Chinese And Western Poetics Forms And Concepts In Axis Era

Both in China and in the western world,“Poetry” is the most representative literary forms in the axis era.The poetic forms are different,but they share a number of common features.The thesis takes the Chinese and western poetic forms and its concepts in the axis era as the research object,regards their different city-state civilization and spatial imagination as the starting point of the discussion,which is the cultural basis,and then analyses the different literary styles of China and Ancient Greece in the axis era as well as the literary ideas hidden behind them.It should be clarified that the concepts of “poetry” or“poetics” mentioned in the paper refer to the general usage.The difference between lyric and narrative tradition has exerted an important impact on the types of poetry,as well as the connotations and the thoughts of poetics.Therefore,it is of great significance to study these aspects to thoroughly know the emergence of artistic thoughts and the formation of aesthetic concepts in the axis era.Specifically speaking,the paper includes five chapters in addition to the introduction.In the introduction,it mainly defines the concept of “axis era” and “poetics”.Besides,it shows the axial age is not only a concept but also a cultural category with archetypal significance.It also elaborates that to define “poetry” or “poetics”is still essential,although “poetry” or “poetics” is widely used in the contemporary context,because the boundary of literature is their boundary respectively.The first chapter is mainly about“axis times and city-state civilization”.As far as the Spring and Autumn Period is concerned,the “city-state” had already existed widely,and their spatial layout contained the most fundamental spatial imagination of the axis era.Therefore,the city-state space reflects the Chinese ideal—— “human life being in a highly harmony with nature” as well as the habitual thinking of “matching heaven with virtue”,which have been exerting a continuous influence on art,including literature;as for the Ancient Greece,the pursuit of reason can be found both in the city-state structure and the natural environment.The city-state in the Ancient Greek is the main field where human consciousness and tragic spirit can be found.Therefore,the city-state is not only the birthplace of the formation of Chinese and Western social structure,but also the main space for the generation,shaping and development of literature and art.In short,it has great significance in literary and in artistic history.The second chapter discusses “the narrative sing and performing singing of poetry”.Both Chinese and western literature has the attribute of “singing” at the beginning.In the Ancient Greek,literature was often sung in a narrative way,while in the Pre-Qin Dynasty,it was sung in a lyric way,namely,the former was“narrative sing” and the latter was “performing singing”.Narrative singing is the source of western narrative art,and it is represented by Homer epic which contained obvious narrative strategy and logic at that time.Performing singing is the rudiment of Chinese lyrical art,and the record of “All Animals Dancing with the Rhyme” and “Yue Ji” put the emphasis on music and dance which constitutes the double proof of fact and theory.The lyrical mode that poetry is rich in emotion and unconventional,which originated from “The Book of Songs” and “Sao”,has a lasting influence on the subsequent development of performing singing literature.In addition,the different attitudes towards the “human world” and “divine world”in China and in the west are also the cultural codes that promote the formation of performing singing and narrative singing.The third chapter focuses on “folk song and epic”.Folk song is the prototype of Chinese poetry.“Wind” gradually evolves from the concept of nature to the concept of literature,which determines the distinct folk characteristics of folk song.As a typical representative of musical literature,“Folk Songs from Fifteen Feudal States” is the incorporated standard of music and literature at the formal level,and it embodies the earliest “admonish by hints” feature in Chinese literature at the content level as well.Epic,as the prototype of western narrative literature,whose narrative form and heroic theme constitute the model of after-time narrative literature,is the objectification of the national spirit of the Ancient Greek.Epic and drama share the mutual characteristics,and heroic characteristics and civic spirit of epic form its deep influence on drama.The emphasis on imitation and language further strengthens their kinship.After the20 th century,the emergence of “epic drama” is the return of this kinship.Moreover,the nationality of language plays an important role in the field of literature via thinking,which is the fundamental reason for the differences between poetic and aesthetic styles in China and in the western countries.The fourth chapter explicates “the poetic idea of the thinkers in the axis age”.The core of Confucian literary thought is enlightenment,and its “poetic education” can be concretely translated into the identification of the artistic standard of “elegance”,the affirmation of the artistic form of “gentleness and sincerity”,and the adherence to the artistic goal of “perfected by music”.In contrast,Taoist poetics shows more poetic characteristics.Poeticity of Lao Zi is reflected by the prosodic language,the way of writing in the form of metaphor and the deep concern for reality in “Lao Zi”.Poeticity of Zhuang Zi is characterized by the worship of nature and the yearning for free humanity,whichforms the whole image of “Zhuang Zi”.On the one hand,Plato's poetic concepts reflect the similarity to Confucianism,in other words,they accept the morality of literature and its political and religious function.The theory of “harmony” also derives from music and involves social harmony,which is the same as Confucianism.On the other hand,although the theory has obvious subject-object dichotomy,the unity of “gaze” and “daze”is close to Taoic aesthetic standard in the cognition of beauty.In the fifth chapter,the paper talks over “the comparison and the mutual influence between “Yue Ji” and “Poetics””.In the axis era,“Yue Ji” and “Poetics”were two important aesthetic classical works both in China and in the western world.The two possibly had mutual influence on each other in the theories of artistic occurrence,artistic function and artistic reality.In terms of the concept of occurrence,“Yue ji” regards “sensation of object” as the foundation of the art origin,while “Poetics” advocates “imitation theory”.In essence,they both follow the logic of the movement in rhythm of the same feather.As for art function,“Yue Ji” starts with the opinion that “the human nature is quiet”,and considers that the fundamental function of art is to restore humanity to morality.Similarly,“purification” which “Poetics” admires is also a kind of rational moral“happiness”.Therefore,the ultimate goals of “Yue Ji” and “Poetics” both point to the morality.As for the artistic truth,although “Yue Ji” affirms “true feeling” by“authentically removing the false”,and “Poetics” interprets the concept of “true principle” by “poetry is truer than history”,both of them approve the truth of form without exception,thus forming two distinguished and related true artistic concepts.