A Preliminary Enquiry Into The Chinese Classical Tragicomedical Aesthetics

The Western values the study of tragedy because tragedy embodies the Western culture spirit. Classical tragicomedy is the cristal of Chinese culture, and best represents the Chinese culture spirit. But regretfully Chinese dramatists followed the Western footsteps, put most of their energy onto the classical tragedy and neglect the study of classical tragicomedy. They classified many classical tragicomedies into the category of tragedy. It brought about the confusion in the classification of Chinese classical drama. The author of this paper believes that the structure of classical tragicomedy is "happy-sad-happy". The classical drama according with this structure is a tragicomedy. Chinese tragicomedy origins from the ancient sacrificial rite whose intrinsic structure"auspicious-ominous-auspicious" is corresponding with the structure of classical tragicomedy. It reflects the ancient Chinese asperation on the plenteous harvest, good fortune and satisfaction. Generally classical tragicomedy has two climaxes, tradical climax and comedical climax. No matter how the theme and plots develop, and how we observe basing on the Chinese view of life, tradical climax is a transitional form of comedical climax serving the comedical climax. Only comedical climax is the satisfactory goal of event and life and the realization of beautiful asperation. According to the aesthetic psychology, tradical climax makes the leading characters and readers' mind lost and inclined, but comedical climax makes it harmonious and balanced, hence achives the "beauty of harmony" of classical tragicomedy.