Huang Tingjian's Literary Studies

The content of relegation literature had various changes under the influence of different ages and culture, which reflects distinctive writing modes. Based on the historical background of relegation, this dissertation conducts a study of Huang Tingjian’s literature during his relegation periods. It explores the scope of themes,thought and personality as well as comparative study of artistic style before and after the relegation. In order to promote the studies of Huang Tingjian and relegation literature, it puts emphases on the perspective of literature, history, philosophy, art etc..This dissertation is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter explains the reason and meaning of this subject selection. It makes an introduction to the research history of Huang Tingjian and relegation literature, with the help of the principle of knowing both the author and his time, sets forth the procedures of research and writing. The second chapter reviews the tradition of relegation literature from pre-Qin Dynasty to Tang Dynasty. It describes the background of relegation literature in the Northern Song Dynasty. The political factors are examined from the perspective of literati political formation and the spirit of the high-ranking officials in Northern Song Dynasty. The party struggle is reviewed which continued for five periods of Emperor Ren, Ying, Shen, Zhe and Hui. The third chapter discusses Huang Tingjian’s family,gives an outline of his relegation life in Qianzhou, Rongzhou, and Yizhou etc., which is helpful to make a more comprehensive study on the creation of Huang Tingjian’s relegation literature.The fourth chapter makes a study of the creation of Huang Ting ian’s relegation literature from the perspective of literary themes, including life, family, friendship,teaching, chanting things and other viewpoints. Huang Tingjian was accompanied by his elder brother during his relegation periods when they wrote poems to each other.He wrote poetry to mourn over Su Shi and Qin Guan on different occasions. Even though Huang Tingjian was relegated, he adhered to the ideal personality, which was willing to cultivate and encourage the younger generation. He was also concerned about local customs and showed human feelings of affinity with all people. In addition, Huang Tingjian kept calm attitude towards adversity and adopted natural substances in his relegation literature, which displays an open-minded view of the world. All these turned to his life and soul, brought about the upgrading of emotional life and adaptive mind.The fifth chapter discusses the ideological content of Huang Tingjian’s relegation literature from Confucianism, Taoism to Buddhism. It firstly recalled the evolution of thought style from Tang to Song. The scholars of Northern Song Dynasty promoted Confucianism and mixed with Buddhism and Taoism. Huang Tingjian’s relegation literature reflects the mental intermediation of the three religions. Confucianism is the basis of Huang Tingjian’s personality in his life. During the relegation periods, Huang Tingjian had more literary presentation which reflected the Confucian spirit. Huang Tingjian’s relegation literature also reveals Taoism along with the materialization of the spirit. He believed that happiness and sadness, honor and disgrace, life and death and other personnel changes were similar to the natural running theories. Huang Tingjian’s relegation literature was influenced by Buddhism as well, for he turned to meditation together with the hidden virtue of inner peace. While living in hardship during the relegation periods, Huang Tingjian was able to practice the meditation, got spiritual well-being and elevation.The sixth chapter discusses the artistic appearance of Huang Tingjian’s relegation literature. Huang Tingjian expressed his artistic ideas and life attitude with poetry on painting during his relegation periods. He commented on the technique and moral character of the Ink-bamboo painting which were drawn by Huang brothers; Huang Tingjian wrote poems on Li Gongyin’s noble woman painting, which reflected his thinking of reclusive life; He was also fond of Ink-plum painting and wrote poems to show his recollection on friends who had passed away. Generally speaking, The writing style of Huang Tingjian’s poetry on painting turned from artistic technique to life attitude after the second year of Chongning when he was relegated from Rongzhou to Lingnan. This change expanded the range of expression by means of poetry on painting, which possessed significant aesthetic value of literature and painting. This chapter also discusses the change of Huang Tingjian’s relegation literature, points out his preliminary view of language forms and features in diction,poetic metre and other aspects. Huang Tingjian’s poetry style tended to nature after he was drawn in the party struggle, it possessed the feature of neglecting device and seeing the truth of the world,forgetting the words and holding the spiritual guidance,which reflects bilateral thinking of the external words and internal meaning.The last chapter is conclusion part which summarizes the study results from three perspectives of this dissertation.