关键词: 拉奥孔, 诗画分界, 艺术融合, 艺术纯粹性

Abstract: Laocoon, repeatedly cited and discussed in aesthetics and literary theory, involves the complex relationship between literature and other arts. The paper studies three classic texts about Laocoon, namely, Lessing's writing about the dividing line between poetry and painting in his The Laocoon and His Sons, Babbitt's romantic discourse of fusion of arts in his The New Laokoon: An Essay on the Confusion of the Arts, and Greenberg's modernist discourse of “farewell to literature” in his “Towards a Newer Laocoon.” Lessing's classic discourse is a theory of literary superiority, Babbit's romantic discourse highlights the supremacy of music in the equal status of various arts, while Greenberg's modernist discourse is dominated by the focus on painting of abstract expressionism in the “visual turn.” Literature changes from the center to be a member equal to other arts in western aesthetics and literary theory, which is a reflection of the complicated historical relationship of different arts, and the influence of social and cultural changes on the understanding of arts and their relationships.

Key words: Laocoon, the boundary between poetry and painting, fusion of arts, artistic purity