| Feng Menglong’s literary works cover a wide range of genres, including poem, novel, drama, tune, folk song, ballad, joke, essay, miscellany, classic and history, etc., Most of which belong to popular or folk literature. These works were created under Feng’s folk aesthetics value. Therefore, the study of his folk aesthetics value has significant academic meanings. This paper collects and sorts the aesthetics value in Feng’s works, combined with the social background in late Qing Dynasty, Feng’s life experience and literary practice, in order to conclude and analyze the value and influence of his aesthetics on later generations.First of all, this paper explores the folk aesthetics value in Feng’s works, from the terms of the historical context, ideological and cultural foundations, and his life experiences. In the Ming Dynasty, business prospered rapidly in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, along with the abundant appearance of middle and small cities and rural towns, as well as the increasing number of citizens. People’s ideology and behavior began to change, due to the coexistence of the right quality of a feeling and the rule of reason. To draw a conclusion, Feng’s folk aesthetics is the product of his personal learning, social contacts, inner world feelings, value choice and the era background.Secondly, this paper focuses on the exploration of Feng’s folk aesthetics, combining popular, emotional and rational elements. He holds the principle of aesthetics “from the angle of popular ”, that is, folk literary works should be popular, common and moralizing, but not vulgar. This genre centers on ordinary people, tells mundane affairs, expresses human feelings, and explains common sense in simple language. Feng’s understanding of emotion is based on the new folk aesthetics. He holds the “principle of emotion”, advocating emotional teaching to change the heartless into the kind-hearted, and private passion into selfless devotion, and create a harmonious and wonderful world of common prosperity. He also holds the “principle of rational spirit”, referring to the logic of things, emotive reason, and human’s rationalism and wisdom. This is different from the Rationalism of Cheng and Zhu Critiques, which underlines the authenticity of rationalism, focuses on its connection with daily life, respects the wisdom and strategy, and advocates the integration of recognition and practice of rationalism.In addition, under the folk aesthetics, featuring combination of popular, emotion and rationalism, Feng’s literary and art practice have reached various different genres. To educate people in simple language, Feng depicted their daily life from aspects of popularity, desire, custom, and folk literature. To promote emotional teaching, Feng described the inner world of ordinary people through the vicissitudes of life, in different genres of works—novels, folk songs, dramas and essays, etc. To convince people by reasoning, Feng called for encouraging good and punishing evil, and controlling unreasonable desires. In popular literary works, popular, emotional and rational elements are interlaced with each other, which form the situation norm, featuring true and false of things, and the authenticity of reason; views on love and marriage, featuring the resonance between two lovers, being amorous but not disturbed, and understanding of inner feelings; as well as the value of money, featuring the principle of taking justice instead of the profit, and promoting utility and encouraging justice.This paper views that Feng’s folk aesthetics effectively connected the folk literature and literati’s spiritual tradition, appealing to both cultured and popular tastes. Hence it is a product of the combination of the true, the good and the beautiful, exerting profound and extensive influence on later generations. Feng’s literary works greatly promote the communication and merging with other cultures, and are still playing the role of value guidance in today’s literature and culture development. |
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