Abstract
“Poetry as the expression of aspirations” and “writing as a vehicle for Tao,” and these two ideas, later referred to be “aspiration-expression school” and “Tao-conveying school,” become a pair of two keywords in Zhou Zuoren’s literary criticism. However, this pair of critical terms has provoked persistent controversies. This paper is a critical review of the generation and evolution of Zhou Zuoren’s two critical keywords. It discusses how his theory is interpreted and revised by critics, and it attempts to put critics’ views of Zhou’s theorization into the historical perspective by contextualizing them into the reductionist historical specificities. It paper reevaluates the gains and losses in Zhou’s two keywords from the perspective of literary evolution and discursive construction, and concludes with some theoretical implications for the study of prose.
Keywords
Zhou Zuoren, poetry as the expression of aspirations, writings as the vehicle for Tao, theoretical debate
First Page
44
Last Page
53
Recommended Citation
Zhuang, Xuan. 2022. "A Historical Critique on the Debate between “Poem Expressing Aspirations” and “Writings Conveying Ethics” in Zhou Zuoren’s Concept of Prose." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 42, (2): pp.44-53. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol42/iss2/26
