A Study On Poetry By Taoists In Northern Song Dynasty

Research on Taoism and Taoist literature in academia home and abroad was in the ascendant during the past thirty years. Although pioneers have done some studies sporadically on Taoism poetry by Taoists around the time of the Song Dynasty, they mostly concentrated in several celebrities and put less attention on Taoist poetry of the Northern Song Dynasty. This paper is a holistic study on the Taoism poetry by Taoists of Northern Song Dynasty based on the theory of Chinese Classical Literature, including some in-depth case studies. It has some significance of history of Taoism, literary and poetry. The thesis consists of introduction, main body which is divided into the first and last volumes, and surplus disscussion. The introduction part introduced the origin of writing, research status home and abroad, research methods, and defined the poetry by Taoist in Northern Song dynasty. The poetry by Taoists in Northern Song dynasty refers to the poems by Taoists who were mainly active in the northern song dynasty period and administrative regions, received certificate from the government and worked as Taoist or Taoist figures who followed the way of Taoist life and practiced Taoist inner or external alchemy and were known for it. Iambic, lyrics and verse, etc. are not in the scope of research.The first volume consists three chapers, the first chapter is an overview of the development of Taoism in the Northern Song Dynasty and an analysis on the reasons of the flourishing of Taoist poetry. Song dynasty is at the peak of the Taoism development in our country while the Northern Song dynasty was an important period in the history of Taoism. Nine emperors in Northern Song dynasty inherited policies from Tang dynasty on utilizing Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism simultaneously while revering and helping sustaining Taoism, including respecting Taoist gods, advertising divine right of Song-kings given by Taoism gods, overhauling Taoist temples, inviting recluse, respecting monastic and hermit in society at large; collecting, publishing and preserving Taoist documents widely. Thus the population of professional Taoists and believers in the Northern Song Dynasty increased to some extend, many Taoists master and varies Taoist schools turned up while a large number of temples were constructed, Taoist classics got a lot of collation and compilation. The unique social and political factors, ideological and cultural factors of the Northern Song Dynasty lead to the prosperity of Taoism poetry.The second chapter is a summary on the poetry by Taoists in the northern song dynasty.It examined the amount of Taoist poets and analyzed the themes of poems. A lot of these poems have been lost due to the long time span. This paper, based on Quan Song Shi, gave an overall statistic analysis on the poetry of Song Taoist and found that there were 52 Northern Song Taoist poets,36 Southern Song Taoist poets. There were 492 Northern Song Taoist poems,27 fragments, in which 16 were written by Chen Tuan,112 by Zhang Bo-duan,38 by Huang Xi-dan, and 157 by Zhang Ji-xian. The themes of the Taoism poetry were very wide including temple poetry, hermit poetry, landscape poetry, tourism poetry, antiphon poetry and seven other types. The forms also varied from ancient poetry (including seven-words verse, five-words verse, four-word verse, six-word verse and mixed verse) and modern style poetry (including seven-words verse, five-words verse and so on).The thir chapter is mini biographies of the 52 Northern Song Taoist poets with reference to a variety of comment on poetry,poets in history, notes, the official and unofficial history which can support each other, in order to get complete image of the poets.The last volume consists four chapers. Chen Tuan, Zhang Bo-duan, Huang Xi-dan, Zhang Ji-xian were the most famous four Norther Song Taoist poets and they could best represent northern song dynasty Taoist poetry achievement. Chen tuan's effects on academic trend of Song dynasty and Song dynasty literary intelligentsia's outlook on life, the most important religious figure. Most of his poems express his content and broad-mindedness in seclusion, and the overall style was natural and unrestrained. And in particular, his poetry, obviously there were two types of style, the first type had strong and vivid figure, implicit and elegant; The other kind was blunt and open, without paying any attention to the vividness of the language, to pursue the rational interest directly and lively. His character was the natural, unrestrained and broad-minded, which were reflected by his poetry while his poetry also reveals the hermit personality.Zhang boduan's "true" enlightenment, wu long poem "then four hundred words" purpose is to promote the Taoism idea and the inner alchemy theory, image in this paper, the science of uniting the theory and methods, practice the main point; Art characteristic mainly displayed in the image was rich, unique and mysterious.Huang Xidan's alternative name is Zhi Lizi, Quart Song Shi collected 38 poems of Huang and claimed the volume The Poetry of Zhi Lizi had been lost. The author found that The Siku Quanshu Cunmu Collections had collected The Poetry of Zhi Lizi which contained more than seventy poems, much more than the first volume. This paper chose the Huang Poems in Quart Song Shi as master copy and the Huang poems in The Siku Quanshu Cunmu Collections as checked copy, checked and annotated the Huang poems selectively, summarized the features, strengths and weaknesses of Huang Poems. This can lay a solid literature basis for the analysis of the Taoism in Huang's poems and the status of Huang's poem in landscape literature. Huang's poems used a lot of Taoism terms and put a lot emphasis on the creation of natural atmosphere to express the spiritual pursuit beyond indifferent life.Zhang Jixian poetry, examined from the form, rhyme, patterns, interference with, and miscellaneous, number of each; looked from content, to depict the temple, advised people cultivate immortality, as presented, and describe the science of uniting the mood and the xuan and wonderful poems; analyzed from the poetry subject, it can be divided into responsory, religious persuasively and leisure complex chorale presented three categories; His poems image was unique, rich, broad, mainly including plants imagery, animal imagery, implements the class image such as image types; Images which each has its own characteristics, but also has the overall characteristics of all kinds of images, showing its unique aesthetic features. His poems have religious feelings, but its aesthetic orientations varied:religious poetry was mystery and detached; Leisure poetry was natural quiet, and fascinating; antiphon poetry was fairy like, expressed the pursuit of freedom.The postscript discussion introduced the acceptance and dissemination of Taoist poetry of the Northern Song Dynasty. These poems can be spread by publication of collected poems of the Taoists and their friends, and by scholars recording of the word of mouth, and mostly by stone inscriptions and the wall inscriptions in Taoist temples. Stone inscriptions can last long. Wall inscription is not only beneficial for the dissemination and acceptance of literature, but also helpful for the discovery, of talents and the transmitting of orders from above. The wall inscriptions by Song scholars were mostly praises of Taoists' virtues and power, or the admiration of Taoism life; while the inscriptions by Taoists were more about the content and enjoyment of hermit and seclusion.