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The Genesis of Wang Guowei's Theory of "Jingjie"

Geng Zhi, Kou Pengcheng   

  1. the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at East China Normal University, School of Literature of Southwest University
  • Online:2019-03-25 Published:2019-06-11
  • About author:Geng Zhi is a Ph. D. candidate in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at East China Normal University, with research focused on ci-poetry. Kou Pengcheng is Professor in School of Literature of Southwest University, specialized in literary theory.
  • Supported by:
    the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (SWU1509378) 

Abstract: There are three main methods in studying Wang Guowei's theory of "jingjie" (artistic conception) — a study based on Western knowledge, a historical study within the Chinese academic tradition, and a comparative study between the West and China. However, all these three methodologies treat jingjie as a static concept with presupposed connotation, which derives from a disjunction between their interpretative approach and the construction of Wang Guowei's jingjie. The idea of jingjie is an organic and dynamic theoretical system that takes both Western philosophy and Chinese literary theory as its premise, complicated by Wang's own creative and reading experiences, and thus it becomes a relational concept that cannot be isolated from other theoretical terms in Wang's work. An alternative study of jingjie should consider all the factors in a non-binary and interactive way.

Key words: jingjie, genesis, Western philosophy, traditional literary theory, methodology

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