The Research On American Scholar Kang-i Sun Chang's Chinese Classical Poetry Study

As a world-renowned Chinese American female scholar, Kang-i Sun Chang is one of the most prominent representatives of overseas Sinologists. She perceives keenly the significance of western theories towards literature study and applies consciously western theories and methods to the study of Chinese ancient poetry, which contributes more to the development of ancient Chinese literature study and fulfillment of the exchange between Chinese and western cultures.In her study on Ci poetry dated from Late T'ang to Northern Song, Kang-i Sun Chang employs theories of genre study and structuralism, etc, threading her research by the evolution of genre, and analyzes by means of text analysis the genre characteristics of different works in different times, from which finding the precious views about history development. In her study on Six Dynasty poetry, she selects two opposite and complementary literature factors, expression and description, to discuss and regards them from an aesthetic respect as objects of reference, inspecting specific poets'style. Also, Kang-i Sun Chang exploits mask aesthetics and sexual theory into her study on poetry of Ming and Qing Dynasty, indicating that mask is no more than a convenient measure, that is, a tool to express one's real feeling with other people's mouth. She puts unique social role and sex implication of femininity into the analysis of text, and reinterprets the ancient Chinese Literature from sex respect and at the same time provides a new angle of view for literature criticism.After making a general survey of Kang-I Sun Chang's study of ancient Chinese literature, we can see clearly that she puts literature study on the level of culture all along, trying to depict the vicissitudes, opposition and fusing situation of different culture ideas and trends of thought presented by different writers in different times, and describe the aesthetic feelings of poetic literature by analyzing the individual cases. Kang-I Sun Chang is inclined to grasp the development and significance of literature from the angles of genre and language, and aims at the combination of the studies of genre, literature language and new theoretical concepts, and the combination of different genres of Chinese classical poetry and the occurrence and evolution of relevant genre ideas, trying to reveal the unique meaning of Chinese classical poetry's evolution and development, its actual influence on the occurrence and evolution of the genre and its countless ties with cultures of different times, and grasp the connotation of genre's evolution in a broad view. Kang-I Sun Chang also lays stress on the combination of literature study and other subjects and knowledge. She puts religious and sexual study into the interpreting of the classical literature texts, which makes her literature study present a special quality. Kang-I Sun Chang assimilates rich nutriment of the contemporary Sino-western culture and criticism theories of literature. Meanwhile she adheres all along to regarding the specific fact of Chinese classical poetry as the starting point of her study. Her unique academic concepts and study style of classical literature study takes shape in her continuous contrasting between Chinese and western literature works and art theories, all of which provides precious reference and inspirations for us.