The Generation And Evolution Of The Aesthetic Keywords In Modern China

In the Chinese modern society, the most typical academic phenomenon is the gradual entry of western thoughts into China, and this is also the most extensive period of collision and fusion between the Chinese and western cultures. Then our traditional academic system was modernized under the impact of the western culture. The discipline of Chinese aesthetics was introduced from the West in this time, which is known as the historical and logical starting point of the discipline of Chinese aesthetics.As a modern academic level of the Chinese aesthetics, it is different from the traditional aesthetics, which is scattered, perceptual and non-systematic. The modern Chinese aesthetics is established in the modern academic ideas and thinking mode, and has a series of self-contained concepts terms and mode of discourse which were almost completely transplanted from the Western aesthetic theory. This process of theoretical transplanting involved the translation between the two languages, and was bound to produce a series of aesthetic concepts and terms in Chinese, which did not only constitute the knowledge base of the discipline system, but also showed the modern transformation of the Chinese classical aesthetic ideal. Therefore, the study on the origin and evolution of the key aesthetic concepts and terms becomes especially important. But taking a wide view of the current status of the theory circle, we can see that the study on the origins of the key words of the modern Chinese aesthetics is relatively weak, particularly from the late Qing Dynasty to the May 4th.Based upon the achievements of existing researches in the academic community and the excavation of historical data as well as the return of the historical context, the thesis starts with an overview of the academic status of the early Western aesthetics into China to make clear the process of the first introduction and the evolution of the translated term of "Aesthetics" in Chinese, as well as the development vein of gradual deepening of understanding of the aesthetics and the initial establishment of the modern aesthetic system. On this basis, the thesis selects the five most important aesthetic categories in the modern aesthetics-sublime, grace, tragic, comic and ugly as the focus of discussion. The thesis does a retrospective study on the key concepts of the Chinese modern aesthetics as nouns from the scope of a proposal to the final set as the categories, articulates the process of these external theory resources through the heterogeneity transformation and integration, and further analyses these aesthetic keywords which embody the time and national characteristics.This thesis centers on the basic aesthetic keywords, but the ultimate objective is to study the historical and the discipline development of the Chinese modern aesthetic thoughts, because the so-called aesthetic key concepts and basic terms are the condensed history of aesthetics.Chinese scholars began to introduce the western aesthetics in the early 20th century, and till now it has been over a hundred years. Many theories and concrete concepts in the process of acceptance and communication were inevitably blurred used and imaginatively misunderstood. So combing the modern aesthetic keywords can not only help us to clear up the initial state of aesthetics and to understand the modern Chinese academic circles on how to accept the new concepts from foreign culture, but also to promote the better development of the current aesthetic theory.