Chin Sheng-t'an: His Thought Of Chung & Shu And The Performance In His Literary Criticism

At present, there are plenty of works that about Chin Sheng-t'an's literary criticism, but that about his thought of chung & shu is fewer. Study about Chin Sheng-t'an's thought of chung & shu is of greate significance. The analysis in this article is based on it's content, it's source, it's performance, the vulnerability of the theory and it's reason. His chung & shu is derived from the Confucian classic Lun Yu. At the same time, it has been affected by the Buddhist.Generally speaking, Chin Sheng-t'an is a practice-oriented critics, rather than a literary theorist. The motivation of Chin to bring up it, was to correct the shortcomings and weaknesses appears in the ideological realm of Late Ming Dynasty, meanwhile, to avoid the errors in Wang Ji and Li Zhi's theory. Furthermore, it also has something to do with his personal experience and the prevailing social environment. Chin Sheng-t'an's thoght of chung & shu includes three parts: the ontology, the gong fu, and the theory of realm. For it's performance in Chin Sheng-t'an's literary criticism, this article is an analysis from two aspects: the creation, and the theory of appreciation. As the common way of thinking of Chin, and the doctrine itself, to reverse the verdict of the dual nature, this theory inevitably has its theoretical vulnerability.