On The Tragical Aesthetic Spirit Of Acient Chinese Myth And Lengends

Myth and lengends always go ahead with the human being's slow steps through ages, just like the soul of the national culture itself which continuously wandered. The acient Chinese myth and lengends describe the primitive ancestor's struggles against nature and bad social powers. Faced with all kinds of dangers, such as misery, hardship, misforturn, fright and death, primitive ancestors are gradually and rationally aware of nature's alieness and super-powers, fighting against bad living conditions bravely and hopefully for surival by their weak body. The fairy-tales of hero in tragic myth may arouse people's power and encourage, making people confidently go forward through many difficulties. Thus, acitent myth and lengends are the roots of Chinese culture and aesthetic spirst.Unlike acient Greek and Roman fairy-tales full of plot structure and long narration, the characteristic of Chinese acient myth is not outstanding for the sake of short or seperated pieces. If we properly study, however, the character, easthetic spirit and its effct philosophically, anthropoloficaly and aecheticaly, we may well inherit past cucture well, deeply understand the mass feelings and cultural psychological structure, and ideally gain good relations between humankind and nature. Only by this can we make people well-rounded, free and healthy and decrease the tragic affairs in our daily life.No literaure without variance in writings. Without imagination and variation, real things in life can not be changed into works of art. Acient Chinese myth and lengends show ancester's dreams which couldn't be come true on those days, with fancy magination full of illusion, absurdity, strangeness and surper-realism. From many hero stories and tragic atomosphere, we can see that amcesters bravely fight against the heaven, the ground ghosts and kinds of gods, comparing with them in height, ability and power. So moving is the hero trugic myth that it may shock sky and ground, move gods and ghost and strike the people's heart. Compared with the acient Greek and Roman fairy-tales, the feature of Chinese myth and lengends are just like this: The weak individuals are against the strong rulers and have to sacrifice their lives for the whole nationality and depress their own desires or feelings without indulging in love; they may be confident, optimisticl, idealistic and moral. The characteristic of acient Chinese myth is so sadly deep, majestic, brave, progressive, but not pessimistic that it is welcome by the readers. Theodor Lipps , a Germany move-feeling-to-objects aesthetist has ever said, "Tragedy just increases value by misforturn and make everyone know the value of life." The spirit of brave struggle and high personality ofsacrificing oneself deeply affects readers and roots in the spiritual and cultural structure of Chinese nationality.The affection of aesthestic spirit of acient trangic Chinese myth is widely and deeply. First, it affects the cultural and psychological structure of Chinese nationally. Chinese have sought the ideal state of "harmony between human and nature" for ages and once the both separate people would struggle against the supernature power without giving in, showing in an optimistic character and morality. Most tragic heros in myth and lengends, such as the image of Nuwa, Jingwei, kuafu, etc. save their civilian from fire or drought disasters and serve the people generously and unselfishly. These deeds spur and guide the latter intellectuals or officials, such as Quyuan, Jing Ke, Yue fei, Tan Citong, etc. To devote their lives to the people and country with heart and soul. This is really a copy of sumline and sorrowful historic hero myth . Moreover, the Chinese tragic myth has influenced on latter art or literature works and affected the style of writings deeply which emphasize tragic aesthetic spirit. For instance, in Qu yuan's poem "Lisao", the image "poet" can ride on dragon or phoenix to fly to the heaven or go down to the sea in order to find a way to save his country. The poet goes through much misfortu...