Abstract：The concept of “Chun (醇)” comes from the early wine-making process in ancient China. Wine is closely related to rituals and music. Because of its thick and unmixed quality, “Chun” has been endowed with the symbolic meaning of richness and maturity in the politics and religion and the orderliness in rituals and music in the context of Confucianism. The concept of “Chun” in Taoism is more manifested as beauty of heaven and earth in the realm of natural aesthetics. In the early aesthetics, “Chun” also has a connotation that refers to the beauty of people’s spiritual temperament. Qu Yuan’s Yuanyou established “Chun” as an aesthetic style in the dimension of people’s individual spiritual temperament.In the late Tang Dynasty, marked by Sikong Tu’s explicit pursuit of “Chun beauty” in poetry creation in, “Chun” began to enter the category of poetic aesthetics. Compared with Sikong Tu’s perceptual aesthetic pursuit of “Chun beauty”, people of the Song Dynasty paid more attention to its inherent richness and discrimination and comparison in the evaluation of poetry. The richness is mainly reflected in the critical discourse. The expressions of “light Chun”, “deep Chun”, “pure Chun” derived from “Chun” were found in the daily writings of the Song Dynasty. The meticulous evaluation is the most typical discussion on the topic of “thickness and thinness of wine”. In the poetic critical discourse of the Song Dynasty, some poets such as Tao Yuanming and Du Fu of the previous dynasty were regarded as models of “Chun”. Going back further, the source is the classic The Book of Songs. The Song Dynasty advocated academic culture, which manifested itself in poetics by emphasizing poets’ inner cultural accomplishment. Only by taking knowledge as the basis for poetry can one reach the realm of “Chun”. Retro style was the main trend of poetic thought in the Ming Dynasty. Retro poetics placed particular emphasis on style and differentiation. “Chun” and the concept derived from it became common terms in retro poetics during the Ming Dynasty to highlight style and sect, as well as to criticize poetry styles. The group of retro poets constructed retro poetics from multiple theoretical levels, and the interpretation of “Chun” is also closely related to retro thought. The poetics of the Qing Dynasty is closely related to social reality and academic atmosphere. “Chun” developed into more diverse levels in the poetic context of the Qing Dynasty. The official discourse deliberately elucidated its Confucian political education implications. Scholars expressed their emphasis on the learning of “Chun” to rebuild elegance and orthodoxy. The Qing Dynasty was an era when poetry creation and poetic theory flourished. When people in the Qing Dynasty studied and discussed poetry, they still regarded “chun” as a typical aesthetic pursuit of classical poetry. When discussing the Tang and Song poetry，the Qing Dynasty often referred to the Tang poetry as “Chun” and praised Tang poetry as elegant and proper. In the Qing Dynasty，the poetry creations of Tao Yuanming and Du Fu were still regarded as models of “Chun”. “Chun” became a specific poetic category bestowed upon scholars by the Qing Dynasty poetics as “Poetry of Scholars”. The use of “Chun” from the process of making wine to discussing poetry is full of its unique interest and evolving diversity in Chinese classical poetics. Through the diachronic description of the interpretation of “Chun” in the important poetics of various generations, we can deeply explore the integration of “Chun” with politics, thought, and academics, thereby presenting the vitality and richness of Chinese classical poetics reflected by “Chun”.
李程. 辨味言诗：论中国古典诗学中的“醇”[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2024, 54(3): 138-149.
Li Cheng. The Pursuit of Chun (Taste) in Classical Chinese Poetics. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2024, 54(3): 138-149.
2024, Vol. 54 
