Sumatra Bachelor Word Study

Su Shi is the leader of the Su Men Literary Group (eg. The Literary Group of Su Shi) which was formed during the later part of the Northern Song period. The key members of the group are Huang Tingjian, Qin Guan, Chao Buzhi and Zhang Lei, whom are generally named as "The Four Scholars of the Su Men". They held very important position in both the political and literary circles and their literary activities had great influences on later literati.Su Shi and the four scholars have endured hardship in their lives. They had strong bond due to their frequent interchange of experiences. As a result of both their social and literary activities, this literary group had registered very distinctive result. Every members of the group had given full contribution in their talent in poetry, songs and prose. However, the bond they had among themselves did not reveal in their writing of the songs. In other words, they have had independent and free idea on theory, and had produced very personal and delightful works. But their remarks on each other works enable the formation of the unique style and features of the group. This thesis takes the Four Scholars of the Literary Group of Su Shi as study object.The First Chapter will examine the lives and works of the Four Scholars. Though there are researches on them before, due to the principle of "to know a person is to know his life", this chapter aims to make a systematic study of the lives and works of the Four Scholars. This is to form the foundation of this thesis. Moreover, the doubtful songs of Huang Tingjian and Chao Buzhi will also be studied; and the edition of Qin Guan's songs kept in Korea will also be discussed.The Second Chapter is to study the subject matters of The Four Scholars's songs which are wide-ranging and abundant. They can be divided into four themes namely the beauty and the spirit drinking, the reflection on time and festival, the relegation and seclusion, and the ode to objects. In the first theme, various types of beauties can be seen through the songs, such as the positive type, the negative type, and the elegant type. The writers also express their deep feelings, sorrow, sadness due to farewell and also the unruly emotion in the writing of spirit drinking. The theme of the reflection on time and festival convey differently in each writer's songs. The "past" in the songs of Huang Tingjian and Chao Buzhi related to their broad-minded character, while the "future" in the songs of Qin Guan is an anticipation of farewell. There are three kinds of sadness express in the theme of relegation and seclusion which are the sadness due to the meditation on the past, the sadness of living far away from home, and the sadness due to the confused heart. The theme of ode to objects shows the writers' feeling through metaphors.The Third Chapter aims to discuss the relationship between theory and practical of the Four Scholars. Almost all of them have complicated contradiction in their theory. Huang Tingjian have both the "follow the style" and "break the style" theory in his discussion on songs, while his main focus was on the stress of classic elegance, the importance of knowledge and "every word must has it's origin". Qin Guan's theory is recorded in the book The Conversation between Teacher and Student. It is obvious that Qin Guan had devoted much attention to poetical meter, the use of allusion and the structure of the songs. He had gained high appraisal for both his theory and works. Chao Buzhi had placed value upon the "sign" compared to the "form" of the song, and had stressed on the writing of songs with feeling. The used of allusion and the blending of both feeling and scene had been used by Chao for analytical purpose. As a result, the use of allusion had given prominence to the theme and redoubled the expression of feelings and taste. Zhang Lei on the other hand had the opinion that feelings in songs should be revealed naturally.The Forth Chapter is to analyse the character of both the Four Scholars and their songs. The heroic, unbending, calm and carefree characters of Huang Tingjian had integrated smoothly into his works, and produced writings of both heroic and leisure. Qin Guan with sensitive and sentimental nature had experienced three times of transformation of both his character and writings. In the first stage, his writings are bold with heroic spirit; the writings during the second stage are euphemistic and tender; his writings during the relegation period become sad and depressed. The writings of Chao Buzhi had also changed according to his experiences and the transformation of his environment. When he was in office, his character was courageous and his writing was clear and bright. During his seclusion, his character became simple and plain, his writings expressed his miserable and sadness. In the limited quantities of the writings of Zhang Lei, he had both the songs of heroic and graceful character.The Fifth Chapter will discuss the evaluations on the Four Scholars by the Korean literarti in the past. Firstly, the criticism in the book The Talk on Songs will be collected accordingly. Secondly, the thesis will analyse these evaluations, with special attention pay to the comparison of Huang Tingjian and Qin Guan; the mutual criticism between Huang Tingjian and Chao Buzhi will also be discussed. The evaluation on Zhang Lei is very much related to Su Shi, where Zhang Lei had used the songs of Su Shi to write poetry. As a conclusion, it is clear that the Korean literati had paid more attention and had set the highest value on Qin Guan. It is also apparent that The Four Scholars of the Literary Group of Su Shi had great influence on Korean literature.In conclusion, the thesis aims to study in detail regarding the knowledge, characteristic, achievements as well as influences of the Four Scholars of the Literary Group of Su Shi.