Aesthetics and Ethics:Their Divergence and Convergence in the Evolution of the Legends of Yangjiajiang

The legends of Yangjiajiang(generals of the Yang Family) are passed down in different literary forms created by the folk story tellers as well as writers in different historical periods,including the different genres of huaben(话本) in the Song Dynasty,yuanben(院本) in the Jin Dynasty,zaju(杂剧) in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties,chuanqi(传奇),novel,and opera in the Qing Dynasty.All of this is a crystallization of the formal and folk arts but differs from one another in the arrangement of plot,setting the theme,and characterization,showing differences in ethical pursuit,cultural psychology,values,artistic feature and inclination for literary creation.The narrative structure(including the spatial structure,event structure,cause and effect structure and the psychological structure of the audiences) has developed from the linear construction to the multi-dimensional network construction.The images of the heroes from the Yang family have also evolved from simple to complex and from sketchy to life-like,displaying a good combination of fiction and facts and of beauty and goodness in terms of aesthetic features.The evolution of the works on the Yang family legends is along the path from entertaining aesthetics to moral teaching to the combination of these two pursuits,which constitutes the cultural aspect and aesthetic contents of the works on the legends of the Yang family.