The Mid-song Dynasty Confucian Literary And Aesthetic Theory

The development of Confucian aesthetic thought of literature and art falls roughly into three major stages. The first stage is the period from the pre-Qin Dynasty to the Han Dynasty when the Confucian aesthetic thought of literature and art originated and began to take shape. Thanks to the efforts made by Duke Zhou, Confucius and other Confucian scholars in the Han Dynasty, the dominant trend and basic structure of Confucian aesthetic thought of literature and art, together with its basic concepts and domain, were primarily established. The second stage dated from the mid-Tang Dynasty to the mid-Song Dynasty, which began with the advocation to restore Confucian orthodox and the orthodox lineage of literature by Han Yu and others and ended with the tentative summarization of Confucian aesthetic thought of literature and art by Zhu Xi in the mid-Song Dynasty. This stage witnessed the enrichment and development of Confucian aesthetic thought of literature and art. The third stage lasted from the late Ming Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty during which scholars like Gu Yanwu, Wang Fuzhi, Huang Zhongxi and Ye Xie deepened and synthesized Confucian aesthetic thought of literature and art.This dissertation revolves around Confucian aesthetic thought of literature and art in its second stage, that is, the mid-Song Dynasty, a historical period ranging from the Qingli period during Emperor Renzong's reign to the Qingyuan period during Emperor Ningzong's reign. This stage was among the periods when China enjoyed the most prosperous development of culture in history. Absorbing some principles of Buddhism and Taoism, Confucianism grew into a kind of speculative philosophy; thus completing its philosophizing process. Closely related with this was that Confucian aesthetic thought of literature and art, while carrying forward the tradition, was greatly varied and renewed and became a new Confucian aesthetic thought of literature and art quite different from the traditional one. Its major characteristics are as follows.1. It has a special and clear thread of thought. Within the system of Confacian ideology, the aesthetic thought of literature and art of the School of Literature and that of the Rationalistic Confucian Philosophical School developed from differentiation to the common aesthetic pursuit in some aspects. The development of Confucian aesthetic thought of literature and art in the mid-Song Dynasty underwent roughly the following processes: Firstly, the rational selection of Confucian aesthetic thought of literature and art. The representative figure was Zhou Dunyi. Zhou, overcoming the stubbornness of Shi lie and other Confucian scholars in the early Song Dynasty, started to think rationally about the theoretical issues of the aesthetic thought of literature and art. Zhou probed mainly into the significance of "Writings are for conveying truth", delimited scientifically the characteristics of "literature" and "orthodoxy", emphasized the aesthetic function of music, put forward the domain and realm of "indifference", and discovered the importance of aesthetic freedom of "Confucius and Yan Hui's state of freedom". Secondly, the deepening and distillation of Confucian aesthetic thought of literature and art. The representative figure was Shao Yong. Shao Yong paid his attention mainly on the research and elucidation of the inventiveness of thinking and aesthetic cognition, advanced the theory of cognizing the material world-"cognizing the material world according to the principles" which transcended Confucian aesthetic thought of literature and art philosophically. He also created the realms of enjoying oneself to the full- "regulating the disposition according to the material world" and "peace and leisure". Thirdly,the persistence in Confucian aesthetic thought of literature and art. The representative figures were the two Chengs. Starting from the pursuit for the ultimate of orthodox, the two Chengs developed single-facetedly the thought of valuing Confucian orthodox in Confucian aesthetic thought of liter...