The Main Preface Of Mao Poetry: A Study Of Cotemporary Chinese Literary Theories

The long history and tradition of Chinese culture makes it impossible that our contemporary literary theories or even every social aspect can not be possessed completely by the western thinking way or its concepts. Nevertheless, our country has been importing a lot of so called advanced philosophy, science, technology and so on from the west for more than a century, our tradition wanes under the cover of modern mechanism and institutions. It is supposed in this thesis that the reason why we still haven't walked out the strong influence of west is not because we abandon our traditional terms or categories, but because we haven't found the way back to our traditional speaking ways. And the latter is quite different from the universal expressing forms encouraged by modern western scientism. These speaking ways neither depend on the form of discourse, nor pursue the only correct meaning of discourse. They emphasize the relationship between the process of word-speaking and the individual self-cultivating, they also emphasize the relationship between the improving of individual morality and the society concord. But it is not claimed by this thesis that the only condition to revive our speaking way is to back to the ancient world; on the contrary, it is claimed that the traditional speaking way is somehow still alive in our contemporary literary theories by confusing with western terms and theory systems. The main purpose of this thesis is to find them out.The other side of contemporary situation, however, is when we are getting used to the western thinking way, when we are taking art for poetry, taking artifacts for art, the true individual of poems will be losing in the explaining of universality of theories. Maybe it is not fatal to western cultures, but it is to us. Our tradition will lose its most precious when we abandon our special universality based on individual practicing and our ever moving world views, which two are the hardest parts to be understood and accepted by westerners. They can't understand why a depended individual in reality that they connect to perceptive, spontaneous, primeval can also be universal and social harmony.To take a good look at to what extend do we inherit our traditional way, and by what means can this inheritance cany on, I chose the articles of our contemporary literary theories on The Main Preface of Mao Poetry as my studying object, through the analyzing of concrete problematic by using discourse analysis of post-structuralism to distinguish the differences between our traditional way and western way. On the other hand, to distinguish this confusion better, I chose two main clues of aesthetics -- the aesthetics as perception studies and the aesthetics as ideology -- to divide this thesis into two parts. And I will give a brief explanation at the beginning of each part to show the difference between the use of the same term of the western and our contemporary literary theories.The beginning is the Introduction part, the Chapter 1. It introduces the problems we are facing in the field of literary theories and the necessity of using discourse-analysis to solve the problems. Even though 1 pick up the "problematic" theory of Althusser and the "discourse" theory of Foucault, these two are not completely suitable to our situation. So I cut the most concerned part of these two ~ the ideology lies behind every theory narrating and discussing. Even this will take the risk of losing the main characteristic of two methods, in concern with the ways of speaking instead of contents of speaking remains to be another characteristic of discourse-analysis. Still this cut will cause another problem: by not distinguishing the differences of ideology between ancient world and contemporary society, it is harder to tell to what extend can we back to the speaking-way of tradition and by what means can we restore the traditional ways in contemporary society. While this problem is beyond the discussion of this thesis.In the first part -- the aesthetics as perception study -- I chose three problematics of The Main Preface of Mao Poetry discussed by the general literary theory history, aesthetical theory history and single articles, those are "the affection" (情) , "being intent" (志) and "affective image" (兴).Chapter 2 discusses the origin of aesthetics in the west began with the interesting of using rational way to study perception, and with the liberal desire of capitalistic subject which wanted to be free from the abstract feudalistic moral rules. The anticipating for perception liberty therefore must have something to do with subject liberty. This capitalistic expanding subject (free will), on the contrary, is different from Chinese traditional humble individual: the former loses its individual living foundation when it is trying to grasp the power to the world with the help of ration, and becomes more abstract and more empty; while the latter forms its universality with the devices of individual moral practicing and self-realizing to the whole world. And to write poems is one of these devices.In Chapter 3, the questions like "the affection" in The Main Preface of Mao Poetry is the affection of perception or not, the first appearance of "the affection" in this preface means the awareness of lyric theory in Han-dynasty or not, what is the characteristic of this lyric theory, or is this characteristic belongs to an individual or social mass, are discussed more. In the eyes of westerns, the affection of perception is not immediately universal, it should be formed by rational knowledge -- aesthetics. Stressing both to the affection and thoughts, or even takes the affection for ontology, however, is the reflection of traditional Chinese thinking way in contemporary theories. Meanwhile, being unaware of this thinking way leads our literary theories to the conclusion of concept such as "value ration", which is easy to be confused with western universal ration.The same situation happens again in Chapter 4: our contemporary literary theories stress both thoughts and affection characteristic in describing "being intent", which maybe ambiguous to westerners. While it is just another evidence that our pursuit to universality is not based on the epistemology or ideal expressing but on the experiencing of individual to his own life. And this is also a difference when we use Hermeneutic to analyze "being intent": our tradition does not seek for universal forms to expressing the intent, but take care of its justification to individual himself which has more connect to self-awareness and experiencing, moral enhancing and practicing in his own life that can not be expressed only by words. But we can not see such things only through the texts under the influence of western knowledge thinking way in contemporary literary theories.Chapter 5 discusses "affective image". In this topic, the influence of west becomes deeper: by the influence of anthropology and etc., the "affective image" in the tradition is taken either as pure art rhetoric, and getting far behind the profound content supplied by religion and philosophy, or as the aboriginal thinking way, which is to be left as history trace. While we still can see the underflow of traditional way: in the discussion of "affective image", many articles insist that the role of rhetoric of "affective image" must connect to the social and political contents of what it rises. It shows, in fact, that the "affective image" is one of those ways helping individual living in his own universality.Chapter 6 is a conclusion.The second part—the aesthetics as ideology—begins with the introduction to the aesthetics of Kant, Schiller, Marx and Nietzsche. The aesthetics is unavoidably ideological because of its ideal expressing and the will of subject to convert the world, which appear nowadays as aesthetic education and aesthetic critique. And all of those are what we derive from the west to criticize the ideological tendency of The Main Preface of Mao Poetry. The followed Chapter 8, 9 and 10, therefore, discuss three problematics in concern with ideology: "Airs" (风), "beautify-criticize (美刺) and correct-mutated (正变) " and "rites and moral principles" (礼义).In Chapter 8, it is claimed by this thesis that the problematic of "those above transform those below by feng" is some kind of stressing of The Main Preface of Mao Poetry to one of the functions of poetry. It is this social practicing aspect that vivifies poems from dead texts and artifacts. Though most of our contemporary literary theories accept the notion of "poetry teaching-transforming", some still separate it from Confucian thoughts, and criticize it as some invention of Han-Confucianism.In Chapter 9, in concern with "those below criticize those above" and "beautify-criticize and correct-mutated", most of our contemporary literary theories relate them to the criticizing role of poetry-as-art. It is distinguished in his thesis that "those below criticize those above" are different from the criticizing role of aesthetics, because it is neither the expressing forms of subject perception impulse, nor the construction of subjective ration or ideal; it is directly from the individual criticizer. Though this critique is some kind of quoting out of context, and looks more subjective, more arbitrary and more contingent, it still has is universality presupposed and staked by one's insight backing to his moral mind and to the concordance with other people and the nature world.It is pointed by Chapter 10 that the "rites and moral principles" are not like most of our contemporary literary theories say that is some constrain to individual emotion, but some necessary guide that helps individual back to his moral mind recommended by Han-Confucianism. Also those rites and moral principles are not unchangeable rules, they root in human emotions.The last Chapter is a conclusion to the second part, and it is also some expectation of mine: without the ideological thinking way, without imposing subjective will onto nature world, will we have a better view to our tradition and have a better concordant life in and with this world?...