Poet Wu Meicun's Political Attitude And Outlook On Life

Politically the end of Ming Dynasty and the turn of the Qing Dynasty is a corruptest and darkest period in China's history, while economically, it's a period of boom and thriving. The small workshop for the use of exchange appeared, the exchange of goods and market came into being and stablized, the form of commodity economy manifested itself and this kind of economy was pushed into embryonic stages. The transformation of the form of the economy and the emergence of new pattern of economy posed a greater effect on ideaology compared with the influence they made on social life. They stimulated the civilian's awakening of modern idealogy as well as the development of pragmaticism and further promoted and reinforced reflection on oneself and on value of life to people in the country, especially to the literates, whose individuality and self-consciousness became more obvious. Literators who borned in this period either lead a homeless and impoverished life in the turbulent age or suffered the test of replacing the dynasties and sticking to the moral integrity, wallowing in the self-pity for the genius unrecogniased in the time of dynasty succession. People of this period were more open-minded than other ages, bearing a broadener vision and a freer thought, beginning to casting attention and speculation on self-existence and value of life.The intellectuals, the past scholar-bureaucrat in Ming Dynasty, who were oppressed by the social turbulence caused by the change of dynasty at the end of Ming and the beginning of Qing Dynasty, had to adjust themselves to new social roles. However, in the process of adjustment, based on choices of views on honour and shame, the scholar-bureaucrat hold a sharper outlook on honour and shame. Under the background of the distinct social history, the literators at that time behaved themselves keeping pace with the times and their outlook on life and on choice of value took on the recognition and pursuit of combining the culture of the two dynasties. Wu Meicun, one would be mentioned in whatever Chinese history work about ancient literature, is a most typical figure in that individual temperament, literal talent and personal experience. While his role as a servant of Qing government was an event of primal importance in his lifetime, profoundly influencing the rest of his life and his creative writing. Now it is prevalant to see the works of researching about Wu's literature, while the experience of his transformation into a Qing official is relatively solely written. It is superficial to see the existed autonomous writing on the instructions and guidelines of Qing Dynasty and the analysis of the literator's character. And the background of the trend of social and cultural thoughts retained from the late Ming and the research on the awakening of life awareness and the pursuit of value were written weakly. With the setting of social and cultural circumstances at the end of Ming and the beginning of Qing Dynasty, this thesis reveals Wu's attitude towards politics and the cause of transformation, starting with Wu's features of charater and his moral ethics and on the other hand, proposes the basic features of his outlook on value and further dissects the inner causes of his changes on ways of thinking and personal feeling as well as political attitude, rooting from his thought and eagerness of individual existence. And on these basis, the thesis reasonably explains the complexity of Wu's service for Qing Dynasty and his unique outlook on life and on the choice of moral value, so as to introduce Wu and his poems more objectively.The first chapter is about the primary characteristics of Wu Meicun, centering on his main features and moral ideology.The second chapter is about Wu Meicun's attitude of entering politics, providing proofs for and identifies his stance against Qing Dynasty.The third chapter further digs the fundamentally inner cause of his hatred for Qing Dynasty while serving for it on the base of the analysis of Wu's attitude towards politics.The fourth chapter, considering the complicated subject and object factors,re-exams self-denial, self-explaination and self-redemption of Wu after he has become an official in Qing Dynasty.The fifth chapter analyzes the meaning of Wu's ethics and his outlook on life, acknowledges and praises the self-consciousness and the awakening awareness of life of intellectuals who were tortured by Feudalism, and ponders on the outlook and historical responsibility of intellectuals in a more thought-provoking way.