| “Writings are for conveying truth†is the core view in ancient Chinese literaryreview history. The view implies that literature and art are the tools for politicalenlightenment by education. Because of the emotional influence of literary and artworks the morality of human can be affected in literature and art appreciation. Thusmorality also plays a political function. Confucian writers and thinkers reflected threekinds of truth in their works. The first one is about ethical political truth focusing onvirtue for government and people-centered philosophy. The second one is forcultivating individual virtue by means of learning and thinking, accumulating gooddeeds, self-reflection of moral behavior and guiding against minor mistakes even inunnoticed situations. The last one is the reflection of features and rules that makeeverything work. Literature and art pursue beauty and ethics aims at goodness. Theview implies that ancient people hoped to combine beauty and goodness in literaryand art works. It was a traditional Confucian view in literary and art field andreflected that ancient intellectuals wished to make remarkable contribution to societyin order to realize their life goals. Furthermore the traditional pragmatic approaches toapplying ideas to social situations also helped the view develop. Confucians believedthat literary and art works played political enlightenment functions such as critical andpraising function and the function of passing down ancient philosophers’ and thinkers’main thoughts. In a word, combination of beauty and goodness, the intellectuals’eagerness to make contribution to society and their pragmatic attitude helped the viewform and develop. The view is also related to people’s loyalty to the country and theking and filial duty to people’s ancestors and parents. It was the reflection of morality(applicable to feudal family system) in literary and art field.In the end the view reflected that ancient people paid much attention to theircultivation of virtue and far-reaching influence of literary and art works. They alsonoticed the style of literary works and moral conditions in society affected each other.Those reasonable ideas provide some suggestions to cope with the fashionable,vulgarized and commercialized tendency in current literary field. The core socialist values, the current and national beliefs should be conveyed in contemporary literaryworks. Vulgar beliefs should be rejected. The writers, critics and mass media shouldfulfill their responsibilities to achieve pure and healthy styles in literature. Peopleshould try their best to carry out the solutions to cultivate better moral condition.Those are the clues of “writings are for conveying truth†in modern society. |
