The Study Of Poetic Styles In The Early And High T'ang

Poetic Styles are the concrete forms of poetry, the differences in which decide the differences in the contents, functions, characteristics and writing skills of poetry. Besides, the changes and reforms in Poetic Styles always reflect the changes and reforms in the thought of poetics. During the 500 years before T'ang, poems of five characters took the lead in poetry and therefore there was no significance in talking about the definition of Poetic Styles. It was with the development of poems of seven characters and the maturation of the rules and forms of classical poems that poetry split up into ancient poems of five characters, syllabic songs, eight-line poems of five characters, eight-line poems of seven characters, four-line poems of five characters, four-line poems of seven characters, eight-line poems of five characters, eight-line poems of seven characters, long regulated verses of five characters and long regulated verses of seven characters etc ( Poems of four or six characters are not discussed in details in this dissertation because of the lack of fine works ). The split-up was finally finished in The Early and High T'ang, which makes The Early and High T'ang the times crucial for the study of Poetic Styles. This dissertation consists of two parts. On the basis of the time at which poems were created, Part One, which is composed of three chapters, presents the process of the development of the poetry and the thought of poetics in The Early and High T'ang from the perspective of the split-up and finalization of Poetic Styles. The first section in Chapter One discusses the category of Poetic Styles. Defined in a narrow sense, Poetic Styles, in general, are regarded as the styles and modes of poems. In a broad sense, Poetic Styles refer to the artistic styles of poems, the personalities of poets and the fashion of the times reflected through the types of poems. Section Two in this chapter revives the true picture of the existence of the concept of Poetic Styles in The Early and High T'ang and corrects some misunderstandings about the Poetic Styles at that time by later generations. Chapter Two retrospects the vicissitude of the Poetic Styles in The Early and High T'ang. During the first several decades in The Early T'ang, as one style of literature, poetry stood equally with proses and odes in the field of literature. However, by the late of The Early T'ang, the amount of proses and odes had greatly reduced and poetry had become the most influential style of literature. As a result, it can be said that the first contribution The Early T'ang made to the Poetic Styles is that it made poetry stand out of other styles of literature. In the later years ruled by the emperor T'ang Gaozong (661-684), on the one hand, court poets were enthusiastic in the study of the rules and forms of regulated verses and maturated them; on the other hand, the poets outside the court such as The Four Elitists, Qiao Zhizhi and Liu Xiyi made contributions to the style of Li Sao, syllabic songs, Yuefu and ancient poems of five characters. In other words, this is a stage that various kinds of poetic styles began to split up. During the years ruled by the emperor Wu Zetian and T'ang Zhongzong (684-710), all poetic styles matured in both form and their artistic expressive force. At that time, there appeared some fine works of various poetic styles. As a result, this dissertation chronologizes the works of this period in a detailed and accurate way, with intent to make clear the process how several poetic styles interacted with each other and developed. Chapter Three looks back the changes of the Poetic Styles in The High T'ang. In this chapter, three critical periods—the middle of the years of Jingyun, around the 15th and 23rd year of Kaiyuan, in which poetic styles changed greatly—were chosen to be studied. The years of Jingyun were the so-called times " with a sense of remoteness" by the people of T'ang themselves. However, the later generations did not attach much importance to this period. Consequently, this dissertation carries a texture research on the works created by the writers during that period and illustrates the term: " with a sense of remoteness". Around the 15th year of Kaiyuan, " back to the ancients" came into fashion, which was the inevitable outcome resulting from the party in power yielding to the party not in power, which also indicated that regulated verses were unable to meet the need of representing the lives of the times. Around the 23rd year of Kaiyuan, the great poets in The HighT'ang assembled in Chang'an and Luoyang successively, which promoted the communication of poetry. During this period, the characteristics of poetic styles were the developments of regulated verses and poems of seven characters. Up to then, various kinds of poetic styles became mature not only in forms but also in the styles. As there have been existing a lot of misunderstandings about Heptasyllabic songs, Part II presents the specific study of this poetic style. Chapter One discusses the function of the Yufu of five characters in the formation of Heptasyllabic songs. In fact, the formation of Heptasyllabic songs has been a popular topic for long time. Long before, the predecessors provided us with Chengxiangpian, Chuci, folk songs, epigraphs and buddha dharma. In addition, Zhao Changping discovered the relationship between Heptasyllabic songs and odes. Actually, the appearance of Heptasyllabic songs was the result of combined forces produced by numerous factors. However, it was the Yuefu of five characters that was the linear consanguinity of Heptasyllabic songs. This view is demonstrated by this dissertation from the aspects of subject matters, themes, contents, writing skills and texture research of documents. Chapter Two examines the key skills of writing Heptasyllabic songs—regulation of rhymes. The writing skills of syllabic songs are always regarded as writing ramblingly and with great ease. In the late Ming and early Qing, some people began to approach this subject from the aspect of tonal patterns in classical Chinese poetry. In fact, they took the wrong way. Guo Shaoyu once pointed out that a new way from a new aspect should be opened up. However, it is a pity that he himself did not try to find this new way. As a result, this dissertation produces the view that it is the regulation of rhymes that is the nucleus of the skills of writing syllabic songs in The High T'ang and other skills (such as antithesis and the use of tonal patterns in poetry) cooperate with rhymes to form an organic system of writing skills. On the basis of counting and analyzing all the Heptasyllabic songs created in The Early and High T'ang, this dissertation finds out the main methods of regulating rhymes in the writing of Heptasyllabic songs. Through the study of the Poetic Styles in the Early and High T'ang, on the one hand, we have corrected some deviations of our knowledge aboutPoetic Styles for many years; on the other hand, we reinterpret the phylogeny of poetry in The Early and High T'ang from the aspect of Poetic Styles, which also provides new thoughts for the interpretation of the poetic and literature history.