Study On Zhang Weiping's Poem Style And Poetic Theory

Zhang Weiping was an influential poet in South China during the Late Qing Dynasty and the modern times, who witnessed 80 years of history from the prosperous period of Qainglong and Jiaqing to the wane period of Daoguang and Xianfeng-the quite different two eras before and after 1840. Dedicated to the writings of poems and the study on poetic theory, he offered a foundation for the modernization of South China's poem writing and a connecting link between the preceding poem writing and the following poem writing. In his early years, succeeding the writing style in Qianlong and Jiaqing periods, Zhang produced a lot of bright and meaningful works; while in Jianqing and Daoguang, with the big powers of foreign countries'aggression, he turned to focus on the social reality and produced some depressing and imposing poems. This thesis, based on the explanation and analysis on his poems, has profoundly studied his poetic style.There have not appeared monographs and collections concerning Zhang's poetic theory, which only scatters in his twice editions of "The Collection of Poets in Qing", where 1,191 poets were included and where Zhang himself commented in 974 places. This thesis, in combination with Zhang's comments and his ideas for selecting, commenting, imitating and criticizing poems, has conducted an explanation and study on his poetic theory and argumentation. It has been found that he was concerned about human feelings, argued for "great minds", "being practical and realistic", "evaluating a poet based on his age", and "being not confined to one genre". And this thesis has also anatomized the causes of Zhang's poetic style and theory, together with an analysis on the value, influence and shortcoming of his twice "The Collection of Poets in Qing".