The Research On Song Xiang

Song Xiang is an important poet during the transitional period of the Northern Song Dynasty poetry,who had an important effect on politics and literature. He first got a lot of praises and a good reputation with his early poem "the fallen flowers”.However, there is few research of Song Xiang with rare research of his poems at present. Therefore, this thesis will try to make a systematic analysis and research,which involves Song Xiang’s family background, "Yuan Xian Set" version, literature,poetry and prose, etc., to reposition Song Xiang’s literature status.This thesis is divided into four chapters in which the first chapter talks about Song Xiang’s life, friends, and circulating version slightly. The first section mainly introduces the rise and fall of the family. Song Xiang’s ancestors immigrated from Guangping with declining financial situation, and his family become rich again, being a glorious family, until one of his family members engaged in politics during the Second Song Dynasty. The second section mainly discusses Song Xiang as a bureaucratic, scholar and poet. First of all, Song Xiang was a gifted, honest and thrifty bureaucratic who didn’t only pursue a good reputation and could tell right from wrong when he came cross something awkward. In addition, he was a scholar with a good many works and a special interest in temple and Taoist temple. Finally, he was a poet who was regarded as a Xikun follower, deeply influenced by the Xikun style. The third section describes Song Xiang’s outing situation. When he studied in Anlu, his teacher being Lian Shunbin, he made friends with Lian Shu and Lian Yang who were sons of his teacher. At the same time, he had close friendship with Anlu Mingru.When he entered the literary world, he received favorable treatment from Xia Song,Liu Yun and Yan Shu and made friends with peers and colleagues. However, all of these have been discussed in some research articles, thus the section will pay more attention to his friendship with Li Shu and Pang Ji to get a further understanding of his life experience. The fourth section presents the spread and versions of “Yuan Xian Set “. It mainly discusses the spread of different versions of “Yuan Xian Set” to have a look at the acceptation of his poems during different dynasties.The second chapter explains Song Xiang’s literature thought. The first part is about his Ci Fu view in which we can see his preference to Fu style literature from Qu Yuan and Han Fu’s comments. The second part is about his poetic view of six dynasties literature in which we can conclude his acceptance and criticism of six dynasties literature through Wang Can, Zhulin Qi Xian, Pan Yue, Xie Family and Tao Yuanming’s comments. Third part is about Song Xiang’s criticism and acceptance of the Tang poetry, trying to analyze the reasons why he preferred Yu Xi poetry to Wei Suzhou. The fourth part is about Song Xiang’s attitude towards his contemporary poets by analyzing his proposition of adopting Xikun but not constrained in it, the beautiful language and the pursuit of melody beauty.The third chapter is about the study of Song Xiang’s poems. The first section talks about his poetry creation stage which could be divided into four periods. The first period was from his study in Xiangyi to the time when he became a scholar.During this period he created few poems, most of which expressed his feelings directly with strong lyricism, being plain but with sincere emotions and preliminary present a tendency of beauty. The second period was from the time when he first engaged in politics to the time when he was relegated. With a successful official career, his works increased greatly compared with early period with all kinds of themes and contents, which had apparent characteristics of Ku Style. The third period was during his uncertainty official life. His poems were greatly affected by his official frustration, his magnificent and elegant style transiting to profoung and state open.The fourth period was from being an official again to his cautious governance. As Song Yang became an official again after several ups and downs, he sought safety instead of contribution. His poem turned profoung and state open, showing the characteristics of clear his miserable. The second section discusses Song Xiang’s poems, which are mainly about Ancient Five-Character Poetry and Five-Character Octaves patterns.Firstly, it will study Song Xiang’s Pre-Tang poems, which were mainly about Ancient Five-Character Poetry pattern, by analyzing its characteristics and making a comparison with the Ancient Five-Character Poetry pattern of Song Qi and Ouyang Xiu to dig out the evolution of Ancient Five-Character Poetry pattern. Secondly, it will make a research of Song Xiang’s regulated verses, that is Five-Character Octaves pattern, by analyzing the relationship between Song Xiang’s Five-Character Octaves,Bai style in the Song Dynasty and late Tang style and making a comparison with late Tang poets(Jiu Seng and Kou Zhun), “Xi Kun Chou Chang Set” Five-Character Octaves and Song Qi’s Five-Character Octaves to find out the characteristics of Song’s Five-Character Octaves.The fourth chapter describes Song Xiang’s essays. Firstly, it will talk about his official document, analyzing their ideological value from the military, manners,administration and other aspects. Secondly, it will discuss his eulogiums, analyzing his Taoist and Buddhist view. Thirdly, it will describe Song Xiang’s meticulous essays,analyzing his literary thoughts and briefly analyzing his chuan-wen shi and familiar essays. Fourthly, it will expound the artistic features of his esays, mainly by analyzing the combination of Yan Xv scale, make good use of allusions,combination with literature and history. Fifthly, it will make a comparison between the poses Song Xiang and contemporary scholars, mainly Yang Yi, Song Qi and Ouyang Xiu, to dig out the essays’ characteristics in different periods.