Tragic art, in a broad sense, is an art form with tragic stories as its genre; In a narrow sense, it is a special national art. Different nations and countries will form their own different artistic characteristics because of their different political economy, historical conditions, national character, cultural quality, moral concepts and aesthetic tastes. In China, the word "tragedy" did not appear occasionally in some literary theories until the late Qing Dynasty. However, ancient literature often called those tragic works "elegies" or "elegies"; In the folk, people call it "bitter drama", which can be regarded as the original form of China's tragic art.
In a sense, tragic art has a clear cultural ideal and value goal; It reflects people's feelings of accomplishing their mission with tragic pride on the basis of universal recognition of suffering and fate. Those tragic figures are often fearless and willing to pay for the suffering of the times, and are willing to bring their sacrifices into the moral pedigree, and the victims will gain spiritual immortality. At the same time, because the society is divided into different political groups and different structural levels, this kind of moral pursuit and social evaluation standards will be different, and the alienation of moral standards will also breed painful and sad feelings, so it will be manifested in artistic forms. In other words, moral life will also spew out emotional magma, thus solidifying into the cornerstone of tragic art.
The Artistic Features of China's Tragedy Art
In different types of tragic art, the personality image of tragic characters is gradually accepted and established in the process of mass aesthetics with sadness and pain. It is for this reason that tragic art always has a heroic brilliance, and people's emotional reactions always contain elements of surprise and admiration. Tragic art emphasizes the flexible choice of the binary value of the group and the individual, and there are grievances in sorrow and sorrows in resentment, showing a contradictory and conflicting value judgment display mode, thus forming a unique mode of China's tragic art.
First, the narrative conflict. Goethe said: "The key to tragedy is that conflicts cannot be solved. Tragedies can conflict because of contradictions in any relationship, as long as such contradictions have a natural basis, which is a real tragedy." For example, the story of Liang Zhu not only touched generations of boys and girls, but also made many adults feel sad. People are now used to defining this story as a "tragedy" and calling it Romeo and Juliet in China. Liang Zhu's story fully embodies the characteristics of tragic art, that is, the tragic conflict between the inevitable requirement of human emotion and the fact that this requirement cannot be realized. To sum up, tragic art has two basic characteristics: one is the insolubility of conflict; Secondly, tragic conflicts cause people's emotional experiences such as pity, sympathy, sadness and even anxiety, loneliness, loftiness, destruction and death. The experience forms of these tragic conflicts penetrate into the works, which makes the tragedies of the works appear in different experience levels. For example, Autumn in Han Palace focuses on the love conflict between Emperor Han Yuan and Wang Zhaojun. At the same time, the conflict between love clues and political clues is also manifested in the form of tragedy. The conflict between love and political clues is pity and fear. Therefore, with the development of the plot and the acceleration of the conflict, the work presents a complete experience form of sadness and resentment. As for the tragic conflict, it mainly lies in the tragic conflict process and the pursuit of the plot, that is, the multi-level conflict between good and evil, loyalty and rape, righteousness and evil, beauty and ugliness, so the tragic aesthetic effect is fierce and tragic.
Second, the aesthetic emotion. Appreciation of tragic art is an aesthetic emotion, so pity for tragic art is also an aesthetic sympathy. Tragic art can arouse people's sympathy and emotion at the same time. In other words, when we appreciate the tragic art, it is like watching a big storm. The first thing we feel is the fear of facing some overwhelming force, and then that frightening force takes us to a new height, where we experience the vitality that we rarely experience in real life. After conquering us and making us feel awe, it will inspire us. When appreciating the tragic art, with the deepening of the story, the appreciator will reach the realm of * * * with the protagonist, which will make people feel excited and produce pleasure.
Third, the nationality of the subject matter. From the perspective of tragedy consciousness, China's most famous love tragedies, The Water Margin and Zhu Yingtai, are different from the equally famous Romeo and Juliet in the West. Although the two endings are similar and the protagonist finally falls in love, the tragic consciousness and cultural connotation embodied by the two authors are "very different". China's "butterfly lovers" finally "becomes a butterfly to fly together", which is a sad ending and embodies a kind of "longing" desire. The final ending of the western "Lord Luo" is very ordinary, realistic and convincing, which gives people great impact and shock. The tragic ending of China's tragic art is different from that of the West. The ending of western tragedies is intended to arouse people's pity, sympathy and even fear, so that people's thoughts can be promoted in tragic conflicts. However, China's tragic art does not attach importance to all kinds of emotional experiences brought by the tragic ending. It does not advocate purifying human nature in compassion, but always follows a plot that reflects the playwright's or audience's ideal wishes after a tragic event, so as to dilute the tragic conflict, reasonably adjust the emotional experience caused by the tragic conflict, and make it gradually smooth, so as to obtain psychological satisfaction and spiritual comfort. This is not only in line with the aesthetic principle of "the beauty of neutralization", but also in line with the traditional cultural habits and national psychology of China people. As Wang Guowei, a master of modern Chinese studies, said: "The spirit of our country is also in the world and cheerful, so the drama novels representing its spirit are full of this cheerful color; It begins with sadness, ends with joy, ends with separation, ends with harmony, ends with sleepiness and ends with joy. " ①
The Popular Aesthetic Value of China's Tragic Art
The aesthetic value of the public is always "refined" from concrete and diverse artistic phenomena. In different times, different countries and different artistic phenomena, aesthetic values may show obvious differences. With the development of the story, tragic art has realized the function of spiritual enlightenment from the perspective of human nature and the evaluation of human value.
To sum up, the aesthetic value of China's tragic art is mainly manifested in the following aspects:
First, the beauty of ideals. When Aristotle first explained tragedy, he pointed out that tragedy is a serious matter in life. It is not synonymous with sadness, pain, sadness, pessimism or death and misfortune. And the meaning of the word "tragedy" in everyday language is not exactly the same. Therefore, as an aesthetic object, tragic art must be able to make people flourish, improve their spiritual realm and establish the ideal of a happy life. Tragic art, through the temporary suppression of ugliness on beauty, strongly demonstrates the ultimate inevitable victory of beauty. In fact, the aesthetic characteristics of tragic art are bound to show a yearning for happiness, which is even more shocking. In the tragic art, people feel victorious in the face of the tragic image of failure. This is a failure after hard struggle, not a surrender of cowards. Therefore, the key to tragic art is not only great pain, but also the way to treat pain. Without resistance to disasters, there would be no tragic art. What makes people happy is not pain and disaster, but the spirit of resistance and persistent pursuit of a better future.
Therefore, the tragic art inadvertently produced a far-reaching impact in line with moral ideals. Because when the ideal beauty is destroyed, it causes its repressed feelings to rebound, making people realize the truth from the pain and destruction of tragic characters. It can awaken people, inspire people to fight, and thus cultivate people's moral feelings.
Second, the beauty of morality. When talking about the moral function of tragedy, Aristotle thinks that tragedy evokes pity and fear, which leads to the purification of these emotions. After purification, people will feel a comfortable relaxation and get a harmless pleasure. Aristotle's purification theory has social moral thought. It can be said that through the ages, there is no real tragic work that has nothing to do with morality. Tragic art has typical moral education significance, through which good moral enlightenment can be obtained and people's moral sentiment can be effectively improved. Guan Hanqing's "Dou E Yuan" was once called a masterpiece of tragic art by Wang Guowei, a master of Chinese studies, and was "worthy of being included in the world's great tragedies". As for the image of Dou E, its main character, it is generally believed that she embodies the spirit of bravely fighting against the dark society and preferring death to surrender. But in today's view, the achievement of this character's tragic character is not only due to the suppression and persecution of his own life demands by evil forces, but also does not rule out the negative influence of traditional ethics. This can be understood from her attitude towards women's remarriage and her description of refusing Zhang Donkey's forced marriage: "Forget when the good days are over, and love when they are new;" The soil vein on the grave is still wet, and the shelf has changed into new clothes. Where is the mourning of crying down the Great Wall? Where can I throw a lot of water when washing yarn? Where can I find the fossils on the mountain? Pathetic and shameful! "Here, the female morality advocated by feudal ethics has become the only weapon for the heroine to resist violence, while the traditional ethics that contributed to Dou E's tragedy runs through her works, which is also the inevitable limitation of China's traditional tragic art.