Abstract
In his early preoccupation with aesthetic or literary criticism, Wang Guowei was inspired in part by German idealism and in part by the traditions of Chinese art. In Western philosophy, he was especially influenced by Kant, Schiller, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, and his revaluation of Chinese literature was marked by a preference for ci poetry. His philosophy of aesthetic criticism gave a central role to the value of art. In his theoretical speculations, Wang Guowei hovered over the vast territory of Chinese culture with conceptual wings borrowed from the West. His aesthetic scholarship was grounded in his native heritage, but greatly benefited from his ability to stand astride both Eastern and Western cultures.
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Notes
- 1.
Wang Guowei, “Lun jin nian zhi xue shu jie” [About the Academic Society in Recent Years], 1905. Note: All the citations, if not specified, are translated into English by myself. The Chinese essays by Wang Guowei are available in his collected works. Cf. Wang Guo, Wang Guowei wen ji [Collected Works of Wang Guowei] (Beijing: Zhonguo Wenshi Press, 1997), Vols. 1–4.
- 2.
Wang Guowei, “Guoxue congkan xu” [Foreword to Journal of Chinese Studies], 1911.
- 3.
Wang Guowei, “Lun xin xueyu zhi shuru” [On the New Terminology Imported from the West], 1905.
- 4.
Wang Guowei, “Lun Xing” [On Human Nature], 1904.
- 5.
Wang Guowei. “Shi li” [Interpreting the Notion of “Rites”], 1904.
- 6.
Wang Guowei, “Yuan ming” [The Original Fate], 1906.
- 7.
Chen Yinque, “Wang Jingan yishu xu” [Preface to Wang Guowei’s Posthumous Works], 1934.
- 8.
Wang Guowei, “Shi xun” [Interpreting Xun as a Ten-Day Period], 1918.
- 9.
Wang Guowe, “Jiaoyu zhi zongzhi” [About the General Objectives of Education], 1903.
- 10.
Wang Guowei, “Zouding jingxueke daxue wenxueke daxue zhangcheng shu hou” [Critique of the Proposed Program and Curriculum for Advanced Education in China], 1906.
- 11.
Wang Guowei, “Qu du pian” [On Getting Rid of the Opium Problem], 1907.
- 12.
Wang Guowei, “Renjian shihao zhi yanjiu” [A Study of Human Hobbies], 1907.
- 13.
Wang Guowei, “Qu du pian” [On Getting Rid of the Opium Problem], 1907.
- 14.
Wang Guowei, “Jiaoyu ougan size” [Four Random Thoughts on Education in China], 1904.
- 15.
Wang Guowei, “Shu jinshi jiaoyu sixiang yu zhexue zhi guanxi” [Of the Interrelations Between Modern Thoughts on Education and Philosophy], 1906.
- 16.
F. Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man (trans. E. M. Wilkinson and L. A. Willoughby, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967).
- 17.
Ibid., p. 172.
- 18.
Ibid., pp. 213–219.
- 19.
Ibid., p. 215.
- 20.
Wang Guowei, “Kongzi zhi meiyu zhuyi” [Confucius’ Aesthetic Educationism], 1904.
- 21.
Confucius, The Analects (trans. D. C. Lau), VIII:8: The Confucian Analects (trans. James Legge), 8:8.
- 22.
Wang Guowei, “Lun xiaoxuexiao changgeke zhi cailiao” [On the Subject Matter of Vocal Music in Primary Schools], 1907.
- 23.
Wang Guowei, “Zi xu” [A Brief Autobiography], 1907.
- 24.
Wang Guowei, “Hong lou meng pinglun” [A Review of A Dream of Red Mansions], 1904.
- 25.
A. Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea (trans. R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1883, rep. 1964), Vol. 3, pp. 126–137.
- 26.
Ibid., pp. 176–177.
- 27.
Wang Guowei, “Hong lou meng pinglun” [A Review of A Dream of Red Mansions], 1904.
- 28.
Ibid.
- 29.
Ibid.
- 30.
Ibid.
- 31.
Wang Guowei, “Wenxue xiaoyan” [Notes on Literature], 1906.
- 32.
Wang Guowei, “Renjian shihao zhi yanjiu” [A Study of Human Hobbies], 1907.
- 33.
I. Kant, Critique of Judgment (trans. J. B. Bernard, New York: Hafner Press, 1951), pp. 168–181.
- 34.
F. Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man , pp. 205–209.
- 35.
Wang Guowei, “Lun zhexuejia yu meishujia zhi tianzhi” [On the Bounden Duties of Philosophers and Artists], 1905.
- 36.
Wang Guowei, “Shubenhua yu Nicai” [Of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche], 1904.
- 37.
A. Schopenhauer, “On Genius,” in A. Schopenhauer (ed.), The Art of Literature (trans. T. Bailey Saunders, London et al.: Swan Sonnensche In. and The MacMillan Press, 1897), pp. 129–149.
- 38.
F. Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, in The Portable Nietzsche (trans. and ed. Walter Kaufmann, London: Penguin Books, 1976), pp. 279–284.
- 39.
Wang Guowei. “Wenxue xiaoyan” [Notes on Literature], 1906.
- 40.
Wang Guowei, “Gu-ya zhi zai meixue shang zhi weizhi” [The Position of Classical Gracefulness in Aesthetics], 1907.
- 41.
I. Kant, Critique of Judgment (trans. J. B. Bernard), pp. 151–161.
- 42.
Wang Guowei, “Wenxue xiaoyan” [Notes on Literature], 1906.
- 43.
Ibid.
- 44.
A. Schopenhauer, “On Authorship,” in The Art of Literature, p. 45.
- 45.
F. Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, in The Portable Nietzsche (trans. and ed. Walter Kaufmann).
- 46.
Wang Guowei, Wenxue xiaoyan [Notes on Literature], 1906.
- 47.
Wang Guowei, “Gu-ya zhi zai meixue shang zhi weizhi” [The Position of Classical Gracefulness in Aesthetics], 1907.
- 48.
Ibid.
- 49.
Chen Yuanhui, Lun Wang Guowei [A Study of Wang Guowei] (Changchun: Northeast Normal University Press, 1989), pp. 71–75.
- 50.
Wang Guowei, Song-Yuan xiqu kao [A Historical Study of Drama in the Song and Yuan Dynasties], 1912.
- 51.
Ye Jiaying, Wang Guowei jiqi wenxue piping [Wang Guowei and His Literary Criticism] (Shijiazhuang: Hebei Education Press, 1997), pp. 186–188.
- 52.
Wang Guowei, Wang Kuo-wei’s Jen-Chien Tzi-hua: A Study in Chinese Literary Criticism (trans. Adele Austin Rickett, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1977), p. 42.
- 53.
Wang Guowei, Song-Yuan xiqu kao [A Historical Study of the Drama in the Song and Yuan Dynasties], 1912, p. 389.
- 54.
Li Zehou, “Yijing qian tan” [An Initial Enquiry into the Theory of Yijing], in Yao Kefu (ed.), Renjian cihua ji pinglun hui bian [Renjian Poetic Remarks and Selected Essays on Wang Guowei’s Poetics] (Beijing: Shumu Wenxian Press, 1983), pp. 161–174.
- 55.
Chen Yong, “Lue tan jingjie shuo” [A Note on the Theory of Jingjie], in Yao Kefu (ed.), Renjian cihua ji pinglun hui bian [Renjian Poetic Remarks and Selected Essays on Wang Guowei’s Poetics], pp. 210–214.
- 56.
Ye Jiaying, “Dui Renjian cihua zhong jingjie yici zhi yijie de tantao” [About the Definitions of Jingjie as a Term in Wang Guowei’s Renjian Poetic Remarks], in Yao Kefu (ed.), Renjian cihua ji pinglun hui bian [Renjian Poetic Remarks and Selected Essays on Wang Guowei’s Poetics], pp. 147–159.
- 57.
Wang Guowei, Wang Kuo-wei’s Jen-Chien Tzi-hua: A Study in Chinese Literary Criticism (trans. Adele Austin Rickett), p. 40.
- 58.
Ibid., pp. 41–42.
- 59.
Zhu Guangqian, “Shi de yin yu xian” [Of the Implicit and Explicit State in Poetry], in Yao Kefu (ed.), Renjian cihua ji pinglun hui bian [Renjian Poetic Remarks and Selected Essays on Wang Guowei’s Poetics], pp. 87–89.
- 60.
Wang Guowei, Wang Kuo-wei’s Jen-Chien Tzi-hua: A Study in Chinese Literary Criticism (trans. Adele Austin Rickett), pp. 42–43; also see Wang Kuo-wei, Poetic Remarks in the Human World (trans. Ching-I Tu, Taiwan: Chung Hwa Book Company, 1970), p. 5.
- 61.
Wang Guowei, Wang Kuo-wei’s Jen-Chien Tzi-hua: A Study in Chinese Literary Criticism (trans. Adele Austin Rickett), 1977, pp. 56–57; also see Wang Kuo-wei, Poetic Remarks in the Human World (trans. Ching-I Tu), pp. 26–27.
- 62.
Ye Jiaying, Wang Guowei jiqi wenxue piping [Wang Guowei and His Literary Criticism], p. 220.
- 63.
Zhang Bennan, Wang Guowei meixue sixiang yanjiu [A Study of Wang Guowei’s Aesthetics] (Taiwan: Wenjin Press, 1992), pp. 231–232.
- 64.
F. Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Part I, 1976.
- 65.
Nie Zhenbin, Wang Guowei meixue sixiang pingshu [Critique of Wang Guowei’s Aesthetic Ideas] (Shenyang: Liaoning University Press, 1997), p. 139.
- 66.
Wang Guowei, Wang Kuo-wei’s Jen-Chien Tzi-hua: A Study in Chinese Literary Criticism (trans. Adele Austin Rickett), p. 43.
- 67.
I. Kant, Critique of Judgment (trans. J. B. Bernard), pp. 156–157.
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Wang, K. (2019). Aesthetic Criticism of Transculturality. In: Chinese Culture of Intelligence. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3173-2_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3173-2_15
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