Dream Imagery Of Aesthetic Research In The Chinese Classic Texts

Dreams, a familiar topic in ancient China, have exerted a profound influence on every aspect of social life. The text world of antiquity was no exception, where the dream topic served as a greatly important prototype subject. Dream images can be found everywhere in the ancient Chinese texts including both the first poetry collection and the mature opus--the Dream of the Red Chamber. In a sense, the history of ancient Chinese literature really is full of the dream images. In consideration of such dramatic effect of the dream images on the ancient Chinese texts and the present limited pursuits of this subject, this dissertation tries to stand on the viewpoint of aesthetics to explicate through the combination of the history and theory the dream images, especially those classical ones appearing in the ancient Chinese texts for the sake of providing a macroscopic perspective on developmental history and aesthetic vicissitude of the dream images. Moreover, on the basis of the theoretical interpretation, the dissertation intends to make concrete analysis of classical dream images in order to gain an insight into their formation, the contained wisdom of progenitors, the changes of ancient aesthetic fashion, and finally the impact on traditional civilization and aesthetic culture of ancient China.In reference to the research method, the dissertation is largely inspired by my tutor Professor Chen Yan who recently turned himself to the study of the aesthetic culture alien to the history of aesthetic ideas and the history of artifacts, and particularly advocates a descriptive academic style between reduction and deduction. In addition, Professor Wang Yichuan also enlightens me much on his arguments for an aesthetic system with no pursuit of precision and for a "Rhetorical Aesthetics" with reference to facing specific aesthetic phenomena immediately. Putting together the thoughts above, the dissertation seeks to reflect the classical dream images in the ancient Chinese texts through the combination of the metaphysical aesthetic theory and experimental aesthetic object. In terms of this method, the dissertation consists of seven chapters which, under the ultimate principle of integrating the history with the theory, follow procedures for history coming after theory and individual analysis coming after generalization.The introductory Chapter refers to the logical premise on how the dreams switched from a natural psychological and psychotic behavior to a social and cultural...