Lin Yutang Art Of Living Aesthetic Ideology Chu Theory

Lin Yutang is an important writer and scholar in the Chinese history of literature and even the modern cultural history. However Lin Yutang is a disputed character in the mainland as well as in Taiwan. In an article of "Recall Mr. Lin Yutang", Xu Xu said as follows: He has a certain status in the history of literature, while perhaps he is one chapter which is not easiest to write. In fact, Lin Yutang's life is filled with complexity and contradiction, and he himself also brags it as"a mess of contradictions". In 1934, at the very beginning of the poem Autobiography in his forties, Lin Yutang wrote: There are endless contradictions in my whole life; the mind confession marks muddled. After 40 years, having been seventy or eighty years old, the"the Eastern wise", in the first chapter of Autobiography in his eighties, took"a mess of contradiction"as the topic, and prefaced with the chatting writing style:"…I am only a mess of contradictions, but I take self-contradiction as delight."Lin Yutang is a big shot in modern Chinese cultural history. With the insight and accomplishment of Chinese and western culture, he has expounded important issues of Chinese culture and esthetics. His esthetics emphasizes in discussion of life art and the initiative of supreme perception esthetic values which reflect western esthetics as well as the Chinese traditional esthetics and cultural essence. The idea of"Life Art Theory"manifests Lin Yutang's viewpoint on philosophy of life. As a modern Chinese intellectual, Lin Yutang is confronted with strong pressure of culture choice between China and the West. The survival dilemma urges him to carry on the poetic revolt through the unique life style. He proposes the view of"the new culture"which gives profound humane connotation and modern significance to Chinese and western culture, especially to Chinese traditional culture. He also exposes the complex life truth by cultural platform, and makes it as individual esthetic standpoint and survival attitude in complicated modern circumstances.Older generation's research results as start point, The article puts Lin Yutang's esthetic thought of life art in the long process of Chinese and the western esthetic ideology at that time, washes, and inquires into related questions about his esthetic thought, especially on art life, through which to comprehend the contributing factors, contents and connotations of his esthetic thought about life art and endeavors to inquire into the current significance. The article returns his esthetic thought about life art to original state as far as possible, and makes every effort to thorough, comprehensive, systematic inquiry.In the first place, the article is to inquire into formation of Lin Yutang's esthetic thought of life art. Putting the object of study, Lin Yutang, in social, historical, and cultural multi-dimensional field of vision, the article investigates the reason which his esthetic thought produces, individual circumstances reason, individual life experience perception, the bidirectional function between traditional and western esthetic ideology, social historical environment influence and so on.In the second place, the article is to analyze connotation of Lin Yutang's esthetic thought of life art. Putting Lin Yutang's esthetic thought in synchronic domestic and foreign intellectual's ideological field, the article carries on comparison vertically and horizontally, induces its characteristics, analyzes its connotation and tries to explain Lin Yutang's thought arrangement reason of"a bunch of contradictions".In the third place, the article is to expound the current significance of Lin Yutang's esthetic thought of life art. It mainly concerns about the enlightenment and reference significance to literary and art esthetic ideology circles, literary circles, cultural circles and even civilization of entire human beings.As stated above, the article, on the basis of thorough analysis and attentive thinking, endeavors to breaks the research objective set by the topic, thus achieves to deep research of the topic and related topics.