"mencius' Prose Debate The Art Of Research

The prose of Mencius is famous for its skillful argument and rich literary talent. The studies in the 20th century have recognized Mencius literary value and established its position in the literature world. The new task in this century is to deepen the study of Mencius literary art and to fully respect its historical features. That requires us to investigate and deduce how the literary elements in Mencius were originated and developed within their historical context, rather than simply apply fixed rules to Mencius or even piece together its literary elements. This thesis, through research of the Occidental dialectic/rhetoric theories and the trend of thoughts on naming and rhetoric in ChunQiu times, reveals the rhetoric nature of Mencius. Based on this rhetoric nature of Mencius, this thesis further investigates Mencius literary elements in light of their originations. The literary elements that were explore d here include style, genre, language, structure, rhetoric, imagery, as well as logic ?almost all the important aspects of the literary elements that were mentioned by the studies in the 20th century.Before we discuss Mencius literary elements, we have to understand that the profound morality and persistent venture of Mencius enabled him to express rich thoughts and positive morality force in his articles. This is the ground and ultimate reason for Mencius compelling and touching literary force.The most distinguishable features in Mencius prose are forceful logic and sharp argument with a strong personality and marked its time. This thesis researches the reasons of this phenomena in conjunction with Mencius theory of knowing the words and cultivating Qi, and points out the impor-tant role that rhetoric played in the formation of Mencius style. The use of dialogue, question & answer, quotation as well as colloquial language style, are obviously natural results of Mencius rhetoric and argument. The most favorable feature of Mencius, its skillful use of metaphors, is directly connected to a special type of logic using analogies. Mencius witty language and step by step organizational feature can also be explained by its rhetoric style. The rhetoric of Mencius is critical in the formation of its literary characters, however, it is not the only cause. We can not forget that the general literature tradition and the folklore at the time also played a part in the formation of Mencius literarv stvle.