The Research On Chen San-li In The View Of Modernity

The thesis is mainly about the culture conservative thought of Chen San-li, a famous poet of tongguangti in late Qing and time of republic of China, and his poems as well from the "modernity" angle of view. Thus, the auther tried to reflect the rationality of construction of medernity and globalization in China and around the world. The paper is divided into five chapters:Chapter one is a brief summary of Chen San-li's life and three sources of his culture conservative and steady reformism thought. In Chen San-li's life, he was greatly influenced by three ones: Guo Song-tao, who was the first diplomat of Qing dynasty and an advanced thinker in the period of westernization movement, from whom Chan San-li accepted advanced western industrial civilization, peaceful diplomatic thought, gradual reformism and rebuild of "popular sentiment and current custom" thought; Yan Fu, the greatest didacticism thinker in China, from whom Chan San-li accepted his enlightenment thoughts; Chen Bao-zhen, Chan San-li's father in the same camp, who's practical principle of practical school and Confucian cultivation made Chan San-li a traditionist.Chapter two is an academic investigation of cultural conservative thought of Chen San-li. From the point of view of the author, cultural conservatism in China is not only one of social ideological trends, but also a method of modernity, which is quite different from the ideology of "total westernization" in the first half of the 20th. As a Confucian, Chen San-li was opposed to total westernization and radical reform, especiallty to its extremity that traditional culture, art, literature and even writing system should be abandoned completely. In his opinion, Confucianism was still an energetic ideology if only beneficial resources of vary western ideologes were absorbed to promoted its theory. He also took the Chinese patriarchal clan system and traditional ethic,the three cardinal guides and the five constant virtues,which were regarded as the symbols of Chinese culture,to correct the disadvantages of instrumental rationality of modernity. Chapter three focuses on the thought of "human modernization" of Chen San-li, especially on his ideas of "intellectual, physical, moral", modern national education, rebuild of "popular sentiment and current custom" thought, and thought of people's all-round development. The author pointed out that the rebuilt of popular sentiment and current custom thought is the Chinese local thought of national character criticism based on Confucianism. Furthermore, awe-inspiring righteousness should always been upheld by intellectuals towards self-actualization.Chapter four presents an analysis of the anxiety and spiritual trauma of the discontinuities caused by modernity. Just as "God is dead" declared by Friedrich Nietzsche, the famous German philosopher of the late 19th century, Chen San-li said that Confucius was dead, and this caused great anxiety, a feeling of disillusion, nihility, loneliness and edge awareness. His famous son, Chen Yin-ke, an outstanding historian and scholar, was inheritor of his anxiety and spiritual trauma which made him take the suicide of Wang Guo-wei, he also was an outstanding historian and scholar, as sacrifice for the Chines traditional culture.Chapter five mainly discusses Chen San-li's contributes to modern Chinese traditional poem. Chen San-li had made a breakthrough at the dogma of the Confucian Poetry Principle of "Moderate and medial, honest and sincere". And some transitions in his poems, for example, distortion and transmutation of his poetry images, coincided with western modernist art. This indicated that Chen San-li was not a classical poet, but a modern poet. And this also indicated that modern traditional Chines possesses "repressed modernity", which was a term used by Wang De-wei, a U.S. scholar, to show that it was the late Qing dynasty instead of "may the 4^th" that was the most important time that modern Chines literature came into being.The conclusion is that Chen San-li's culture conservatistive thought is a helpful answer to the question "whose modernity". And this is very important in the time of crises of cultural identity nowadays.