本书由8个章节组成，内容上特色突出，其核心主题是对中国诗歌构建过程的关注，包括了孔子等中国先哲对诗歌的影响的贡献，古代中国与希腊诗歌的比较，关于诗歌风格的争辩，王国维对中国诗歌的改造方面。内容几乎涉及到了中国传统诗歌在构建过程中所涉及到的各个领域。

Foreword

Chapter I A Manifold Expectation of Poetry

1. Poetry as a Social Discourse

2. Poetry as an Aesthetic Discourse

  2.1 Poetic Xing

  2.2 Poetic Guan

  2.3 Poetic Qun

  2.4 Poetic Yuan

3. Poetry as a Moral Discourse

Chapter 2 Confucius and Plato on Music

1. Psychical Effect of Music

2. Aesthetic Value of Music

3. Moral Function of Music

4. Political Expectation of Music

5. Pedagogical Worth of Music

6. A Comparative Remark

Chapter 3 A Debate on the Functions of Music

1. Against Music: Mozi's Negative Utilitarianism

2. For Music: Xunzi's Positive Utilitarianism

3. A Reconsideration of the Opposing Views

Chapter 4 A Critical illumination of Poetic Styles

1. The Literary Development: Form and Style

  1.1 The Institutional Factor

  1.2 The Fashion Impact

  1.3 The Political Element

  1.4 Group Dynamics

  1.5 Historico-cultural Context

  1.6 Artistic Individuality

2. Artistic Creation: Proper Inclusiveness

    and Holistic Vision

3. Stylistic Paradigms: Naturalness,

    Gracefulness and Elegance

  3.1 Naturalness as Beauty

  3.2 Gracefulness and Elegance

Chapter 5 A Moralistic View of Poetry

1. Conformity to the Moral Principle apriori

2. A Bi-polarized Treatment of the Guofeng

3. Second Reflection

    on "Having No Depraved Thoughts"

Chapter 6 Poetic Wisdom in Zen Enlightenment

1. Revelation from Natural Scenes

2. Natural Spontaneity as a Psychical Path

3. A Poetic Way of Zen Enlightenment

  3.1 Gradual Enlightenment

  3.2 Sudden Enlightenment

4. The Realm of Sunyata as Beauty

Chapter 7 Aesthetic Criticism of Transculturality

1. Beyond East and West:

    An Transcultural Transformation

2. Aesthetic Education as a Critical Necessity

    (Meiyu Shuo)

3. Art as a Refuge from Suffering (Jietuo Shuo)

4. Art as Aesthetic Play for Freedom (Youxi Shuo)

5. The Artist as Creative Genius (Tiancai Shuo)

6. The Refined as the Second Form (Guya Shuo)

7. The Theory of Poetic State par Excellence

    (Jingjie Shuo)

  7.1 The Creative State versus the Descriptive State

  7.2 The State of Self-involvement versus

    the State of Self-detachment

  7.3 The Great Poetic State and the Minor Poetic State

  7.4 The Veiled and the Non-veiled

Chapter 8 A Sublime Poetics of Miratic Type

1. Historical Significance in Perspective

2. The Mftratic School and the M~tra Allegory

  2.1 The Basic Features of the Maratic School

  2.2 The Multi-implications of Mhra

3. Dismantling the Old While Establishing the New

  3.1 A New Notion of Culture

  3.2 A New Conception of Literature and Art

  3.3 A New Type of Aesthetics

  3.4 A New Mode of Literary Criticism

    and Poetic Cultivation

4. Summary

Afterword

Appendix

Key References

Index

Acknowledgements