The Study On Tseng Kuo-fan's Thoughts Of Poem And Prose

Tseng Kuo-fan's life can be divided into two phases, the boundary is Xianfeng eight years (1858).In the former phase, he endeavored himself into improving morality, utility, and writing, especially in morality, his realm of the ideal personality is Confucian's modesty and integrity. In the latter phase, he especially laid emphasis on utility, and interlinked with the sages and cavalier. At the same time, he adored the life attitude of Zhuangzi. His life goals and academic thought are tightly linked with his personal temperament and survival states.In Tao-kuang years, Tseng Kuo-fan worked as officials in Beijing, exchanging with the famous persons in Neo-Confucianism of Song Dynasty and sinology. Subject to the capital impact of ideas of Beijing academic circle, and the help from many mentors, he advocated Neo-Confucianism of Song Dynasty, and strived to gain statecraft. After Xianfeng eight years (1858), his academic thought got more and more diversity, he changed the extreme attitude to sinology, and struggled to reconcile the contradictions between Neo-Confucianism of Song Dynasty and sinology. On the basis of integration of Confucianism resources, he absorbed Taoism, Legalism, and Mohists doctrines, and finally formed Confucian ritual studies of academic purport.Tseng Kuo-fan's poetic thinking reflects his idea of academic purpose. In the former phase, the contents of his poetry criticism included the poet self-cultivation, style pursuit, as well as the creative concept of modeling example. He had high requirements of the poet's moral character and competence, and revered masculine style. In the creation, he regarded Du Fu, Han Yu and Huang Ting-jian as examples. His creation practice and criticism coincided each other. After Xianfeng eight years (1858), his poetry opinions experienced many changes, he appreciated "two kinds of leisure and the magnificent poetry style, looking forward to Tao yuan-ming, Bai Ju-yi and Su Shi's poems. He also raised several poetry appreciation of standards such as "Ji-shen", "Gong-lv" and so on. Tseng Kuo-fan's praise on Huang Ting-jian have a certain influence, however, this was the general atmosphere of poetry circle, which can not be attributed to the power of one person.When Tseng Kuo-fan lived in Beijing, Mei Zeng-liang was spreading Tong-cheng prose theory. He once kept a distance from Mei Zeng-liang, and subsequently, he contacted with the latter, and benefited a lot. In the former phase, he advocated unity of prose and "Tao", which had deep and extensive feature. He pursued the stubborn style, and made a preliminary discussion of the inclusive of parallel prose and ancient-style prose. These concepts of creation also embodied in his creation. In the latter phase, his prose criticism got more and more mature, he recognized the practical difficult in the unity of prose and "Tao". His style pursuit also changed, he tried to reconcile the style of masculine and plain; meanwhile, he made deep analysis into the different aesthetic characteristics within prose. He definitely took and Han Yu prose as the models. He also used anthology to express his unique criticism concepts.If we choose modeling origin as the main criterion, it is no doubt that Tseng Kuo-fan belongs to Tongcheng School, its departure from Yao Nai on writing and criticism, had gradually taken shape in Yao's disciples. And so, we can not separate him from Tongcheng School according to this. During Tong-zhi period, centre around him, there formed a prose group. He spared no efforts to enlighten his students on academic and writing aspects, which made Tong cheng School revitalize. Among his students, Zhang Yu-zhao and Wu Ru-lun's contributions were particularly pronounced. Zhang Yuzhao not only advocated Neo-Confucianism of Song Dynasty, but also made it compatible with sinology, and integrated them by Confucian ritual studies. He did his best to integrate the advantages of predecessors of Tongcheng School and his teacher. He advocated to integrate the prose writing and the moral instruction, and put forward to "finding out sprits by rhythm". In the creation, he learned Han Fu's rhetorical skills, he pursued the comprehension of elegant and masculine style. Wu Ru-lun's academic thought tendency experienced transition course. At one time, he indulged in Neo-Confucianism of Song Dynasty, and later on, he turned to advocate learning Occidental, on this basis, he promoted the coexistence of the Oriental and Occidental, while, the principal facet of the Oriental is literature. He was opposed to the concepts of publicizeing moral instructions through prose, while, he heaped praise on the Occidental in the creation. He paid tribute to masculine style, and at the same time, he also was compatible with plain style. He strived to maintain the status of Tong-cheng School, which was reflected in his respect on, as well as divert "elegant-purified" theory into guiding translation literature.