Differentiating And Analyzing Wang Guowei's The Poetic Remarks Of The Human World

With an approach following Wang Guowei's interior experience and from the basis of his academic research, this dissertation tries to explore the true significance and value of Wang's The Poetic Remarks of the Human World, aiming at a systematic, logic and rational explanation and evaluation of the book and the corresponding theory.The main contents of this dissertation involve several major aspects related to the study of Wang Guowei's The Poetic Remarks of the Human World, divided into six chapters.Chapter One identifies the aim(s) of Wang's creation of The Poetic Remarks of the Human World. By analyzing the relationship of this book to Wang's another masterwork, Comments on 'The Dreams of the Red Chamber', the author of this dissertation proves that The Poetic Remarks of the Human World \s a work on criticism opposite to the spirit of traditional criticism and different from the traditional discourse of lyrics. Chapter Two unscrambles the true meanings of the sixty-four items of Wang Guowei's The Poetic Remarks of the Human World (the edition published on the Journal of Quintessence). The interpretation contains two subsections. Part one, covering items 1 to 35, reveals the prerequisite for aesthetic appropriation and critique. Part two, from item 36 through item 64, presents concrete measures and final criteria to aesthetic appropriation and critique. Chapter Three, combining approaches of logic deduction and text analysis and comparison, expounds and evaluates the essential significance of The Poetic Remarks of the Human World and the revealed theory of aesthetic appropriation and criticism. In particular, the foci of evaluation are on the saying of 'situation', the text of the book and the revealed theories.Chapter Four presents two tables and a chart. Table 1 lists Wang Guowei's creation of poems and lyrics, academic articles and readings between 1898 and 1909 chronically. Table 2 is a numerical illustration of Table 1 while the Chart providing a visual impression of that. The aim of this chapter is to establish a basis for the later discussion and to avoid the possible guesswork. Chapter Five discusses the role of lyrics in Wang's creation of The Poetic Remarks of the Human World. Through the in-depth analysis of the differences between Wang's creations of poems and lyrics, this chapter points out that Wang's experience of lyrics creation led to the creation of The Poetic Remarks of the Human World. Chapter Six hackles the origins of Wang Guowei's theory. The root of the book is Wang's philosophic thought His approach of theoretical thinking is a way of philosophic differentiation and analysis.Based on the reinterpretation of Wang's The Poetic Remarks of the Human World and the proofs supporting to the reinterpretation, the author of this dissertation concludes that the Wang's book is a theoretical text of criticism written in a manner of philosophic differentiation and analysis and with significance of aesthetics. The book demonstrates the theory of aesthetic appropriation and criticism by describing experience of aesthetic appropriation. The theory includes two parts. One is the opinion of prerequisite for aesthetic appropriation and critique, which combines four factors of "situation, atmosphere, spirit and emotion, with a core of situation. The other is a set of concrete measures and final criteria to aesthetic appropriation that centered in the manner of nature. For the critique to a certain poem or lyric or song, if the work is without the necessary prerequisite for aesthetic appropriation the beauty will not exist and the activity of aesthetic appropriation will become insignificant. On the other hand, while there do exist the prerequisite (i.e. beauty), 'no separation", 'true emotion' and 'nature' become the criteria in judging the quality of the work. 'Nature', as the final criteria of aesthetic appropriation, can be applied to all levels and aspects of literary criticism including critique to the history of literary development, writers, and works since 'nature' is the feature of beauty.