Zhang Heng Poetry Study

Han Dynasty is a flourish period of the ancient feudal society. So the cultural development of Han Dynasty has showed magnificent state stemming from many achievements handed down from the great prosperity of thought in Pre-qin. Hou Han Shu-Zhang Heng Biography written by Fan Ye appreciates Zhang Heng as "San Cai Li Tong", meaning that he commands profound knowledge of sky, people and land and is very knowledgeable. As a gifted youth who is successful in astronomy, literature and calendar calculation in Dong Han period, Zhang Heng has been clever and eager to learn since childhood. He traveled to the center of Shanxi province when he was young. He followed his teacher Jia Kui, a Confucian master, to read Confucian classics and study way of Yellow Emperor and Lao Tzu, which made his works show the attitude of putting what is learned into practice and speculative philosophy. And those experiences also made him outstanding in the literary field at that time with his concepts that not restricted by the bias of classics family and Divination Theology. During his writing course, he has revealed different writing mentality in different periods under the influence of his official career experience. This kind of writing mentality expressed features of imitation, self-examination, reform and innovation with his career's up and down. There are not many works of Zhang Heng. According to the classification of The comment correction of Zhang Heng s poems and essays by Zhang Zhenze, there are mainly nine kinds:poem, fu, essay, inscription, memorial speech, psalm, imperial mandate, book and Shangshu. Among these works, poems and fu enjoy the highest achievement. From Er Jing Fu, the most achievement of city Fu,to Si Xuan Fu, nearly an unexceptionable Sao style fu, to Gui Tian Fu, a new kind of lyrical fu, they all showed his unique feature and view from their forms, content, feelings, etc. As for his poems, Zhang Heng's Tong Sheng Ge, as a mature prose of poems with five characters to a line, has left important proof in the history of poem development. His Si Xuan Fu and Si Chou Shi were also a useful try in the evolutionary process of seven-character verse and buried the foreshadowing for the emerge of Wei Jin poets' seven-character verse. What's more, Zhang Heng's inscription, memorial speech, psalm and imperial mandate also revealed a new height of Han Dynasty's practical literary form for their plentiful meaning, abundant emotion and rigorous discourse.As a scholar serving as a link between the past and the future, Zhang Heng's works not only showed the inheritage and summary of predecessors but also the attempt of new literary and finally become important study basis in the writing style's changing time of the Eastern Han Dynasty. In his works, creative forms, ample images and changes from being practical to being self-conscious were all displayed, which laid a fundamental key for Wei Jin's literary self-consciousness. Although there are many studies about Zhang Heng in recent years, they mainly focus on his scientific achievements or his representative poems but lack systematic study and general look about his works. This article will first introduce his learning foundation and writing attitude under the influence of his official career, combine the time background to restore his mentality in different periods, then analyse his works with changing and connecting views and at last figure out Zhang Heng's important status in our country's literary development history.