A Comparative Study Of Tragedy Theory Of Zhu Guangqian With Of Aristotle

As two outstanding representatives in the history of China-Western Aesthetics, Aristotle’s and Zhu Guangqian’s tragic theories had important influences to the history of Aesthetics. Even they lived in different countries and times, both of them were irreplaceable in the tragic history of their own country. In this regard, research on their tragedy is meaningful. Both similarities and differences existed between their theories. There are a lot of researches on them in academia, but comparative researches on both of them are relatively less and scattered. Comparative analysis on their tragedy will be of great importance for us to critically absorb and unite the essence of their thoughts, and deeply understand their tragedy system.This paper firstly compare the viewpoints in definition and element of tragedy of them. They through the way of specific concept plus differential to get the definition of tragedy, but the implication of definition of tragedy is different. In the elements of tragedy, both of them think that the tragedy character and plots are the basic elements and then analyzes their views about the origin and development. About the origin, they both believe that the tragedy come from the sacrifice, while the difference is that Zhu Guangqian pay more attention to manifestation and Aristotle pay more attention to reappearance;they have opposite views in development of tragedy, one is optimistic and another is pessimistic. Finally illustrates their thoughts about the essence and function of tragedy. The tragedy is a distant imitation of real life, through the analysis of theory of imitation of Aristotle and the status of this theory in tragedy and combine with Zhu Guangqian’s comment of imitation in his book Tragedy Psychology, then know the imitation is the prerequisite of pleasant sensation in tragedy,and the creation of tragedy comes from the imitation pf life, the key of whether the imitation is suitable is---distance. The theory of distance is the theoretical basis of Zhu’s theory of pleasant sensation in tragedy. And the Zhu’s theory of distance mainly comes from Bulot, and without the effect of Aristotle. There is a certain distance between the life and tragedy, and only the proper distance can make the pleasant sensation appear, so the distance is the basis of pleasant sensation in tragedy. And the achievement of pleasant sensation is came true by the theory of purification, Zhu Guangqian through the understanding of mercy and fear and the development of purification, he gets that the purification is the relax of emotion, and the aesthetic characteristics of tragedy are sense of lofty and sense of fate.