Zhang Shi Poetry Study

Zhi Shi was a famous philosopher of the neo-confucianism. He had not only got greatachievement in the neo-confucianism field ,but also he was a man who liked to write poem. In hiswhole life, Zhang Shi had composed more than 500 poems, which included various poem style,such as a form of pre-Tang poetry, a poem of eight lines and a poem of four lines. This articlewould have been expected to have an objective and exact investigation and evalution for Zhi Shi'sachievement in poem field through reseaching Zhi Shi's poetic concepts, ideological contents ofpoetry and artistic features of poetry.In the first part, we mainly reseach the poetic concepts of Zhi Shi, which includes theconcept and connotation of"scholar poem"he had proposed, and his transformation of Jiang Xipoetry's"flexible using"theory. The concept of"scholar poem"Zhang Shi had proposed made alargely distinct between the neo-confucianism's poem and the peot's poem, the literati's poem.What Zhang Shi had done was not only a great summary of poetry creation and theory of theneo-confucianism which, but also a great contribution to Chinese classical poetics. Zhi Shi hadappreciated Huang Tingjian who was revered as one of an ancestor and three predecessors of JiangXi poetry, and accepted Lv Benzhong's"flexing using"theory and Zeng Ji's"actuallying thelively verse"theory, but transformed their theorys into a way of understanding classics rather thana tool of simply writing poem.In the second part, we reseach the ideological contents of Zhang Shi'poems, which mainlyincludes two aspects. The first one is the reflection of Zhi Shi's mentality and situations of hiswhole life in his poems, which includse: 1) remembering and thanksgiving his loving father andkind mentor for their teaching and cultivation; 2) not achieving the ambition of involving inpolitical, so straying and wandering between being an official and being a hermit; 3) Sichuan andHunan constituting double-hometown in Zhi Shi's affection world and his infatuation and missingfor them; 4) deeply appreciating and attaching the family love and the friendment, especially thebrotherhood for his younger brother Zhang Jin in his official period. The second one is Zhi Shiintoending the quiet temperament in his poems. These poems had been written in eight years whenhe was lecturing in Yuelu Academy and Chengnan Academy. Among them, some described thequiet and elegant scenery , and ordinary-beyond life in the Academys, some described his fantasticof traveling and closing to nature with his friends and students, and some enjoyed and intoendedthe flowers with special culture significance, especially the plum blossom.In the third part, we mainly reseach the artistic features of Zhang Shi'poetry from twodimensions: first, poetic and philosophy being separated or mixed together; second, the mostoutstanding artistic characteristic in his each type poetry, such as natural and clear methodicalness in the poetry of pre-Tang form, syncretic and smooth artistic conception in the poetry of eightlines, and natural and unartificial images in the poetry of four lines.Zhang Shi had have neither the contribution of initiating the neo-confucianism poetry likeShao Yong, nor the achievement of collecting the advantages of the neo-confucianism poetry likeZhu Xi in the history of neo-confucianism poetry. But the unique poetic ideas and a lot ofoutstangding poetry of Zhang Shi had made an important contribution to the neo-confucianismpoetry's development. So Zhang Shi had a unique and important position in the history ofneo-confucianism poetry.