Rethinking Wang Guo-wei’s Realm Theory in the Perspective of Cultural Poetics

Wang Guo-wei’s Realm Theory is an important concept in Chinese modern literary aesthetics. However, it is also a theory which has incurred lots of controversies. Neither putting the concept into the western aesthetic theory system nor interpreting it according to the traditional poetics is of any help for the clarifying of the connotations of the concept. We need not only to realize the significance of treatingrealmas the aesthetic ideal of aesthetic value judgments, but to emphasize the role of the specific historical and cultural context in constructing the connotation ofrealmas well, thereby conforming to the tenet of interpreting Realm Theory on the basis ofcultural poetics.