Chinese Aesthetic Issues

Introduction This book is a masterpiece on comparative literature written by Professor Su Yuanxi, former president of the American Comparative Literature Association and a famous sinologist. By discussing the history of Chinese commentary on the Book of Songs, the author extensively explores the issues of comparative poetics that exist in it. This book uses a deconstructive rhetorical reading method to reconstruct the Chinese Confucian way of annotating the poetry of the Book of Songs, treating it as an "allegorical" classical aesthetic model. It also uses the same rhetorical reading method to reinterpret the debates between European missionaries on Chinese philosophical issues and Hegel's philosophical discussion of Chinese history in the 17th and 18th centuries. It juxtaposes the two with Confucian annotators, and regards their work as a comparable creation of an aesthetic model for constructing Chinese history. On the other hand, this book also has many new insights in the study of "The Book of Songs". It specifically analyzes the process in which the "Book of Songs" obtains the "allegorical" meaning from "poetry expresses ambition" to "poetry expresses ambition", and points out that the acquisition of allegorical meaning in "Guofeng" is closely related to the Han Confucian commentaries on "Ya" It is related to the application of the tradition of "Ode" to "Guofeng". It also analyzes the significance of the differences between the "Preface to Poems" and its theoretical source "Book of Rites and Music". Major theoretical issues can also be found in the careful reading of the specific text of "The Book of Songs".