Peidu And Mid-Tang Literature

As the famous courtier in Mid-tang dynasty, Pei Du has been a governmentofficer in six dynasties which include De, Shun, Xian, Mu, Jing, and Wen. Inparticularly he became the prime minister in dynasties governed by tang xianzong,muzong, and jingzong, Therefore, he had a huge impact. Not only did he play a vitalrole in the political circles in the Mid-tang, but also did he make a great achievementin literature. He advocated for the text to be “Without a strange word, what is saidnaturally can be elegant; without strange principle, what is natural can be original.”This had a role of remedies to the classical writing which had a strange tendency. Heoften promoted people who were good at writing, and others respected him becausehe was willing to make friends with scholars. During his life, he has close contactwith many scholars such as Han Yu, Liu Yuxi, Bai Ju yi, Zhang Ji and so on.This article includes three chapters:In chapter One, HanYu is taken as an example in order to examine the Contactbetween him and the main members of the Classical movement in Mid-tang dynasty.The Classical movement is a big thought in Mid-tang literature. Han Yu, as the leaderof this movement, communicated closely with Pei Du. Not only had he followedPeidu, but also did they write a lot of antiphonies. In addition, by the analysis of PeiDu’s “A Letter to Lee Ao”, we summarize his literary concept. Finally, by theinspection of Peidu’s poems, we discover the literary movement in Mid-tang.In chapter two, in the early years of Pei Du and Bai Juyi’s lives, both of themwere officers in the same court, and they became hermits in LuoYang in the later yearsof their life. By exploring the contact between Pei Du and Bai Juyi and theirantiphonies, Pei Du’s impact on Bai antiphonies Ju-yi’s Leisure poetic style wasfigured out. In addition, Yuan Zhen as another representative of Yuan Bai poetry, healso had a political confrontation with Pei du in the years of Chang Qing. Thepolitical confrontation of this period had a huge impact on his work. This is also aproblem which is worthwhile studying.Chapter three, Pei Du has wide contacts with others. Besides the two schoolsmentioned in the previous of two chapters, he also had very close contacts with otherscholars. This chapter is ready to focus on the contacts between him and othersscholars’s contacts such as Zhang Ji, Liu Yuxi and so on, to study his contacts withother scholars in Mid-tang.