Eastern Aesthetics: Love, Society, and Culture through Asian Literature - Essay Example

1 Professor Name Institution, course number Date Asian Literature Eastern aesthetics: love, society and culture through Asian literature. Asia is a mysterious place which is usually represented as a magic box containing miracles, fears, precious stones and dragons. There are a lot of other treasures in it, but the most important one is its literature. Asian literature comprises cultural traditions of different countries which are expressed by beautiful words and the eternal philosophical discourses about the world structure. The aim of this work is to look at eastern aesthetics: love, society, family, culture and so forth through the works of Asian literature and to describe the attitudes and opinions of its authors towards these issues. John D. Yohannan in his book “A treasury of Asian Literature” wrote: “Asian literatures since the impact of Western civilizations might well compose a separate book. So indeed might the very ancient writings of the Near East, including Egyptian and Babylonian, whose interest is perhaps less literary than archeological. The reader of this anthology has the assurance that the main living cultures of Asia – Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism – have made their contribution to it” (1956). This abstract reveals the connection of Asian literature with different religions and as a result their influence on the works written by Asian authors. This paper touches the depth of human civilization by acquaintance with the most significant Asian writings. Literature and culture of Asian neighboring countries such as: China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan are very alike. Ancient Chinese culture played the same role in the life of Korea, as Greek and Roman culture played in the life of 2 Western countries. Antiquity of China, especially its myths and poetry, became a common heritage of the peoples of the East. Their cultures were united by hieroglyphic writing, which came from China to each of these countries at different time periods. Hieroglyphic monuments are the first written poetry and history of these countries. The other types of hieroglyphic writings were: hanmun, kambun and hanvan. They are considered as an organic part of the national culture of a certain period of time after which an original literature was written by means of a modified or completely different alphabet in each of these countries. It was a wide-spread phenomenon to compare hanmuna, kambuna and hanvana with Latin language in medieval Europe. Latin (with all its importance in the lexical and syntactic enrichment and stylistic development of a number of European languages) considered as a foreign language, as a result each nation spoke it in their own way. The same thing concerned the perception of Arabic language and literature in Muslim countries. Middle Eastern countries constantly communicated with each other. Trade and cultural ties went far beyond the boundaries of East Asia. Wars with the Turcoman on the northern and western borders of China led to the awareness with culture and traditions of Turkic peoples. Chinese Confucianism penetrated to the neighboring countries of this cultural region as the intellectual system and the example of national identity. Buddhism, in its turn, served as a cultural bridge between China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam, on the one hand and India and Central Asia - on the other. The cultural life of the East Asian countries in their long medieval time was not separated from the outside world and kept its borders opened. In spite of the wars, collapse of the country and other troubles, Chinese culture is not a forgotten phenomenon for exhibitions but a living representation of Chinese traditions. Confucianism lied at the root of this culture and considered to be the 3 main basis of the traditions of the "golden ages". The central idea of Confucianism was the ideal way of life. According to the teachings of Confucius every person must improve himself and achieve the moral heights, which are based on the ancient commandments, which main principles are humanity, duty and justice. An important feature of medieval Chinese culture was an appeal to antiquity as the source of goodness and truth. The new literature eventually passed to the ancient one and appeared in the form of teaching for later times. Antique experience during the middle Ages was reflected in the work of the first great Chinese poet Tao Yuan-Ming. The works of such poets as Cao Zhi, Ruan Ji, Zuo Si predetermined the rise of Chinese poetry. It was regarded as the penetration of poetry in life as a new artistic vision of the world social progress. Confucius taught the subsequent generations to retell the events of Antiquity but not to devise it. In the works each of the narrators named the participants, called the exact time period and geographical location of the event and that is why most of the Chinese writings are autobiographical. The main hero of the medieval poetry is a person who does not put himself higher than other people. Thats why the queen of the poetry “love” was substituted by friendship and loyalty. Love is revealed in the folk Chinese poetry (Shijing book of songs). It is immodest but at the same time pure and intimate. In later works of Li Shang-Yin love is represented as a mixture of happiness suffering and sorrow. One more kind of Chinese poetry is sung poetry, which was called in the honor of the great dynasty Sung, which was the ruling one since 960. In this period the poetry was concentrated on the topic of Homeland, its importance and unity. Philosophical and theoretical perception of reality of life and art predetermined the emergence of a new critical literary genre - notes about poetry. The Sung poetry revealed different spheres of human activity and described a person who was closely 4 connected with the interests of the society in which the majority of poets were the arbiters of public affairs. A modern example of Chinese works of literature is desperately "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" written by Dai Sijie. The events described in the book took place after the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The story is about two students sent to reeducation to a small mountain village. Despite the intentions of Communists to influence them by the ideas and policy of Mao Zedong, the boys chose to read the works of Dumas and Balzac. They found the forbidden books and read them to the uneducated daughter of a tailor, persuading her in the existence of a better world and forming her dreams about ideal life. In this work the issues of education and literature significantly coincide. The author describes the importance of education which is hated by those who want to manipulate the minds of other people, but can be a strong armament for those who struggle for knowledge. This novel can be definitely called one of the best representations of Chinese literary art. Japan is the only country, which left its hieroglyphic writing without any significant change. The first collection of Japanese poems appeared in 751. The VIII century was the time of such great poets as Akahito, Yamanoe Okura. Confucianism and Buddhism came to Japan in the VI century and at the same time strengthened its cultural ties with the Korean states. By the VIII century Chinese and Korean poetry became well-known in Japan. At the beginning of the XI century appeared one of the greatest classical Japanese books - the novel "Genji Monogatari" Murasaki Shikibu. At the beginning of the XII century appeared the storybook "Konjaku Monogatari", indicating the presence of democratic tendencies in the Japanese literature and containing stories available not only for educated part of the society. The subsequent centuries 5 brought a number of new developments in the literature of this cultural region. For example, "The Tale of Heike" created in the XIII century. The plot of the story concerns the struggle between two clans (Taira and Minamoto), which lasted for decades and finished with the death of one of them. That war changed the fates of thousands of people and made most of them sacrifice their lives in order to save the clan. The author concentrates his attention on the concept of karma, which reveals in the consequences of a person’s actions. It is shown on the example of the main character of the story (Klyomori) who is represented in the novel as a very cruel person and as a result dies suffering. “The Tale of Heike” became the basis for lots of further Japanese works of literature. Modern language of Arabic literature and educated society is an ancient language of northern Arab. Monumental inscriptions (since the end of the II millennium BC) are basically only brief reports about cultural and historical heritage of the country. Some historical legends of the South preserved in Arabic language, mostly in the Koran and different ancient books. The earlier writings (up to VII century) were not preserved; the legends were completely changed and had almost nothing in common with the real history. The interesting work of Arabic literature is a poetry "The Mediations of Maarri" written by Abu l-Ala al- Maarri. In his poems the author introduces his religious attitude to the reader. His poems are usually short and epigrammatic. He writes about Islam and most of them have a fatalistic direction, bringing the melancholic spirit. Summarizing the information about the history of Asian literature we can see that modern writings are the result of numerous evolutionary actions which took part during the long period of time and undertook different changes in the life of Asian nations. Each historical event influenced the topic and the style of 6 writing, that’s why the works of different centuries were written in specific manners which were typical only for a certain time period. The continuous improving of writing style and significant events of the history reflected in novels made Asian literature one of the most popular among modern readers. 7 Works Cited John D. Yohannah. A treasury of Asian literature. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1956. Print. King-Kok Cheung. Asian American Literature: an annotated bibliography. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1988. Web. Sau-ling Cynthia Wong. Reading Asian American literature: from necessity to extravagance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993. Web. Youngsuk Chae. Politicizing Asian American literature: towards a critical multiculturalism. New York: Routledge, 2008. Web. G. L. Anderson. Asian literature in English: a guide to information sources. Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research Company, 1981.Web. Bella Adams. Asian American literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008. Web. Read More