Comparison of the Aesthetic Consciousness Reflected in Chinese Classical Scenic Poems and English Romantic Poems

The paper is to explore the difference in aesthetic consciousness reflected in Chinese classical scenic poems and English romantic poems. By comparing Wang Wei's and Wordsworth's poems, the paper points out that Chinese classical scenic poets take a more objective viewpoint in their presentation of natural scenery and their emotional or intellectual states with little interference with the original forms of things, while English romantic poets lay more stress on the poet's intellectual movement. The paper goes further to explore the evolution of these two types of aesthetic consciousness and find out that, influenced by Taoism and Buddhism, Chinese classical scenic poets conceive man as an integral part of nature and emphasize man's capacity to perceive truth through intuition. English Romanticism, on the other hand, emerges as a reaction against the rationalism of New-classicisim, and therefore most romantic poems reveal an obvious effort to remedy the split between man and nature caused by rationalism.