Study On The "Quatrains Criticism" Of Yang Shen

Yang Shen,a famous litterateur in Ming Dynasty,possesses various anthologies of quatrains including Juejuanyi(four volumes),Jujubianti(eight volumes with appendix),Tangjuezengqi(four volumes),Tangjuesouqi(one volumes),Wuyanjueju(one volumes),Liuyanjueju(one volumes),but there is few people to research on these literary works.It is of great significance to study Yang Shen's anthologies of quatrains.This article takes Yang Shen's criticism quatrains as the research object and study them from three parts.The first part is introduction,which includes a general interview of Yang shen's anthologies,theory and creation situation and the introduction of writing ideas.The second part is literature articles,which mainly discuss Yang shen's criticism quatrains from preface and postscript,comments on Jujubianti and Juejuyanyi,written works including theory construction,criticism methods and literature influence.Concerning theory construction,firstly,Yang Shen believed that quatrains originated from Six Dynasties.His core opinion is that five-character quatrains and seven-character quatrains both originated from Six Dynasties.He also criticized on viewpoints popular in Yuan and Ming Dynasty that quatrains were selected from a poem of eight lines.Meanwhile,he noticed that quatrains in Six Dynasties had changed in style under the influence of Yuefu poem.Secondly,Yang Shen divided quatrains in Tang Dynasty into eight kinds,because he was also a critic with strong sense on distinguishing between different forms.Yang Shen divided quatrains into eight kinds in accordance with rhyme,but the standard and it s meaning were worthy of discussion.Thirdly,Yang Shen preferred the style of implicit and fluent,which featuring sophisticated and well-nit and preference of implication.Concerning criticism methods,Yang Shen's selection of quatrains,with personal preference,mainly using three criticism methods including tracing the origins,testifying by epic and art criticizing,which contains tracing the origins of image,style and meaning,testifying poem by history and vice versa,and criticizing on authors,techniques and evaluation.The content of literature influences is mainly about the impacts of creation,theory propagation,and selection and edition of others.In fact,there is a close relation between his creation and his theory of quatrains.The last part is bibliography,which mainly introduce the reasons and results of Yang Shen's anthologies of quatrains.There are three motives of selecting and editing:correct the deficiencies of predecessors,communicate with friends and complete the former anthologies.The correction of anthologies of quatrains contains content about taboo words in quatrains in Tang Dynasties,false in spreading process and application of Lijiao method.In a word,Yang Shen appreciated and attached importance to quatrains,and achievements in criticism of quatrains is one of the significant part of his poetic theory.