Study On Liu Zhi And His Prose Under The Perspective Of Party Fighting In Northern Song Dynasty

Liu Zhi is a representative statesman and litterateur in the Mid-late Northern Song Dynasty.He plays an important role in the development of the party fighting between the radical and conservative party.His political thoughts,political career,and literary works are also affected by party disputes.Taking the party fighting of the Northern Song dynasty as a research perspective and Liu Zhi and his prose as the research object,this article is divided into five parts,including Liu Zhi’s political attitude towards the New Deal,the formation and development process of the Shuo party,the change of party disputes on the theme and style of memorials,the influence of party disputes on the creation of epitaphs,the influence of party fighting on the other prose styles.The introduction first explains the reason and significance of the thesis of this article,and then combs the latest research progress and important academic achievements of the current academic research on Liu Zhi and his prose.Chapter one mainly probes Liu Zhi’s political attitude towards the new law and the radical party,as well as the change in attitude.In the early days of Wang Anshi’s political reform,the radicals had struggles with the conservatives because of their divergent political views.Liu Zhi was appointed as a Yushi in the fourth year of the Xining period.Liu Zhi was opposed to the New Deal due to the academic thoughts,political experience,the friendship,and the recommendation relationship.Liu Zhi served as Yushi once again after Zhezong ascended the throne,at this time he launched a fierce attack on the new law and the radical party.After being promoted to prime minister,Liu Zhi moved from repelling the radical party to actively seeking mediation,trying to ease the contradictions between the two parties because of the political and the old and new forces changes in the late Yuanyou period.Chapter two aims to explore the formation and development process of the Shuo party.Firstly,the origin of Liu Zhi’s party argument has been clarified.Secondly,this article points out through analysis that using "Shuo Party" instead of "Liu Zhi Party" to refer to Liu Zhi’s party is more in line with objective reality.The formation and development process of Shuo party is divided into three stages:the first stage is the formation period of Shuo party from September of 8th year in Yuanfeng period to February of 3rd year in Yuanyou period.The Shuo party gathered into a party in the background of the conservative party rejecting the radical party and the fierce struggle within the conservative party.The second stage is the development period of Shuo party from February of the 3rd year to May of the 5th year in Yuanyou period,during which Shuo party shifted from repelling the radical party to fighting for power.The third stage is the decline of the Shuo party from June of 5th year to June of the 8th year in Yuanyou period.With the failure of the struggle for power and the return of the radical party,the Shuo party collapsed during this period.Finally,this article analyzes the reasons for the formation of the Shuo party,and summarizes the characteristics of the Shuo party.Chapter three is intended to analyze the development of party disputes and the changes in Liu Zhi’s memorials.The party struggle worsened from the Xifeng New Deal to the Yuanyou reform.As the party dispute worsened,the theme of Liu Zhi’s memorials changed from the impeachment of the new law to the exclusion of the radical party,which was the result of the common disagreement of crony parties.The style of the Liu Zhi’s memorials has changed from simply and straight to offensive.Chapter four is the research on Liu Zhi’s epitaphs in the context of party disputes.We can find the internal exchanges From Liu Zhi’s epitaphs in the conservative party and the Shuo party,but it cannot show the full picture of the party.At the same time,this article analyzes Liu Zhi’s contradictory mentality of writing according to the actual situation and fearing attacks from political opponents in the process of writing the party members’ epitaphs.In order to avoid being impeached by political opponents,he adopted general reference,selection of materials,melodic writing,sketching and other writing skills.It can be seen from some party members’ epitaphs that Liu Zhi has a high evaluation of the supervisor,which is inseparable from the characteristic of Shuo party that takes the supervisor as the main body.Chapter five mainly discusses the influence of party controversy on Liu Zhi’s other prose styles.In his later years,the formation of simple and deferential style of Liu Zhi’s memorial was closely related to the political background of party disputes.From Ji proses and elegiac proses,we can see the psychological process of Liu Zhi from resentment to positive optimism,and to passive avoidance after being demoted in his later years.From policy question proses,we can see the influence of Liu Zhi political thoughts on his specific political propositions under the background of party disputes.