The Study On Yu Biyun's Poetics

Yu Biyun(1868-1950)from Deqing,Zhejiang Province is a grandson of the famous Qing scholar Yu Yue,and the father of the modern literatus Yu Pingbo.At 1898,he achieved the third place in the Imperial Examination,and 4 years later was appointed as an associated examiner in Sichuan Provincial Examination.When the republican era began,he first served as the curator of Zhejiang Provincial Library,and later worked as one of the editors in Qingshiguan,the national institute for compiling Qing history.After the Japanese invasion in 1937,he spent the rest of his life reading books at home.The radical social changes in China from the lastlate Qing to the foundation of the PRC profoundly affected his poetics as well as writings;but what remained constant was his dream to be a classical scholar with a simple life away from worldly fame and gain.Under his grandfather Yu Yue's tutelage in his childhood,Yu Biyun had high attainments in writing poetics and thesis.His writings include four poetic critical theories and four poem collections.Although the works were popular among the civilians,there were few researches on them.In order to fill the gap,this thesis illustrates the scope and meaning of his works.The thesis consists of three sections.The first one focuses on Yu Biyun's family academic origin,as well as the influence from his supervisors and friends.It shows that achieving the third place in the highly competitive imperial examination had been the milestone of the academic life of his family,rendering him an important point in his clan as he fulfilled the wish to revive the family.Also,his writings continued the traditional writing style of the clan and enlightened Yu Pingbo's works.The second section is about Yu Biyun's poetics.He wrote large amount of critiques not for theoretical contribution but for educational purposes.His poem collections did not reflect the complete lineage of poem history,but demonstrated the richness and the best of different schools and genres.He traced the origins,pursued aesthetic meanings,and remained neutral in the various currents of poetry,forming a unique style-pure and simple.The last section analyses some of his poetry themes,i.e.travel,celestial,plum blossom tale and memorial,whereby Yu Biyun's life and achievement can be better understood.Studying Yu Biyun's poetics eventually goes back to the study of the person himself.What he stands for is the attitude and choice of a group of traditional literati facing drastic social changes.As the witness and bearer of the past,they stuck to their cultural values and closed their hearts to the new world.