Short Poems on German Classical Literature Theory

The literary theory of German classical aesthetics is an integral part of German classical aesthetics, and German classical aesthetics is an integral part of German classical philosophy. Aesthetics has always been a part of philosophy, and literary theory is an important part of aesthetics. This pattern of composition is particularly prominent in German classical aesthetics. The reason is that after denying the French Revolution, German thinkers regarded literature and art as an aesthetic way to improve human nature and then transform society, so they attached great importance to the study of aesthetics and literature and art. At the same time, due to the relatively developed German folk literature, most German thinkers were familiar with the literature and art of ancient Greece and Rome, and some theorists such as Lessing and Herder were prepared for the gas-Meng movement and the hurricane-breaking movement.

German classical aesthetics, from the end of18th century to the beginning of19th century, started from Kant and formed a strong idealistic aesthetics between Hegel. German classical aesthetics comprehensively summarizes the past aesthetic historical experience and is the largest and most rigorous aesthetic ideology before Marxism. The ideological source of Marxist aesthetics is the comprehensive introduction of dialectics and historical view, as well as abstract philosophical thinking, especially Hegel's aesthetics. At that time, Germany was backward in politics and economy, and the society was still a contradiction between the emerging bourgeoisie and the declining feudal aristocracy. German classical aesthetics is the ideology of the bourgeoisie, and their main goal is to combine sensibility and rationality to seek freedom.

Kant: Trying to reconcile the opposition between empiricism and rationalism is actually putting forward dualism and agnosticism on the basis of subjective idealism. Four opportunities for aesthetic judgment: aesthetic taste does not depend on any interests, does not involve concepts, has no purpose, and has a purpose. For example, to enjoy flowers, you don't need to know that flowers are the reproductive organs of plants, and only appreciating the shape of flowers can cause subjective emotional pleasure. Kant's view is close to formalism. Art is a kind of free creative activity based on rationality and subjective purpose. Beautiful works of art are a combination of appreciation and genius. Some works have appreciation, but lack the ability of aesthetic image, that is, lack of genius. Aesthetic image is a perceptual image created by human imagination, which can express rational concepts. This perceptual image is higher than the creation of experience and nature. People's imagination is a cognitive function of creativity, which is rooted in rational principles and creates the second nature, that is, something beyond nature. Although the aesthetic image is perceptual, it tries to express the universal rational concept beyond the scope of experience and has generality. The essence of any art is not the material of feeling, that is, the stimulation of the senses, and the pleasure brought by this form is itself an education, which can raise the spirit to the height of concept. Kant is the founder of German classical aesthetics.

Hegel: Beauty is the perceptual manifestation of ideas, which includes three main points, namely, ideas, perceptual manifestation and their unity. Although the definition is short, it is highly universal. Idea is the idea of absolute spiritual stage, that is, the highest truth and universal truth. Plato was the first person who regarded beauty as an idea, but his idea was only an empty and abstract stage, which was a kind of metaphysics opposite to reality, while Kant's beauty was just a form, which put beauty on the other side of the phenomenon and was purely subjective and unknowable. Hegel's beauty takes ideas as its content, and ideas are a means to express and understand absolute ideas. Beauty has content and can be truly and objectively understood. Hegel put rational content in the first place and affirmed the lofty value and social significance of art. Hegel's aesthetics is the combination of western traditional aesthetics and German classical aesthetics, which has developed German classical aesthetics to its peak. It plays an epoch-making role in the history of western aesthetics and is one of the earliest aesthetic monographs with a complete system in the west.