Zhao Wei And His Poetry Research

Contents to be filled in Zhao Gu was a poet from late Tang Dynasty(618-907).His courtesy name is Chengyou.Zhao was born in Shanyang,Chuzhou(today's Huai'an city of Jiangsu province).In A.D.844,he became a Jinshi(a third-class candidate in the highest imperial examinations).The highest official position Zhao secured was Weinanwei(the magistrate of Weinan county).About his poetry,a total of 216 complete poems with headlines,262 other poems,and 12 poetry sentence fragments are included in the Complete Poetry Collection of Tang Dynasty.Zhao spent almost half of his life taking up government employments in strange lands,but his career was always gloomy.Most of his poems intoned his own personal stories through expressing feelings.Although the themes are not so diversified,Zhao created some great work,especially seven-character octaves.Most of his great poems are direct descriptions on what he felt.The line of “chang di yi sheng ren yi lou”(with a sound of the flute,the performer leans against the handrail high up in the building)was greatly admired by famous poet Du Mu,who then address Zhao as “Zhao Yilou”.(yi lou means leaning against the handrail high up in the building,which is a move can fully expresses the poet's feelings).Studies on Zhao's poetry started from the 1980 s.So far,limited achievements have been made,and more need to be done.Taking Zhao Gu and his poems as the research object,this paper makes a comprehensive understanding of him and makes an in-depth study of his poems,so as to make contributions to related research.According to the existing literature,this paper takes Zhao Gu's poetry as the main research content,and takes his three exams in Chang'an as the dividing point to sort out Zhao Gu's life experience.According to his experience of going to Chang'an three times,this paper focuses on the analysis of Zhao Gu's miserable inner feelings of “going to Chang'an but not feeling the beauty of spring”.According to the proportion of philosophical factions reflected in Zhao Gu's poems,this paper also analyzes his values,including the Confucian ideal he pursued all his life,his perception of Buddhism and his admiration for Tao Yuanming's seclusion philosophy.At the same time,we also interpret his inner sensitivity,introversion and gentleness.Based on all of Zhao Gu's poems,referring to the society and features of the late Tang Dynasty,the characteristics at that time and Zhao Gu's life experience,this paper classifies the poems into four categories according to the subject: imperial examination,self-recommendation,living far away from home,and being separated from others.From the perspective of the differences in the structure of poetry,this paper focuses on the creation of sevencharacter octaves,and at the same time supplements the related research of other structures of poetry.As for Zhao Gu's poems,this paper starts from the whole,then analyzes the details,and discusses the style,artistic conception and tragic tone of his poems.In the process of research,this paper emphasizes the coherence and overall consistency of poetry.At the same time,we choose chilly and miserable object of study to create the distant quiet and a fresh and beautiful poetic style.This kind of artistic effect can be traced back to its origin.This paper compares poem style in Dali period and Du Fu's influence on the creation of later seven-character octaves in detail to explore the inheritance of poetry along the vertical time axis.From the perspective of horizontal time axis,this paper compares Zhao Gu's poems with those of contemporary poets like Du Mu and Xu Hun.In this way,the time coordinates of Zhao Gu's poems can be defined,and their unique artistic value can also be known.In a word,Zhao Gu is one of the most accomplished poets in the late Tang Dynasty.Later scholars were influenced by his poems to a certain extent.