Research On Zhaogu's Poems Of Imperial Examinations

Generated in Sui dynasty, thriving in Tang dynasty, the poems of imperial examinations reached its summit in the middle and later Tang dynasty. Being a special style of the Chinese classic poetry, it is a kind of poems that reflect the imperial examinations and the poets'feelings which involved in Tang dynasty. (poetry research on imperial examinations in Tang dynasty, Fudan University Press) Doing research in such field has very important meanings. As a comparatively successful poet, Zhaogu produced a large number of imperial examinations in his tortuous and frustrated pursuit for official career. Among his 265 poems there are 136 imperial examinations, which take more than half of the poems he had ever produced. Nevertheless, such a large number of imperial examinations still not gain the attention they deserved in academic field. Even the research on Zhaogu himself is also poor. What the most of the researches emphasize is not to carefully discuss the art of poems but testify the correctness of his poetry. Based on the previous studies in such field, with the analysis of Zhaogu's imperial examinations poems and his experience in this period, this paper tries to make a discussion on his feeling in the period of imperial examinations and the art forms of such kind of poems.This paper was divided into three parts. With description of the imperial examinations in Tang especially later Tang dynasty, part one tries to restore the objective and truthful experience of Zhao's pursuit for official career, which would lay the foundation for deeply analysis of the mentality of imperial examinations and the art form of poetry. Part two may be called the journey of the heart for Zhaogu's experience during the period of imperial examinations. By means of hardship, the discontent and indignation of failling in the examinations and the homesickness in his mind, this part aims to discuss the complexity of zhao's mentality. The imperial examinations cost more than half of his life. He moved through the high officials and noble lords, tasted the feeling of being looked down upon by the superiors, failed for several times in such kind of examinations. So there is no doubt that his mind was mixed with resentment. However, such kind of resentment is not pointing to others but himself, when he felt anguished he would turn to write, drink and religion for a short time release, and then return to the way of pursuit for official career again. Part three is the art form of the poems of imperial examinations. From Zhao's poems we may find a lonely ego image, which is also the true picture of the scholars in later Tang dynasty. On the choosing of images Zhao not only made use of the usual images such as Chuanyan, zhiyin, wumei and so on but also created his own images, namely, "a branch of", "lu" and "chen" Besides, he took the viewpoint of overlook and retrospect to depict the objects, which are filled with a feeling of sadness. While on the language style it has the tendency for poem and spoken language, which stressed on the polish of verbs and numerals to show the property of fluency.