Research On The Studies Of The German Sinologist Kubin On Chinese Classic Literature

Kubin, a German sinologist, switched his major from theology into sinology in 1967 at the University of Munster and received his doctor’s degree by writing a paper on poetic creation of Du Mu in 1973. Besides, in 1981, Kubin earned a professorship by Empty mountain--- the development of natural view in Chinese literature which was later translated by Ma Shude as natural view of Chinese scholars. Then, Kubin acted as director of department of sinology in the University of Bonn. Kubin’s main areas of research covered about Chinese classical literature, Chinese modern and contemporary literature and Chinese ideological history.Kubin’s Chinese classical literature research background was introduced in Chapter one. His Chinese classical literature research adhered to academic way of seeking novelty. In his research, he regarded Chinese culture as alien interlocutor. Besides, he considered finding the respective unique traits of oriental and occidental cultures as sinology research purposes. Kubin’s historic academic position succeeded to German sinology, particularly Bonn school attention to historical. His literary studies’ hermeneutics position highlighted the purpose of interpretation was understanding, for the ultimately understanding of culture should not exist. Moreover, the realization of conversation among different cultures was by interpretation. In current paper, the author took "ego" and "melancholy" as illustrations to introduce Kubin’s literary studies which always penetrated metaphysical investigation of cultural core proposition.Kubin’s unique writing in history of Chinese poetry---from the beginning to the end of all the dynasties was presented in Chapter two. Kubin claimed that Chinese poetry had its own unique religious origin and he thought religion could explain the power of life. This power was transferred to aristocracy class which centered on emperors under the conditions of national unity. Besides, with the implementation of Ke-tsu system, this power developed interpretation of individual life among officials and scholars. Meanwhile, Kubin took ideological history as background in his poetical history writing way which also sketched the poetry subject and change of value pursuit. Moreover, the philosophical mode is also one of main features that Kubin’s poetical history based "type" cosmology thinking to analyze poetry.Kubin’s studies on Chinese scholars’ outlook of nature were described in Chapter three. Kubin pointed out that the development of Chinese scholars’ outlook of nature went through three stages which were typical nature, external nature and inner world. After human’s nature consciousness experienced the transformation from subjective individual into objective unity, human could find the beauty of nature. Besides, it symbolized the maturity of scholars’ outlook of nature as they deemed nature as an origin where spirit could return. The maturity of scholars’ outlook of nature also signified that the maturity of their self-consciousness, who realized their spirit returned to self.The conclusion part summarized the features, achievements, and limitations presented in Kubin’s studies on Chinese classical literature. In Kubin’s literary researches, his philosophical perspectives made him not only analyze research content from the view of literature, but also focus on keeping metaphysic thinking. Kubin mastered abundant research materials by textual research to the previous studies. Whereas, he would own some preconceived ideas in his studies which might make his conclusions subjective. Furthermore, in the classification method of classical literature, Kubin showed elite literature conception, but this classification method might not be suitable for the stylistic classification of ancient Chinese literary.