Letters on Beauty

Author: Zhu Guangqian
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-05-01
Features: To comprehensively improve the Chinese literacy of primary and secondary school students, enhance the modern awareness of textbook courses, and vigorously promote new learning methods, the Ministry of Education issued the "Full-time Compulsory Education Chinese Curriculum Standards" and the "General High School Chinese Curriculum Standards" as core content of the basic education curriculum reform in 2001 and 2003, respectively. The "Chinese Curriculum Standards" serve as the basis for teaching, assessment, and examination question setting, as well as the foundation for national curriculum management and evaluation, reflecting the fundamental requirements of the state for students at different stages in terms of knowledge, skills, processes, and methods. Compared to the former "Chinese Teaching Syllabus" for primary and secondary schools, the "Chinese Curriculum Standards" have made significant revisions to the specific works of extracurricular reading in the original syllabus and stipulated the total amount of reading required for students at different stages, urging primary and secondary school students to read widely. To this end, we have compiled and published this series of "New Curriculum Standards Chinese Reading Series," with all book titles designated by the new standards. To assist students in reading, we have included an introductory essay before each classic work, providing an in-depth yet accessible introduction to the relevant information about the book. Letters on Aesthetics is a work of "late-life dedication" written by the author at the age of eighty-two. It is both a review and organization of his long journey in aesthetic studies and a response to friends who had written to him but not yet received replies, especially to the younger generation. The book is a collection of thirteen letters. In it, Mr. Zhu Guangqian delves into the in-depth exploration of aesthetic issues commonly concerned by young people, such as beauty, aesthetic appreciation, the laws of beauty, and the categories of beauty. At the same time, he provides a detailed explanation of the aesthetic characteristics of literature, the laws and features of literary creation, both in terms of thought and methodology, making it an important reference book for beginners in the study of aesthetics. Letters on Aesthetics is not a typical academic treatise; it adopts the form of letters, with a conversational and natural tone, simplifying many profound aesthetic concepts.