The Two Precious Flowers In Female Ci Parterre Of Qing Dynasty

Xu Can and Gu Chun are the most talented ones among the numerous female ci poets in Qing dynasty. But the academic research on them is not deep enough. This thesis would do its best to depict accurately Xu Can and Gu Chun's souls and achievements in their ci poems through comparative research on their social status, life experience, special characters and ci works. It will also provide persuasive examples and evidence for the discussion about developing rule of female ci in Qing dynasty through investigating in their writing process of the two representative poets.The preface is a simple introduction and a current research condition about the two female ci poets. Concerning that this thesis is based on the thoughts of searching for differences on the basis of similarities, the first chapter lays the foundation of similarities through three aspects of high birth, good marriage and uneven life experience. And the second chapter and the third chapter show their differences on significance and artistic aspect respectively.This thesis concludes that Xu Can is deeply influenced by Confucianism while Gu Chun by Taoism, and makes a detailed demonstration and analysis on this argument. Just because of this difference in their thoughts, they depict nature in a total distinguished way. Xu Can inherits the Confucian tradition which takes nature as a tool to express feelings of artist. It's a nature with poet herself. But Gu Chun appreciate nature as an independent object, so it's a nature without poet herself.Their ci works have respective artistic characteristics because of their differences in status, personality and intellect. Xu Can expresses her sad feelings about Ming dynasty in a hidden and indirect way because of her embarrassed status as surrendered minister's wife. While Gu Chun connects active and silent aspects of nature to shape several beautiful and vigorous pictures. Their ci poems are both beautiful although having different affections.In the conclusion part, I compared Xu Can and Gu Chun with the other female poets who lived in the same period with the two respectively so as to give prominence to their characteristics. As two rare flowers in female ci parterre of Qing dynasty, Xu Can and Gu Chun's status in ci history deserve more attention.