Research On Yuan Zhen’s Prefaces

The preface to a poem by its creator to illustrate some of the issues related to that poem began around the Wei and Jin dynasties,and has since evolved and changed along the way,developing into an almost independent genre by the mid-Tang period,with poets incorporating more and richer content into the poem’s preface.A focus on the poetic prologue not only helps the reader to gain a deeper understanding of the poem,but also to uncover its own unique characteristics and values beyond the poem’s subsidiary identity,and to sink the poet’s thoughts and ideas into it.Yuan Zhen was an influential poet of the Middle Tang period,surviving with over eight hundred poems.Of his many poems,61 are prefaced,second only to Bai Juyi in the number of poems written during the Middle Tang period.Much scholarly attention has been paid to Yuan Zhen’s poetry,but little systematic research has been done on the preface.This paper will attempt to build on previous research by focusing on Yuan Zhen’s poetic prefaces.The paper is divided into three parts.The first part is the introduction,which introduces the significance of the topic chosen for this thesis,the current state of research on the poetic sequence of the Tang dynasty,the current state of research on the poetic sequence of Yuan Zhen,the research ideas and the research methods.The second part is the body of the thesis,which is divided into four chapters.The first chapter is an overview of the poetic preface and Yuan Zhen’s poetic preface.This chapter begins with a brief explanation of the term ’poetic sequence’,followed by a review of the development of poetic sequences before the Middle Tang Dynasty.This is followed by a discussion of the background to the development of the poetic sequence in Yuan Zhen’s time in the Middle Tang dynasty,and then by a division of the poet into four periods according to his experience as an official.The second chapter is entitled ’Yuan Zhen’s Literary Thought in the Light of his Poetic Prefaces’.An important aspect of Yuan Zhen’s poetic prefaces is that they focus on his own views on literary creation,including his views on poetry,especially music poetry,his discussion of the poetic genre,and the straightforward spirit and clear and useful literary concepts that emerge from his discourse.At the same time,these are in line with Yuan Zhen’s creative ideas as expressed in his prose,and the echoes between the poetic preface and the prose provide a better insight into Yuan Zhen’s ideology.The third chapter is entitled ’Yuan Zhen’s Prose Writing in the Light of the Poem Preface’.As the poetic prologue developed into the mid-Tang period in which Yuan Zhen lived,its length gradually expanded and its content enriched,and the poetic prologue developed in a relatively independent direction.Therefore,in discussing the creative features of Yuan Zhen’s poetic prefaces,this chapter takes care to include his prose compositions in the study.Through a comparison of Yuan Zhen’s poetic prefaces with his prose,it is clear that Yuan Zhen himself advocated the reform of the system of enjoining in the direction of paying attention to the use of the literary form of parallelism and prose in his compositions.In addition,in the New Music House movement advocated by Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi,they advocated the need for works to be both informative and accessible,so that in practice Yuan Zhen’s poetic prefaces and prose exhibit the kind of plain and simple style of writing that reads as simple and natural.The fourth chapter is on the relationship between Yuan Zhen’s poetic prefaces and the’ancient literary movement’ of the Middle Tang.The most striking feature of Yuan Zhen’s time in the Middle Tang was the ancient literary movement represented by Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan.Yuan Zhen’s ideology and creative practice had much in common with this movement.Yuan Zhen’s pursuit of practical application is somewhat related to Han Yu’s idea that ’writing is the way to understand’,and his spirit of straightforward writing is similar to Han Yu’s idea that ’words are appropriate when one’s temper is strong’.The formality and content of Yuan Zhen’s writings are also in line with the demands of the ancient literary movement.The third section concludes with a summary of Yuan Zhen’s poetic prologue and its stylistic characteristics,pointing out the importance of the study of Yuan Zhen’s poetic prologue.