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Wei Jin Northern and Southern dynasties start from Jian’an period of Eastern Han dynasty and end with the Sui dynasty, lasting for over 400 years in history of China, during which the literature has its own unique characteristics in history of the Chinese literature. Reflecting the social and political situations in the forms of poems and novels, the literature in the Wei Jin Northern and Southern dynasties also laid the groundwork for literature development in the following dynasties from perspective of ideology and culture, which had a close relation with the introduction of Buddhism as well. The ancient Chinese novel has two systems, namely, classical Chinese novel system and vernacular Chinese novel system. Only the classical Chinese novels were available in the Wei Jin Northern and Southern dynasties, known as note-book novels to the later generation, which mainly recorded strange and intriguing stories, and both story narration and depiction of characters had taken form then. As far as the subjective intention of the authors was concerned, the novels then excelled in telling true stories but not at artistic fabrication owing to their immature forms. The mature form of the classical Chinese novel and vernacular novel are the Tang legend (from the Tang dynasty) and Hua Ben (form the Song and the Yuan dynasties) respectively. Marked by prevalence of ancient-style poems (with five or seven characters to a line), the literature in the Wei Jin Northern and Southern dynasties was very prosperous, during which the penta-syllabic ancient-style poetry reached its peak time. Great changes took place in literature during the Wei Jin Northern and Southern dynasties, and literary was a more personal creation, during which the imperial court had a core effect on literature, resulting in a considerable palace literary group. A number of excellent poets emerged from the palace literary group, including Cao Zhi, Ruan Ji and Yu Xin, however, the most outstanding poem was Tao Yuanming, who belonged to no particular group. The literature of the Wei Jin Northern and Southern dynasties was actually as a result of inheritance and development of that of the Han dynasty, especially in penta-syllabic ancient-style poetry and Fu (Han-style poetry), and the scholars (mostly poets) put the penta-syllabic ancient-style poetry into its peak through learning from Han Yuefu (musical poems). A number of professional books on literary theories and literary criticism came out during the Wei Jin Northern and Southern dynasties, including Ancient Records and Papers by Cao Pi, Wen Fu by Lu Ji, Literary Heart and the Carving of Dragons by Liu Xie, Quality of Poems by Zhong Rong, Anthology by Xiao Tong and New Versification upon the Jade Station by Xu Ling. Leave a reply

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Concerning the Unity of Truth, Kindness and Beauty Wang Chong puts forward 2 basic requirements on works of art in his works – Lun Heng, namely, realness and usefulness, and he says that the works of art should reflect the realities of life and the truth. He emphasizes that only those that are real could be beautiful. As for the relation between content and form, Wang Chong gives first rank to content, and he also stands firmly against exaggeration (owing to his little understanding between the authenticity of art and history of China), who also advocates that the works of art should meet the requirement of kindness. As Wang Chong emphasizes the usefulness of art, he means that it should play a part in advising to be good and penalizing the vicious in our society as well as singing the praises of the rulers. As for the functions of art in cognition, the art should play a part in enabling the common people to know things better. Wang Chong’s Cultural Thought of Development Wang Chong intensively criticizes the trend (from the Eastern Han dynasty) of returning to the ancient literary style and stressing the past rather than the present, and the considers that the culture has a close relation with our social life; the more advanced our social society is, the more prosperous our culture is, and he requires that the art be useful in our society. Although Wang Chong is against the trend mentioned, he has a comprehensive cognition on relationship between the ancient and the modern, and the doesn't deny the ancient people and the ancient books completely, instead, he claims that a real man should be erudite and informed, know the past well and know the present clearly. In addition, Wang Chong proposes that the articles should be varied in styles and forms and new and ingenious in contents, which should not become slavish imitation of the ancient people.   Leave a reply

The Han-dynastic aesthetics serves as a transitional stage from the Pre-Qin dynastic aesthetics to the Southern & Northern dynastic aesthetics. The two most important classic philosophical works of the Han-dynasty are Huai Nan Tzu by Liu An and Lun Heng by Wang Chong.

Pneuma Naturalism

Wang Chong considers that everything is made up of pneuma, the primal element of the Universe, therefore, everything is unique owing to its distinctive pneuma-content, including the human beings. As a result, there are wise men and foolish men on the Earth. Wang Chong intensively criticizes the religious idealism and mystic philosophy by employing his pneuma naturalism, which has a great influence on the Southern & Northern dynastic aesthetics and even history of the Chinese aesthetics.

The Theory of Form and Spirit

The form and spirit are discussed in Huai Nan Tzu from the perspective of pneuma naturalism, and it’s considered that both form and spirit are made up energy, while the spirit of human beings is composed of primordial energy, which comes and goes out of our body anytime. According to Huai Nan Tzu, the spirit values more than the form and dominates it.

Wang Chong thinks that both form and spirit of human beings are composed of energy, of which the form is actually made up of Yin-energy, while the spirit is constituted of Yang-energy, most importantly, the Yang-energy must depend on form.

Beauty and Aesthetic Sense in Huai Nan Tzu

According to Huai Nan Tzu, both beauty and ugliness are innate values of an object, which are independent of man’s will and are closely related to the overall image of the object. Neither the beautiful object nor the ugly object is pure, which means there is neither absolute beauty nor ugliness, cause’ the beauty and ugliness are relative and differentiable. The forms of beauty are rich and varied, so it is with the forms of artistic expression.

As for the relation between beauty and humans’ labor, it’s believed that beauty is created in the course of laboring of our human beings according to Huai Nan Tzu, and the aesthetic feeling is different from one person to another owing to their differences in psychological condition and cultural accomplishments. An object is aesthetic only for those who are able to appreciate beauty.

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As a great thinker, Confucius expressed his perspectives towards life and the world in proverbs. Compared with ancient Greek and Roman thinkers, Confucius expressed his thoughts in a more intuitionistic way.

Many of Confucius’s thoughts are positive, including his humanistic thinking (such as never impose on others what you yourself do not desire), his doctrine of the mean, his cosmopolitanism (the world is for all), his noble educational thinking (providing education for all without discrimination and teaching according to the student’s ability) and his ethical education thinking, which still gives us edification with brilliance of intelligence now, so his thought is a dazzling pearl in the treasure-house of Chinese culture as well as that of the world as a whole.

Only the Chinese culture is completely inherited among the world culture over thousands of years, which is credited to the strong cohesion of Confucianism.

We must see that the original Confucian thought was very different from that advocated by rulers from the previous dynasties, which was fully utilized by rulers to maintain monarchial power and strengthen the rule over the common people, and it resulted from the historical limitations.
Of course, we have to admit that a large number of dross is also available in the Confucianism, such as the divine right, the three obedience and four virtues, the three cardinal guides and the five constant virtues (Confucian ethics imposed on women) and “Understanding Heavenly Reason, Extinguishing Earthly Desire”, so what we should do is keeping its essence and discarding its dross.

Confucius is an honorable thinker and educator, and it’s very important for us to evaluate his thoughts correctly, so it’s neither the scientific attitude to singing praise of it thoroughly nor denying it completely.

It’s an urgent topic for us to establish a set of values that comply with the times now, especially in the modern times lacking of faith. How we deal with the traditional Chinese culture and the western culture in the modern times tests our wisdom now.

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