Research On Shen Yuqiu And His Guixi Set

Shen Yuqiu was a famous official lived in between the Northern and Southern Song Dynasty.He was one of the court officials during early Southern Song Dynasty and played an important role in the political circle at that time.Famous for his writing skills,Shen was particularly skilled in poetry with his internal and external imperial edicts being representative and appropriate at that time.He wrote the Guixi Set in twelve volumes,including literary forms such as poem,imperial edict,memorial,and ode,etc.However,this set drew few attention and were not well known by later generations.Based on the historical background and the trends of literature history of the Nandu period,the research on Shen Yuqiu and his Guixi Set will start from texts of Guixi Set while introducing Shen Yuqiu from vivid perspectives as well as investigating his spiritual world and analyzing the artistic features of his poems and articles.Chapter one reviews on Shen Yuqiu's life stories,illustrating and conducting textual research of the dissemination of different editions of Guixi Set.Shen Yuqiu was born in Shen's family,which was distinguished in Wuxing area of Deqing county in Huzhou.His profound cultural heritage and tradition of advocating Confucianism of his family laid him a foundation of obtaining the fame and stepping into the official career.However,he had no promotion and followed Gaozong to southward during the Jianyan period in the early stage of his career.As a result of the dismissal,he returned home thrice,and experienced an unsuccessful official career.He was once a key member in the scholar group of Huzhou during the Nandu period in the seclusion times,and this made him making friends from various fields.He worked together with official colleagues and meanwhile was accompanied by hermits across the country.Named by the geographical name,the Guixi Set was edited into books in the early stage of Chunxi period of the Southern Song Dynasty,and the latest edition was printed and published in the second year of Shaoxi period.The earliest edition available at present is the sinker wooden inscription of Jinling published in thesixteenth year of Wanli period.There are also editions in the “Four Branches of Literature” and other hand-copied editions,but all of them originated from a block-printed edition in the Song Dynasty.Chapter two focuses on the contents of poems in Guixi Set,showing Shen's observation of different feelings and spirits from all sorts of themes with deep investigation of his spiritual world.From the Northern to the Southern Song Dynasty,Shen Yuqiu had undergone great changes of the country caused by the rebellion during Jingkang period.He recorded and described the harsh realities and showed strong desire to recover the country and people in his poetical works.Meanwhile,growing up in scenic areas of southern Yangtze River,he made much depiction of sceneries in the poetical works and inherited the Northern Song scholars' tradition in the interests of the poems at the same time.Suffering from the homeless and depressed condition,it is unavoidable for Shen Yuqiu to be bored about the reality although with the social responsibilities he shouldered.Shen Yuqiu hesitated in making a choice between the official life and seclusion,thus he forced himself into the Buddhism to seek the inner peace and comfort based on the positive attitudes of the Confucianism.Chapter three analyzes the features of the artistic style and writing techniques of his poems and generalizes the origin from which his poetic art was formed.Following his predecessors,Shen Yuqiu developed diverse poetic styles with the evolution process generally the same as those during Nandu period.His poetries incorporated the elegant and significant style during Zhenghe and Xuanhe of the Northern Song into the sentimental and depressed atmosphere of Nandu period,which is also the response of his admiration towards Du Fu.The simplicity and flatness of Shen Yuqiu's poetry was affected by the poetic views of Tao Yuanming and Song poets like Sushi,who respected the natural beauty of poems.However,Shen Yuqiu's works also showed a charming style under the involution ethos in late Tang Dynasty.Although without specific poetic philosophy,Shen Yuqiu was very strict with his works and exerted himself in the tonality,rhyme,structure and organization,as well as polishing words.Also,he had learned creation methods from Jiangxi school of poetry,whichlaid emphasis on polishing words and using literary quotations,and converted them into his characteristics of poetry art without being affected by followers of Jiangxi school to be stiff and obscure in the creation.Chapter four investigates all sorts of articles in Guixi Set and focuses on parallel prose.Shen Yuqiu was once a Hanlin Scholar who drefted most of the imperial edicts during that period.In the meantime,most articles in Guixi Set are parallel proses as parallel proses were used widely in social lives of the Song Dynasty.They met the requirements of being representative and appropriate and conformed to requirements of different prose styles in the form,expressing exactly the writing intention.Also,these parallel proses adopt elegant words and neat antithesis,and a few of them also contain the prose style free from parallelism,showing the trend of fusion between the school of Wang Anshi and that of Su Shi in the Southern Song Dynasty.Although not being outstanding in the literary grace,some proses free from parallelism and memorials to the emperor reflect the political views of Shen Yuqiu more directly,which shows the change of his political stand at that period.Although Shen Yuqiu was not a literary star in the Southern Song Dynasty,and his own style was fairly obscure in the artistic feature and was not so highly-recognizable,some of his poetic proses are still excellent.Thus,it is necessary to make cognition and evaluation of his literary achievements and the literary value of Guixi Set from new perspectives.Also,it makes a certain sense to study Shen Yuqiu and his Guixi Set and to experience and observe the diversity of literary atmosphere in the Nandu Period.