Liu Song Study

Liu Song is the leader of Jiang You literati's colony during the period from the late Yuan to the early Ming. He is knowledgeable, magnanimous, and incorruptible. His works have distinct characteristics and make higher achievement. The literati's colony of JiangYou which he leads has influenced upon correcting the literary maladies of Yuan and forming cabinet-style literature of Ming. What's more, his character and knowledge have respected at that time. However, he hasn't been paid sufficient attention now, not to say researchers. The purpose of my thesis is to give him an objective evaluation in the history of literature by reading all of his literary works.There are four chapters in my thesis. The first chapter focuses on Liu Song's life experience and his friends of literary circles. According to his ancestors come from JinLing and his different life experience in Yuan and Ming Dynasty, his whole life with the development of his literary thesis and writings can be divided into two stages taking year 1370 as the boundary. The second section deals with his contact with friends, especially paying attention to his friendship with the literati's colony of JiangYou, which has huge influence on his literary thesis and works. Furthermore, I will try to sketch the members of JiangYou literati's colony and their evolution track.The second chapter is a description and evaluation of Liu Song's literary thesis. The section is a description of his thesis from ontology, creation and style of literature, which can be summarized as "fundamental of real sentiments", "anti-archaism to Han and Tang Dynasty", "seeking an orthodoxy and elegance style", and theoretical system of creation. They affect the literary restoration and the cabinet-literature of Ming Dynasty.The third chapter focuses on his poems. The first two introduce his main poems in different subjects of different periods, which divided into reflection of social disturbance and life hardships, expressing editor's desire, life attitude of conflict between government service and seclusion and so on. The third section is an comprehensive evaluation of their ideological contents and artistic techniques.The last chapter deals with his essays, including biographies, glorifications, inscriptions, travel notes, argumentations, letters, forewords and postscripts etc. The purpose is discussing the general situation, aesthetic feature and deficiencies of the proses. In the epilogue of the thesis, I try to summarize Liu Song's values in the history of literature and attempt to elucidate the effects on the literary world pattern's forming and development of Ming Dynasty by JiangYou regional literati's colony.