Study For The Important Poets In The Middle Period Of Qing Dynasty

Since the last half period of Kangxi in Qing Dynasty, the long-lasting stable social environment and the good social economy had made the rank of the scholars bigger and bigger, and afforded the scholars the good conditions for their culture cause. Merely in poetry, the amount of the poets in the period of Qianlong and Jiaqing was almost twice of that of the equal period before. For a traditional scholar of China, the most favorite thing was not to make achievement in culture and was to do it in politics, to run the country well and to give people peace and security. If they had not any chances to make achievement in politics, they like to comment on political affairs and to study the way to run the country. However, since the period of Shunzhi, the highest ruling clique of Qing had been taking the three skills, namely the trap in imperial examinations, the control in officialdom and the suppress in the name of literary inquisition, to deal with the Han scholars. Emperor Qianlong combined them with his autocracy and made them most forceful. In the period of Jiaqing, except the one of the literary inquisition, the other two skills had no more obvious substantive changes than before. In the imperial examination hall of the period of Qianlong and Jiaqing, many scholars could not pass the examinations and many past them after their middle age. In the officialdom in the period, the Han officials could not practice their political ideas and it was very possible for them to suffer disasters. Knowing it was very difficult for them to make ideal achievement in politics, many scholars were not fond of the imperial examinations any more or refused to take part in them, and many officials left the officialdom in their middle age. In order to make their life worthy, the scholars, in and out office, who could not make ideal achievement in politics, did very hard in culture. They obtained the splendid achievement in culture and some achievement in poetry theory and poetry creation. This dissertation studies more than 30 important poets in the period of Qianlong and Jiaqing. It divides them into five groups: the first, the poets as high rank officials, the second, the ones as middle-and-low rank officials, the third, the ones who resigned their official posts in their middle age, the forth, the ones who were not fond of the imperial examination and the fifth, the ones who were suffering in the imperial examination hall for a long time. Paying enough attention to the states of their life, the dissertation has studied their poetry theory, poetry creation and their standing in the poet circle separately. This dissertation reaches these conclusions about the poet circle in the period. Firstly, many poets could not enter the officialdom and many left it in their middle age. The two facts strengthened the rank of poets out of officialdom and made that in officialdom weaker relevantly. The rank of poets out of officialdom became the main strength of the circle of poets in the period and that in officialdom was not any more. Secondly, in the period, the poets studied the poetry theory very hard. They had some common ideas and these ideas are good. In addition to these, these theories had some worth ideas separately. However, nearly all of them did not pay enough attention to the interaction between poetry and social politics. Thirdly, the poetry content in the period cannot be called rich, and had not plaid enough positive affection on the social politics and rarely criticized the dark aspects of the society. Many poets had their distinctive artistic styles separately. They all put a lot of effort on the artistic skills of poetry and made much achievement. Many poets tried to make their poems full of virility, however, the merely paid enough attention to words and sentences and did not do to content, so, most of poems in the period are not virile. Fifthly, the main cause of the fact that the achievement of poetry in the period was not very good is the harsh feudal autocratic rule. Sixth, the achievement made by the poets in the period in poetry theory and poetry creation set some favorable conditions for the poets in the period form Daoguan to the end of Qing Dynasty, and plaid a positive role to the great achievement of poetry creation of the latter period.