Zeng Gong's Association And Literary Creation

The academia has had a profound research on Zeng Gong, who was a pretty influential prosper back in the Tang Song period; however, few people has ever extended to how friendship had impact on his writings. Zeng Gong became famous when he was young, and he brought himself into the government official world when he hit the middle age. All his life he was drifting, committing to friendship.Considering the frequency of his acquaintance with people and the numerous works related to such, even in Song dynasty when “valuing friendship prevailed among the whole world”, it happened rarely. I tried to write an essay based on how Zeng Gong's experience of making acquaintance was involved in his writings, with his acquaintance as the entry point and his works as reference, managing to reveal the interplay between the experience of making friends and his writings. Nevertheless,because hundreds of his friends were involved and words limitations had to be considered, I had to pick out the group who had affected him most both on his thinking and creation to work on and had the rest attached to the essay. The following are the articles of the essay:The first article is introduction, This part is mainly to the academic frontier in a summary overview of Zeng Gong's research, based on this, advances the existing problem of Zeng Gong ' s research, and analysis the thesis research ideas and methods.The second article focuses on the person who had the most significant influence on Zeng Gong. That is Ouyang Xiu. These two were both mentors and friends to each other. Ouyang Xiu had taught everything he knew about writing and creating to Zeng Gong, including the style of creating a work and the specific way of writing.The third article is concentrated on the most intimate person to him, Wang Anshi. It presents how these two developed a deep friendship based on the appreciation to literature, how Wang Anshi contributed to his writings, from the objects and ideas of a work to its techniques and how these two emotionally drifted away from each other because of the academic difference.The fourth article turns the sight to his associates. Different types of figures are categorized based on different time and difference identities. His life is separated into three phases by the time of him engaging in politics and being appointed to the local official. The different types of acquaintance he made during these three phases and the its related works will be specifically mentioned.In the end, in order to show his acquaintance and the magnificent prose along with that in a more specific way and for newcomers to this thesis further in-depth study, I will make a chart to include all his association and literary creation as the appendix for reference.