Literature Aesthetics And National Morality Reconstruction:Study On Wang Guowei’s Literature Education Thought

The late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China is a rapid transformation period of time. It’s a mainstream theme to conduct all kinds of reforms for national salvation during that time, education reform is also one way for national salvation. Compared to the education reforms from the perspective of political improvement or political reform which conducted by influential reformers such as Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Sun Yatsen and Zhang Taiyan, Wang Guowei has a different point of view. In his opinion, neither political improvement nor political reform is the key to salvation. What really matters is the reconstruction of national morality. If national morality is not reconstructed, then no matter what political projects are taken, the whole nation will still be in poverty and be less developed. Though Wang didn’t managed to stand out on the stage of mainstream political reforms, he opened up another way of education reform, that is to reconstruct national morality through literature education reform, and he finally became the first who set up a newly modern Chinese literature education model.The core theme of this thesis is to study the literature education reform experience explored by Wang Guowei, which aimed at reconstructing national morality. And also try to present the process of his exploration, reveal its results and historical influence. What’s more, the thesis will analyze the enlightenments of Wang’s literature education thoughts to current education reform theoretically and practically, as well as the problems current literature aesthetics education faces.The thesis consists of five parts. The introduction part expounds the reason of this topic, the research significance, literature reviews and the research plan. The first chapter explains the reason why Wang got away from political reforms and chose to save the nation by national morality reconstruction and literature education reform. The second chapter aims to analyze the process of Wang’s exploration of literature education experience, trying to reveal how he successfully combined Kant and Schopenhauer’s philosophy with Chinese literature, how he transformed traditional Chinese literature education from both purpose and contents and finally set up a new Chinese literature education model. The third chapter mainly elaborates the historical influence of Wang’s literature education efforts and the enlightenments to current education reform and literature aesthetics education. The last part summarizes the main ideas and findings of this thesis.