A Study Of The Survivor Ci-Poets Of Southern Song Dynasty

The Survivor Ci-Poets of the Southern Song Dynasty (referring to Ci-poets who remain loyal to Southern Song although it has been replaced by the Yuan Dynasty) are a group of Ci-Poets with quite special characteristics in the history of Ci-poems in Tang and Song Dynasties. Their writings are records of their own thoughts during the special historical period at the turn of the Song and Yuan Dynasties and are thus of unique status and value in the history of Ci-poems.The paper tries to provide a new explanation for the main characteristics of the Ci-poets, their creative activities and their historical status. The paper is divided into 4 parts.The first part is Introduction which includes three aspects: 1) the origins of the subject, that is, the self-identified roles of the Survivor Ci-poets; 2) a literature review; and 3) the major purpose of this study and the research methods adopted.In Part 2, we mainly investigate the personalities of the Survivor Ci-poets, with an aim to finding out the origins of their personalities through a comprehensive analysis of the time, social background and the personal experiences of these Ci-poets. This part revolves around the Ci-poets'painful personal experiences and their sense of tragedy. Living in reclusion is both the style of life for the Survivor Ci-poets and the natural choice for them to seek relief in tragic life experiences. We explore the main features of the Ci-poets by looking at their major lifestyles, their mentalities and their personality image building for themselves.In Part 3, we mainly consider the Ci-poets'writing activities from two aspects, that is, their discussion of Zen Buddhism and Taoism and their practices of exchanging Ci-poems among friends. Through their discussion, Zen Buddhism and Taoism penetrate into their aesthetic views and their sense of tragedy, and thus affecting their emotions and creative mentalities and influencing their creative tendencies and the aesthetic qualities of their writings. The Survivor Ci-poets are also different from other Tang and Song Ci-poets when they exchange poems between themselves. Their activities are characteristic of people living in reclusion. In all these activities, they always seek the building and exhibition of the their personality images. Such images enable them to encourage each other and improve their writing skills, and thus forging a personality type commonly appreciated by the whole group as well as enhancing the appearance of a writing paradigm recognized by the whole group. The prevalence of these practices are unique manifestations of the Survivor Ci-poets, reflecting their conditions of life, their ambitions as well as their values.In Part 4, we explore the unique status and value of the Survivor Ci-poets and their Ci-poems. We focus on their reclusive lifestyles and try to discuss their status in the history of Ci-poems by looking at them as a group and by taking into consideration of their influence on latter Ci-poems in Yuan and Qing Dynasties.In a certain sense, living in reclusion can be seen as an important reason for the new features of these Ci-poets'poems. Reclusive lifestyles help form the unique personalities of these Survivor Ci-poets and decide their choice of topics, selection of images as well as the ways of expression.