A study of Yuan Zhen's life and verse 809--810: Two years that shaped his politics and prosody

Yuan Zhen (779--831) remains a neglected literary figure in modern scholarship despite having played a pivotal role in the creation of Yuanhe-style poetry and writing the best known and most influential Tang tale. Previous scholarship on Yuan has centered on this tale, "The Story of Yingying," and its relationship to his personal life. Although modern scholars have studied his verse, much of their research has been text-centered; studies more focused on his literary skills tend to address his personal poetry, often in comparison to Bo Juyi's (772--846) verse.;This dissertation, after a survey of such previous studies and the sources for Yuan Zhen's life and works (chapters 1 and 2), the following two chapters examine the little studied political and allegorical poems of 809 and 810---written when Yuan's Tang official career began. Chapter 3 treats the 809 corpus, including the most significant of his New Music Bureau poems which allude to the "Record of Music" (in the Book of Rites) and express Yuan's ideas on governance and current politics, often criticizing the bureaucratic system or border politics (and the Military Governor, Wei Gao, 745--805). These poems demonstrate Yuan's espousal of didactic poetry and a straightforward style.;In 810, as Chapter 4 reveals, Yuan turned to allegorical, ancient-style poems. The discussion of these poems begins with "Big-Beaked Crows," which in a fabalistic style conveys Yuan's reaction to the failed political reforms during the reign of Shunzong (761--806, r. 805); in "Presenting Offerings to Spirits," Yuan depicts the excesses in local worshipping of spirits, indirectly criticizing the court's conciliatory policy towards Military Governors. A reading of "Paulownia Blossoms" reveals the ideal remonstrator (from Yuan's perspective) and expresses his disappointment at not being employed.;The Conclusion reiterates the correlation between social-political events and literature dominates much of the poetry of these two years, foreshadowing Yuan Zhen's subsequent short-lived political success in the early 820s and suggesting the reasons for his subsequent demotions. Thus this dissertation, by highlighting another aspect of his poetic oeuvre, may serve to provide the student of Tang poetry with a more complete picture of Yuan Zhen both as a poet and an official.