Law as an Important Category in the Ancient Chinese Formal Criticism

Abstract

Law is an important category in the ancient Chinese literary formal criticism, and it reflects the ancient masters’ thoughts about nature and universe and gets enriched and extended as time passes by. Even though law is more basic and concrete than images and emotions, it plays such a crucial role in writing that it becomes a prototypical category. The meanings and implications of law become salient when it is put into the social condition of ancient China, on which the ancient Chinese literary criticism is based. Hence, law is not only a technique in writing, but also a historic concept with both natural quality and social quality. The former is based on the order of heaven, earth and nature while the latter on rituals. Law comes from dao 道 and depends on li 理; it is revealed in Style and embodied in Case. It is closely related to literary principles and helps to highlight the native characteristics of traditional Chinese literary criticism.

Keywords

law / ancient Chinese literary criticism / history of literary criticism / category