The Tragic Spirit Of The Chinese Classical Literature

The tragic spirit, the spiritual clue of Chinese classical literature, serves as the "background" of Chinese classical literature. It refers to the embodiment of people's resistance and transcendency when faced with the inevitable occurrence of misfortune, suffering and destruction. As the cornerstone of the tragic spirit, independent will manifests human dignity in serious conflict and confrontation. The incomparable power of personality, core of the tragic spirit, captures readers and audiences ,as demonstrated in tragic characters in Chinese tragic works, with their resistance the advocacy of kindness, with their destruction the fall of beauty. As the essential demand of the tragic spirit, optimism is a basic stimulant to the perfection of humanity. Therefore the tragic spirit is usually reflected in terms of persistent pursuit of ideals, endless yearning for beauty. The value of existence is the main clue through the tragic spirit and transcending substances and death is the unique quality of mankind, a type of sublime, dissatisfaction towards the current situation, and the inspirng desire to make a breakthrough in actual life.Li Sao and Red Mansion are two most remarkable tragic works in Chinese classical literature, both revealing the profound spiritual connotation. The two works echo with each other, standing for the two peaks of tragic spirit in Chinese classical literature. What Qu Yuan and CAo xuqing described is a social tragedy, showing the strong sense of social responsibility in the conflict between the ideal and the reality, a personality tragedy, demonstrating the pure, sincere and special power of personality in confrontation of good and evil, and also a philosophical tragedy, displaying spiritual home of moral humanity which is obtained after the writer's negation of the society, the age and his earnest pursuit in the choice between hope and despair."Life-worrying" concept and "world-worrying" concept possessed by Chinese intellectuals are philosophical bases of the tragic spirit of Chinese classical literature. "World-worrying sense" means worrying feelings on reality. The tragic spirit of Chinese classical literature is characterized by worrying consciousness and voluntary consciousness, which are controlled by the independent will of Chinese intellectuals and are connected with the Confucian philosophy. The intense sense of age-ending and crisis is the epistemological basis, the spirit of brave shouldering is its core, clear ideal world is its permanent pursuit, and tragic impulse to make impossible possible is its inevitable reflection. Du Fu and Xin Qiji are the typical world-worrying writers, whose poems add dignified connotation to tragic spirit, thus becoming the new peak in Chinese classical literature. "Life-worrying sense" means thinking over and worrying about the value of human existence, connected with the concept of hermitry of Daoism and Buddhism. In the eyes of life-worrying philosophers, nature and history has brutally torn up human's sense of sublime and mystery, the degeneration of morals hurts human's dignity. They formed their new and independent personality through their experience of spiritual slavery world misery. In Chinese classical literature, imperishable works tend to exhibit the misery caused by the limit in freedom and energy, expressing the libertine and grieving feelings. The works of Tao Yuanming, Li Bai and Su Dongpo focus on the life-worrying contradiction and anguish, and their transcendency and eternity. The value of life-worrying works lies in its transcendency of time and space, of ancient and modern times, of life and nature, thus pursuing "liberal personality" with true significance.