| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 中國文學系所 === 101 === With his broad knowledge and outstanding vision, Liu Xie, a scholar in the Liang country of the Southern Dynasties, synthesized ancient and contemporary canons, integrated thoughts of all schools, exhausted the mysterious and profound artistic and literary realm, and studied the theories and principles of creation, to compose the masterpiece The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, which consists of fifty chapters and over thirty-seven thousand words to probe into the origin of literature, differentiate literary forms, explicate literary skills, and elaborate on literary criticism. His work searches into the subtle and the hidden, proposed the succinct and accurate comments, and lays down an everlasting foundation stone for the development history of Chinese literary theories. The Qing dynasty scholar Zhang Xuecheng appraised The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons as “encompassing all speeches” and” enormous and comprehensive”, which is indeed an insightful comment. The discourse of the whole book is on the use of the mind in composing a work and the knowledge of shaping the beautiful configuration of a written work. Wang Kengsheng once said: “the Literary Mind” denotes a written work’s content whereas “the Carving of Dragons” denotes its form.” Content refers to thoughts and emotions while form signifies dictions and literary skills. When thought and emotion are impartial and expressed moderately, it is called “elegant”. On the other hand, dictions and rhetoric embellishment shall look as beautiful as brocade or sound as pleasant as music from string and wind instruments, which is ornateness. A work made up of ornate form and graceful content and holding beauty that matches reality is an ideal work. One can say that the “qingzhi”(sentiment and aspiration) plus “wencai”(literary embellishment) is the important theme that links the entire book.
The chapter “Yuan Tao”(Tao as the source) in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons said that” Now with the emergence of mind, language is created; and when language is created, writing appears. This is natural.” The chapter “Ti Xing”(Style and Nature) also said” When emotions are moved, they express themselves in words; and when reason is born, it emerges in a pattern. For we start with the imperceptible and follow through to the revealed, and on the basis of inner realities seek external realities in harmony with them.” Emotions are stirred inside and manifest themselves in words, thoughts and instruments are inseparable, forms and spirits are interdependent, and a writer’s creation is an artistic process from nothing to something, and turning the abstract into the tangible. The sentiment, aspiration, and thoughts in contents can only manifest through an appropriate form. In light of this, “qingzhi” in this theory denotes a writer’s sentiment and aspiration, whereas” wencai” is an art form which is compatible to the “qingzhi”. Discussions centering on this theory prevailed through the literary theories in the Tang dynasty. In theories of poetry, Jiao Ran proposed to “express genuine emotion, and value artistic conception”, Sikong Tu emphasized that “great graceful appearance is based on the true inner richness”; in theories of history, Liu Zhiji stated that “direct writing and factual record versus casting and cutting of historical article”; in theories of calligraphy, Sun Qianli declared that “expression of emotion is enhanced by full-figured writing”; Zhang Huaiguan advocated “wind and mind, i.e., animation and structure, as the form and modification as the application”; in theories of painting, Zhang Yanyuan esteemed that “vivid portrayal lies in the its bone and spirit”. The above thoughts all inherited the gist of wenxin and the principle of diaolong, and made modification to it.
This article, aiming to study The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons’s influence on literary theories in the Tang dynasty, put special emphasis on elucidating the continuation and transformation in germination of the “pneuma and literary skills”-related fields and concepts. With The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons as the base of the study, the article respectively discusses The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons influence on the theories of poetry, history, calligraphy, and painting in the Tang dynasty, as well as collates and categorizes the theoretical viewpoints The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons had inherited, in the hope to assist us in understanding the development of Chinese ancient literary theories. This article aims to establish a lucid and threading inheritance relationship on the development history of literature and art, and to link the compatible and common parts of literary theories from different fields. By conducting extensional and associated studies, it aspires to contribute to constructing the development system of the Chinese ancient literary theories.
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