Study On Xu Zeng

Xu Zeng(1612-?),styled as Zineng,also called Er’An,was born in Chang Zhou,South of Yangtze River.He rose to fame as a teenager,and became an influential man of letters at late Ming and early Qing Dynasty.Widely recognized in Middle Wu,he mingled with the literati of his time,like Qian Qianyi,Jin Shengtan,Wu Weiye,Gui Zhuang,Zhou Lianggong,Huang Yisheng,Chen Zongzhi,Huang Guang,Lu Tan,Chen Jian,and He Kai,etc..The disease of his feet confined his movement;and therefore,except occasional trip between Jiang Su and Zhe Jiang Province,he spent most of the time reading,writing and compiling books at home.Xu’s diligence and arduous work made him a prolific writer,whose works,however,were assumed to be lost.Not until the publication of Wu Guoping’s Xu Zeng and Jin Shengtan did people realize that Xu’s Jiuhaotang Collections still existed and thus drew much attention.This dissertation takes Xu Zeng as an case study to talk about the life experiences of this talented intellectual afflicted with disease against the social environment at the turn of two dynasties,and focuses on the elaboration of his literary creation.This dissertation includes four chapters with an introduction.The first chapter studies the life experiences and works of Xu Zeng.At the turn of two dynasties,Xu’s life was full of frustrations,but still remained quite prolific.The young talent enjoyed high reputation among the lords,but his foot disease lead to early retreat to literary creation at his prime time.The turbulence of the society and the torturing of the disease served as Xu Zeng’s inspiration for a deeper understanding of life,which lead to a career of writing and Buddhist worshipping at old age.Chapter Two focuses on Xu Zeng’s social relation.Xu Zeng was fond of socializing and had a large social circle.However,he noticed that people at that time mingled with plenty of people to seek fame and lost their most precious quality.Therefore,Xu Zeng laid emphasis on the personalities of others and his friends shared similar characters,like frankness,learnedness good reputation and manners.This chapter classifies the his social relationship into three categories:teachers,friends and monks,all of whom exerted huge influence on his life.Chapter Three discusses Xu Zeng’s poetic creation.He was renowned for his poems,about 1900 of which were collected in Jiuhaotang Collection and Book of Chishang.His poems are diversified in genre,topics and styles,which include both classical and innovative elements.This chapter,apart from a brief introduction of his poetic creation,selects Yellow Peony and Sentiment Poem as two representatives for aesthetic analysis.Chapter Four analyzes Xu Zeng’s prose.Xu Zeng’s 300 existing prose varies greatly in themes and artistic features.Among the prose,the prefaces and postscripts are of foremost importance,in that they are mainly literary criticisms,which reveals Xu Zeng’s moral and aesthetic orientation;his eulogies and elegies,especially elegies,demonstrate his attitude toward livelihood and another aspect of his spiritual world;his essays on history,though limited in quantity,are truly insightful and reveals his heroic world view and state of mind.As an ordinary man,Xu Zeng was not involved any historic events or disputes and his life was not full of rises and falls,due to which he almost faded into oblivion.However,Xu Zeng is significant on his own terms with unique life experiences and distinctive literary creation.He experienced the change of dynasties,but still gained his piece of mind;his perseverance made him survive uncontrollable agony and struggles.These experiences imparted him eternal qualities that transcended time,which earned him a position in literature and history.