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Finding Beauty in the Ugly and Strange: A Study of the Origin of Petromania in Tang China during the First Half of the Ninth Century

  • The Journal of Chinese Cultural Studies
  • 2014, (25), pp.7-30
  • DOI : 10.18212/cccs.2014..25.001
  • Publisher : The Society For Chinese Cultural Studies
  • Research Area : Humanities > Chinese Language and Literature > Chinese Literature > Chinese Culture
  • Published : August 30, 2014

Jeongsoo Shin 1

1고려대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Finding Beauty in the Ugly and Strange: A Study of the Origin of Petromania in Tang China during the First Half of the Ninth Century This paper examines aesthetic issues related to the Lake Tai rocks, ugly and strangestones that were celebrated as valuable items in Chinese garden culture. The underlying purpose of the study is to better understand the origin of petromania literature starting during the first half of the ninth century of Tang China. More importantly, it contributes to a deeper appreciation of the relationship between beauty and ugliness in Chinese literati’s thoughts. Based on existing sources, “A Pair of Rocks,” written by Bo Juyi in 826, is the first poem of the Lake Tai rocks in the history of Chinese literature. The poet was sympathetic toward its ugly and strange configurations. In 839, however, only twelve years after the poem was written, Bo Juyi, Liu Yuxi, and Niu Sengru gathered in Niu's rock garden and expressed unanimous acclaim of the stone as a rarity. Such change of perception shows that the Lake Tai rocks began to be appreciated as an aesthetic object. The cult of the Lake Tai rocks is vividly described in “The Record of the Lake Tai Rocks,” a prose account written by Bo Juyi in 843. This account reveals Bo's intentions to defend Liu's obsessive collection of the rocks but it still contains important content, such as categorization and rank of rocks, aesthetic standards, and circumstances during that period. My study of ninth-century petromania suggests that there is no absolute distinction between the beautiful and the ugly, and that a sense of beauty may change depending on time and circumstances.

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