Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.1, 2025

The Sublime and Xionghun: Integration and Bifurcation in the Mutual Learning of Western and Eastern Aesthetic Thought

(Abstract)

Lu Chunhong

The purpose of the comparative analysis of sublime and Xionghun, two aesthetic categories in different ideological backgrounds, is not only to highlight the aesthetic qualities of the two concepts by detouring from others, but also to analyse the deeper significance of the two in the transformation of modern thought from an aesthetic point of view. From the perspective of conceptual connotation, if “absolute greatness” and “might” constitute different dimensions of the sublime, then “possessing all things” and “accumulating robustness into majesty” present two qualities of majesty. It is with the shift from the dominance of the rational to the independence of the sensual in the two dimensions that the sublime and the majesty are oriented in a way that allows for their mutual integration: the two concepts are not simply juxtaposed in their two different connotations, but rather they show a progression of ideas from the former to the latter. However, it is also because of taking sensibility as the main presentation method that the sublime and the majesty show a bifurcation of actuality. In contrast to the sublime, which displays aesthetic “freedom” through the opposition of forces in unity, the majesty manifests the wholeness in roundness by “holding the non-strong,” and points its realistic presentation to the “realm” of life.