A Saint Of Schizothymia:Taine And His AestheticThought

Hippolyte Taine is the representative of those who advocate an objectively critical standard in the circle of history and literary criticism of France in the 19th century, whose famous "Three Factors" theory-race, epoch and environment-develops studies of art into a much wider domain, and initiates the study of literary sociology. For a long time, studies of Taine, no matter at home or abroad, all fall into a dilemma concerning the exterior analysis limited by "Three Factors", and cannot reach the interior of art. This is influenced by reasons of the times, and Taine's personal factors as well. Actually speaking, the complexity of his thoughts, for his living at the crossing of two centuries, embodies great implications, inheriting from the older generations and developing into a new one, and simultaneously being self-contradictory.This paper tries, objectively and impartially, to have an overall study from Taine's specific individuality, psychology and academic development, tending to rebuild a actual figure of him in history. It is made up of three parts besides preface and conclusion.In preface, it briefly introduces Taine's life, works and individuality, and studies of him at home and abroad, and then, presents my writing purposes.The body part is divided into three sections, and according to the variation of Taine's psychological development, illustrating his ideological mode, aesthetic thoughts, and spirit dilemma by employing a method of combining points and facets, history and critiques.The first section: the truthful lies. It emphasizes Taine's ideological mode. Beginning with his contradictory features, this paper illuminates the trends of philosophies, tendencies of society and evolution of culture, and, by cleansing the skeleton of his thoughts, systematically analyzes his ideological mode and study methods.The second section: the hidden truth: Taine's critical views, i.e. his aesthetic thoughts. The deterministic viewpoints dominating by "Three Factors" conceal his various understanding to those problems lying in thenature of art. This paper will fully put forth his critical views and raise "Three Factors" up to Hegelian ideal level, so as to bring to light his insightful views, such as "the theory of essential characteristics" and "the theory of imitation", etc.The third section: the embarrassed position: staying between the rational and irrational. Its keynote is to show Taine's spirit dilemma. The depiction of those blames that his views suffer at the turning of two centuries points out the dichotomy of aesthetic mode and moral mode on aesthetic standards, uncovering the relations of him to art in the twentieth century centering on the irrational, "aestheticalization of existence" he advocates when confronting those embarrassed situations, and his critiques changing with times.The conclusion has a summary of the overall study, and at such a crossing of two centuries evaluates Taine's thoughts and its influence in order to testify the value of this study.