The Modernity Debate Between Poetry And History

Political aesthetics mainly unfolds the theoretical observation of literature and art and political issues from the perspective of aesthetics.In the history of literature and art development for a century,aesthetics and politics have always been closely linked.Although China’s political aesthetics research has not established a conscious specialized discipline,in the process of emphasizing the political dimension of literary theory research and the political turn of aesthetics,contemporary China’s political aesthetics research is increasingly showing a clear theoretical vision and problem domain.It is particularly necessary to make a summary analysis of the knowledge production status of contemporary Chinese political aesthetics.This article will take contemporary Chinese political aesthetics as the research object,discuss its important development context and main research paradigm,and understand its cultural promotion role in the process of modernizing national governance capabilities.Chapter 1 focuses on explaining the root role of Marxist theory in the knowledge generation process of Chinese political aesthetics.The contradictory proposition dilemma of Marxist aesthetics itself has become the logical starting point for the complex relationship between literature and art and politics and theoretical controversy in China since modern times.In this development context,“Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art” has extremely outstanding theoretical value due to its “eventful” characteristics.The re-reading and interpretation of “Talks” and the subsequent aesthetic heat together constitute the theoretical resources for the generation and evolution of political aesthetics.Chapter 2 embodies the main content of this article,which is an overall examination of problem concerns and research paradigms in political aesthetics.Due to historical factors,Chinese political aesthetics regards “the relationship between literature and politics”as its focus of attention.From the re-interpretation of political connotations and new understandings of equal dialogue between literature and politics,two unique research trends have been formed: “political imagination” and “imagining politics”.In addition,political aesthetics not only pays attention to the dialectical development of literary aesthetic knowledge theory but also attaches importance to theoretical construction of its own knowledge system.On the one hand,starting from criticizing modern art’s autonomy dogma;on the other hand,starting from practical examination of national culture,two construction paths have been extended: apriorism ontology and aesthetic anthropology.Finally,starting from emphasizing politics as an important interpretive dimension in literary history,it analyzes and explores research theories on politics as superstructure in institutional governance aspects as well as historical understanding of literature and art at the level of political culture that is compatible with economic foundation and political system.Chapter 3 combines with contemporary China’s specific features in political aesthetics to try to explain how it forms localized discourse and promotes contemporary aesthetics’ transformational development in crisis thinking,providing Chinese wisdom for cultural governance modernization and aesthetic governance.