Shizhen Literature Research,

This dissertation is mainly concerned with Wang Shizhen's literary ideology and literary achievements, and with some relevant fields as well like politics, historiography and religion which are closely related to Wang Shizhen's literary activities; it selects some important propositions to expound.First of all, Wang Shizhen was the leader during the later period of the Literary Movement of 'Back to the Ancients' launched by the latter Seven Masters in the Ming Dynasty. In posing and inducing views in verse, he epitomized the literary thoughts of 'Back to the Ancients' of both the former and the latter Seven Masters. While the formation of Wang Shizhen's 'Back-to-the-Ancients' ideology was under the obvious influence of the alliance between Li Panlong and the latter Seven Masters, he made relatively systematic and thoroughgoing expositions of the major theories of the 'Back-to-the-Ancients1 Literal Movement by both the former and the latter Seven Masters, including 'the best prose in the Qin and Han Dynasties, while the best poetry in the heyday of the Tang Dynasty' theory, '(literary) style' theory, 'ideology and methodology' theory, etc. His Criticism of Literature and Arts is one of the most important theoretical monographs in the 'Back-to-the-Ancients' Literary Movement by both the former and the latter Seven Masters. Like many of the other members among both the former and the latter Seven Masters, Wang Shizhen's 'Back-to-the-Ancients' ideology contains rich implications of 'emotion' theory. Such ideology was further developed in his life experiences 'full of frustrations', which made Wang Shizhen's literary thoughts in his middle and old ages characterized by richness, inclusiveness, and creativity. To some extent, the development of Wang Shizhen's 'emotion' theory more or less reflects the inevitable tendency of the literary ideology in the Ming Dynasty from 'Back to the Ancients' to 'emotion'. In his literary creation practice, Wang Shizhen not only revealed the consistent literary views of the 'Back to the Ancients' School through widespread imitation, but also produced a large number of excellent verse works, which indicated the real achievements of the 'Back-to-the-Ancients' Literary Movement by both the former and the latter Seven Masters. His 'Yuefu (an official conservatory in the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. - A.D.220) for collecting and composing folk songs and ballads) style' poetry was characterized by distinct realist criticism, and represented the highest achievements in the production of realist poetry in the Ming Dynasty. His 'modern style' poetry (referring to innovations in classical poetry during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), marked by strict tonal patterns and rhyme schemes) took Du Fu as a model but was unique in his own style and so was held in great esteem by Hu Yinglin, etc. His prose is vast and rich in styles, including historical biographies which successfully imitated Zuo Zhuan and Shi Ji, reasoning and textual research papers which reflected the style of sound scholarship in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and essays which solely expressed disposition. Wang Shizhen can also be called a great master in the developmental history of prose in the Ming Dynasty.In the second place, Wang Shizhen had some manifestations in the popular literary fields like traditional operas and novels. Wang Shizhen is one of those who have yet to be examined about whether they are the writers of the masterpieces of popular literature in the Ming Dynasty: Jin Ping Met and Ming Feng Ji. The issue of the relationship between him and the authorship of Jin Ping Met and Ming Feng Ji has long been one of the difficult problems which are the most noteworthy but remain to be solved in the research of classic literature. Since the issue itself is very difficult to study, this dissertation, though having some mention of it, doesn't develop the exposition and argumentation about it. In the theory of popular . literature, Wang Shizhen's monograph Qu Zao in the traditional opera theory is a repr...