The intersection of words meanings is the cornerstone of the research on the commonality in cross-cul-tural thought.The universe,nature,and the great beauty of heaven and earth are the focal points of American phi-losopher Emerson's essays and the Chinese Taoist classic Zhuangzi on their discussions of beauty.Emerson's Na-ture defines the constitution of all things in the world as Beauty and believes that the beauty of nature is an expres-sion of the universe.Zhuangzi expresses it as the great beauty of heaven and earth,which is closely related to the core category of Taoism,"Dao".In ancient Chinese culture,the Chinese character 美as a symbol of heaven and earth has its own philology foundation,and the pattern of this character initially symbolized natural phenomena that indicate good or bad luck.This paper identifies the consistency among the initial meaning of Chinese character美,the meaning of great beauty in Zhuangzi,and the meaning of Beauty in Emerson's works through word tracing and comparative analysis of the text.And by sorting out their descriptions and experiences of the ocean,the jungle,the time series,the seasons,the dawn,the wilderness and other phenomena in nature,the paper summarizes the aesthet-ic attributes of vastness,harmony,brightness,and transcendence that the authors of these two canonical books came to understand from nature,which has elevated their spirit.Zhuangzi uses fables to explain the nature of Dao-ism embedded in natural things,and Emerson's writing on natural imagery expresses his understanding of the hid-den spiritual self in natural phenomena,i.e.the"oversoul".The poetic and figurative language has become a me-dium for the crossing spiritual encounter between Chinese and American philosophers.
beauty of universeZhuangziEmersoninitial word meaningimagery expressionthoughts interwea-ving
NETL
NSTL
维普
万方数据
