Study On Problems Of Traditional Chinese Literary Theory By North American Sinologists: Shi Yanzhi (the Poem Articulating The Mind Intently) And Yang Yi Guanxi (the Relation Between Words And Meaning)

Sinology is a discipline that was established by the Christian missionaries after studying Chinese culture as they came to China. Sinology of North America is very different from that of Europe. Such a discipline started later in North America than that in Europe but greater achievements have been obtained. It is due to Sinology of North America to inherit the academic traditions both from Europe and from China.Domestic Scholars in the field of Traditional Chinese Literary Theory have already been attracted by accomplishments of Sinology, including that of North America. From 1990's, there have published monographs of them by Huang Mingfen, Wang Xiaoping, Zhou Faxiang, Li Yijin, Wang Xiaolu, and so forth, such as Wang Xiaolu's Study on Chinese Literary Theory in Western Sinology. The works of Wang Xiaolu and Wang Xiaoping are results of overall studying on Sinology in that field now, and their significance is that they have provided a general map for "further study.These are diverse approaches for our studying on Sinology in the domain ofTraditional Chinese Literary Theory. From one point of view, the original significant works by Wang Xiaolu resulted in the general historical description primarily, and then the advanced research based on general study should be study of problem. It is the means of research used in this dissertation. The author chooses some key issues in the study by North American Sinologists on Traditional Chinese Literary Theory, and proposed several pilot understandings and ideas through analyzing them. Therefore, the title of this project is "Study on Problems of Traditional Chinese Literary Theory by North American Sinologists: the Poem Articulating the Mind Intently and the Relations Between Words and Meaning." The study relies on the general map referred above; and I raised the issue since I was enlightened by the new points of North American Sinologists in the last two decades. In order to seek a chief cultural context, for understanding Traditional Chinese Literary Theory deeply, one of originalities in the article is that it fuses and perforates into creative approaches by North American Sinologists. Moreover, those approaches also are problems in the academics at the present, so that it brings forward a task for research in the field with contemporary significances.From my point of view, they are these kind of problems concerning the Poem Articulating the Mind Intently and the Relations Between Words and Meaning of Traditional Chinese Literary Theory. In domestic study of the latter, there was a tendency to simplify the relations between words and meaning into those between content and form. Furthermore, it was understood that the relations were limited in the realm of the relations of words, image, meaning, and the Dao, which were discussed in the Debate Between Words and Meaning through the Weijin period. Indeed, Chinese scholars have merely come to think of the Debate that occurred in the Weijin period through the perspective of Chinese philosophical history, andthey have not yet taken full advantage of it. I find this shortcoming can be covered by the study of North American Sinology, thereby we would lead to the new realization of our traditional literary theory. After investigating materials of North American Sinology, I drew a conclusion of the earliest assertion - Shi yanzhi (the Poem Articulating the Mind Intently) - in Chinese literary theoretical history that Shi(the Poem) is as Van (words) in the state of sign, and Zhi(the Mind), which it was articulating is as its Yi (meaning). In addition, the assertion is the outset and the successive proposition of Yan yi guanxi (the Relations Between Words and Meaning) in Chinese traditional literary theory. In the view of Taoism at the time of the Pre-Qin, they affirmed that one who knows does not speak and vice versa; a language inherently is limited in expressing the substance of things, and arguments such as Confucius said that writing cannot express words completely and words cannot express mind completely in the Classic of Chang...