A Study On The Aesthetics Of Folk Culture In The Song Dynasty

Folk culture is a form of culture which local people created in their long-termsurvival practice, expressing their dream of production and life and their pursuit ofexorcising, praying, fortune-seeking, disaster eliminating, heaven-human harmonyand other ultimate meaning of existence. To a large extent, folk culture satisfiespeople’s mental and spiritual needs, shapes people’s habits and character in differentregions, cultivates their energy and quality, and accumulates their respective culturalidentity. Therefore, folk culture has an important aesthetic value. Speaking fromgenealogy, folk culture and aesthetics have a close isomorphic and symbioticrelationship, so that aesthetic studies are based on folk culture. In order to explore thenature of an issue, aesthetic researchers should always go to the wild field to breathethe fresh air and to seek academic inspiration. In previous aesthetic studies, thescholars seemed to be more willing to focus on the upper elite culture, thus neglectingthe underlying folk culture to a certain degree, which tends to peel off the deepinternal homology between folk, literature and aesthetics, and also results in thedisjointed and fragmented studies taken by literary historians and folk artists. To studythe aesthetic issue form a new folk perspective and to realize the combination of folkculture and aesthetics, of literature and folklore, is helpful to broaden the researchfield of aesthetics, literature and folklore, and is also a practical way to localizeChinese aesthetics.Song folk culture refers to the relatively stable local folk customs created bypeople living in the Song Dynasty during their social production and living practice,which is the material and spiritual crystallization of faith and imagination after their substance support and life multiplication are guaranteed. Generally, Song folk cultureis of sound historical background, of deep inside native cultural accumulation, and ofancient and independent aesthetic style and cultural identity. As a local culturalparadigm, Song folk culture reflects the aesthetic and spiritual taste of people living inthe Song Dynasty and provides a typical example for us to inherit and carry forwardthe outstanding Chinese folk culture. In this paper, the author studies Song folkculture from the multiple academic aspects, such as aesthetics, folk culture aestheticsand cultural anthropology. Exploring the ecological environment where its aestheticsappeared, the author analyzes its diversified manifestation forms of the folk cultureaesthetics, summarizes its unique aesthetic quality, reveals its variation in modernsocial context and analyzes its root, discusses the survival dilemma faced by it insocial modern development, tries to exploit its potential value in modern constructionfrom the aspect of cultural aesthetics and brings forward the practical path to solve itsspecific difficulties during development. The entire thesis is divided into three parts,including Introduction, body part consisting of seven chapters and Conclusion.Introduction states the reason and meaning of topic selection, current domestic andoversea research status, research ideas, methods and innovations in the thesis. Theauthor believes that the study of Song folk culture is always hot and relevantoutcomes emerge endlessly. However, the interpretation of Song folk culture from theaesthetic perspective is still rare and there lacks systematic analysis and theoreticalsummary of the aesthetic identity and tension of Song folk culture. Therefore, basedon the previous studies, the author reviews the aesthetic phenomenon of Song folkculture to sort out and to improve relevant theoretical results.Chapter1sorts out and redefines folk culture, aesthetic culture and aesthetics of folk culture and other concepts and categories. Afterwards, the author brings forwarda relatively individualized aesthetic perspective and uses relevant knowledge toconstruct a new interpretation model of aesthetic study from folk culture aestheticperspective. Chapter1lays a theoretical foundation for the following study.Chapter2studies the generation of Song folk culture. From the aspects of genealogyand cultural anthropology, relying on the geopolitical background and historicalcontext of Song folk culture, this chapter provides macro review and theoreticalreflection to explore the natural and cultural ecological background of the real andspiritual lifestyle and culture product of Song folk culture, thus restoring the essenceof Song folk culture.Chapter3and Chapter4mainly focus on the aesthetic manifestations of Songfolk culture. Through sorting out the diversified aesthetic issues of Song folk culture,the author summarizes six typical aesthetic manifestation forms of folk culture, suchas material folk customs, civil religious folk customs, entertainment and workmanshipfolk customs, life ritual folk customs, festival folk customs and social organizationalfolk customs. This chapter also analyzes the main cultural carriers at that time toreveal its inherent ideological connotations, which plays an important role for us tounderstand the politics, economy, social history, aesthetic orientation, daily life andfolk customs of the Song Dynasty.Chapter5mainly studies the unique aesthetic features of Song folk culture. Thischapter puts Song folk culture in its unique cultural background. Combining theaesthetic demonstrations and dissemination, the author summarizes the uniqueaesthetic features of Song folk culture and elaborates the following six aestheticfeatures: concealed freedom, poetic habitation, ethical attachment, scientific taste, solider and people combination, elegance and vulgar combination.Chapter6mainly studies the aesthetic functions of Song folk culture. Usingrelevant academic discourse resources of literature function theory, from theperspective of Song folk culture as important intangible cultural heritage, combiningSong lyrics, colloquial fiction, pastoral poetry and other literary and artistic forms,this chapter finds out that Song folk culture has spiritual shaping, psychologicalcognition and adaptation, social standardization and maintenance, physical and mentalentertainment and other cultural functions, further revealing the important aestheticvalue of Song folk culture.Chapter7mainly studies the current survival dilemma of Song folk culture andthe creative conversion of its aesthetic issues. From the macro aspects of folk andaesthetic development, based on the preceding studies, this chapter looks through thesurvival difficulties of the legal position of Song folk culture in modern society and itsidentity crisis in modern China, and further illustrates its inspiration and value inmodern culture construction.Conclusion summarizes and upgrades the entire thesis systematically, analyzesand prospects the aesthetic study of folk culture in the future.