Elegant Manner Of The Famous Gentleman

The aesthetics of Wei-Jin dynasties is the most important part in Chinese aesthetic history. The intelligentsia of Wei-Jin dynasties, as the creators and transmitters of aesthetics of Wei-jin dynasties, reflected very lively images. They had a special status,the famous gentleman, which made the later generation people eagerly desired. Most of the famous gentlemen in Wei-Jin dynasties had powerful family background. They converged the privileges of politics, economic and culture. In consideration of the chaos of social background, the declining trend of the Confucian thought, the rising trend of metaphysics in this period, and the influence of the Taoism and the Buddhism, special images of the famous gentlemen in Wei-jin dynasties were formed and showed in their living patterns, their life consciousnesses and their thought.This dissertation, which can be divided into three parts, is aimed at researching the images of the intelligentsia in Wei-Jin dynasties. The first part is chapter one, we will define the connotation of the famous gentleman,analyze the ideological basis of the forming of the famous gentleman and the necessary culture accomplishment they should have,and enumerate the main famous gentlemen in these period. The second part includes chapter two to chapter seven, expressing the images of intelligentsia in Wei-Jin dynasties through their figures and spirit,dress and personal adornment,pure conversation,wine and five-mineral powder,interests, literature and art, etc. The third part is chapter eight, to analyze the accepting to the intelligentsia's images after Wei-Jin dynasties. The main content of each chapter:Chapter one, firstly, to give a brief account of the intelligentsia's images before Wei-Jin dynasties. The earliest meaning of"bachelor"have two meanings: farmer and warrior. Under the background of the feudal institution in western Zhou dynasty, the bachelor was a grade of low noble. They should study six workmanships and possess quite cultural level. Later, the bachelor in the XianQin dynasties escaped from the hierarchy in feudal society and became floating intelligentsia.The Confucian gave them new spiritual intension——Dao . In Qin dynasty, intelligentsia were bureaucracy,while in Han dynasty,the intelligentsia were both bureaucracy and scholars, and most of them were scholars. The intelligentsia in the final stage of Han dynasty could be considered as the brave Confucians.Until Wei-Jin dynasties, the modality of intelligentsia is the famous gentleman. Primly, the famous gentleman had two meanings, one is the famous person, another means someone being far away from the society. The famous gentleman in Wei-Jin dynasties was considered elegant manner("风流") and metaphysics became their idea kernel. They should have lofty ability of pure conversation,bright charm and verve, self-partial individuality and temperament, and unsurpassed talent of literature and art . We can divide these famous gentlemen into several genres: pure conversation style, self-partial style, achievement style, Confucian style, literature and art style, cultivated Buddhist and anchoret.The dissertation enumerates the main famous gentlemen in the Wei-Jin dynasties, and analyses the influence of metaphysics,Buddhism and Taoism to the intelligentsia's thought. Obviously, metaphysics affected them furthest, including their living attitude, aesthetic interests, etc. So, the famous gentleman in the Wei-Jin dynasties can be called the famous gentleman of metaphysics.Chapter two, to probe the images and spirit of the famous gentlemen in the Wei-Jin dynasties. The reason why they attached importance to body images had osculating connection to the Grading Excellence About People in Wei-Jin dynasties. The mode of it was influenced by the anthroposcopy. The aesthetic standard of the body is tall, thin, white and pretty. The ideal image was the person like white jade. And the ideality of beauty was the fairy who lived in the Miaoguye mountain written by ZhuangZi.When they payed attention to the body images, the intelligentsia in the Wei-Jin dynasties gave more sight to people's spirit. One of the embodiments of the spirit is Cultivated Tolerance which means the man is very composed when he encounters emergent incident. They always described people's spirit as"clear","bright","self-partial"and"simple", which showed a value of metaphysics in depth.Chapter three, to research the images of the famous gentlemen in the Wei-Jin dynasty from the aspect of raiment. We analyze three raiment fashions of being in loose garments,powdering and unkempt, which incarnated their degage charm, unruly character and self-indulgent temperament.Chapter four, to analyze the most popular activity, the pure conversation, which is one of the most important conditions of the famous gentleman who was regarded as has cultivated manners. This dissertation firstly discusses the definition, origin, form, history stages and some other basic questions about the Pure Conversation,and then research the Pure Conversation through the history stages of ZhengShi, ZhuLin, XiJin and DongJin. In brief, the Pure Conversation during ZhengShi period payed more attention on discussing interpretations and principles(i-li), which not only settled the basic structure of metaphysics in Wei-jin dynasties,but it also became the standard of Pure Conversation in later ages. The Pure Conversation during Zhengshi period was aimed at the reality, and had some compositions for politics. The most important contribution of the Pure Conversation during Zhulin period was to lead ZhuangZi into the topic of the Pure Conversation, which influenced their self-indulgent life style. The Pure Conversation in Xijin and Dongjin dynasties had more recreational and became the intermediary of showing the intelligence and eloquence of the famous gentlemen. The Pure Conversation in Dongjin dynasty had a biggest character, which is leading the theory of Buddhism into the conversation. And at the same time, the famous monks joined the Pure Conversation.The dissertation analyzes the prop in the Pure Conversation——sambar-tail chowry, which marked the famous gentleman's ability of Pure Conversation and was considered as the signs of cultivated manners and privacy . It was largely appeared in the poems of Tang dynasty, and became the annotation of those people in the Tang dynasty who admired the Pure Conversation.The dissertation analyzes the daily languages of famous gentlemen in the Wei-Jin dynasty, which showed their wittiness, erudition, humors and poetic flavor in the common communications.Chapter five, to analyze the two important fashions in the famous gentlemen's daily life——wine and drug. They drunk in order to escape from the tie of rites, which showed their self-indulgent temperament, pleasure-seeking and poetic seeking to their life. While the drug they took——five-mineral powder,expressed their faith of supernatural being. Besides, drug made up their poetic images and showed their noble identities.Chapter six, to analyze the interests of the famous gentlemen in Wei-jin dynasties, putting focal points on two things——bamboo and Crane,and three games——Chinese football,pellet chess and I-go. These interests showed their refined aesthetic taste.Chapter seven, to analyze the connection between the literature and art and the famous gentleman's images. The literature and art were regarded as independence in this period, and we analyze literature,music,calligraphy,painting,gardens and some other forms of art in this chapter.In Wei-Jin dynasties, the literature broke away from a mere handmaid of moral education. The intelligentsia were fond of music , and we analyze three forms of music in this chapter——the seven-stringed zither, whistle and pallbearer's songs. They liked play the seven-stringed zither and listen to the music, because of the cultural significances of the seven-stringed zither——harmony,elegance and void. They liked the whistle because it showed their degage charm, untrammeled freedom and privacy seeking. While the pallbearer's songs expressed their tragic consciousness and peculiar life experience.In Wei-jin dynasties, the calligraphy was unprecedented attached importance, for it can express literati's refined tastes and show off cultural accomplishment of their families. The Fame was the most important script in Wei-Jin dynasties."Lingering charm", which the Fame advocated,reflected their aesthetic characters of degage charm. Drawing began to become an art form in Wei-Jin dynasties, although having lower position than calligraphy. However, some drawing theories as the spirit and portrays the likeness (传神写照)still showed their sense of paying attention to spirit. A large number of gardens were built in this period, they expressed the intelligentsia's common necessary, aesthetic seeking and the looking forward to the privacy.Chapter eight, to analyze the accepting about the famous gentleman's images of Wei-jin to later age people. We think that the basic of the famous gentleman's images in the Wei-Jin dynasties is the historical fact, the scholars of later ages accepted the images according to the construction of A New Account of Tales of the World. So the construction of A New Account of Tales of the World is the most important link, it focused on the famous gentleman's images and enlarged them by meticulous choosing of historical facts in Wei-jin dynasties. In this chapter, we pick out three texts: LiHan's Meng Qiu,ZhangChao's You Meng Ying and YuShicun's Fei Chang Dao, analyzing the accepting issue of A New Account of Tales of the World and the famous gentleman's images in these books. And we also discuss the explanation and acceptation to the famous gentleman's images in Wei-Jin ynasties of Lu Xun, Zong Bai hua and Feng You lan.In summary, there are at least three influences of the famous gentleman's images in Wei-Jin dynasties, firsyly, the the famous gentleman's personality of cultivated style, which transcend common customs and pay attention to their emotion and life experience, has aesthetic and artistic connotation. It is the useful complementarity to Confucian personality. Secondly, they established the elegant aesthetic taste and the pattern of literature and art for later intelligentsia. Thirdly, the Grading Excellence of Wei-Jin radicated the discourse style and basic structure of the commenting literature and art. The famous gentleman's philosophy of metaphysics embodied the spirit of Chinese art. All of these have great influence to Chinese aesthetics. Fourthly, it is a reference to construct our poetic life.