First, literature is differentiated from academics in a broad sense and becomes an independent category. The so-called literature of the Han Dynasty refers to academic studies, especially Confucianism. In the Southern Dynasties, literature had a new status independent of academics. Emperor Wen of the Song Dynasty established the Four Studies, and literature stood side by side with Confucianism, metaphysics, and historiography. In "Wen Xin Diao Long·General Technique", Liu Xie divided writing styles: "The writing without rhyme is called writing, and the writing with rhyme is called writing". Later, Emperor Yuan of Liang Dynasty, Xiao Yi, further explained the writing style in "Jinlouzi·Liyan Pian", "Those who chant wind ballads and linger in mourning are called essays...to the best of them, those who are as good as essays only need to be draped with colorful silk ribbons and palaces. It can be seen that the difference in writing style mentioned by Xiao Yi is not limited to rhyme and lack of rhyme, but emphasizes the characteristics of writing to express emotions and move people with emotion, and pays more extensive attention to language. Beautiful form. The "literary" he referred to is close to what we call literature today.
Second, we have a more detailed distinction between various literary themes, and more importantly, we have a clearer understanding of the institutional and stylistic characteristics of various themes. Cao Pi's "Classics and Essays" divides literary styles into four types and points out their respective characteristics: "The memorial should be elegant,"
"The essay should be rational,"
"The inscriptions are realistic",
"The poems are beautiful." "Wen Fu" further divides literary styles into ten categories, and also discusses the characteristics of each category. It is worth noting that he divided poetry into two categories and pointed out the characteristics of "poetry is based on emotion and is elegant, and poetry is based on objects and is bright". As for "Wen Xin Diao Long" and "Selected Works", the distinction between literary styles is systematic and the discussion of literary styles is also in-depth. "Wen Xin Diao Long" traces the origin of each literary style, describes its evolution, explains the meaning of its name, and gives examples to comment on it. "Selected Works" is a collection of literature compiled according to styles. Of course, it has There is detailed analysis. If literature is just a chaotic concept and cannot be distinguished, it cannot be regarded as having a conscious understanding of literature. Therefore, stylistic analysis is an important sign of literary consciousness.
Third, there is a conscious pursuit of the aesthetic characteristics of literature. The reason why literature becomes literature is inseparable from aesthetic characteristics. The so-called literary consciousness is most important or ultimately manifested in the conscious pursuit of aesthetic characteristics. As mentioned above, the "beautiful" in "poetry is about beauty", the "beautiful beauty" in "poetry is inspired by emotion", and the "liang" in "composing objects with beautiful objects" are already the pursuit of aesthetics. . In the Southern Dynasties, the discovery of the four tones and its application in poetry, coupled with their emphasis on usage and antithesis, proved that they had a more conscious pursuit of the formal beauty of language, and "Wen Xin Diao Long" discussed it at great length The artistic characteristics of literary works involve many aspects such as brilliance, rhythm, eloquence, metaphor, exaggeration, etc., and are a sign of literary consciousness.
The literary theories and works of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties were rich in writings and distinctive in character. Poetics got rid of the shackles of Confucian classics, and the direction of the entire literary trend was to break away from the need for political enlightenment emphasized by Confucianism and find the meaning of independent existence of literature itself. A notable feature of literary creation during this period is that the requirement to serve political enlightenment weakened. , literature becomes a personal behavior, expressing personal life experience and feelings.
Literary aesthetics tend to emphasize imagery, character, and charm. Poetry seeks subtext, music seeks subtext, and painting seeks extravagant interest. This conscious aesthetic pursuit of mutual communication between various literary and artistic forms marks a new literary era.