the 'earthly power' resolves them into folk believes that 'overflow' Huizhou residential architecture with poetics of life. Chapter III analyses Huizhou residential architecture as a folk phenomenon from approaches of 'folk will', 'folk wisdom' and 'folk craftsmanship' in the light of literary folkloristics and aesthetics to further show that Huizhou traditional residential architecture is a classic illustration of mutual transformation of art and life. Chapter IV regards Huizhou traditional residential architecture as a crystallized representation of the inner poetics and envisions of ancient people and tries to plumb the formation of its artistic air in dimensions of time and space. Chapter V sets Huizhou traditional residential architecture against the macro background of social evolution to examine its transformation from traditionality to modernity, reflects on analogically the significance, feasibility and ways of existence of life art and poetic wisdom in traditional Chinese residential architecture in present time and suggests that the design of current residential architecture return to the ancient concept of 'home'.The Conclusion supplements briefly what has not been discussed and put forth speculations engendered as well as offering a vision for further researching on this topic.