The Study Of Wang Guowei's Aesthetic Thought

By the study of his theory and practice of literary creation, we can reveal aesthetic meanings in Wang Guowei's theory and works. I don't make a full account of his aesthetic thought. Through comparative study of China and the West, I will mainly elaborate my thesis from four angles.Firstly, by analyzing Wang's view, that the pursuit of truth and the questioning of life should be taken as the base of literary creation, this thesis reveals his utilitarian and non-utilitarian thought about esthetics. That viewpoint is important to his life and study. So he emphasized independent value of the works. He inscribed both spirit and reality. He made an attempt to resolve life questions by art and religion, which embodied his utilitarian understanding of esthetics. When he interpreted the novel of A Dream of Red Mansion, he constructed a doctrine of salvation. However he put the non-utilitarian thought about esthetics to an improper use at this time. The tension between ideal and reality made him feel a conflict between the adorable and the credible. This kind of conflict further reflected a contradiction between his utilitarian and non-utilitarian thought.Secondly, this thesis discusses Wang's viewpoint in creation subject from the theory of genius to the theory of classic elegance and their aesthetic significance. Both theories showed his utilitarian and non-utilitarian understanding of esthetics. Combining his practice of literary creation, Wang himself invented the term of Guya, which means classic elegance. It was a modification for the limitation of aesthetic scope in the theory of genius. Creation is not a kind of ability only belonging to the genius but others. The genius calls for the talents from an additional efforts, because he doesn't always have inspiration. According to Wang's view, creation subject must have high morality and profound learning. During the course of literary creation, the creator himself proved his morality and his works had classic elegance. This kind of creation subject was not a genius or a saint. The ordinary people could become the creation subjects through aesthetic education, which was also a process of the formation of ideal personality.Thirdly, though analyzing the source of Wang's the principle of intuition from both traditional China and the western, this thesis discusses the issue of creation means and its aesthetic values. Influenced by Schopenhauer's intellectual intuition, Wang held that creation object was the form of objects and that creation subject was in a state of nondesire when he was creating. In the process of building his theory of creation means, Wang also borrowed some elements from the traditional Chinese philosophy. However there were some differences between Chinese culture and the western culture. Schopenhauer's intellectual intuition was based on his ontology, and concerned with the abstract, while intuition in Chinese culture concerned with the concrete. Creation subject was not only in the reality, but also beyond the reality. They pursued an interaction between the humanity and the nature in order to attain their union.Finally, this thesis not only analyzes the connotation and properties of the sphere,but accounts its aesthetic significances. As one of the bases of creation, the pursuit of truth was also regarded as the basic objective of creation. Thus the literary works must reflect truth. Here 'truth' has two meaning: the first one means that the creator must put his deep perceptions into works, the other means that he must describe the facts as they were. If the works reflected truth, it meant that they were of the sphere. Wang hadn't given a concrete definition of the term of sphere. According my knowledge, there are double meanings of this term, that is to say, the aesthetic freedom held by the creator and the meaning of the works. Wang's theory of sphere inherited the Chinese traditional esthetics on the one hand and introduced some points of aesthetic principles in the western on the other. It opened a new room for the studying of the Chinese traditional...