A Display of Four Hundred Years of National Soul: The History of Chinese Medieval Poetry

Author: Wang Zhongling
Publisher:
Publishing Date: Not available
Features: This work on the history of historiography for the first time combines aesthetics and literature to elaborate on the subject, achieving a comprehensive innovation in research and writing methods. The principles of innovation include: the study of history is the creation of theory, holism, establishing a scientific logical structure, and grasping the process of literary history from the construction of national culture—psychological dynamics. Therefore, as stated in the book's "Epilogue," it is a work that "emphasizes the logical progression of poetry history's various stages from the development of national thinking, the evolution of social trends, changes in aesthetic tastes, and the construction of aesthetic psychology, in order to showcase our nation's four-century spiritual history and focus on the elucidation of art philosophy." The book is divided into two volumes: The upper volume consists of five parts, which elaborate on the literary movement of this period from a high-level conceptual perspective: the evolution of aesthetic tastes from "beauty" to "elegance"; the replacement of the Han people's by the minimalist style of the scholarly tradition, giving rise to the aesthetic principle of "less is more"; the realization of the "true beauty" concept, forming three characteristics of medieval literature; and the trend of literary development toward a new aesthetic ideal: "hidden elegance." The lower volume contains seven parts, detailing the development of poetry history from the Wei to the Sui dynasties, and exploring the three logical elements inherent in some secondary conceptual starting points, as well as the expansion and progression of the three sets of contradictions they form, which serve as the deep logical thread throughout the entire process. On one hand, the book connects and integrates the development of national thinking, social and cultural progress, and changes in literature itself through the mediation of the construction of aesthetic psychology; on the other hand, it links and integrates the highly abstract elements of logical factors with the concrete realities of poets and their works through specific historical processes. The author summarizes the literary development of the Wei, Western Jin, Eastern Jin, Southern Dynasties, Northern Dynasties, and Sui periods in four processes: the rise and fall of literarization and metaphysical discourse, the vulgarization, and the integration of the northern and southern regions. All poets discussed in the medieval period are comprehensively integrated into these four processes, each occupying a specific position. As a result, the entire book solidifies into a highly rigorous and cohesive whole, completely transforming the fragmented, isolated, andless research approach, avoiding both impoverished historical determinism and blind accidentalism.