Aesthetic Appreciation And Redemption

In the1980s, there was a stirring of interest in Shen Congwen in literary filed of China, which brought great attention of the academia to Shen Congwen. In China, there is a great many fruitful researches about the reinterpretation and elaboration of the author and his works.At the same time, in the field of comparative literature, so is the comparative research between Shen congwen and foreign writers such as Hardy, Faulkner, Kawabata, Joyce, Turgenev, etc. However, the relationship between the French writer Rousseau and Shen Congwen is rarely mentioned. And the few papers are focused on their romantic temperament in the two great writers. On the basis of their literary works, this paper discusses the common literary ideal in the aesthetic horizon, which is totally a new perspective. The dissertation is divided into four parts.The introduction part reviews research of Shen Congwen and Rousseau in the comparative literature horizon, demonstrates the comparability between two writers. Based on this, the author simply analyzes the complexity of the aesthetic subject and its development, points out that Shen Congwen had indirectly influenced by Rousseau’s aesthetic thought.The first part is composed of two chapters, respectively discussing the similarities and differences in aesthetic education between they two. The similarities lie in the basis and nature of aesthetic education. which is based on the philosophy of virtue theory and emphasizes the importance of emotional education. Differences are the means, goals and the guiding ideology of aesthetic education. Being involved with multiple identities, Rousseau’s methods and targets are much more realistic, whereas Shen Congwen focuses on literariness as a pure writer. On the guiding ideology, Rousseau emphasizes deism while Shen attaches more importance to pantheism.As the core part of the full text, Chapter Two mainly discusses the aesthetic contents in common:aesthetic appreciation and redemption. Predominantly related to redemption, the aesthetic education has much to do with the occurrence of modernity. The worldwide expansion of modernity has caused reflection of the intellectuals. In China, due to the particular time background, combined with the actual situation, the reflection specifically presents as reflection of national characters. Both Shen and Rousseau made criticism after reflection. Rousseau’s dialectical view of literature and art and Shen’s identity recognition as a countryman are powerful critiques of modernity. On the basis of the criticism, they see the hope. Rousseau advocates return to nature while Shen Congwen emphasizes the power of life.The conclusion part summarizes the reasons of differences between the two writers which mainly embodies in the following three aspects:one is different traditional cultures; The second is the social background of difference; the third is the diversities in their identities. At the end of the dissertation, the author makes reflection of their aesthetic proposition.