Knowing people and commenting on the world:
The so-called knowing people refers to understanding all aspects of the writer's situation and his creative intentions. The so-called commenting on the world refers to understanding the background of the times and the writer reflected in the work. The social conditions in which the work was created. Only on the basis of knowing people and analyzing the world, combined with the use of other methods, can we make a more accurate evaluation of the work.
Knowing people and commenting on the world has similarities with Western social and historical criticism methods. Wellek and Warren said in "Literary Theory": "The most obvious cause of a literary work is its creator, that is, the author.
Therefore, explaining it from the author's personality and life Works are the oldest and most basic literary research method." Danner also believed in "Philosophy of Art" that "race, environment, and era" are the three factors that influence literature.
It can be seen that the critical method of "knowing people and commenting on the world" can start from the perspective of the external social, historical and cultural environment, connect the background and roots of the poetry, and combine the poet's life to conduct an in-depth interpretation of the work.
Appreciating poetry based on the principle of "knowing people and analyzing the world" can effectively distinguish the different meanings of poems with similar superficial words.
Using one's will to counter one's will:
"Using one's will to counter one's will" means "to meet the author's will with one's own will", using one's own soul to trace the traces of the poet's soul, and understand The poet's intention is not to stick to the literal meaning.
The method of "converting one's will to one's will" requires readers to pursue the poet's ambition. Therefore, readers should be calm, chant the works repeatedly, appreciate them carefully, and read poems with sincere emotions. , to find out the poet’s intention.
Extended information
On the surface, the literary acceptance theory represented by Mencius' "Using one's will against one's will" and "Knowing people and analyzing the world" are in conflict. "Focus on the text's role in generating meaning, while "Knowing People and Discussing the World" focuses on the author's role in generating meaning in the text.
But in Mencius, there is a central direction, that is, only by combining the author and the text can we better understand the work. "Using one's will against one's will" is to better understand the author's feelings and thereby better understand the work.
"Knowing people and commenting on the world" is to understand the work from the author's perspective, so as to gain a better understanding of the work.
This is very different from modern Western text criticism. Modern text criticism focuses on the text itself. When they come into contact with the text, the author is already in a state of "absence" and cannot You need to understand the author to interpret the work, and you only need to start from the work itself, such as structuralism, formalism, British and American New Criticism, etc.