Yang Shen And The Back To Ancient Trend Of Poetics In Middle Ming Dynasty

Yang Shen lived in a poetic trend that features classic conception.He advocates classics even more than Li Dongyang and Former Seven Scholars,who lived a little earlier before Yang Shen's age.Besides,he regards The Book of Songs as the classic among the history of poetry and advocates literary tradition of Feng Ya to fresh the trend of neo-confucianism and to reduce the the disadvantages of authorities that lingering in poetic circle in the early period of Ming Dynasty.However,as The Book of Songs is too ancient to track and study directly,to achieve the goal,the only way is to trace back by selecting another works that can serve as the connecting role as the classic.In order to do this,Li Dongyang stands on the theory of poetic formal distinctions and clearly ad votes to regard poems of Han and Wei Dynasty and poems of the prosperous Tang Dynasty as the classics of classical style and modern style respectively on the basis of distinguishing classical style and modern style.As for the poems of other dynasties,although there are great works,but the evaluation criteria should also be in line with that of the poems of Han,Wei and prosperous Tang Dynasty.The Former Seven Scholars basically follow the thinking of Li Dongyang,they are more strict on the age of the poems.They not only put forward the principle of the reasons why Han and Wei dynasty features classic style while the prosperous Tang Dynasty features modern style,but also consider it is not proper to take the poems of the Six Dynasties,Early Tang Dynasty and Middle to Later Tang Dynasty as the examples.Yang Shen,as the disciple of Li Dongyang,is also associated with the Former Seven Scholars and be regarded as the the Classicist School just as they were.While in he trend of classic style that features poems of Han,Wei and Prosperous Tang dynasty,Yang Shen choose to advocate the poems of Six Dynasties and Early Tang Dynasty and thus becomes the turning point inside the classical school,which ushered a new school called the school of Six Dynasties and later on placed great influence on the transformation of poetry theory of the classical school.The thesis is mainly based on the research of Yang Shen and discuss the historical development of the classical school.Besides,the thesis takes some important figures such as Li Dongyang,the Former Seven Scholars,Yang Shen,school of Six Dynasties and Latter Seven Scholars etc.as the stand point and discuss the the transformation of poetics ideas of classical school.While raveling out the thread of development,the author focus her attention on analyzing Yang Shen's succession,extension and transformation of the poetic theory that taken from other poets of the classical school and discussing Yang Shen's status among the classical school and the influence that he had imposed on the transition of poetry of revivalism.There are mainly two techniques that were used in this thesis:the first technique is the combination of literature,literature theory and the research of literary history.While focusing attention on the research subject--Yang Shen,the author analyzes his poetic theory with the background of poetry history and the self creation of Yang,develops the thesis in the angle of the transition of poetic genre literary current in the Ming Dynasty and explore the unique value and status of Yang Shen in the classical school and the poetry history in Ming Dynasty;The other technique is comparative study.By researching on the relationships between Yang Shen's poetics and the poetics of Li Dongyang,the Former Seven Scholars and the School of Six Dynasties,contrast and comparison with the poetry school of poets in the the Middle and Late Ming dynasty,the author shapes the general development path of the classical poetry from Ming's HONGZHI,ZHENGDE,JIAJING age,uncovers Yang Shen poetic's generality and peculiarity in the current of classical poetic and analyzes the succession of Yang Shen poetic,it's extension from the other poetics of the same age and the influence to the future works.The thesis can be mainly divided into six parts.In the introduction,the author discusses the current research of Yang Shen,by researching,the authors reaches that although the research on Yang Shen has achieved wonderful results,the research on his poetic is being isolated and not being placed under the overall background of Ming Dynasty's classical poetry.The researches lacks some kind of horizontal comparison between Yang Shen's poetic and other poetic of the poets who live in the same age as Yang.Besides,there are few thesis that explores the origin of Yang Shen's poetic from his predecessor and the the succession to descendants.In this part,the author specifics the purpose of the thesis is to uncover Yang Shen's unique value in the poetic history of Ming Dynasty and analyzes what kind of influence does Yang shen's classical poetic has imposed on the early and later transition period of classical poetic.In the second part,the author researches on the life experience and poetic thoughts of Yang Shen.Yang Shen thinks that in the creation of poetry,to express feelings is the basic principle,to accumulate knowledge and promote values is the necessary condition.The difference of emotions and learning of poets contributes to the diversity of poem.And for poems that were created in different age and by different poets,from the perspective of reflecting the emotions,they all have the rationality of its existence,just like the saying "everyone can write good poems in different Dynasty".Therefore,besides classical poems in Han and Wei Dynasty and Lvshi in prosperous Tang Dynasty,Yang Shen also advocates poems in Six Dynasties,the early Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty,he considers these poems the natural expression of feelings of different poets living in different ages.While in the aspect of poetic style,Yang Shen prefers works that are gorgeous,reversed and refined,natural and fresh,he advocates Yu Xin in Six Dynasties as well as Li Bai and Du Fu in prosperous Tang Dynasty.In the third part,the author discusses Yang Shen's succession and creation of Li Dongyang's poetics.LI Dongyang advocates the theory of poetic formal distinctions."strictly distinguish between poems and essay,there are differences between classical poems and Lvshi.On the one hand,Li thinks poem and essay has different style,poems feature emotions.On the other hand,he thinks classical poem and Lvshi has different style,classical poem is high-principled while Lvshi is not.Classical poem should not be as close as modern poems in patterns.Li Dongyang considers emotion as the fundamental points of the poem and focus his attention on the melody of verse of the poem.He prefers to link up the rhyme and rhythm of the poem to the emotions and proposes to comprehend the sounding features and Era style of the poem from the relationship between rhythm and emotion.Based on these theories,Li Dongyang regards Han and Wei poems as the examples of classical poem,and sets poems in prosperous Tang Dynasty as the model of modern poem.Yang Shen is Li Dongyang's student,and his poetic is inherited from Li Dongyang's consciousness of distinguishing style that "emotion is the first priority".Yang Shen also attaches great importance to the emotions of the poem,and he explores the perfect aesthetic paradigm of poems based on emotions.Through comparison between poems in Tang and Song Dynasty,he reaches the conclusion that Tang poem features emotions;But at the same time,Yan Shen established his theory foundation on the angle of "poems of different ages are all the natural expression of feeling of poets in different dynasties" and "poems in Six Dynasties are the origin of Lvshi in prosperous Tang Dynasty" and proposed respecting Tang poems while not bringing disgrace to that of the Six Dynasties,which breaks Li Dongyang's preference to poems in Tang Dynasty.In the fourth part,the author discusses the similarities and differences between Yang Shen's poetic and that of the Former Seven Scholars.As for essence of poem,both Yang Shen and the Former Seven Scholars feature emotion and they both think that emotion is the impetus of poem creation,the basic traits of poem and the essential of poem creation.While in the theory of restoring ancient ways,the Former Seven Scholars is under the banner of"For classical style,learn from Han and Wei Dynasty,for modern style,lean from Prosperous Tang Dynasty",Yan Shen aimed at the plagiarism faults that were caused by the singularity of mock subject in the Former Seven Scholar's modern style and proposed that besides poem of Prosperous Tang Dynasty,that of the Six Dynasties and Early Tang Dynasty should also be noticed.This proposition influenced He Jingming and made his works tended to be Six Dynasties-oriented;As for the style of poems,most of the Former Seven Scholars advocate the Prosperous Tang Style that represented by Du Fu,while Yang Shen prefers implicit and steady style that represented by Yu Xin.As for the goal of learning from the ancient way,both Yang Shen and the Former Seven Scholars agree with "Further to form their own style on the basis of the simulation ",but as for the specific method,Li Mengyang emphasizes it is better to achieve natural transition from size simulation.He Jingming emphasizes to learn poems is to understand emotions,not to copy the forms.While Yang Shen emphasizes poem creation should be based on erudition and to create your own unique style by learning the experience of how to infuse emotion and feelings.Both He and Yang holds the opposite views with Li Mengyang,but their views share some commonplace.In the fifth part the author discusses the influence of Yang Shen that imposed on the Six Dynasties School and the following-up classical schools.Yang Shen,as the core figure of Six Dynasties School,has not only established the poetic system of Six Dynasties School,but also placed direct influence on the Xue Hui,Six scholars of Yang's family and Zhu Yuefan in The aspect of poetics and poem creation.As a key part of Jiajing's early poetics,Yang Shen's view of "the Six Dynasties' poems as the source of the Tang Dynasty" and the evaluation of Du Fu's "Shishi" also aroused extensive discussion,which influenced the follow-up development of retro poetry in Jiajing.In the conclusion,the main content is to review Yang Shen's achievement the Back to Ancient Trend of Poetics in Middle Ming Dynasty,and give him an appropriate evaluation.