Wang Shizhen’s Acceptance For Du Fu’s Poems From New Yue-fu And Seven-character Poems

Wang Shizhen was an important poet among the famous seven poets of the Ming Dynasty. His poems got great achievements on creation, and had rich theory studies; his Yue-fu variable poems and Seven-character poems followed the examples of Du Fu’s poems, enjoying a high position in the Ming Dynasty poetic circle. And his literary criticism works "The Artistic and Literary Realm Ramblings" made much classic criticism on Du Fu’s poems. Starting from the variable Yue-fu poems, seven-character poems of Wang Shizhen and the text of "The Artistic and Literary Realm Ramblings ", this paper discusses Wang’s acceptance for Du’s poems in relative details.Chapter 1 analyzed the image of Du Fu in the eyes of Wang Shizhen. Wang Shizhen believes that Du Fu’s poems have reached the "holy" realm in art and ideologies, so he should be regarded as "Wen Xing Dian Li". The poems of Du Fu recorded not only the real mental course of the poet but also the original appearance of the history, so they should be called as "the history of poetry"Chapter 2 discussed how the Yue-fu variable poems learn from the new topic poetry of Du Fu. And the first section of Chapter 2 also discussed the method to learn about the new topic of poetry of "famous poems about the current affairs". And the discussions about learning from new topics by the tunes of poetry——"Xing"(a style to write poems), "Yuan", "lyrics", and "Melodies", and the learning of the three-word new topic of non-tunes-poetry are also in it. The second section is a discussion on developing the spirit of "the history of poetry". The Yue-fu variable poems emphasized the true-life style, contained the deep emotional experience of poet Wang Shizhen and was consistent with spirit of "the history of poetry’Chapter 3 discussed Wang Shizhen’s study on seven-character poems of Du Fu. Using Du’s poems and treating them as his ow;n poems was the main method of Wang Shizhen in imitating Du Fu in the early phase. Learned from Du Fu, the insert method, two five sentence patterns, reduplicated words in measured tones, even putting feelings in narrative and scene description, all of these represent Wang Shizhen’s highest achievement on learning the seven-character poems of Du Fu.Chapter 4 analyzed the content, value and limitations of Wang Shizhen’s discourse on Du Fu’s poems. Wang Shizhen discourses the great value of Du Fu’s poems from style, creation and genre, and points out defects in the beauty of them forthrightly. Wang Shizhen’s view of Du Fu has its unique value. His discovery of the sentimental elements in Du Fu’s poems, the thorough summary of and study on the art of Du Fu’s poetry, and the objective and impartial attitude of criticism towards Du Fu’s poetry have a great influence on the later generations. Because of certain reasons, Wang Shizhen’s view on Du Fu naturally has its limitations.