The Relationship Between Andrew H.Plaks’s Research Of Ming And Qing Masterpieces Style And Yu-kung Kao’s Chinese Lyrical Traditional Theory

What are the characteristics of Chinese Literature? After thousands of years of development and evolution, is it now able to form a self-contained tradition? As Chinese literature has become a modern academic concept, these questions have been frequently asked. With continuous research conducted by ancient scholars, Chinese literary tradition has finally been recognized and even constructed in the context of western literature since the20th century. The achievement is Chinese Lyric Tradition, which is put forward by Chen Shixiang, bannered by Yu-Kung Kao, and then jointly developed by scholars from North America, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and other regions.There is a close relationship between Andrew H. Plaks’s Ming and Qing Masterpieces Style Research and Yu-kung Kao’s Chinese Lyrical Traditional Theory. First of all, Andrew H. Plaks’s research and Yu-kung Kao’s theory have inheritance relationship in both connotation and methodology. To be more specific, Chinese Lyrical Tradition consists of two basic points, one is "the situation", the inner part of a poet, which includs using poems to express one’s will and even "Efforts to Lyrical". The other is "to Express ", which means the external presentation and contains aesthetic attitude such as "Lyric Poetry Leads to Gorgeous Form". The common point of these two basic points is "realm", some kind of philosophical concept and value judgment, and even life attitude and sense of life. Andrew H. Plaks’s research on Ming and Qing masterpieces style begins with the analysis of the structure and rhetorical devices, and then infers to the implication and philosophical background of these masterpieces. This is also a research that starts with discussion on expression and ends with realm. However, narrative literature analysis certainly has indelible traces of narrative theory, which makes the Andrew H. Plaks’s research able to stand out from the theoretic frame set by Yu-kung Kao’s Chinese lyric tradition theory and highlight its own unique characteristic.The relationship between Andrew H. Plaks’s research and Yu-kung Kao’s Chinese lyric tradition theory is evident; however, such a clear relationship has been ignored by academic scholars. Therefore, the topic of this article will be the relationship between Andrew H. Plaks’s Ming and Qing Masterpieces Style Research and Yu-kung Kao’s Chinese Lyrical Tradition Theory. It will not only discuss the inheritance, but also on the transcendence of the former to the latter. This comparison is reflected in content and methodology, while this article is especially focuses on the latter. I expect this article is able to make a contribution to promoting the research on the style of the Ming and Qing masterpieces, developing the study of Chinese lyric tradition, and helping with the friendly exchanges between eastern and western literature.