After the late-night snack ended, the Empress Dowager turned to look at her son, whom she had been proud of since childhood, sighed, and said, "Sheng'er, think it over carefully. Whatever choice you make, your mother will support you."
Ji Mosheng nodded and said, "Thank you, Mother. I would like to be alone for a while."
The Empress Dowager sighed, wanting to say something, but ultimately left without saying anything. Her child was grown up, and some things he had to make his own decisions about. As his mother, she would always be his support.
Inside the room, Jingxi was filled with unease. She had a feeling that something big was about to happen. After feeding Jiang Bai some porridge, she chatted with him for a while, and Jiang Bai finally fell asleep. Looking at Jiang Bai's pale face, Jingxi felt that she couldn't continue to be passive like this. She had to get the antidote for Jiang Bai as soon as possible. After dark, she decided to go out for a while.
Squeak~
Jing Xi opened the door from the inside with the teapot in her hand. There was no hot water in the teapot, so she went to get someone to get another one, lest Jiang Bai wake up thirsty.
As soon as she opened the door, Jing Xi saw Ji Mosheng not far from the main hall, with his back to her, seemingly lost in thought. Jing Xi paused for a moment, then decided to pretend she hadn't seen him and just leave.
Just as Jing Xi turned around to leave quietly, Ji Mosheng called out to her, "Miss Jing, please wait."
When Jing Xi heard the other person call her name, she turned around. Now that she and Jiang Bai were hiding in the Empress Dowager's palace, and the two of them had been kind to the other person, she should not pretend not to hear them, both for public and private reasons.
Jing Xi chuckled awkwardly, "Hehe, Prince Sheng, what a coincidence."
"Unfortunately, Jingxi, I was waiting for you." Ji Mosheng said directly, looking at the somewhat embarrassed Jingxi with his gentle and devoted eyes, as if Jingxi was the only one in his eyes.
Jing Xi asked helplessly, "I wonder what business Prince Sheng has with me?" His words completely stunned Jing Xi. The ambiguity was too great and too easy to misunderstand. Jing Xi had no choice but to quietly change the subject.
Ji Mosheng then realized that what he had just said was somewhat inappropriate. He explained, "I'm sorry, Jingxi. What I meant was that I came to you because there's something I can't make up my mind about, and I'd like you to give me some advice."
Jing Xi looked at Ji Mosheng with a puzzled expression. It was strange that there was something that could stump him. Ji Mosheng was a man of great talent and skill in both literature and martial arts in the capital. Very few questions could stump him. It seemed that this matter would not be easy.
Jing Xi nodded and said, "Tell me first, and I'll see if I can help you."
Ji Mosheng said happily, "That's great, Jingxi, thank you." Then, Ji Mosheng explained the whole story to Jingxi in detail.
Jing Xi's brows, which had been relaxed at first, gradually furrowed. No wonder Ji Mosheng was helpless in this matter. Such a thing was unheard of. The father was raising a private army to incite internal strife and pull his own son off the throne. The old emperor even disregarded the safety of the people for the sake of the throne.
Looking at the silent Jing Xi, Ji Mosheng pressed, "Jing Xi, tell me, what should I choose?"
On one side is his father, who has nurtured and valued him since childhood; on the other side are his brothers, with whom he shares a deep bond. On one side is the safety of the nation and the peace that the people have longed for; on the other side is his personal desires.
No wonder such a difficult problem stumped him.
Jing Xi thought that if she had a choice, she would definitely kill the old emperor to eliminate future troubles, but Ji Mosheng could not do that.
Because that was his father, the emperor who had nurtured and valued him since childhood.
The specific issues encompassing the body were extensively studied by the ancient Chinese. However, despite the body's inclusion in literature and all objects of beauty, ancient China lacked a dedicated academic discipline to examine these issues from a philosophical or aesthetic perspective. The formal characteristics of the "body" in Chinese culture are rich and varied, with profound and distinctive theories found in traditional Chinese medicine, Taoism, poetry criticism, lyric criticism, literary criticism, painting theory, and calligraphy theory. These theoretical resources constitute the body's sensory, experiential, imagistic, and perceptual characteristics. However, the lack of a systematic approach to these discussions objectively resulted in a fragmented and categorized discourse on the body. To date, there is no art form specifically termed "body-themed lyric criticism," "body-themed poetry criticism," "body-themed literary criticism," or even "body-themed walking" (compared to Mr. Zong Baihua's "aesthetic walking"). Lacking a disciplinary perspective on the body, yet conducting in-depth research, this can be termed a philosophy of the body—a culture of the body but lacking a formal discipline of body science.
Ancient Chinese philosophy is a philosophy rooted in the body, a philosophy of bodily ontology. From "body and mind are one, nature and form are not two" to "controlling the body with the mind," Confucianism has consistently emphasized self-cultivation and moral enlightenment, ultimately aiming for inner sagehood and outer kingship. The relationship between body and mind has become a major theme in the lived world. Since the 1950s, Western philosophy and aesthetics have witnessed a surge of systemic reconstruction, including psychoanalysis, New Criticism, structuralism, hermeneutics, metaphysics, and sociological criticism. They use a unified logical system to integrate classical and modern thought into an organic whole. After Nietzsche, the West began to incorporate the body into philosophical systems spanning ancient and modern times. However, even with Schuster, the father of body aesthetics, they all seem to have completely overlooked the important position of Chinese body aesthetics.
II. The Concept of the Body: The Logical Starting Point of Poetics
It is generally believed that the body encompasses not only the human body but also objects; therefore, in this article, "body" carries a dual meaning, referring to both humans and objects. The body includes three basic levels of content: as the physical manifestation of bodily organs and structures, such as the five senses, skin, bones, heart, blood, and physical form; as the functions of the five senses, such as sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch; and as the spiritual form of the body, such as qi (vital energy), spirit, rhythm, subtlety, quality, and ability. Chinese poetics itself possesses characteristics of spiritualization and the humanization of natural objects. In short, the study of body poetics has become another important school of Chinese aesthetics, following new practical aesthetics, life aesthetics, leisure aesthetics, intersubjective aesthetics, cognitive aesthetics, environmental aesthetics, and ecological aesthetics. Faced with the advancement of Western body aesthetics, ancient Chinese body poetics will contribute to an equal dialogue between Chinese aesthetic research and the West.
Impacted and integrated by Buddhism, a foreign religion, the physical existence of the body began to give way to the metaphysical concept of "nothingness," and the rise of Wei-Jin metaphysics marked the arrival of a brilliant era for ancient Chinese poetics of the body. Since the influx of Western ideas into the East, under the impact of the crisis of modernity and the combined influence of intellectual circles' conscious reflection on Chinese philosophy, the ancient Chinese view of the body has begun to enter the research field. In the study of the body, China and the West have developed different epistemologies and value systems. The Western view of the body, constructed based on a mind-body dualism, was further promoted by Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Deleuze, and others. With the establishment of phenomenological research methods and the concept of body aesthetics by contemporary aesthetician Shusterman, the "body" has thus acquired unprecedented significance.
Later emerged the humanist body of the Renaissance and the rationalistic body of the Enlightenment. With the shift in Western understanding of the classical dualistic body, Nietzsche's "Übermensch body," Foucault's "disciplinary body," Deleuze's "desire-driven body," O'Neill's "five bodies of modern society,"¹ and Sirin's "seven types of the body,"² all differ significantly from the Chinese view of the body, highlighting substantial differences between Western and Chinese concepts of the body. Through literature review and comparative analysis, several characteristics emerge in current domestic academic research on the ancient body: First, there is an emphasis on Confucian and Daoist studies of the body, while research on the body in Buddhism and other schools of thought such as Mohism, Legalism, Military Science, Agriculturalism, and Medicine has not been deeply explored or interpreted. Second, in terms of historical dimension, research on the body from the pre-Qin period and modern times is relatively concentrated, while there are no dedicated treatises on the body in other periods. Although some scholars have studied Wei-Jin poetry, literature, and calligraphy, they have not started from the perspective of the body; some articles, while touching on the body, lack depth and comprehensiveness. Third, in terms of research methodology, Western philosophical theories of consciousness are generally used to elaborate on the body, without being based on the discourse and stance of the Chinese indigenous poetics tradition.
Fueled by consumerism, technocracy, and commodity fetishism, modern people, enslaved by material possessions, have lost the ability to explore the natural essence and meaning of the body. Faced with the fervent pursuit of physical beauty and formalistic aesthetics, the body has gradually become commodified and instrumentalized. People mistakenly believe that the beauty of the external form is superior to the cultivation of inner virtue; these are undoubtedly life-meaning concepts that the study of the poetics of the body should reject. What makes a person human? The body is not only the starting point but also the ultimate goal of poetics. The body expresses itself through poetry, returns to itself, and ultimately achieves its final destination. Similarly, stemming from the understanding of the body's external expression and internal structure, concepts of bodily imagery such as spirit, character, structure, and sinews, as well as categories like taste, flavor, pleasure, and delight, are all artistic extensions of the body's faculties, constituting the content of Chinese bodily poetics. Studying the poetics of the era of "human awakening" can not only provide theoretical support for Chinese aesthetics and art theory but also effectively guide contemporary aesthetic activities and artistic practices.
Building a community with a shared future for mankind and achieving "coexistence and co-creation" with world philosophy is a consistent stance of Chinese philosophy, its most direct focus being the body itself. Contemporary poetics research is seeing a surge of new theories and terms, fiercely impacting the discourse and expressive habits of poetics theory, hoping to enter the world of poetics through new interpretive paths. Western phenomenology, hermeneutics, reception theory, deconstruction, linguistics, feminism, new historicism, and postcolonialism—different theories have appeared on the scene in quick succession, bringing a novel and diverse face to poetics research. Faced with the effectiveness of theoretical explanations, how to construct a methodology and value system for traditional Chinese poetics? Body poetics provides the object, attributes, categories, and boundaries of research.
Ancient Chinese poetics takes the body as its primary image, not nature as its object of study, but rather humanizes nature or naturalizes humanity, embodying the concept of "unity of heaven and man," blurring the distinction between subject and object. Poetics is acquired through the body, and the body is understood through poetics. In the fields of Chinese poetics and philosophy, the "body" has always held a significant position, historically regarded as a holistic entity of life. The aesthetic concepts of classical Chinese poetics, in categories such as "form and spirit," "reality and illusion," and "imagery," largely originate from the body itself. In terms of value orientation, it advocates "entering the spirit" and "divination," seeking to understand the deeper meanings expressed in works beyond their surface—the "will" (will resides in the heart), "emotion" ("deep emotion leads to civilization, vigorous spirit leads to divinity," "emotion and will are the spirit, righteousness is the marrow"), "meaning" ("whether poetry or prose, meaning is paramount. Meaning is the commander"), and "the Way" ("literature carries the Way"). It values spirit over form, meaning over image, illusion over reality, and meaning over words, demonstrating an aesthetic concept that reveres the abstract. At the same time, natural objects also exhibit the characteristic of "embodiment." "Mountains take water as their blood vessels, grass and trees as their hair, and mist and clouds as their spirit. Therefore, mountains live with water, flourish with grass and trees, and become beautiful with mist and clouds… Stone is the bone of heaven and earth; bone is valued for its depth and not its shallowness. Water is the blood of heaven and earth; blood is valued for its flowing without stagnation" (Lin Quan Gao Zhi: Shan Shui Xun). Natural objects bear the imprint of human emotions and will; in aesthetic activities, mountains and water acquire human purpose. Humans and nature essentially merge, realizing the humanization of natural beauty.
In terms of artistic understanding, poetry became a form of expression of spiritual concepts. Liu Xizai said in "Youyi Yueyan": "Literature is the study of the mind" [5] 571, and Yang Xiong said in "Fayan: Wenshen": "Books are the painting of the mind" [6] 13. Wang Fuzhi pointed out that "the most important part of a person's body is the heart. The spirit of the heart is scattered in the five viscera and awaits the influence of the five senses. The liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys are the stores of the soul, spirit, will, and thoughts. If one of the viscera loses its function, the spirit of the heart is damaged. Without eyes, the heart cannot distinguish colors; without ears, the heart cannot know sounds; without hands and feet, the heart cannot command. If one sense is not used, the spirit of the heart is ruined. How can one isolate the heart to exhaust the functions of the others and thus emulate its spirit?" [7] 412 Lu Ji's "Wenfu" places the poet's body between heaven and earth, relying on the "profound contemplation" of the mind to enter the spiritual realm of "emptiness and stillness".
The mind sees the essence of the universe. Liu Xie affirmed the important position of humanity in the "three powers" of Heaven, Earth, and Man, stating that humanity can stand alongside Heaven and Earth: "Only humanity participates in this, its spirit and nature concentrated within it; this is called the three powers. It is the essence of the five elements, truly the heart of Heaven and Earth." (Wenxin Diaolong, Yuandao). Humanity is the gathering place of spiritual energy between Heaven and Earth; the interaction between humanity and all things in the world is primal, and emotions and nature can "interact and communicate" with all things, making oneself "the heart of Heaven and Earth." Opposing the formalistic tendency of the Qi-Liang style poetry—"colorful competition" and "absence of inspiration"—and the early Tang poetry style influenced by it, the early Tang poet Chen Zi'ang clearly advocated the restoration of the poetic tradition of "inspiration" and "spirit and integrity." With the rise of Romantic aesthetics in the Ming Dynasty, Xu Wei's theory of "true self," Li Zhi's theory of "childlike heart," and Yuan Hongdao's theory of "spirit and nature" emerged. Extending into the Qing Dynasty, there were further developments such as Ye Xie's theory of "talent, courage, insight, strength, and breadth of mind," Shen Deqian's theory of "style," Weng Fanggang's theory of "texture," Yuan Mei's theory of "spirit," and Gong Zizhen's theory of "respect for emotion." It is evident that this theory permeated various periods of Chinese classical aesthetics, including the pre-Qin foundational period, the breakthrough period of the Han, Wei, and Six Dynasties, the golden age of the Tang and Song Dynasties, the transitional period of the Ming Dynasty, and so on.
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