Abstract
The discovery and representation of the sound and color of things became the core content in the development of the poetics of the Jin and Song Dynasties, a trend criticized by such critics as Zhong Rong and Liu Xie, who denounced the poetry that indulged in description of things and maintained that poetry should resume the traditions of metaphor and evocation (bixing 比兴) from the Han and Wei dynasties and of the relationship between the object and the self as expressed in “correspondences between feelings and objects.” Such criticism was advocated by later generations, and resulted in many negative comments on the Jin and Song poetics. In fact, the intellectual environment between the two dynasties strengthened the poets’ will to explore the world. The poets regard the myriad things, and connect the “essence of things” or thingness of the object with the “essence of physicality” of the subject in metaphysical thinking. Therefore, the mode of “feeling things” was placed in a secondary position. The poets’ explorations into the “essence of things” led to the equality and commensality between things and man, and they are of great innovative significance. Both the presentation of “things” and the understanding of “essence” in the Jin and Song poetry are a developments in terms of philosophical thinking and language art.
First Page
96
Last Page
106
Recommended Citation
Cai, Danjun. 2021. "An Exploration into the “Essence of Things” in the Poetics of the Jin and Song Dynasties." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 41, (5): pp.96-106. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol41/iss5/4
