Study On Du Fu’s Poems Selected By WenYuanYingHua

Wen Yuan Ying Hua is one of the four great books that compiled officially at the beginning of the northern Song dynasty,which is also a great compilation of literature that selected poems and articles from Wei dynasty in The Three Kingdoms to the end of Tang dynasty.Compiled at the beginning of northern Song dynasty,Wen Yuan Ying Hua was considered as the summary of literary works of Tang dynasty and before.The compiler of Wen Yuan Ying Hua are the representative poets in the beginnning of northern Song Dynasty.Therefore,the poetics and poetry composition of these compilers will influence the selection of Wen Yuan Ying Hua on Du Fu’s poems.The introduction conducts a study of the literary background of the compilers of Wen Yuan Ying Hua,and concludes that the compilers’ poems were almost all under deep influence from the Bai Juyi poetic style.Chapter I gives a brief background of the popularity of poems written by Du Fu around the time shortly before and after the compiling of Wen Yuan Ying Hua,so as to summarize the influence of poems by Du Fu during the time when Wen Yuan Ying Hua was compiled.Chapter II gives a general introduction to the Du Fu poems selected by Wen Yuan Ying Hua.Through comparison,it is found that Wen Yuan Ying Hua included many poems by Du Fu and devoted a large proportion of the book to them,testifying to the great attention given at the time to the poems written by Du Fu.In terms of poetic forms,Wen Yuan Ying Hua selected five-character ancient verses,seven-character ancient verses,five-character symmetrical verses,seven-character symmetrical verses,and five-character long verses,of which the highest proportion was seven-character ancient verses,followed by five-character ancient verses and five-character symmetrical verses.There were no quatrains or sever-character long verses selected.Chapter III conducts analysis on Du Fu poems included in Wen Yuan Ying Hua from the perspectives of topic,content,style and form,and finds a shift towards topics of social interaction,using poems as honorary gifts and tributes,and a preference of emotional comfort and sentimental expressions as well as a preference of cool-distance,exquisite-delicate style.There is also a preference towards ancient poetic forms over the regulated forms.Given the poetic theories and works by Li Fang and Xu Xuan,chief compilers of Wen Yuan Ying Hua,we can draw the conclusion that the acceptance of Du Fu at the beginning of Song Dynasty was under influence from poems written by Bai Juyi also popular in the same period.