Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture

KEY CONCEPTS

TERMBASES

Change Along with Times

The term suggests that literary creation is affected by changes of the times. Author and literary scholar Liu Xie (465？-520) of the Southern Dynasties who used this term pointed out that literary creation is not an isolated phenomenon. Rather, it is affected by numerous historical factors, such as the prevailing social and political conditions, the personal preferences of rulers, as well as intellectual trends.

CITATION

Thus we know that songs and literary style change with the times, just like when the wind blows, waves are stirred up in the water. （Liu Xie：The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons）

CITATION

Literary changes are affected by the ways of the world. A literary style’s rise and decline in popularity is caused by changes of the time. （Liu Xie: The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons）

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CORRELATION

Time / Timing
Shi (时 time or timing) has the following three meanings: First, the sequence or rules of heaven’s way, such as spring, summer, autumn, and winter; or hours that mark changes of time during day and night; Second, a certain celestial phenomenon or climatic condition having impact on human activity, such as seasons for farming or timing for other activities; Third, the right time or opportunity that emerges in the course of human activity. The emergence or disappearance of timing is governed by the rules of heaven’s way or human behavior. People should gain a good understanding and master time or timing and their manifested rules and act in a way commensurate with them.
Imaginative Contemplation
The term refers to a state of mind in the process of literary and artistic creation. It suggests that the author, fully inspired by emotions, transcends the constraint of time and space, and enters into a state of free imagination or a special mood for literary and artistic creation, before producing a natural and beautiful work of literature or art, either in language or in imagery. This term was popularly used in literary and artistic theories of the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern dynasties. Liu Xie （465？-520）of the Southern Dynasties devoted one chapter especially to this term in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons. Imaginative contemplation is the unique mental activity in literary and artistic creation, different from other cognitive activities.
Style and Temperament
This is an important term about literary style that stresses the unity and integration of the styles of writings with the temperaments of their authors. The term originated by Liu Xie (465?-520) of the Southern Dynasties in his The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons. One chapter of the book discusses how the styles of writings are related to the temperaments of the writers, and argues that the writings truly reflect the temperaments of their authors. This has encouraged later generations to analyze different styles of literary works based on the authors’ temperaments and became a basic line of thought on ancient Chinese literary style.
Fenggu
This term refers to powerful expressiveness and artistic impact that come from a literary work’s purity of thoughts and emotions, as well as from its meticulously crafted structure. Despite some difference in interpreting the term, people tend to agree that fenggu (风骨) can be understood as being lucid and fresh in language while sturdy in structure. Feng (风) means “style,” which emphasizes that a literary work should be based on pure thoughts, vivid impressions, and rich emotions so as to produce an effect of powerful expressiveness. Gu (骨) means “bones” or proper structure, figuratively. It stresses the impact of structure and sentence order, requiring a piece of writing to be robust, vigorous, profound, and yet succinct. If a piece of work is wordy and overly rhetorical but weak in content, then it lacks the impact of a “proper structure,” no matter how flowery its expressions are. If such writing is awkward in delivery and has no emotions and vitality, then it lacks expressiveness in “style.” Fenggu does not preclude, but rather combines with linguistic elegance in order to create a piece of good work. Good command of fenggu depends on the personality and dispositions of the author. In The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, Liu Xie （465？-520? or 532?）of the Southern Dynasties devoted a chapter to the discussion of fenggu, which is the first essay on writing style in the history of classical Chinese literary criticism.
Refining and Deleting
This term refers to improving a literary work by refining its basic content and making the presentation concise. Refining and deleting is a basic process in literary writing. The term was first mentioned by Liu Xie (465?-520) of the Southern Dynasties in his The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons. It means that in producing a literary work, the author should select the right elements from all the material he has, delete unnecessary parts and keep the essence, and write in a concise way to best present what he has in mind and to best suit the styles of writing. It shows that literary creation is a process of constantly striving for perfection in terms of both content and form. This idea had a great impact on the theory of theatrical writing in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Ornate parallel style
The term refers to a classical Chinese literary style generally known as “parallel prose,” largely composed of couplets of phrases with similar structure. Monosyllabic Chinese words, each represented with a single written character, are fairly easy to arrange in pairs of expressions with semantic symmetry and prosodic harmony. The ornate parallel style highlights the beauty of the form of the language without neglecting the harmony between form and content; and it is employed to produce fine works of utmost beauty, with form and content reinforcing each other.
Exaggeration and Embellishment
The term refers to the use of exaggeration and embellishment in a literary work to enhance its artistic appeal. When used as appropriate, exaggeration and embellishment can achieve an artistic effect beyond that of realistic descriptions. However, if overused, it will create the opposite effect, making the writing too flowery to be credible. Therefore, the literary critics of old China believed that excessive use of exaggeration and embellishment should be avoided.
Latent Sentiment and Evident Beauty
This term means that prose and poetry may contain latent sentiments and thoughts, as well as expressions and sentences that present an apparent sense of beauty. “Latent sentiment and evident beauty” first appeared as the title of a chapter in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons. There, “latent sentiment” means what lies beyond events and landscapes in a narrative or a description, triggering imaginations on the part of the reader. On the other hand, “evident beauty” refers to the kind of beauty created by expressions and sentences in a piece of writing, which bring out that latent meaning. The latent and the apparent qualities are inseparable, constituting an aesthetic feature of good literary works. Later, this term developed into a rhetorical device in writing prose and poetry.
Cultivating Qi
This term suggests cultivating one’s moral spirit and improving one’s physical and mental well-being to achieve the best state of mind in order to write excellent works. “Cultivating qi (气)” has three implications: 1) in the pre-Qin period Mencius (372?-289 BC) emphasized that the virtuous and the capable should foster a “noble spirit” conducive to moral cultivation; 2) A Comparative Study of Different Schools of Learning by Wang Chong (27-97?) of the Eastern Han Dynasty has a chapter entitled “Treatise on Cultivating Qi,” which emphasizes qi cultivation primarily in regards to maintaining good health; 3) Liu Xie (465?-520) of the Southern Dynasties, in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, drew upon the foregoing ideas and suggested maintaining good physical condition and a free, composed mental state in the initial phase of literary creation, while opposing excessive mental exertion. “Cultivating qi” subsequently became an important term in the lexicon of literary psychology.
Resonance and Empathy
The term is about appreciating and understanding the ideas in literary and artistic works and the thoughts of their authors. The original meaning was feeling a sense of resonance with music. It was later extended by literary critics in the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern dynasties to mean resonance or empathy between writers / artists and their readers / viewers. As a core concept in literary criticism, it touches upon both general and particular issues in artistic creation and appreciation, involves rich intellectual implications, and meshes with the audience’s response in Western criticism, receptive aesthetics, and hermeneutics.

KEY CONCEPTS

Change Along with Times

CORRELATION

Time / Timing

Imaginative Contemplation

Style and Temperament

Fenggu

Refining and Deleting

Ornate parallel style

Exaggeration and Embellishment

Latent Sentiment and Evident Beauty

Cultivating Qi

Resonance and Empathy