Yang Shen's Poetics And The Back To Ancient Trend In Chinese Literature In Middle Ming Dynasty

Yang Shen was a famous scholar and litterateur in Middle Ming Dynasty when the trend of "back to ancients" was prevailing in literature field. The trend was headed by Seven-Talent School, who advocated learning the poetry of Han, Wei and Tang Dynasty, particularly that in the most prosperous period in Tang Dynasty, however, denying the poetry after the Middle Tang Dynasty, and declaring that "there were no good poems in Song Dynasty". Because they overemphasized to imitate the form of the poems of Han, Wei and the prosperous Tang Dynasty, such as the rhythm and tone, the plagiarism became very common in poetic writing in that period. Under that situation, Yang Shen wrote many famous comments and poems to criticize their parochial pursuit in the trend of "back to ancients". Comparing with Seven-Talent School, Yang Shen's views were much more reasonable and objective, which is a cool stream flowing into the messy jungle.The first chapter mainly introduces the trend of "back to ancients", including its occurring, Seven-Talent School's theories and poems and the relationship between Yang Shen and Seven-Talent School.The second chapter addresses Yang Shen's comment on poems of Tang and the Six Dynasties. Yang Shen highly praised the poems of the prosperous Tang Dynasty and expressed admiration for Li Bai and Du Fu. Tracing the poems from prosperous Tang Dynasty back to the Six Dynasties, he considered that poems of the Six Dynasties were the sources of poems of Tang Dynasties so that the source should not be neglected when the poems of Tang Dynasties were emphasized. He also expressed his affirmation from an objective and rational aspect on the poems of Middle to Later Tang Dynasty.The third chapter discusses Yang Shen's comments on poems of and after Song Dynasty. He declared that "everyone can write good poems in different Dynasty" and illustrated there were nice poems in Song Dynasty to refute the fallacies "there were no good poems in Song Dynasty" and "Poems of Song Dynasty don't deserve to read" which were announced by He Jingming and Seven-Talent School.Chapter four describes the poetic theory of Yang Shen. Yang Shen though that the emotion, the concise and implicit style, the poet's knowledge and writing skill were the most important four elements in poetic writing.Chapter five investigates how Yang Shen used his works to fight against the parochial pursuit in the trend of "back to ancients". Two parts are included. One is about Yang Shen's poetry studying. He did not only study the poems of Six Dynasties, but also the poems in different periods in Tang Dynasty, and even the folk songs. The other part discusses the characters of Yang Shen's poems. Using allusions and quotations, Yang Shen described new meanings.