| Wang Ji, born out of an influential family, was a unique pastoral poet at the end of Dynasty Sui and beginning of Dynasty Tang. He made himself conspicuous at an early age, but later his life was interwoven with retreating to be a hermit and winning an official position. However, his ambition remained unrealized all his life, and most of his life was dedicated to landscape as any hermit did.This thesis, with the history in which Wang Ji lived as the background, analyzes the origin of the complexity of his thoughts, explores the aesthetic features of his pastoral poetry on the basis of all related researches made by others, and reckons the relation with Tao Yuan-ming and his contribution to the development of pastoral poetry.This thesis consists of 4 chapters. Chapter one is on the origin of Wang Ji's thoughts. The fairly tolerant cultural policy of Dynasties Sui and Tang helped the development of different thoughts such as Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism , which exercised great impact on Wang Ji. He accepted the above-mentioned thoughts and probably he also accepted the doctrine about Yin and Yang. But due to the family influence, his first stage of thinking was dominated by Confucianism; and due to repeated setbacks in his later life his second stage of thinking was characterized by Taoism.Chapter 2 is about the aesthetic features of Wang Ji's pastoral poetry. The dominating feature of his pastoral poetry is inheriting Tao Yuan-ming's, but he stuck to his own pursuit: poetry creation should express the true feelings of the author, thus the true feelings in his poetry creation and his unique poetry style. Expecting to be an official in his youth made his poetry frank and free, while afterwards his living in his inherited manor made his poetry simple, fresh and natural. In addition, Wang Ji's pastoral poetry is characterized by solitude and loneliness because of his lack of companionship and enthusiasm.Tao Yuan-ming's pastoral poetry creation style was rarely inherited in the two... |
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