Bi Zhongyou And His Literary Creation

Beisong Dynasty is the prosperity period when the prose is created, Large quantities of proses authors followed Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi at that timed , created the prose . Though the literature achievement of them could not compare with that of Ouyang Xiu,and Su Shi, they were the important component of the literary world in Beisong Dynasty too. Bi Zhongyou was one of them .Bi Zhongyou took bachelor's institute examination, Su Shi is the main examiner. Sushi's students such as Huang Tingjian, Zhang Lei, Chao Buzhi had participated in the examination together. Su Shi only praised his article, choose him as the first. Contemporary Su Zhe, Fan Chunren, etc. praised his article too. It is obvious, Bi Zhongyou's literature attainments are quite high。 He occupies a tiny space while the prose develops in Beisong Dynasty. It's a pity the study on Bi Zhongyou is few in later age. This thesis will do a preliminary and systematic research to Bi Zhongyou and his literary creation.This thesis has three parts. Because the people in the past were little in study on Bi Zhongyou, Everybody is not familiar with Bi Zhongyou and his thing. So the first part has done the simple introduction to him. His great grandfather was a prime minister when being Song ZhenZong. The Bi 's became the distinguished family at that time. The ones that marry were mostly famous persons with the Bi 's. Bi Zhongyou could not be illustrious and influential in all one's life. He had not become a high-ranking official for all one's life. He acted as an official in the localities frequently. But he had ability of handling affairs very much, and had more achievements. And he could abide by the family tradition , was honest in performing official duties. He had 20"Xitai collected works". Some works broke up lostly. It is not in "Xitai collected works" that there are 14 articles in "The articles of Famous official in successive dynasties". It is not in "Xitai collected works" that there is a poem in"Thing about poem of Song Dynasty". Second part have carried on research to Bi Zhongyou's thought. Bi Zhongyou was full of political enthusiasm. He had not only issued his own view on the political realistic problem, but also described the political proposition of the feudal society. He is a Yuanyou partisan. But he took attitude of neutrality in " party fight of Shu Luo Shuo" in old party. The education that Bi Zhongyou accepted was the Confucianism' education, Confucianism was the base of his thought, So he extremely objected to Buddhism. But he was not pure Confucianism, Taoism's thought has a certain influence to him. In addition long-term local officer career made large practical composition of his thought. The third part have carried on research to the literary creation of Bi Zhongyou. On literature and ethical relation, he paid attention to the importance of literature even more than the former person. Concrete in the relation between Confucian classics and poem, he tried hard to resume using poem as the examination content , raise the position of the poem. His theories of the poem and literature have its distinctive qualities. He paid attention to historiography, emphasized the historical article is different from literature articleone. His poem theory conformed with poem theory at that time. But his prose theory was comparatively backward, overly put emphasis on restoring ancient ways. He had made very great achievement in creation of his prose, his prose especially argument and biography had greater literature value. Although his achievement in poem was inferior to the achievement in prose, his poem had certain literature value.