Chinese landscape painting invites “roaming” and “residing” within its realms, guided by the Tao, which manifests both in the metaphysical realm and as tangible pathways in the artwork. This Tao is not merely a detailed object within the landscape but often emerges as the emptiness framed by mountains, trees, and stones. The panoramic landscape of the Five dynasties and Northern Song dynasty, resonating with our body schema, facilitates an immersive experience, thus founding the spatial perception inherent in Chinese landscape art. Pathways depicted typically ascend from the frame's lower edge, winding upward, perceived by viewers as extending deeply into the scene, fostering a dynamic engagement. These paths, though varied, consistently appear as “narrow paths” within vast landscapes, embodying the concept of “three distances” and emphasizing the portrayal of immense distances on a finite frame. Coupled with the motif of “going alone,” these elements resonate with traditional Chinese philosophical and poetic themes, propelling the viewer towards a transcendent interaction with the cosmos.

François Jullien coins the term “de-coincidence” (dé-coïncidence), considering it a refreshing source for artistic creation. From this perspective, he reexamines the Western artistic tradition based on “representation” (adéquation), criticizes its lack of fruitfulness, and proposes the use of “divergence” (l'écart). To de-coincide, Jullien turns to traditional Chinese painting as a source of enlightenment, perceived as the “outside” (dehors). He highly extols Dao, namely the continuous bipolar interaction and transformation, and believes that the great harmony in Daoist thought is a driving force to reflect on the European aesthetic tradition. Jullien's work has sought to avoid exoticism and Orientalism, with the ambition of constructing a dialogic approach to the interpretation of Chinese issues.

The influence of Chinese garden-designing aesthetics in Britain is inseparable from the spread of Confucianism to the West. The British saw several similarities between Confucian philosophy and European deism, as both opposed divine revelation and advocated learning from nature. The former was deemed superior due to its long history. Through the cultural appropriation of British deism, Chinese language, statecraft, religion and art were all seen as “natural.” Pope regarded Chinese gardens as “great and wild,” and he strongly believed that Chinese garden designers, with their superb craftsmanship, succeeded in reproducing the “primitive state” of nature and the “universal order” of God's creation. Concealing artifice in nature is the common goal that both Chinese garden designing and Pope's neoclassicism endeavor to achieve. Therefore, it was the valorization of “naturalness,” not the aesthetics of irregularity, that endeared Chinese gardens to prominent cultural figures like Pope and ensured its broader influence in Britain beyond the debates of the cultural elite.

In the 17th century, French painter Jacques Linard executed a series of still life paintings over thirteen years, consistently featuring a blue and white porcelain bowl adorned with the motif of “Dongpo's Tour at Red Cliff.” This repeated motif emerged as a symbolic element within his works exploring themes of the “five senses” and “vanitas.” Due to the divergent cultural and artistic contexts of China and the West, the depicted porcelain bowls exhibit a transformation in function, decoration, and significance. These alterations not only shift the representation of “Dongpo's Tour at Red Cliff” from its literary origins to a purely visual form but also imbue the motif with new layers of meaning. Consequently, Linard's works, particularly Porcelana china con flores, prominently display characteristics of a “meta-picture” or “meta-painting.”

In his book Traité du trait, the contemporary French art historian Hubert Damisch describes a grammatical structure of the “trait” in Western art history from the perspective of Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of language. Using the visual art symbol of the “trait”, Damisch relates the line in Renaissance sketch to the linear cut on a flat surface in contemporary Western abstract art, reconstructing a non-chronological narrative system of art history. In this art theory monograph on the “trait”, Damisch devotes a chapter to a detour into the brush line in Chinese classical painting, incorporating the line in Chinese literati painting and calligraphy into his system of linear art language. By analyzing the factors of Chinese calligraphy and painting in Damisch's Traité du trait, this article explores the issue of the “trait” in Chinese and Western aesthetics and their mutual interpretive relationship, presenting an intercultural research paradigm of art semiotics.

The modern belief in the theory of artistic autonomy is the result of a series of historical and cultural events, along with the epistemological tradition of metaphysics from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. The concept of “fine arts is the key mechanism for the formation of the theory of artistic autonomy. Aesthetic ethics and formal autonomy also manifested in Chinese classical culture; however, ancient Chinese art philosophy did not adopt “aesthetic” as the criterion for formulating art ontology. Consequently, it did not develop the art concept of self-sufficiency, self-consistency and self-discipline. The unified social structure model prevents structural decomposition in the field of social practice, and the Chinese approach of “binary corresponding analogical association” inhibits metaphysical formal ontology. These factors impede the development of the theory of artistic autonomy. The eastward expansion of Western learning in modern times allowed the theory of artistic autonomy to spread in the field of aesthetic culture during the May Fourth Period. Still, the tragic history of “salvation overcoming enlightenment” prevented the art of autonomy from achieving mainstream status.

Jiang Liangfu's Introduction to Literature, published between 1930 and 1933, emerges as one of the earliest modern Chinese textbooks dedicated to literary theory. Its primary focus lies in the conversion of traditional literary resources into the creation of modern literary knowledge through the quest for the “original essence of emotions.” Within this textbook, Jiang Liangfu distinguishes between “human nature” and “emotion”, providing a localized and contemporary connotation to the theoretical concept of “emotion.” He utilizes this concept as a foundation for delving into the “original essence of emotions” present in the subjective factors and perceptible forms found within of classic works. Jiang Liangfu subsequently traces the core of literary emotions, centering his attention on the “folk origins” and “southern attributes” of traditional literary genres. His goal is to “reinvent” the literary tradition and stimulate the creation of new literary knowledge. This approach, which transforms classical literary experiences into modern intellectual forms, proves beneficial in reinvigorating our own literary tradition and advancing the discipline of literary theory.

“Synthesis” emerged as a pivotal approach in Yuan Kejia's proposal of “modernizing Chinese new poetry” in the 1940s. While scholars often credit the influence of T.S. Eliot and I.A. Richards in the Western origins of “synthesis,” the significant impact of Stephen Spender is sometimes underestimated. Firstly, Yuan Kejia depicted the characteristics of modern British poetry as a progression “from analysis to synthesis” (“from self-deprecating mockery to pity”), with both “synthesis” and “pity” finding roots in Spender's theory. Secondly, in contrast to Eliot and Richards, who severed the connection between art and life, Spender's notion of “fusing” ideas, experiences and objective reality into a single line or image greatly influenced Yuan Kejia's inclusion of “reality” as a pivotal component of “synthesis.” Finally, contemporary translations allowed Yuan Kejia to convey Spender's modernity theory in the 1940s, a concept reinvigorated in the 1980s through Calinescu's scholarship. Yuan Kejia's embrace of the Spender's left-wing poetics exemplifies his literary adaptability and resilience within the intellectual circle of wartime Beijing.

“Nature” as an important concept in the history of ideas provides a perspective for understanding the relationship between The Renaissance collective and the history of new literature. The Renaissance collective elevated “nature” as a fundamental narrative focus, notably through the innovation of landscape poetry, which marked the forefront of literary modernization. This initiative spawned a critical discourse juxtaposing “nature” and “life”, rooted in an amalgamation of contemporary natural philosophies. Through this discourse, the collective advocated for a “humanization of nature”, a concept positioning the material world as the cornerstone of new literary exploration. This conceptualization fostered a diversified intellectual engagement with “nature”, thereby enriching the theoretical landscape of modern literature. The Renaissance collective's theorization on the “humanization of nature” stands as their seminal contribution to the philosophical underpinnings of new literature and exemplifies their ideological evolution.

In solidifying the scholarly framework of “the learning of scholar-officials”, Zeng Guofan, inspired by the cosmological insights of the “Xici” (the chapters explaining the principles of The Book of Changes) and the dialectical perspective of Zhang Zai, drew upon Han Yu's discourse of the “complementary use of Confucianism and Mohism” to formulate his own theory of “complementary use of odd and even prose”. This theory, distinguishing itself from mid-Qing narratives on the interplay of prose styles, posits odd prose as foundational, to be harmoniously integrated with even prose. This approach evaluates prose through the lens of qi dynamics and divine governance, re-establishing Han Yu's ancient prose as a bridge in academic diversification and as a paradigm in stylistic evolution. Furthermore, Zeng's theory expands upon Yao Nai's dichotomy of prose into yin and yang, aiming to rectify the biases of overt masculinity, thereby neglecting feminine subtlety in literal works of Tongcheng. By adopting Han Yu's ideal of returning to the classical virtues and embracing broad scholarly knowledge, Zeng Guofan's acceptance of the controversial “complementary use of Confucianism and Mohism” underscores his commitment to rejuvenating the ethos of self-improvement, societal education, and pragmatic application during the late Qing transformation.

Zhang Shizhao's Jiayin literary style has been referred to as “political essays”, “essays of logic” and “Europeanized classical essays” in literary history. These terms highlight the characteristics of Zhang's writing against the backdrop of the evolving classical writing in the late Qing and early Republican periods. Indeed, Zhang Shizhao's concept of literature was deeply influenced by Zhang Taiyan, and his way of thinking drew from traditional academic thoughts such as Mohism and Wang Chong's Critical Essays, showing a contradictory inclination towards the objectives of modern Western logic. In terms of literary practice, Zhang Shizhao advocated for a prose style of the pre-Han philosophers, utlizing the magazine Jiayin as a platform to experiment with reviving this style. Concurrent with the emergence of rhetoric in the field of Chinese academic circle, Zhang Shizhao practiced lexicon-oriented grammatical rhetoric, demonstrating the inherent rhetorical finesse of classical literature. Examing the shifts and continuities within Zhang Shizhao's Jiayin literary style offers a localized perspective for re-evaluating the multifaceted literary attributes of classical Chinese texts.

In the development of Wang Guowei's aesthetic theory, his intentions and methods of theoretical construction, the establishment of theoretical structures and levels, and the incorporation of academic principles all exhibit a close and direct relationship with his examination of Kant, Schopenhauer and other Western philosophy and aesthetics. Wang Guowei's journey from Commentary on the Dream of the Red Chamber, A Word on Literature to Preface to the Second Draft of the Poetic Remarks in the Human World, and finally to Poetic Remarks in the Human World illustrates a complex process from reliance on Schopenhauer and integration of Schiller's aesthetics, to reliance on Schopenhauer and integration of Kant's aesthetics, and then to reliance on Kant and integration of Schopenhauer's aesthetics. This process involves both sublation and integration. However, with the writing of A History of the Dramas of Sung and Yuan Dynasties, Wang Guowei began to gradually diminish the traces of Western influence. His transformation reflects his reflection and understanding of Western theories and concepts, the characteristics of Chinese literature and theory, and the compatibility of the two. This reflection encompasses the complexity and innovation of knowledge cognition and choice, thereby constituting an important subject in the study of academic history.

Lu Kanru and Feng Yuanjun's History of Chinese Poetry was heavily influenced by the academic atmosphere of the Republic of China. Adopting a critical stance towards the veracity of ancient historical accounts, the authors aligned with Hu Shi's advocacies, presenting the pre-Xia dynasty era as an epoch veiled in obscurity. In terms of the structure of poetic history, it displayed great originality, for instance, by expanding the scope of “poetry” to include the majority of rhymed prose. In addition, the book elaborated on how the mainstream genres of each era evolved in succession, making the narrative more systematic. Their narrative, adeptly woven with both vernacular and classical Chinese, eschews conventional genre demarcations, introducing a versatility that reflects the transformative agenda of the New Culture Movement. These approaches placed the book as a representative of the transformation in literary and historical research prompted by the New Culture Movement. While their critical skepticism faced contemporary scrutiny, the innovative structural underpinnings of their work represent a significant, alternative discourse in literary historiography, meriting sustained academic engagement.

Su Shi's culinary odes drew inspiration from The Book of Songs, On Encountering Trouble and comedian's lyrics, blending the lofty ideals of The Songs of Chu and the playful wit of comedian's lyrics. This synthesis reflects Su Shi's intent to innovate within the literary tradition, allowing his compositions to entertain divinities, the audience, and himself. Immersing his full life experience into his work, Su Shi blurred the distinctions between high and low culture in both aesthetic preference and emotional expression. He moved beyond the dichotomy of refined versus common subjects, adopting an aesthetic approach to everyday life with equanimity. Su Shi's reflections on the interplay of elegance and vulgarity also mark his personal journey towards self-realization and character development. Far from mere literary diversion, Su Shi's culinary odes established a classic paradigm with lasting influence on subsequent generations.

The concept of xiaoshuo was introduced as the equivalent to Western terms of “romance” and “novel”, and the role of Japan and the culture in Meiji Japan as a mediator was crucial. This translation was notably observed in English-Chinese dictionaries compiled by missionaries, particularly in the English and Chinese Dictionary: With the Punti and Mandarin Pronunciation compiled by Wilhelm Lobscheid, where xiaoshuo was rendered as “romance” and “novel”, subsequently impacting Yan Huiqing's An English and Chinese Standard Dictionary. Tsubouchi Shōyō distinguished between “romance” and “novel” in his work The Essence of Novel, while Lu Xun provided academic definitions in A Brief History of Chinese Novel. The pivotal juncture in the evolution of xiaoshuo occurred with the recognition of its characteristics as a fine art. Fumio Yano and Tsubouchi Shōyō introduced and adapted the characteristics of the novel as a fine art, and Liang Qichao elucidated the artistic mechanism of the novel. Wang Guowei delved into the aesthetic value of The Story of the Stone, while Huang Ren incorporated fine art principles into the editing of the Fiction Forest journal. Xu Nianci synthesized ideal aesthetics and emotional aesthetics, and Lü Simian turned to narratology on an aesthetic foundation. Yoshio Ota's theory of pure literature influenced Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren, who interpreted the novel as both fine art and pure literature. The Sino-Japanese integration of the concept of xiaoshuo facilitated widespread dissemination, academic delineation, the discovery of artistic characteristics, and the transformation of the concept.

The relationship between newspaper drama commentaries and ancient drama commentaries focusing on chuanqi-zaju and literary criticism is not a simple linear inheritance, but directly originated from the writing of flower registers in the middle and late Qing Dynasty. Thanks to the press, the trend of theater improvement, and Chinese and foreign theater theories, drama commentaries became a comprehensive art criticism genre. Their primary objects of criticism were Beijing opera, modern drama, and other popular stage plays. The production mode of these commentaries was cross-platform columns that were immediate, public and branded. They placed equal emphasis on both text and stage, historical research and practical criticism. The development of stage-oriented consciousness in newspaper drama commentaries in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China reflects the migration of the focus from “script composition” to “performance art” within the “dramatology” system of classical drama theory. The independent development of drama commentaries focusing on chuanqi-zaju and the gradual separation of Beijing opera from modern drama can also be regarded as traditional drama theory's direct response to the brand-new drama pattern of the “triple triad” of chuanqi-zaju, local opera and modern drama.

The Ming synopsis of A General Catalogue of The Complete Library of the Four Treasures provides significant insights into Qing officials' perspectives on the criticism of the Ming anthology. As an official compilation, it largely represents the official scholarly and political stance of the Qing dynasty. As a result of the Qing rulers' historical reflection that the Ming dynasty fell from factionalism, the synopsis denounces the Ming scholars' tendencies towards forming societies, advocating schools and establishing factions. It attributes the overall decline and regression of Ming dynasty anthology criticism to disputes among literary schools and academic factions. Officials at all levels involved in the compilation of The Complete Library of the Four Treasures, following the directives from above, employed three methods, including criticism and denunciation, content editing, and censorship, to suppress and eliminate Ming dynasty anthologies that touched upon sensitive topics such as literary schools, academic factions, and political rivalries. This significantly contributed to the silence and even absence of Ming anthology criticism in the official evaluation system of the Qing dynasty. In short, as a tangible representation of political bias in literary criticism, the synopsis highlights the contradictions between Qing dynasty official academic research and contemporary anxieties.

Alain Badiou's theory of love encompasses a topic on new materialist poetics, which examines the relationship between love and art in the realm of contingency as well as explores the real effects of their “encounter” in the world. This analytical journey necessitates a detailed interpretation of Badiou's pertinent discussions, structured into three pivotal segments. Firstly, it clarifies the connotation of Badiou's proposition that “love is the scene of Two,” positioning this assertion within the broader spectrum of new materialist philosophy. Secondly, it delineates the imperative for art to delve into “the continuation of love”, thereby fostering experiences emblematic of a new world. Thirdly, it stresses that in reconstructing the world, love and art can form an “alliance” by harnessing the power of “encounters.” This perspective is enriched by an engagement with Althusser's concept of “aleatory materialism,” advocating for a Romantic project aimed at ameliorating the fissures within contemporary society through the creative interplay of love and art. This blurs boundaries between art and politics, resulting in a romanticized orientation within his political proposals against global capitalism. Such an orientation exemplifies the poetic allure inherent in contemporary Western radical leftist theory, notwithstanding the contentious reception of its political propositions.

This essay elucidates Derrida's Before the Law: The Complete Text of Préjugés. Derrida's thesis is twofold: law qua literature and literature qua law. Law qua literature points to law's narrativity and fictionality. Law possesses no essence; the genealogical history at its core is utterable. However, it is precisely this absence of origin that triggers off the deferred narration marked by repetition of difference. Literature qua law refers to the institution and convention of literature. Once a text is being written, it exhibits functions of the law and accomplishes “legitimate” expressive acts, wherein the reading and circulation of literature also take place. Bringing in Derrida's interpretation of Maurice Blanchot in the “Law of Genre” and its intertextuality with his reading of Kafka, we can further explore the mutual production and domination between law and literature, as well as sexualize their correlation. This essay first examines the two folds in Derrida's reasoning, drawing an outline of the “tabooed” love. It then explores the issue of singularity that Derrida accentuates with the help of his “Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation’ of Authority,” illustrating the break between the generality of law and the singularity of a subject's being as well as the impossibility of full justice. This essay enquires how the singularity of literature may enable the singular being of a subject, and thereby tempt law into a game of love to make it stand before literature.

Since its inception with Wayne C. Booth and the development of James Phelan, narrative ethics has evolved since its emergence in the 1990s into a research framework encompassing diverse critical methodolgies. In contrast to Booth's emphasis on the author's intention and Phelan's focus on the reader's reading ethics, Paul Ricoeur develops a creative view of placing the author and the reader in an “ethical laboratory” constructed by the fictional narrative, shifting the focus from a single ethical subject to the dynamic process of generating the ethical significance of the author, the text and the reader. In addition to considering fictional narrative as an experimental site for schematizing the author's “thought” and implementing ethical inquiry, he also thinks that fictional narrative is a practical basis for readers to achieve the power of transformation “from text to action” by “appropriating” ethical experiments and practicing practical wisdom. Therefore, the creativity of this view is to consider fictional narrative as the experimental site for the ethical practice of authors and readers, thus offering a new research idea for the ethical analysis of narratology.

The Lacan studies in China have generally treated the theory of specular images and the theory of discourses as two separate areas of research. However, there exists a hidden connection between the two theories, particularly between figure III of the optical model and the discourse of the hysteric. Louis-Ferdinand Céline's Journey to the End of the Night, as a literary example of the discourse of the hysteric, highlights the split of the subject. This paper tries to interpret the novel through a Lacanian approach, with a particular focus on the figure III of the optical model, and hopes to bridge the gap between the theory of specular images and the theory of four discourses. The paper aims at clarifying the transformative mechanism between the two theories, and maintains that, at a certain level, the transformative matrix of the four discourses is a highly abstract and evolutionary version of the rotating figure of the optical model.