ABSTRACT
The word appreciation in its ancient usage meant recognize the worth of. The character wei, meaning taste, which occurs in some of the appreciation expressions, is also worthy of note. Basically it means the sensation at the end of the tongue, and this was extended to convey the idea of savoring the flavor of a literary work, or appreciating it. Literature is an art of words, and literary appreciation is above all a pondering of words. To grasp the words it is first of all necessary to recognize that the definitions in dictionaries, thesauruses and phrase books cannot convey the flavor of the writing to the reader. The works of the pre-Qin philosophers also contain many phrases with multiple layers of meaning. Novels and dramas also contain phrases with such deep allusions. The descriptive power of words is limited. Even a master wordsmith will come across headaches in verbal expression from time to time.
