한시의 미학적 본질에 대하여

Abstract

Classical Chinese poetry (漢詩) is the essence of Chinese literature. In the ancient period the intellectuals in East Asia were all poets. The people learned how to express through poetry their public or private experiences as well as their personal feelings throughout their lives. Musicality is the principal factor among aesthetic features of Classical Chinese poetry. Being originated along with music, Classical Chinese poetry was actually a lyric and kept its musical character even after its separation from music in the later period. Hence it has become a tradition to recite a poem like singing a song with a certain tune. Classical Chinese poetry also has a strong picturesque feature. Popular Classical Chinese poetry used to be adopted as a picture by many intellectuals who also utilized picturesque forms in poetic forms. Wang Wei (王維), a famous poet and painter of the Tang dynasty, had a great impact on this practice. Another characteristic feature of Classical Chinese poetry is that techniques of comparison and symbolism has been remarkably developed. Classical Chinese poetry used to have codified devices for various rhetorics. This partly makes it difficult to understand Classical Chinese poetry, but such a factor exhibits excellent connotation. One of the important aesthetic essence of Classical Chinese Poetry is symmetry by parallelism. As Chinese characters have multiple meanings in a word, Classical Chinese poetry could have expressed multiple connotations using this device. In this case, one has to understand both meanings to figure out various intentions of a poet. It is Hoimunsi (廻文詩) that dramatizes this kind of multiple connotations of Classical Chinese poetry. A poem could be appropriately appreciated when one reads it from various perspectives. Despite its significance in the Chinese literature, Classical Chinese poetry has attracted less attention even from scholars majoring in Classical Chinese poetry. It is thus urgent to place special stress on the Classical Chinese poetry in the Chinese Character education.