A study of Su Shih's 'He-T'ao-shih' (matching-T'ao-poems)

My MA thesis undertakes to do a comparative study of the themes and concepts in the poetry of T'ao Ch'ien (365-427) and the themes and concepts in the "matching-T'ao poems" written by Su Shih (1037-1101). This study finds that Su Shih's "matching-T'ao-poems" reveal violently clashing images and tensions which disrupt his project of finding imaginative correspondences with T'ao Ch'ien's poems on the freedom of farming life and on his enjoyment of wine. Only in a group of poems on historical personages does Su Shih find an authentic "match" with the poems of T'ao Ch'ien on the same subject at both the imaginative and experiential levels.