Yushan Aristo Study

YuShan elegant gathering was the most influential large-scale literary and artistic salon in the south-east area of China in the late Yuan Dynasty. The host GuYing was born in a noble family, so had ample property to build villas and invite guests. For his straightforward and generous personalities, various literary and artic talents, GuYing attracted many writers and artists gathering in his villa, YuShanJiaChu, to drink, write poems or prose, and appreciate paintings and antiques. In the 16th year of ZhiZheng, ZhangShicheng's troop dominated SuZhou, then GuYing built other villas to live in ChuoDun, ChangXing, JiaXing, and so on, which became new gathering places. According to the war, YuShan elegant gathering could be divided into the following phases: Before the 8th year of ZhiZheng, there should be many gatherings, but the data was so little that it could only be regarded as a simple prelude. From the 8th to the 12th year, gatherings in YuShanJiaChu reached climax. After the 12th year, because war was more serious, GuYing severed in the army and other reasons, gatherings in YuShanJiaChu became rare, but GuYing and his friends often wrote poems to each other. After the 16th year, KunShan was occupied by ZhangShicheng. GuYing had to live in other cities because ZhangShicheng wanted to give an office to him. Therefore, gatherings became less in YuShanJiaChu and prosperous in other places. But overall, the activity hadn't been flourishing as before. In the 28th year, GuYing was exiled to LinHao and died next year, which meant the end of the gathering. During the war, the mentality of the writers and artists of the gathering changed from insensibility to anxiety ridden and panicky. The emotion and content of their writings also changed with the war situation, afraid and grief were the main keynotes after the war spread KunShan. By view of the entire gathering process, war was the most important impacting factor. YuShan elegant gathering was different from literary activities and the literary groups before and after. It showed advantages on the number of participants, the high frequency of activities, but more importantly, rich content of activities, elegant style, pure motivation make it become the rare literary group activity in literary history, whose key purpose was to entertain the writers themselves. The outward host decided the diverse characters about the group: persons of four levels, renowned writers and artists, officials in high status and the poor in low status, persons depending on different political forces, all had taken parts in. The relationships among them were intricate, and some participated in stability but some seldom appeared. The main genre of the gathering was poem. The contents not only included the romantic affairs but also realistic life, therefore the poems embodied dual appearances of writers: elegant romance and concerning for the country and the people. The style of the poems was in accordance with the whole style of the altar at that time, which imitated the styles of HanWei and Tang dynasty, but other styles were also imitated by some writers. The literature purpose of the writers in the gathering was to fit their personalities, so, the tournament consciousness wasn't strong when creating, the atmosphere was relax, the emotion was earnest, the form and style weren't stick to one. But the freely literature purpose also caused the shortages that the works were regarded as monotonous when read, because the poets didn't pay enough attention to form. There were historical, social, and cultural factors in the production of YuShan elegant gathering and its characters. The long tradition of elegant gatherings is indubitably, but the special political and cultural environment of Yuan dynasty should be concerned. Salons were popular from Yuan dynasty's building to perishing and from central large city to far small city. The salons of the whole country appeared common characters: the status and identities of the attendees were complicated, the atmosphere was free and equal, poems and paintings were both produced, and persons fell overboard for editing collection. In the south of China, Mongols, SeMu blended with Hans, so YuShan elegant gathering was a multi-nations activity. In Yuan dynasty, because the Hans living in the south region were unfortunate in the political field, they had to accept the reality and pursue ordinary lives. Writers and artists enjoyed anticipating salons to show talents and feast the creature provided by the hosts. YuShan elegant gathering had unusual values in classical literary history. First, persons in Ming and Qing dynasty imitated GuYing and also enjoyed organizing salons. Second, pushing persons'gatherings develop toward the history trend of non- utility. Third, it was good for the spread of the TieYa style. The whole group of YuShan elegant gathering could be divided into some small groups, and a lot of representative's poets worth studying. Gu household and XieJie, the able person of ZhangShiCheng, were the main human factors that supported the gathering in the war. ChenJi, who seek for opportunities in the capital, lived in SuZhou after failed and at last became the most important scholar of ZhangShiCheng, made friends of GuYing closely but then neglected him. This example means that political not only promote but also interfere YuShan elegant gathering.