| Much research has been done on the personality of Wei-Jin scholars. However, most of the work finds their way into the relationship between literature, the metaphysical philosophy and personality, and there hasn't so far been an article focusing on "The sense of beauty of personality of Wei-Jin scholars"; flowing two clues of time and area, the essay below presents its research on this point from the aspects of life and aestheticism.I. Personality, Beauty of Personality and the Sense of Beauty of Personality. This essay offers a brief definition of these three concepts.1. While it is true that "personality" did find its place in ancient Chinese literary critics, the relating concept of "-ality" truly existed beforehand. In ancient China, "-ality" means the combination of morality and action. The Chinese concept of "personality" is therefore made up five levels, including that of physical, psychological, sociological, aesthetical, and moralistic. Of them, moralistic ideal is aim of ancient Chinese, while aesthetic realm is the highest level of ancient Chinese personality.2. Beauty of Personality is the manifestation of beauty in personality. It contains people's aesthetical ideal, sense of life and morality, as well as people's behavior, action and so on.3. The so-called "Evaluation of Characters" and "Appreciation on Beauty of Personality" in the ancient time was actually what we call "the Sense of Beauty of Personality". The ancient Chinese culture saw this sense very early. And it has gone a long way through.II. The development of "The Sense of Beauty of Personality" of Wei-Jin scholars. Judging from the time it had taken-during the Qin and Han period, scholars paidmuch attention to moralistic beauty. For those who believed in Taoism, what mattered most was individual realm instead of morality, thus they pursued in spiritual a natural beauty of freedom and life. Consequently, for Wei-Jin scholars, there was a change in the personality structure in two aspects: for one thing, morality no longer played the major role in it, though its influence to some extent still remained there; for the other, the emergence of metaphysical philosophy, which originated form the thoughts of Chuang Tse, offered much possibility for the growth of physical, psychological, sociological and aesthetic factors. Wei-Jin scholars found where their spiritual value lied after they experience the emphasis on talent in Qin and Han Period, metaphysical philosopher's pursuit on individuality and freedom, till at last when Tao Yuanming put Taoism into a realistic way of life. In all, from the angle of time, we can see that the sense of Beauty of Personality of Wei-Jin scholars never went too far away from the killing of the innermost anxiety, and the pursuit of freedom, which is the highest level of beauty. Getting freedom means possessing the most admirable personality. Tao Yuanming reached the peak in terms of personality development. They had undergone a process from San-Cao's solemn and tragic, to Qi- Xian's upset and angry, till Tao Yuanming's natural and free, and this process is too important to be ignored, as it reveals a winding way which the Beauty of personality had gone through.III. The characteristics of the beauty of scholars of Wei-Jin period. As the successor and developer of Wei-Jin culture, the same cultural background and their interaction provided each of them a characteristic that was actually shared by his contemporary scholars. Therefore, seen from this angle, Wei-Jin scholars showed beauty of personality in four aspects: temperament, human nature, sense of life, and ideal realm.1. Temperament. We can pick up variety of descriptions in this field. The preference to temperament well proved that Wei-Jin scholars cast their eyes on men themselves. The beauty of temperament, is a manifestation of the innermost aesthetical ideal.2. The beauty of human nature. It was from the Wei-Jin period that freedom of life6and natural existence gained its place as the standard of the beauty of human natur... |
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