Lu Xun once said: "From a modern literary perspective, Cao Pi's era can be said to be the 'era of literary self-consciousness', or as the modern saying goes, it was a school of art for art's sake." Please briefly describe the main manifestations of literary consciousness during this period.
The statement "Wei and Jin were the era of self-consciousness in Chinese literature" was first proposed by Japanese scholars. Lu Xun also mentioned this in his "The Relationship between Wei and Jin Styles and Articles, Medicine and Wine" A point of view. But literary self-consciousness is a very long process. It lasted throughout the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and took about three hundred years to achieve. The so-called literary consciousness is generally reflected in:
1. Literature differentiates from the broad academic field and becomes an independent category. The so-called righteousness of the Han Dynasty refers to academic studies, especially Confucianism. Arrived in the Southern Dynasties. Literature had a new independent status from scholarship. Emperor Wen of the Song Dynasty established the Four Studies, with literature, humanities, metaphysics, and history standing side by side. This is an important symbol. At the same time, this period was also distinguished by writing style. "Wen Xin Diao Long·Zong Shu" says: "As a common saying today, there is writing and writing. It is thought that writing without rhyme is writing, and writing with rhyme is writing." There is a further explanation of the distinction between writing styles: "...to be as good as writing, only the beauty is draped, the palace is majestic, the lips are kissing, and the emotions are swaying." The difference between writing styles he mentioned is not limited to rhyme or lack of rhyme. , but emphasizes the characteristics of writing to express emotions and move people with emotion, and pays more extensive attention to the formal beauty of language, which is close to what we call literature today.
2. Have a more detailed distinction between various literary genres, and have a relatively clear understanding of the institutional and stylistic characteristics of various genres. Stylistic analysis can be traced back to "Hanshu·Yiwenzhi", while a clearer and more conscious stylistic analysis begins with Cao Pi's "Dianlun·Wen". He divided literary styles into four subjects and pointed out their respective characteristics: "Zouo" "The discussion should be elegant", "the book discussion should be rational", "the inscription should be practical", "the poem should be beautiful". "Wen Fu" further divides literary styles into ten categories, and discusses the characteristics of each category. He also separated poetry and fu and pointed out the characteristics of "poetry is inspired by emotions and is elegant, and poetry is about objects and objects that are bright and beautiful". Zhiyu of the Western Jin Dynasty's "Article Liu Bie Lun" discusses twelve literary styles, traces their origins and examines their evolution. He also cited some works for discussion, which is a step further than Cao Pi and Lu Ji. Li Chong's "Hanlin Lun" in the Eastern Jin Dynasty analyzes literary style in connection with style, which is a further discussion of literary style. "Wen Xin Diao Long" and "Selected Works" have very systematic distinctions and in-depth discussions on literary styles.
3. Have a conscious pursuit of the aesthetic characteristics of literature. Literary consciousness is most important or ultimately manifested in the conscious pursuit of aesthetic characteristics. In the Southern Dynasties, the discovery of the four tones and their use in poetry, as well as the emphasis on word usage and antithesis, showed that people had a more conscious pursuit of the formal beauty of language, which had an important impact on the development of Chinese literature, including poetry, parallel prose, lyrics and music. has an extremely important impact. The discussion of the artistic characteristics of literary works in "Wen Xin Diao Long" is a sign of literary self-consciousness.