Abstract:

Image consciousness in literary criticism in ancient China is most prominent in the criticism of Fu (Rhapsody), which can be seen from Liu Xie's "describing objects as they appear" in "Interpreting the Genre Rhapsody" (501-2 A.D.) to Zhu Guangqian's comment that "Rhapsody is akin to pictures" in On Poetry (1943). The imagist representation in the criticism tradition involves a way of "picturely" thinking developed from the fusion of verbal and pictorial horizons, with theoretical basis in rhapsody's linguistic characteristic of graphic description and the aesthetic configuration on objects and images. The image-representing way of thinking and the graphic criticism of commenting rhapsody through images in rhapsody study may be taken to as a case study of the relationship between text and image, and this study may not only deepen the understanding of rhapsody and images, but also provide a new perspective for the study of Chinese literary theory.

Key words: Fu (Rhapdsody) criticism, graphic description, describing objects, image consciousness