Pei Ziye Group And The Literary World Of Liang Dynasty

The literature of Liang Dynasty in Southern Dynasties plays a significant role in the development of Chinese literature, featuring different literary groups formed by different creating schools. Among them, Pei Ziye Group was an important one, which was active in the form of private association between men of letters during Liang Tianjian Period and Pu Tong Period. Led by Pei Ziye, it was formed into an antiquity-advocating group by men of letters sharing mutual interests and aesthetic pursuit, such as Liu Xian, Liu Zhilin, Gu Xie, Yin Yun, Yuan Xiaoxu, Wei Ji, Xiao Li and Zhang Zan and so on.Frist of the paper is to intruduse the whole things about Pei Ziye Group . the group members were mainly the contemporary celebrities, as scholars and men of letters. They were devoted to the study of Confucian and Buddhist classics which, compared with the New Reformation School, seemed a little more conservative; they were talent and learned, reading a wide range of books and became intimate friends and comrades, gathering together frequently to discuss the classic books proceed by their love of learning. Although living in the reformation-pursuing Southern Dynasties, they advocated antiquities and simple and unadorned writing style as the standards to their literary creation. They were all imperial officials, winning the trust and respect from Emperor Liang Wu, but they lived a very simple, plain and thrifty life, engaged in the study of classics in their studies and communicating with their friends and colleagues by exchanging their creations in private gatherings. This lifestyle won appreciation for them and had a great influence on their creating style, that is, a very simple and unadorned style.The second part is to overlook the group' s literary creation . According to the historical records, Pei Ziye and other group members created plenty of literary works but there are only some extant, from which their literary advocacy and the contents and characteristics of their literary works can still be seen clearly. Among them is one of his works, On Diao chong lun. In the beginning of this book, Pei Ziye highlighted the literary standards of the Book of Songs, and admonishment-based traditional Confucian poem-instruction. At the same time, as a historian, Pei Ziye treated the evolution of the poem creation before Liang Dynasty from a historical point of view. In view of the popularity of highlighting literary form and overlooking literary contents in the contemporary literary world, Pei Ziye balanced the good and the evil, the works and the virtues. He argued that if the creation put much stress on its form, the essence of poems would be overlooked, free of the moral restriction and as a result, the literary creation would be narrowed and go to a dead end. Therefore, he upheld a combination of literary creation and virtues. Pei Ziye group' s aesthetic standard became a direct guide to their literary creation...