辞达 – Chinese philosophy and culture

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cídá 辞达

Expressiveness

说话、写文章要能简明扼要地表达内心的意思。孔子反对过度追求辞藻华丽,强调文辞只要能确切而简洁地传达出思想感情即可,并倡导“文质彬彬”的审美观念。这一术语后来经过刘勰、韩愈、苏轼等人不断继承与发展,形成了中国文学追求语言自然凝练、反对过分雕琢的美学旨趣与风格。

The term means to put forth one’s thoughts in a clear and concise way when speaking and writing. Confucius opposed excessive efforts in pursuit of extravagant writing styles. He stressed that writings need only to express one’s ideas and feelings clearly and precisely, and he advocated a concept of aesthetics that valued the combination of elegance and simplicity. This concept was successively inherited and developed by Liu Xie, Han Yu, Su Shi, and others, resulting in a Chinese literary style that strives for natural and pithy expression as opposed to extravagant embellishment.

引例 Citations:

◎子曰:“辞达而已矣。”(《论语·卫灵公》)

(孔子说:“言辞能把意思表达清楚就行了。”)

Confucius said, “It’s good enough if you express yourself clearly.” (The Analects)

◎辞至于能达,则文不可胜用矣。(苏轼《答谢民师书》)

(文辞如果能够做到达意,那么文采的运用也就无穷无尽了。)

If one can write expressively, his potential to achieve literary grace is boundless. (Su Shi: A Letter of Reply to Xie Minshi)

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