The Taoist Rites Of Ideology And Artistry

In the 1990's, Yu Qiuyu and his cultural prose stroke the drear prose field like a hurricane and made great waves in it. It is unprecedented in the prose history of modern times because of its large circulation, wide discussion, contradictory comments and diversity of criticism perspectives. When his book"The Bitter Cultural Trip"was initially published, there appeared a large group of supporters. However, from the year 1995 on, there appeared a different voice in the evaluation of the book. Starting from the criticism on its"academic bruising", there has been an increasing number of criticizing articles. As his new books come out and due to his strong opposing attitude, the criticism has been accelerating and finally evolved into an attack and defense battle lasting for more than a decade.However, it can never be denied that"The Bitter Cultural Trip"is still a sensational success which could never be duplicated in the prose history of modern times, despite its various flaws and defects. This should be attributed to its irresistible aesthetic charm of prose to the readers. In this light, I hope to explore the aesthetic secret of the success of Mr. Yu's prose in a thorough way. In this thesis, I would make an aesthetic interpretation of"The Bitter Cultural Trip"by employing such methods as acceptive aesthetics, psycho analysis and text-based perusal. The unique feature of the book will be explored from the following three perspectives: the main part of the image, the cultural connotation and the form of the text.Once a author's spirit, idea and emotion is converted from recognition to existing written language, his or her main life pattern could also be expressed in it. Stepping from the academic field into the prose field, Mr. Yu has given the prose an activating life pattern. The main part of the image in"The Bitter Cultural Trip"is firstly an exploring traveler, with the life attitude of travelling all over the world, the gracious reflection on people and nature, and the value tendency of tracing the root; secondly, he is a passionate lyric person, with the rising life attitude, the strong sense of responsibility, and the potential elite sense; finally, he is a deep thinker, with thoughtful spirits, cultural views and penetrating opinions.As the first book in the cultural prose field,"The Bitter Cultural Trip"is full of deep cultural connotation, the reflection on Chinese traditional culture and the searching for a sound cultural personality. In this book, from a cultural perspective and stand, Mr. Yu interpreted some Chinese historical and cultural phenomena in a modern rational way and a global sense. Jung's personality theory has had a great influence on him, and Contemporary huamnist and regional culture of Shanghai also contribute to his perfect cultural personality.The form is the appearance of the content. The literary expression of"The Bitter Cultural Trip"is just like glorious but simple outer clothing, perfectly suiting its inner connotation and making it appropriately expressed. It involved various language skills, rich figures of speech, the deviation of the language and the perfect sentences of the end, which greatly enhanced the reading pleasure of the readers; it employed various narrative skills and the narrative perspective and the narrative structure are both very unique; it utilized the skills of various styles, successfully employing the skills in such styles as the drama, novel, speech, poetry, and so on, and making the style of prose transcend its original limits.The achievement of"The Bitter Cultural Trip"in the prose field of the end of 20th century is incomparable. With its unique cultural content and cultural reflection, it triggered the nerve of the Chinese people's search for the national and cultural root, broke the limits of the prose style with its original practice and aroused the passion for cultural prose. The prose aroused a hurricane of cultural prose so it can be rated as"the Taoist Rites of Ideology and Artistry". However, there indeed existed some flaws in it. In this sense, it must be noted that, in the cultural and artistic field, people should always be on the move, getting from good to better and transcending the previous standard. Once a scholar steps into the cultural trip, he or she is bound to experience the endless physical and spiritual hardships in the process.