The Research On Conception Of “Modernity” In The Aesthetic Translation From1978to1992

“Modernity” is one of the hot divergent topics in Chinese academe in recent years. Onthe investigation and discussion of the modernistic connotation, the boundary and thetheoretical origins, and the most practical method to understand the concept of the sequenceof events was returning to the historical context, which was translated and introduced intoChinese academic system, considering and discussing the concept of Modernity and itsmeaning translation in the course of transformation in a dynamic historical scene.In order to investigate the conception of “Modernity” of the New Period, the mainsubject of this dissertation is inquire into the process and rules of “encounter, deformation,adaptation, reform and re-forger,” after the modernistic ideology and theory departed fromoriginal birthplace and disseminated into Chinese culture circumstance. Moreover, to explorethe multivariate theoretical fate of this concept in the Chinese academic context, and also tointerpret more detailed about the series of theoretical propositions of the formation of theContemporary Chinese Aesthetics.The main body of this dissertation is organized in five chapters:The first chapter reviews the translation situation about “Modernity” in ChineseAesthetic before the New Period (1978-1992). The date of “Modernity” entered into Chineseacademe back to the1920s.“Lu, Xun and Zhou, Zuoren” discovered the “Modernity” in theDostoevsky’s text, and they treat it as a standard to judge the pros and cons of art, they foundit is the truth, and timeless. The crisis of “Modernity” first time shown in1930s, when Lu,Xun introduced “disgusting Modernity” into China. In1940s, Yuan, Kejia introduced thetranslation about “City Modernization”,“Modern City Experience” and some issues aboutreflection of modern civilization from Western “Modernity” discourse, and he clearlyoutlined the characteristics of “Aesthetic Modernity”. After the liberation in1949, from theperiod1949to1966, because of the influence of literary theory of Soviet, the connotation ofthe People, the Revolutionary, and the Socialist Realism given a new “halo” to “Modernity”,therefore,“Modernity” became the “only standard measure of all art forms once again.The second chapter restores the scene about the translation and discussion about“Modernity” in the New Period. Emphasis on the three Renditions:“The AestheticTranslations Series”,“Towards the Future Series”, and “The Culture: China and the WorldSeries”, which invariably regarded discussion and contend of “Modernity” as an academicconcerns. Additionally, in the case of <World Art> magazine, by combing process of the acceptance and practice about Chinese contemporary art to the modern art and postmodern art,which in order to attempt to provide cross-comparative analysis of the historical backgroundof the Aesthetic translation of “modern” concept and Western modern art “Modernity”thinking.Chapter three indicates the sign of changes about the connotation of the concept of“Modernity”, which found in the Aesthetic translation contexts in the early Eighties. Peoplesuspected about the absolute legality of “Modernity”, the connotation of “New”,“Pioneer”,“Revolutionary” and etc. in this conception was collapsed when the existentialist philosopherMartin Heidegger and Freud criticized about the linear evolution of the concept of historicaltime.“Modernity” became an essentially different art conception when the modern historyhas been proved that was not as straight forward process, therefore, the tradition became apioneer, which broke the scope of the conception about the new and originality of“Modernity”.In Chapter four, due to the involvement of the renditions of Walter Benjamin’s books,the “Modernity” conception of “urban experience of modern life” has re-entered the field ofvision of the Chinese intellectuals. Benjamin described “modern life” as urbanization, basedon industrial production and social mobility; the nature can be defined by capital of anythingthat can be exchanged by wealth. This is the expanded methodology and criticism visionabout “Modernity” since the New Period. The experience of the “modern life” is not only thelyrical content of the poets, while it has became the response of every “modernist” to thevariant characteristic of politics, social, economy and culture. Baudelaire’s classic definitionof “Modernity” and the “New Aesthetic” issues that he has proposed, which provided atheoretical framework to Benjamin’s philosophical theory. Baudelaire and Benjaminemphasized that “The Forfeit of Halo” which is the historical opportunity to produce the newart. Modernity has lost its authority, which has provided theoretical backgrounds to thecriticism and controversy on the “authority” and “academic” in the Chinese academe in theNew Period.The fifth chapter examines the reason of why the “Modernity” has became the centralissue since the Post-New Period and the new century, and this based on the large-scale texttranslation and introduction by Chinese scholars in the new period about Daniel Bell, MaxWeber, Jürgen Habermas, and Jean-Francois Lyotard’s postmodern theory works. In China,“Modernity” has became a central issue is the necessary of backtracking of postmoderntheory. Two “postmodernism” symposiums has been held, which to prove that the practicaldiscourse and the theoretical introspection has already started in the Chinese theory andacademe world after end of the New Period.The conclusion of this dissertation introspects the reason why the issue about “Modernity” has firstly attended by the literature and art field, and why the most concentratedreflect in the Aesthetic translation.