Title: On "Wu-Wei" and "How Beauty is Beauty" in Laozi
Abstract: During the pre-Qin period,the Chinese character wei often means planning to gain something.Through a discrimination upon the context both in and out of Laozi,this paper maintains that the character wei of wu-wei in the book adopted the meaning mentioned above.Thus wu-wei means not seeking self-interest,which is the key idea of Laozi and the core of Tao.It was a political appeal based on the dominant social contradiction of that time.Laozi's teaching that everybody knows how beauty is beauty,which brings him no good,is the development of his key idea.And there are considerable misunderstanding concerned in Chinese history of literary criticism and Chinese aesthetic history to be clarified.
Publication Year: 2011
Publication Date: 2011-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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