Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 1, 2024

Reviewing the Meaning and Conceptualizing the System of Criticism of Form in Ancient Literary Theory

(Abstract)

Wang Yonghao and Wang Tao

The study of ancient Chinese literary theory suffers from an imbalance between the stock of historical materials and their theoretical interpretation, an imbalance that is exacerbated by neglect of the discussion of literary form. In ancient literary theory, discussion of the formal technical elements of each type of text, under the subjects of men, shi, ge, and fa, covers phonology, rhythm, paragraph and intonation on the basis of the characteristics of the Chinese language. It is closely aligned with the programmatic features of traditional literature, and its revelation of the value of ancient literary theory is highly significant. Discussion of form generally revolved around “sound” and “color” and was pursued through “genre” and “sentence intonation.” Hence these became fixed concepts, categories, and so on, in which “gong ming” indicated shared notion, whereas “bie ming” specified unique notion; these crossed categories and derived theoretical meanings. Taking a comprehensive view of the principles of generation, evolution and application based on traditional culture will enable us to grasp the creative texture and aesthetic purport of ancient literature and make possible the realization of the emergence of a literary history in which we have a “meeting of the minds” with the ancients.