Author Cai Xi (graduate student, College of Literature, Guangxi Normal University)
abstract
As the source of Chinese and Western poetics, the poetic theories of Zhuangzi's poetics and Bai's poetics are different, reflecting the unique psychological composition, thinking mode and cultural accumulation of Chinese and Western cultures. From the perspective of comparative poetics, this paper discusses the similarities and differences of Zhuang Bai's poetics from seven aspects: Taoism and idealism, beauty itself and great beauty, imitation and expression, utility and carefree travel, inspiration and fasting, harmony and nature, and different poetic influences. Finally, the author thinks that Zhuangzi's poetics is an aesthetic poetics based on Taoist natural philosophy, pursuing the unity of truth, goodness and beauty in order to achieve the realm of "carefree travel"; Baishi's poetics is a kind of spiritual poetics based on idealism, pursuing the harmonious beauty of goodness and beauty, and taking moral education as the direction.
Poetics, aesthetic poetics, spiritual poetics
As the source of Chinese and western poetics, Zhuangzi's and Plato's poetics have similarities and differences, which show the uniqueness of Chinese and western cultures in psychological structure, thinking mode and cultural accumulation. From the perspective of comparative poetics, this paper discusses the similarities and differences between Zhuangzi's and Plato's poetics from seven aspects: (1) Tao and meaning; (2) Self-beauty and great beauty; (3) imitation and performance; (4) Utilitarianism and "carefree travel"; (5) Spiritual inspiration and fasting; (6) the harmony of beauty and the theory of nature; (7) Completely different poetic influences. Finally, the author thinks that Zhuangzi's poetics is an aesthetic poetics, which is based on the natural philosophy of Taoism, pursues the unity of truth and beauty, and reaches the realm of "carefree travel"; Plato's poetics is a kind of psychological poetics, which pursues the harmony between beauty and goodness, is based on ideals and aims at virtue.
Keywords: poetics, aesthetic poetics, psychological poetics
introduce
The German philosopher Jaspers pointed out that Confucius, Laozi, Mencius and Zhuangzi appeared in China around the 5th century BC, Upanishads and Buddha appeared in India, and Homer and Plato appeared in Greece. "Axis period came into being, which is still the basic category we think about today" (1) Zhuangzi (369-286 BC) and Plato (427-347 BC), as the origins of Chinese and Western poetics, lived in an era of social unrest, although one was in the Aegean Sea and the other was in the Yellow River. The way of poetry is noumenon, and poetry can achieve the truth of noumenon. "Art is the highest mission of life and the original metaphysical activity of life." (2) Zhuangzi's philosophy is his art, and Zhuangzi's art is also his philosophy. Bai's Dialogue is a profound poetic reflection on the ontology of philosophy, and Bai's philosophy is also the ontology of ancient Greek poetry. Only in this way can their poetics still show immortal vitality and influence. But ideologically, domestic academic circles tend to define themselves as "ism", "relativism" or "sophistry" in Zhuangzi's poetics and "objective idealism" in Bertrand's poetics. The author believes that preconceived ideas are not conducive to the development of poetics. On the contrary, the dialogue with Zhuangzi and Bai's poetics in the integration of ancient and modern perspectives, with the problem consciousness as the forerunner of analysis and criticism, is not only conducive to "discovering the poetic heart and literary heart of human beings and the unique contribution of all ethnic groups to world literary theory", but more importantly, discovering the essential characteristics and roots of literature and art from this poetic heart and unique contribution. ⑤
Poetry Ontology: Taoism and Idealism
Zhuangzi is a philosophical work, and seldom talks about poetics and aesthetics. Plato is not a specialized literary theorist. However, because their poetics is based on profound philosophy and shows profound metaphysical spirit, their poetics goes far beyond the general literary theory and becomes the source of Chinese and western poetics respectively.
"Theory of Tao" is the central category of Zhuangzi's poetics, and "Theory of Idea" is the core concept of Bai's poetics. They are consistent.
First of all, from the perspective of ontology, "Tao" and "Yi" are both metaphysical ontologies, and they are both things in the first existence and ultimate sense. Zhuangzi's "Tao" is an absolute abstraction that cannot be described or named, and it is an indecomposable "being" or "nothing"; White's "idea" is like the sun, the root of all things and the highest "goodness". Both existed before everything. It is ontological.
Secondly, "Tao" and "reason" are both elusive things. Bertrand's idea is the source of all things in the world, Prouddin's idea is "God", Romantic's idea is "ideal" and Hegel's idea is "absolute spirit". So the "concept" is wonderful, difficult to grasp and difficult to explain. Similarly, "Tao" is a thing, "just vague" (Lao Zi), and Zhuangzi thinks that "Tao can't be said, but words can't be true".
Third, in the sense of value, the world of ideas is the world of truth, goodness and beauty, and the harmonious beauty of truth, goodness and beauty is the highest beauty. Zhuangzi, on the other hand, advocated the highest state of life: "He who is in harmony with heaven is called" Tian Le ".
Fourthly, on the origin of poetry, both of them think that "Tao" and "meaning" are the source of poetry. "Tao" is the mother of all things, and "Wen" is naturally the derivative of Tao. "Idea" is the origin of all things in the world, beauty is formed by sharing ideas, and poetry is an imitation of ideas.
Although they are all metaphysical ontologies, they still have different connotations.
First of all, how did this idea come about? Plato clearly pointed out in the Republic that thought was created by God. In Bai's view, ideas are synonymous with God, the kingdom of heaven and the gods. But Zhuangzi's "Tao" was not created by God, but a product of nature. The so-called "Tao is nature". The "nature" in Zhuangzi is to let nature take its course and conform to the laws of the universe. "Nature" is the core category of Zhuangzi thought, so Zhuangzi's philosophy is also called "natural philosophy".
Secondly, the idea is a spiritual entity independent of the objective world and the human brain, and it is "one". Everything is achieved by sharing "ideas". The sum of ideas in plural forms constitutes the world of ideas. "Tao" is not one, but the unity of "being" and "nothing" Everything in the world is born with it, and everything is born without it. Therefore, Zhuangzi's Tao is the transformation from scratch.
Third, the idea is the product of Plato's dichotomy between perceptual world and rational world, individual and general, and the latter is absolute. Tao is a concrete perceptual existence full of emotion, which embodies the integration of sensibility and rationality, man and the natural world. Ideas are abstractions of the essence of things, so they are static, absolutely identical and beyond reality. The ontological significance of Zhuangzi's Tao is based on the original image that Tao is Tao and Tao is method, with emphasis on Tao, Tao and Tao. Therefore, in Zhuangzi's Taoism, the significance of methodology is far stronger than that of ontology. What he wants to explore is a unique road and method, and along this road leads to the realm of "carefree travel" (that is, the realm of spiritual freedom and aesthetic freedom). Therefore, Zhuangzi's Tao is "changing" and "moving".
Fourthly, in Plato's view, the opposition between reason and sensibility led to the opposition between philosophy and poetry, and he put philosophy above poetry. Starting from the "harmony between man and nature", Zhuangzi combined philosophy with poetry, truth with aesthetics. Bai believes that philosophers seek the true knowledge of the conceptual world in a state of selflessness, and Zhuangzi practices Tao through "fasting in the heart" and "forgetting".
Fourth, idealism emphasizes truth, goodness and beauty, and "goodness" is the highest concept; Taoism emphasizes truth, goodness and beauty. Tao is the great beauty of heaven and earth.
The essence of beauty: "beauty itself" and "great beauty" (or ultimate beauty)
In the west, Plato first explored the essence of beauty. After the failure in Hippias, Plato clearly declared the essence of beauty from the perspective of idealism: beauty is an idea. Conceptual beauty is "beauty itself" and it is real. In China, it was Laozi who opened the first page to explore the essence of beauty, and Zhuangzi put forward the theory of great beauty on the basis of sublating Laozi's theory. So, what are the similarities and differences between Zhuangzi's "great beauty" and Plato's "beauty itself"? The author thinks there are two similarities.
First of all, "great beauty" and "beauty itself" are colorless, intangible and unpredictable. Zhuangzi said in the fable of the forest:
"Yoko's song, stay in the reverse journey. A traveler has two concubines, one is beautiful and the other is evil. The wicked are expensive, and the beautiful are cheap. Yoko asked him why, and the boy said to him, "The beauty is self-centered, but I don't know its beauty. I don't know if evil people are evil. "
In Zhuangzi's view, this kind of "self-centered beauty" is only the beauty of individuals, and it is the beauty of individuals' ideas, so it is not "great beauty" because it does not have universal validity. He said: "people who can see with vision have the same shape and color;" Those who can smell, sound and form. Sad husband! The word-of-mouth of the world is enough to win each other's favor. A husband's reputation is not enough to win his love. Then the knower doesn't speak, the speaker doesn't know, how can the world know? (Heaven) That is to say, the beauty of specific individual things is not great, and the true meaning of beauty cannot be captured only from the various reputations of the senses. Bertrand's "beauty itself" is similar. He said, "There is a real entity just outside this day. It is colorless, invisible and unpredictable. " ("Fei De Jobion") "This kind of beauty is eternal, without beginning or end, without birth or extinction, without increase or decrease. Not beautiful at this point, but ugly at another point; The beauty at this time is not beautiful at another time; Beauty in this respect is ugliness in another; It doesn't vary from person to person. It's beautiful for some people and ugly for others. Moreover, this beauty is not manifested in a certain face, a certain hand, or some other part of the body; It does not exist in a certain article, a certain knowledge, or some other object, such as animals, the earth, or the sky. It only exists in itself forever, and it is the same as it in the form of a whole; All good things are based on it; With it, all beautiful things become beautiful, but those beautiful things die from time to time, and it has not increased or decreased. -Starting from a few beautiful things in the world, gradually rising to the highest level of beauty, like climbing a ladder, gradually rising, from one body to two bodies, from two bodies to all bodies, from bodies to beautiful behavior system, from beautiful behavior system to beautiful knowledge, and finally from all kinds of beautiful knowledge to knowledge that only focuses on beauty itself, deeply understand beauty itself. " Obviously, this "beauty itself" is the beauty itself. It is not an individual phenomenon and thing of all kinds of beauty, but the quality of "all beautiful things become beautiful with it" (Hippocrates the Great)
Secondly, "great beauty" and "beauty itself" both think that the standard of beauty is relative.
Zhuangzi said in "The Theory of Everything" that "the beauty of human beings is also the depth of fish, the flying of birds and the sudden appearance of elk. Do the four know that the world is positive? " "So, it is famous for its color, sharp and beautiful, and strange, and it is one."
"The beauty of human beings" cannot be shared by fish, birds and elk. It can be seen that this kind of "beauty" is not the object of beauty, but the beauty in people's subjective feelings. It varies from person to person, so aesthetics is relative, which is no different from the beauty of "beauty is self-beauty". Similarly, in The Great Hippias, Hippias put forward many definitions of beauty, such as beauty is a beautiful young lady, beauty is a beautiful mare, beauty is a soup pot and beauty is gold. "Beauty means more money at home and good health. All Greeks respect it and live a long life." All these were denied by Socrates, which showed that Plato believed that the beauty of individual things was uncertain and relative.
Aesthetic judgments are relative because their existence can be transformed into each other. Zhuangzi wrote in "Knowing the North Tour": "Everything is one, its beauty is magical, and its evil is stench; Smelly corruption is magic, and magic is rotten. " In Bai's place, the pursuit and understanding of beauty is also deepening, which has gone through several stages: from low to high, from shallow to deep, from perceptual to rational, from phenomenon to essence. Starting from the form of beauty, it gradually rises to the highest realm of "beauty itself".
See the difference.
1 Zhuangzi tends to unify beauty and truth, and Bai advocates beauty because of goodness.
"Natural beauty people will learn from them. If you don't sue, you don't know its beauty. Knowing, not knowing, smelling, and not smelling is gratifying, and there will be no good people. " (Zhuangzi-Ze Yang) The beauty of "natural beauty" is what Zhuangzi called "great beauty". It is a kind of natural beauty, a kind of true beauty. This kind of beauty exists whether people know it or not, whether people smell it or not. Zhuangzi's "great beauty" is a kind of true beauty that precedes language and "beauty". "If heaven and earth have great beauty, don't talk about it. At four o'clock, there are clear methods that need not be discussed, and everything makes sense. Sage, the original beauty of heaven and earth, the principle of everything. Therefore, the sage does nothing, the great sage does nothing, and the view of heaven and earth is also. (Journey to the West) It can be seen that the "Tao" in Zhuangzi's mind is the beauty of heaven and earth, which is freely generated without doing anything. The word "naive" in Zhuangzi is the most expensive. I am extremely disgusted with things in disguise. " Simplicity and the world can't compete with it for beauty "(Heaven)" Indifference and infinity, and beauty follows "(Deliberately) Zhuangzi's" Great Beauty "is the beauty of natural simplicity, indifference and infinity. This natural and simple beauty is also straightforward beauty. Zhuangzi advocated that "Heaven attaches importance to truth" ("Heaven"), and that "the truth comes from heaven, so it is naturally not easy. "(Fisherman) So in Zhuangzi's view, beauty, truth and nature are trinity.
According to Bernstein's idealism, "goodness" is the highest idea, which has more ontological significance than "beauty itself". It is not only the ultimate cause of beauty, but also the universal phase of everything. Goodness is the cause of beauty, justice, truth and knowledge, so the relationship between beauty and goodness is the causal relationship between beauty and goodness. Moral idealism based on goodness is the greatest feature of Bai poetics. Obviously, Bertrand's definition of the essence of beauty from the concept of "goodness" is easy to lead aesthetic art to the road of moralization and functionalization.
2 "Beauty itself" is obtained through close attention. "When a person concentrates on this essential beauty, he will find that life is really worth living." ⑦ "Great Beauty" cannot be sought by logical language and rational mind, but can only be realized by intuitive observation and sincere feelings. There is a fable in Autumn Water: Zhuangzi said, "Swimming leisurely is a pleasure for fish." Keiko said, "You are not a fish. How can you know that fish are happy?" ? Zhuangzi said, "You are not me. How do you know that I don't know that fish are happy?" " ? " Keiko said: "I am not a son, I really don't know my son;" Zi Gu is not a fish, but he doesn't know the happiness of fish. " Zhuangzi said, "Please follow its source. Confucius said, "You know a lot about fish." He asked me because he knew what I knew. I know it very well. " Zhuangzi's "Fish Music" is an aesthetic judgment with artistic intuition here.
On the origin of poetry: imitation theory and expression theory
As for the origin of poetry, it is generally believed that there are representative theories, Expressionism, Witchcraft Ritual, Religion Occurrence, Game Theory and Subconscious Desire. Zhuangzi's answer is the theory of emotional expression, while Plato summed up the essential characteristics of realistic art with the theory of imitation from the standpoint of loving wisdom and worshiping ideas.
Berber's imitation theory originates from three bed theories. "One is a natural bed, and I think it was made by God. One is a bed made by a carpenter, and the other is a bed painted by a painter. Painters, carpenters and gods are the makers of three kinds of beds respectively. God made an indispensable bed, a real bed. God has never made more than two beds like this, and will never make new ones in the future, so he is the natural maker of beds. The bed of nature and all other natural things are God's creations. Carpenters are the makers of all specific beds. Painters are imitators of what God and carpenters do. ) We call the maker of works separated from nature by two layers imitators. Since the tragic poet is an imitator, like all other imitators, he is naturally separated from the king or truth by two layers. " ⑦ Bai's bed metaphor shows that the bed of nature is a bed made by God, a prototype concept, representing the intangible concept ontology, belonging to the knowable object of the rational world and the origin of all beds in the world; The carpenter's bed is a living appliance, a visible object in the phenomenon world, a product of imitating the prototype concept, and represents practical skills; The bed painted by the painter is a copy of the bed made by the carpenter. Compared with the bed made by God, it is a copy of a copy, a virtual image, and a shadow of a shadow. It is separated from the physical entity of the bed by a layer and has no practical value. Separated from the bed itself by two layers, it has no cognitive value and can only represent imitation art, but this illusory image can confuse the true and the false and impress people. In this way, art is imitation, which is true in Bertrand's logical reasoning.
As the most artistic poetic theorist in ancient China, Zhuangzi's expressive poetics has two characteristics. The first is "truth". What is "true"? "It is not easy for a true person to be influenced by heaven." (Fisherman) It can be seen that in Zhuangzi's view, "truth" means "heaven", "Tao" and "nature". "True, sincere to also. Not refined and sincere, not moving. Therefore, although people who cry hard are sad, they are not sad; Although angry people are strict, they are not arrogant and impetuous; Although strong relatives laughed and disagreed, what was really inside was moving outside, so it was true. -Therefore, the sage's law is precious and true, and it is not confined to vulgarity. " Zhuangzi's "truth" emphasizes the natural generation of true feelings. The second is fantastic imagination. China's thinking theory originated from Zhuangzi's theory of "being quiet and concentrating". Zhuangzi wrote Fable 19, and he claimed that his article was "absurd, absurd and endless." ("Zhuangzi-The World") "Seeing without seeing, listening without speaking, seeing without speaking, and being alone in silence, smelling without speaking. Therefore, it is deep and profound, profound and spiritual; Therefore, everything is connected and nothing is done. When it's good, stay. " (Heaven and Earth) "The shape is above the rivers and seas, and the heart is below Wei Que." (Zhuangzi-Jean Wang) "Heaven and earth coexist with me, and everything is one with me." The description of imagination in Zhuangzi clearly embodies the characteristics of expressionist poetics. The west began to talk about imagination from Aristotle. So Zhuangzi's description of imagination is the earliest theory of imagination in the world.
Obviously, Bernstein's "imitation theory" is based on the metaphysical dualism of nature and reason (sensibility and reason); Zhuangzi's expressionism embodies the view of nature and cosmology of "the unity of man and nature". Bai's theory of imitation is an important cornerstone of western poetics, and Zhuangzi's theory of expression embodies China's mainstream poetics. "Imitation theory" and "expression theory" are one of the fundamental differences and basic characteristics of ancient Chinese and Western poetics.
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