A Historical Research on the Changing Connotation of "Soul"

TheSoultheory is at first a theory of life and inwardness.And only when it projects on or infiltrates into literature from the orientation of life,can it be translated into literary criticism language.The theory ofsoulin the Late Ming Dynasty involed in three stages:the embryonic and nurturing stage,the developing and mature stage,and the near-final stage.By intersecting and permeating with theemotiontheory,it reveals its historic track.Though the concepts of thesoulare constantly changing,they had all broken through the view of formal contemplation principle and also bore the promise of free spirit,which made it become the most orginal literary thoughts in the Late Ming Dynasty.