Evolution,Symbiosis And The Game Of Virtue

With a focus on ethical literary criticism and in light of a comprehensive use of psychoanalytic criticism,aesthetic criticism,social and historical criticism and other methods,this dissertation analyzes the various ethical issues and explores the ethical thoughts and historical valuesin the Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen's works on the basis of close reading of his 25 plays.Meanwhile,with a reference to the author's life experience,which was colorful but was full of ups and downs,his aesthetic ideal,the turbulent historical field in the second half of the 19th century and the traditional cultural context of Northern Europe,it examines the generation mechanism and development of Ibsen's ethical thoughts to summarize Ibsen's deep exploration and unique and profound thinking on human fate,emotion,ethics,morality and value.In whole,the dissertation consists of six parts:"Introduction",four chapters of the main part and "Conclusion".The "Introduction" mainly reviews the study of Ibsen's plays at home and abroad and points out that there are still disadvantages and weaknesses in the previous ethical study.This dissertation will make breakthroughs in three aspects:the perspective of ethical problem,the goal of ideas and the integration of research methods;and define the four key words in it,namely,ethical evolution,communal ethics,the mirror of human relations and the game of virtue.The first chapter,focusing on the historical melodramas such as The Warriors at Helgeland,Olaf Liljekrans,The Burial Mound,Brand,The Pretenders,The Emperor and Galilean and so on,explores the ethical evolution in the course of Nordic history from three aspects,that is,marital ethics,religious ethics and political ethics.Basically speaking,the evolution of marital ethics and religious ethics are the changing customs which spontaneously come into being.In the above mentioned plays,the characters strive to build up new ethical norms and seek for the replacement of values by means of extensive social interaction because the original moral code gradually shows the backward and slow side and severely impacts on the needs of daily production and life.The reform of political ethics is a set of superstructure designed and implemented by the royal rulers based on their own governing ideas or needs.Through the victory of "King's Thoughts" and the disillusionment of "the Third Empire",it not only reflects Ibsen's recognition and affirmation of the political ideas that conforms to morality,but also embodies some unique objective laws of the ethical system itself.In view of that above three levels,the succession and reform of the ethical concepts and systems in the Nordic society have been more fully represented.The second chapter,with Norma,or Politician's Love,Lady and five social problem plays as the core,comprehensively reveals the ethical dilemma of the Norwegian social ecology and family status in the second half of the 19th century from the perspective of the upper-class,citizen and marginal groups depicted in the works.Due to historical reasons and the particularity of the regime,Norway has not really achieved independence,and with the long years of intense political struggle and an era when people attack against each other,neither desperate aristocrats caught in an ethical dilemma,nor ruling and opposition parties acting on passion,can take on such a great national mission.As the majority of the citizens are the mob that to seek profits and avoid harm governed by instinct who are also devoid of personality.On the contrary,the working class and the oppressed women of the lower class still maintain a strong will and moral conscience.Therefore,they are hopeful to realize the Norwegian liberation and freedom of thought along with the next generation.This is the foundation of the communal ethics that Ibsen strives to construct.Under the joint forces of the spirit of contract and the love of freedom with equal responsibility,the synergy between them will bring out the great and infinite energy of goodness.The third chapter centers on symbolic philosophical plays such as The Wild Duck,Little Eyolf,Rosmersholm,Peer Gynt,The Master Builder,When We Dead Awaken,and probes into the mirror of human relations in Ibsen's plays from the multiple relationships between characters and animals,illusions and inanimate objects,and reveals the coexistence and symbiosis relationship between human subject and world object.On the basis of sorting out the ethical narrative clues in the works,this chapter analyzes and excavates the deep emotional bonds and ethical dilemmas between the characters,or peeks out the hidden ethical conflicts in the text from the animal images of "wild ducks" and "mice",or reveals the humanistic appeals that are long-suppressed and considered taboo of the characters in the plays from the illusions of "goblin" and "ghost",or rediscovers the great significance and value of human ethics for individual life from the crazy infatuation with architecture,sculpture and other art forms.Ibsen expresses the complex relation between people and other things from a wide-angle view,and these dehumanized images in the mirror are in essence the direct reflection or indirect representation of the character's ethical situation.It has the dual functions of ethical enlightenment and moral purification,and its purpose is to inspire and pursue the true self that is obscured by absurd ethical values.The fourth chapter selects nine representative works from Ibsen's early,middle and late literary career respectively,and probes into the problem of the game of virtue when the individual faces with the constraint of discipline and aesthetic ideal.On the whole,there are two forms in Ibsen's works:one is that,when a character does not know the psychological state or behavior intention of the other party,he can only play a game of incomplete information between following his own moral emotion and natural emotion,or between practicing ethical responsibility and obeying free will;the other is that,under the premise of mutual understanding or communication,the parties make voluntary moral choice after deep meditation.In this regard,Ibsen does not intend to judge whether a character's behavior is right or wrong according to moral norms.Instead,he demonstrates and reduces variables of ethical individuals in the game,and demonstrates the entanglement and choice between the character's moral discipline,moral aesthetics and utilitarian ethics at the micro level,and shows the noble value of virtue of goodness through the tragic fate.In the "Conclusion",on the one hand.it explores and summarizes the core concept of Ibsen's ethical thoughts about goodness and its progressive trajectory from triple ethical dimensions of social consciousness,family relationship and personal value.From the goodness of the institutionalization in the historical melodramas to the goodness of the community in the social problem plays,to the goodness of the human nature in the symbolic philosophical plays,Ibsen continuously deepened and improved towards the supreme goodness in the process of self-transcendence.On the other hand,Ibsen always keeps the macroscopic exploration of the human ethical proposition from the dimensions of time and space.In the process of thinking deeply about the ethical evolution of the Nordic history,the construction of the ethics of the Norwegian community and the mirror of human relations,he gradually formed the ethical thoughts of evolution and symbiosis,both of which originated from his attitude towards life and personal experience,namely,"on the highland".The former modified and supplemented the social evolution theory prevailing in the 19th century,while the latter brought forth the western traditional community's ethical system,but without escaping from the modified model of bourgeois intellectuals.As an important starting point to reinterpret Ibsenism,the game of virtue itself has a strong humanistic ideals and a certain degree of elitism tendencies,but at the same time it also reflects the common characteristics of individual human existence,and more importantly,it contains Ibsen's ultimate ideal and persistent pursuit of ethical liberation.Among them,being responsible for oneself is the core meaning of the game of virtue,which represents the ethical essence of Ibsenism;"All or Nothing" is of methodological guiding significance.Generally speaking,evolution,symbiosis and the game of virtue constitute the main body and core of ethical thoughts of Ibsen's plays at the diachronic and synchronic,macro and micro levels respectively.At present,they can still provide a profound and beneficial reference to the moral life of the present and the spiritual enlightenment,with which has rich connotation and the multivariate connection of the understanding way,as well as the philosophy quality which itself manifests.