Yuan Dynasty Literary Theory And Poetry And Essay Based On Background Of The Li School

Yuan Dynasty is a special period in the Chinese history and the Chinese literature history as well. There have hitherto been many violent ups and downs in evaluating the literary achievements in Yuan Dynasty. In the first half of the 20th century, the study of traditional opera begun to become one of the hot issues in literary research under the influence of the western literary trends. Accordingly, the study of Yuan Drama soon became the famous school of Chinese literary researches, while the ontological study of Yuan Literature except for the Yuan Drama has been ignored for decades and it didn't catch people's attention until the end of the 20th century. The development history of the Yuan Poetry has either been overlooked or obscured so that the history of the Yuan Literature is actually an incomplete one and this situation still retains until this day. The fact is that people have failed to notice the great achievements in the filed of the Yuan Poems, prose, verses, novels and literary criticisms.To change the present status quo, the study of the other genres of literature beyond the Yuan Drama must be strengthened among which the most difficult yet the most important one is of course the study of literary thoughts and theory in Yuan Dynasty. Besides, the study of Yuan Poetry is equally important and difficult. We should be indulged in depicting the basic sketch of the development of the Yuan Poetry by following the clues of the literary thoughts in Yuan Dynasty. The value of this study is more significant than it covers itself, considered not only from the perspective of the Yuan literary history diatropically or from the development history of the Chinese literature or the Yuan Poetry longitudinally.It will be considerably necessary and helpful to study the literary trends of Yuan Dynasty and the development history of Yuan Poetry from the relationship of literature and Confucius on the basis of its literary and academic status.The relationship of literature and Taoism is an important problem in the history of the Chinese literary thoughts. "Articles are to carry faoist doctrines", "Articles are to explicate the doctrines", "Articles are to implement Taoist doctrines" are the mainstream voices in the history of the Chinese literary thoughts. However, after the rising of the Confucians since the Song Dynasty, the divergence between literature and Taoism took place resulting in the separation between literary approach and Taoist approach in literary study. In the ensuing Yuan Dynasty, they experienced a process of separation toIVcombination and then reseparation, which reflects the rich implication of the Yuan literary thoughts in one way and the development curve of its development in another.The vicissitude and the development of the new approach of Confucianism formed in Song Dynasty-Li School is very interesting: on one hand, Li School works were designated as the textbooks for royal examination so that the Li School proposed by Chengjing, Chengyi and Zhuxi was considered the official literature in the Yuan Dynasty; on the other hand, there's no condition for this soul-oriented school to develop at that time, hence in the middle period of Yuan Dynasty the decedents of the different Li Schools were no longer scholars but poets which had not been expected by their forerunners. From the perspective of literary history, this orientation becomes a necessity for the Li School spirit to completely soak into literary thoughts, so that a literary style based on Li School spirit began to take root in Yuan dynasty, for example, the pursuit for saint personality in Li School form the peace and easiness in the Yuan poems, the pursuit for self-perfection forms the self-complecency poetic style, the pursuit for tranquility forms the stoicness poetic style and so on. The philosophy of Li school is rational and far-reaching, so is the literary thoughts founded on the Li school spirit whose entailment is thought-provoking so that it can never be neglected.The literature in a particular period is always affecte...