The Study Of Sima Guang's Poetry

Sima Guang, the famous politician, thinker and historian in the Northern Song Dynasty, was also a writer quite good at poems and articles in the world of letters. However, perhaps because of his great contributions to historiography and lifelong exploits, in academic circles the research is widely carried out only about his life, thought, historiography, etc., but nothing about his poems. In fact, his poems were highly praised by Wang Anshi and Su Shi, the literary masters at that time, and also by the descendants. Combining the era backgrounds, his life experience and his thoughts, this paper investigates Sima Guang's poems and try to find out the features of his poems on the basis of their overall style. The following are the four parts:Chapter One is about Sima Guang's poetic thoughts. Sima Guang was influenced greatly by Mei Yaochen and Ouyang Xiu on poetic thoughts. Specifically, the thoughts are prominently revealed in three aspects: his poems are rich in content and beneficial to the descendants; his poems have meaning implied, and are quite interesting. In addition to the influence of Mei and Ouyang, the formation of Sima Guang's poetic thoughts is also associated with his life experience, personality and the time ethos.Chapter Two describes the ideological content of Sima Guang's poems. His poems mainly express his personal feelings and the major ideological content includes: criticizing realism and sympathizing the people, happy-go-lucky and harmonious thoughts, official pain and self-seeking, taking warning from history and moral judgement. Although most of his poems are on companionship, as a politician and historian, he was concerned about the destiny of his country and people, and evaluated historical figures, which were quite realistic.Chapter Three tells the images in Sima Guang's poems. He was good at using images, such as crickets, alcohol, drugs, villagers and Babbitts. These natural or human images are either quietly elegant or secluded, closely connected with Sima Guang's personal charm and personality.Chapter Four portrays the artistic style of Sima Guang's poems. His poems are fresh and natural, simple and genuine, and the general style shows close relationship to that of Wang Anshi and Wang Yuchen. The fresh and natural style is closely related to the overall poetical fashion in the medium-term of the Northern Song Dynasty, while the simple language is deeply affected by Sima Guang's sincere and natural character.