Purpose and Significance

Firstly, cultural confidence was stressed by President Xi in the nineteenth CPC National Congress. Chinese traditional culture is an important part in the process of establishing the confidence. President Xi repeatedly stressed the importance of the history and influence of traditional Chinese culture, and gave it new meanings. Undoubtedly, Chinese traditional culture still plays an important role in today’s life, guiding the behaviors as well as nourishing the minds. The study on Chinese classical poetry can provide a new idea to promote traditional culture.

Secondly, to express the piety, Metaphor is a mean frequently used in the poems. In Chinese traditional culture, the classical poetry is a shining pear, in which the piety culture cannot be ignored. As an important part of traditional virtues, filial piety culture can be the cultural heritage in the river of the traditional culture. This metaphorical research on Chinese filial piety culture provides a new perspective on the further study in Chinese culture as well as in classical poetry of China.

Thirdly, images have a significant influence on conveying the connotation of the filial piety culture. By using the images, the meaning of the verse becomes more vivid rather than abstract. The images can describe an abstract matter as a concrete living thing, e.i. in the poems, it can change a large tree into a small piece of leaf, or can transfer a thick wall into a piece of transparent glass. Images provide a chance to convey the filial piety culture more clearly as well as plant a seed of Chinese culture into the soil of Chinese people’s hearts.

Research Background

Studies on metaphor can be traced back to Aristotle. In his classical Rhetoric and Poetics (1954), Aristotle elaborated on the function of metaphor and the importance of mastering metaphor. Metaphorical studies before the 1980s generally followed the steps of Aristotle and basically treated metaphors as a rhetorical device and as a kind of extraordinary language used for embellishment. The research on the Chinese classical poetry based on the metaphoric artistic conception as a relatively new perspective has got some achievements. Yu Xiuhong (2016) discussed the forms of metaphor in the classical poetry, and discovered the systematic problems of metaphor in literary expression. She divided the forms as three parts, the metaphor of language expression forms, the metaphor of ancient poetry’s genres and structure as well as the metaphor of image. Yin Zichong (2017) studied the conceptual metaphors in The Book of Songs from a Cognitive Approach, finding the metaphorical expressions and the conceptual metaphors behind in the three components of The Book of Songs, i.e. Feng, Ya, and Song.

The researches on the classical poetry based on metaphorical artistic conception are mostly from an angle of translation strategies or metaphorical expressions, while the study from a perspective of filial piety culture is rare. This paper aims to study the Chinese classical poetry from such a perspective and it may provide a new direction of the further studying of other scholars.

2. 研究的基本内容与方案

Research Contents

Filial piety remains an essential part in Chinese traditional culture, and it lies in different Chinese literary forms, especially in Chinese classical poems. This paper will analyze the relevant texts of Chinese classical poems to reveal the metaphorical images in the filial piety. Initially, this paper will introduce the definition of images in poetry, especially the metaphorical images, as well as the previous studies on filial piety culture. The different metaphorical images will be discussed in three parts, e.i. animal images, plant images and other images. In this chapter, the source domain and target domain of metaphor will be analyzed to reveal the different aspects of the filial piety. For example, the mourning of the parents, the missing of the parents, the worry of the parents and the respect and obedience of the parents, etc. This paper will also discuss the effects of metaphorical images in Chinese classical poems.

This metaphorical research on Chinese classical poetry with filial piety culture may provide a new perspective on the further study in Chinese culture, a new direction on the inheritance of Chinese excellent traditional culture, as well as a new idea of the culture communication between Chinese culture and the foreign culture.