长江审美意象及其与中国超越型文化的互生

On the Yangtze River Aesthetic Image and Its Mutual Generation with the Chinese Transcendental Culture

作为世界第三、中国第一大江,长江不仅是一个超级地理单元,更是中国人历史记忆与情感结构中的象征性存在。作为审美意象,长江总被塑造为时间上“永恒”、空间上“不尽”、历史上“万古”的超越性意象。这一意象的形成既不是非理性的,也不是浪漫主义的,而是以一种严谨、智思的方式植根于中国超越型文化中。在一种内向型超越的精神结构中,以天摄人的传统保存了人与天道相沟通的可能,其中一个重要途径就是从对自然物的关照中唤起德性理念。以此为基础,从儒、道两家最初以水喻道,到屈原、张若虚、李白、杜甫对长江超越历史、时空的形象塑造,再到王勃、苏轼和杨慎对“长江空自流”意象的形而上思考,长江在中华文脉中逐渐被塑造为一个非客体化的、超越人类尺度的精神存在,它既能提供一种形而上学的慰藉,实现对生命的终极肯定,又在某种程度上使主体能够破除自我边界,达到我与物冥的万物伦理状态。在今天,从美学精神来重新把握和阐释长江形象,有助于恢复我们与长江悠久的情感联系。

The Yangtze River is the largest river in China and the third largest in the world.For Chinese people,it is not only a super geography unit,but also a symbolic entity.As an aesthetic image,it is deeply rooted in our emotional and historical memory.Chinese literature has often depicted the Yangtze as an eternal,inexhaustible,and ancient symbol.This"image"is not irrational or romantic,but rather rooted in Chinese transcendental culture in a rigorous and intellectual way.The tradition of"以天忆人"(understanding human political matters in a cosmological way)preserves the possibility of communication between man and Nature.One important way of achieving this is by evoking virtue ideas through contemplating Nature.In this tradition,from the initial use of water as a metaphor for Taoism by the Confucian and Taoists,to the metaphysical contemplation of the imagery of"the Yangtze River Flowing aimlessly"through the Tang and Song Dynasties,the Yangtze River has gradually been moulded into a non-objective spiritual existence beyond the scale of human beings in the Chinese cultural lineage,it provides a metaphysical solace to realize the ultimate affirmation of life,and to some extent enables the subject to break down the boundaries of self and reach the ethical state of everything in which"I"am meditative with things.Today re-grasping and re-interpreting the aesthetic image of the Yangtze River can help restore our emotional connection with the Yangtze River.