Cen Shen Its Poetry

Cen Shen was a famous poet in the bloom of Tang dynasty. There are several standpoints about his native place such as Nanyang and Jiangling. However, through reviewing his family history and other documents, I conclude his native place is Yingyang, Henan province. There are different points of view about his dates of birth and death and I infer them according to existent materials.In the bloom of Tang dynasty, three denominations including the Confucianists, Buddhism and Taoist; influenced Cen Shen effectively which we can see from his poems and the three denominations built a frame for his thoughts and writings. Under that condition, Cen Shen showed us his persistence in pursuing reputation and fortune. Whenever he made progress in that aspect, he expressed high-spirited passion in his poems. However, once he met with obstacles, he showed us his depression and disappointment at the society. Considering Cen Shen's traveling of all his life and the contents of his poems, I categorize his writings into 6 kinds and I clearly present the motivation and mentality of his produce.In this dissertation, I make emphasis on the confused points of his poems about being in the army in The Western Regions and I analyze them from there aspects. First, aiming at his famous Bai Xue Ge Song Wu Pan-Guan Gui Jing, I make exhaustive analysis and conclude that the poem was writing on August of the 15th year of Tianbao emperor (756 AC) and Wu Pan Guan referred to Wu Jiu. Furthermore, the background of the poem is gloom rather than what we have generally thought buoyant. Second, I analyze the actual meaning of Lun Tai in his poems and sum up that Lun Tai has variable definitions for the influence of Lun Tai story in Han Dynasty. Sometimes, it refers to The Western Regions, sometimes it refers to Tingzhou and Xizhou and mostly, it refers to the region where the capital of Bei Ting Du Hu Fu placed at that time. Last, I find that Cen Shen's described 2 punitive expeditions towards Bo Xian and the rest force of A Bu Si that were not memorized in history and we also characterize the purpose of the 2 expeditions.In this dissertation, I also do research on some obvious features about Cen Shen's writings. I believe that his poems expressed positive spirit of making great progress and they also presented the prosperity of the bloom period of Tang Dynasty. The contents of his writings ranges from glorious sacrifice on the battlefield to being positive even in adversity and all of them can be thought as a particular character of that time. The special feature of Cen Shen's poems is about the descriptions of scenery in The Western Regions and bing in army in that district. He detailed the beautiful landscape and the special customs of minority and the heroic lives in the army that embodied the particular and unique features of his poems.Cen Shen had a sensitive heart to art and he also had a special personality of pursuing beautiful things in life. When he was writing, he could always describe things accurately and fabricate very beautiful background that embodies his solemn and stirring style.