Research On Dilution Of Chinese Ancient Literary Theory

Dilution is an important category of ancient Chinese literary theory; it is rooted inthe Chinese civilizations with profound connotations, and has deeply influencedaesthetic creation for a long time.From the pre-Qin period to the Southern and northern Dynasties, the xujingtheory of Taoism, getting rid of persistence and enjoying emptiness thoughts fromBuddhism laid the ideological foundation for generation of the dilution.In the Tang Dynasties, Dilution was introduced in filed of literature from the reallife domain and took its initial shape as one kind of aesthetic categories. The conceptof dilution was explicitly presented in Jiao Ran’s Type of Poems for the first time. SiKongtu fully discussed dilution as an aesthetic category and ranked it in the secondlevel of aesthetic categories in Twenty-four a literal criticism which was fullyembraced with the style of dilution throughout the entire work.Song Dynasty was the time when aesthetic dilution, as a category of aestheticmind, reached its peaks. Su Shi made outstanding contributions to its development.He not only brought dilution into the literary world, but also revealed the essence ofdilution and pointed out the way of realizing dilution---’write with the object itself’,’use simple words’ and more elder,’more mature’.After the Song Dynasty, dilution was still the highest aesthetic standard in fieldsof the poem, music, painting and calligraphy. Its deeply influence originated fromkeeping its aesthetic connotations consistent with the history.Dilution advocates the beauty of nature and requires theme and literary graceshould be natural. It also advocates no utility and insists on simple content, pure andfresh style of writing. Dilution still encourages people to overcome the difficultiesbravely, not escape.Dilution affects artists’ state of mind. It even becomes part of their personalityand attitudes. It also has influence on the aesthetic creation. At the same time, dilutionaffects the appreciation of art as well. It is an important aesthetic standard, andchanges people’s aesthetic value. Dilution may a good reference for culturaldevelopment of China at this transition period.