A Study Of Seven-character Ancient Poems In The Northern Song Dynasty

This research focuses on the seven-words archaic poems(qigu)in the Northern Song dynasty.Qigu in the Northern Song dynasty achieved their artistic maturity with new changes in creation environment,theme and content,expressive function,style and expressive skills.This research centres on the genre characteristics of qigu and the prominent phenomena in its development,focusing on the leading role of the representative poets in the development of the genre of poetry and poetry.It studies the evolution of qigu in the Tang and Song dynasties,and makes comparison among different poets and genre of poetry in the same period,thus to make a comprehensive study of the development and artistic achievements of qigu in the Northern Song dynasty.The research is divided into four chapters.The first chapter focuses on the Qingli poets and takes responding poetry as an entry point to study the key changes in the theme and content,skill and style,and expressive function of the Qingli qigu.Through the analysis of Ouyang Xiu,Mei Yaochen and Su Shunqin’s choice about the genre of poetry,it is clear that Qingli poets had consciousness of choice about qigu,which was influenced by the genre and function of qigu,and the mentality and life experience of the poets.They consciously used qigu to interchange with intimates privately.As for the theme and content,it had a distinct "like novel" tendency,and it often organized the content with multiple perspectives of dialogue;as for the skill and style,it was good at both lyric and discussion,and easy to have a relaxed,lively and unrestrained style.The expansion of the theme and expressive function of Qingli qigu mainly included the expansion of the connotation of friendship and the narration of common memory in the theme of friendship,the distinct quality of discussion in the theme of reality and history,and the update of the mode of describing things in the theme about objects or things.The second chapter focuses on Su Shi and poets led by him and studies how their several important themes of qigu create the aesthetic feeling and style of“Qiqu”.Su Shi’s qigu of scenery and visit were good at dynamic presentation of scenery and had a philosophy guidance,and pruned the traveling trail to fit the personal experience initiatively.Poets led by Su Shi’s qigu of painting theme were often in harmony with the type,content and style of the paintings.They often expressed illusions by reality,showing rich relationship between reality and illusions,and developed free and broad association.When they wrote qigu about daily life,they were good at using various narrative and descriptive skills to form the contrast interest of seeing uncommon in common,and transcend the daily life by humor of dispelling self-solemnity and the construction of the relation between objects and themselves.The third chapter discusses the art of composition and structure of qigu in the Northern Song dynasty.Qigu in the Northern Song dynasty had precise performance and creation in the beginning and ending,segmentation and clue,sudden or smooth transition.The creation tendency of "taking article as poem" had an important influence on the art of composition of qigu in the Northern Song Dynasty.By combing and analyzing typical comments on qigu from the view of archaic articles,we can compare the differences of the art of composition of qigu among Su Shi,Ouyang Xiu,Wang Anshi and Huang Tingjian.Su Shi’s idea,conception and layout of qigu could often have reference or interaction in his archaic articles.And he was good at learning experience of the art of composition from classical books in the previous generation.Ouyang Xiu and Wang Anshi’s composition were different in gentleness and steepness,and Ouyang Xiu was better at the compound structure of emotional clues and structural clues.Huang Tingjian’s qigu obviously tended to curtail in length and he was good at short verse,which also represented changes of the choice about the genre of poetry of later poets in the Northern Song dynasty.The fourth chapter discusses the rhetorical features of qigu in the Northern Song Dynasty from the views of metaphor and allusion.Qigu in the Northern Song dynasty were good at extensive and detailed metaphor.They competed for new ideas in aesthetic style and creative way of metaphor,and paid attention to the logic of metaphor.Mei Yaochen’s qigu showed the tendency of extensive and detailed allusions.The allusions of daily life brought strange poetry materials into the traditional expressive experience and gave more profound connotation.Ouyang Xiu was good at using allusions to describe things and strengthen special styles of qigu,and embodied the tendency of natural history.Su Shi and Huang Tingjian’s qigu allusions were more extensive,intensive,flexible and diverse,combing with qigu’s advantage in discussion and making allusions really serve the expression of unique ideas.The development of qigu allusions in the Northern Song dynasty was also a process in which knowledge influenced the style of qigu.