Studies On The Poetry Of The Huxiang School

The poetry of the Huxiang School is a poetic school that rose in the early modern times contending with the Song Poetry. Its representative poets"the Five Masters in Central Hunan Province"gathered together as"Lanlin Society of ci". They took Li Sao and Wen Xuan as their guide and followed the form of the poetry of the Han and Wei Dynasties, expressed their feelings of sorrow, and formed a romantic trend of literary thought in the modern poetry. The leading figure of the Huxiang poetry Wang Kaiyun put forth the idea that"poetry results from feelings"as a reaction to the idea that"the function of literature is to convey the Tao", which, in both ideology and literature, has the significance of reforming the general literary mood of the times.This dissertation centers on the representative poets of the Huxiang poetry"the Five Masters in Central Hunan Province", and explores the spirit of this school, examines its evolution process, and inspects its indebtedness to the literary heritage as well as its influence upon the modern and contemporary literature.The dissertation consists of eight chapters, including three parts respectively concerning the origins of the Huxiang poetry, the poetry itself, and its influence.The formation of the poetry of the Huxiang school is closely related to the cultural atmosphere of the modern times. The spirit of the Chu culture's advocating of personality and its tradition of expressing emotions inherited from the southern literature in the modern times are the sources for the spirit of the poetry of the Huxiang school; the poetry of the Han and Wei Dynasties which advocated temperament offered the dwelling-place for the spirit of this school.The name of the poetry of the Huxiang school came from the theory of the Hanwei School. The writers were chiefly the Huxiang poets who advocated taking Li SAO and Wen Xuan as their guide, the representative poets including Wang Kaiyun, Deng Fulun, Deng Yi, Li Shourong and Long Rulin as well as some poets in other places who were influenced by the literary style of Chu. The history of the poetry of the Huxiang school was divided into the flowering period, the retiring period and the inheriting period. It is predominated by a mood of sorrow, and tends to be characterized by an old and flowery style. Wang Kaiyun's idea that"poetry results from feelings", Deng Yi's theory that"poetry imitates nature"and Chen Rui's new doctrine about temperament revealed the major views of the poetry of the Huxiang school. The leading figure of the poetry of the Huxiang school Wang Kaiyun expressed his great sorrow in his poetry. Deng Yi's lyrics and poetry on natural scenery revealed his artistic pursuits; Li Shourong's dream poems, prison poems are sometimes better than the poems in the Six Dynasties; Long Rulin's poems revealed his lonely feelings, and his poems took the form of the"modern style"poetry yet went beyond its restraints, followed Li SAO in feelings, and in form were influenced by the spirit of the poetry of the Han and Wei Dynasties yet superior to them.So far as the influence is concerned, the ideal poetic mood of the school of"Poetic Revolution"was similar to the poetic theory of the poetry of the Huxiang school; the sentimentalism and decadence in the poetry of the mid-and-late Tang Dynasty and that of the"Xikun"style could also be traced back to the poetry of the Huxiang school; and Shu Manshu's sentimentalism resembled Wang Kaiyun, too.As for the spirit, the poetry of the Huxiang school, compared with the Song Poetry, emphasized the change of academic style. It, with its strong lyricism, became the historical origins of the sentimental poetry of the modern times; the change of the academic atmosphere in the modern times started with Wang Kaiyun; the sentimental tone of the poetry also originated from the poetry of the Huxiang school. The poetry of the Huxiang school, as the pioneer of the sentimental poetry in the modern history of poetry, had its far-reaching influence upon the modern and contemporary literature.