The Study Of Chen Liang And His Literature

Chen Liang,a historic figure who has great contribution to the history of Chinese thought and literature,is of far-reaching influence while at the same time of great controversy.He was bold in nature and insisted on resisting the Jin State and restoring the country.For this reason,he went to the imperial court six times and satirized the prime minister twice,but was suspected to pursue fame and wealth.He acted perversely,spoke without scruple,and attracted people's sidelong glance from the court to the neighborhood.To his side gazers,he suffered false charge and then was trapped in prison twice,which was even more miserable and embarrassing;he disliked the philosophy of moral life,never regarding himself as a man of letter,but was included in the Biography of Confucious Scholars in the History of Song Dynasty,and the Song and Yuan Dynasties Scholarship Plans also listed a single scholarly plan to reflect his academic achievements;his essays were of various styles with high achievements,but he was often regarded as political theorists under the pen of later scholars.Many of his poems are graceful,simple and meaningful,but he was usually discussed as a bold and unrestrained Ci poet of the Xin School by his descendants.Chen Liang was extremely ill-prepared in his early years and had a bumpy way to go in his official career,which,with several times of great propositions,were still not able to relieve his poverty;he gained the official status with high scores,but then died suddenly before becoming an officer.Chen Liang's life was both tragic and comic;and he was both inferior and conceited.Chen Liang,who had experienced the honor and disgrace of the life,called himself as “the dragon among people,the tiger in literature” after passing the palace examination,which is just a display and summary of his life's pride.In this paper,taking Chen Liang and his literature as the reasearching subject,the author is meant to make an objective and comprehensive analysis,so as to display the image of Chen Liang in a more vivid and real way.The analysis is divided into two parts.The first part is the study of Chen Liang's life story,focusing on textual research.The first chapter is about Chen Liang's biography and family history.As for his life and family stories,scholars from academic circles have made a lot of research achievements.There are several editions of chronicles and biographies,and there are still arguments over such key issues as Chen Liang's birth and death year,death cause,birthplace,life and some vital events during his life including the times of proposition;the times of going in prison;the authenticity of the horse theft incident,his role in the Zhu-Tang intercourse incident,etc.So this chapter does not repeat Chen Liang's basic life stories,but focuses on several controversial issues in his life to make a textual research.As for his family lineage issues,the author will just make supplement and improvement on the basis of previous achievements.In Chapters 2 to 4,the author discusses Chen Liang's acquaintances from the perspectives of political officials,scholars in eastern Zhejiang,and intimate friends in Fujian and Jiangxi.Although Chen Liang was a commoner all his life,he had close contacts with many political officials.Among them are Zhou Kui(an political officer),Zhou Bida(prime minister),Han Yuanji(a minister),Zhang Sen(assistant minister),Zhang Fu(a cersor),Ye Heng(prime minister)and Wang Huai,who helped Chen Liang and his father discharged the prisons,as well as dozens of other high-ranked officials.From them,the influence of Chen Liang's influencial personality was evident.In the third chapter,the author focuses on the officials who interacted frequently with him and had a greater impact on his life.The interaction conditions between other officials and Chen Liang were merged into a list according to years of their friendship,in order to be direct and comprehensive for people to refer to.Due to the close residence and similar academic purport,Chen Liang was of deep friendship with Zheng Boxiong and Zheng Boyong,Xue Jixuan,Chen Fuliang,and Ye Shi who lived in Yongjia and Lv Zuqian and Lv Zujian who lived in Jinhua,and they were in frequent contact.In addition,Wang Zizhong,Ni Pu,etc.in the east of Zhejiang also shared the same interest with Chen Liang.It was in the exchanges with these profound scholars in the east Zhejiang that Chen came to set up thought of his own and founded Yongkang School.In the School,Chen had a horde of students who believed in and worked on diffusing his thought.Hence,in the fourth chapter,the author focuses on the exchanges between Chen Liang and representative scholars in the east Zhejiang,together with a comparison and analysis of the similarity and differences among various schools in this area,so as to explore the formation of Chen's thought and its characteristics.While his exchanges with other scholars in the east Zhejiang are included into a table for a complete reference.Among contemporary scholars and literati,Zhu Xi was the greatest ideologist who epitomized the thought of Confucianism after Confucius,and Xin Qiji stood at the top in the history of Chinese Ci in terms of both number and achievement.Therefore,in the fifth chapter,the author specializes in the exchanges of Chen Liang with them,integrated with the comparison between thoughts of Chen and Zhu and between Ci works of Xin and Chen.Chen's exchanges with other scholars are always neglected by the academic circle,thus a lack of study.The three chapters above,taking character and time as clues,through multi-aspect combing and elegant testimony,presents the exchange network of Chen Liang as well as his thoughts and literary achievements,which lays a foundation for the next part.The second part centers on the works of Chen Liang,and literary analysis is prioritized based on the literature testimony.Chen's collections of poems,collections of Cis,his works and other anthologies are of various versions,and He Ge'en,Deng Guanming,etc.all have made dedicated testimony to the version of his work.In the fifth chapter,the author widely researches the versions of his work collection at home and abroad and makes specific explanations on the basis of the study results of predecessors.Yet,limited by the knowledge and experience,the author does not know all the versions.So it is really a pity that in the paper the the details of the explanation for all the versions may be different in number.Chen Liang's essays are highly spoken in both ancient and modern times.However,given the influence of politics,scholars have focused more on his political essays.Whereas,the number of his essays accounts for about nine out of ten his works,which can obviously manifest the importance of his essays.Apart from political prose,Chen also excelled in the writing for sacrifice,preface,benison,etc.,and he worked to write fashionable prose to guide students in the South Song Dynasty when the system of imperial examinations came to be perfect.Hereby,in the sixth and seventh chapters,focusing on analyzing content of fashionable prose and art of ancient prose,the author makes a comprehensive conclusion and analysis of his writing,so as to solve the problem of the uncomprehensive understanding of his prose led by the neglect of his fashionable prose in the academic circle.The number of Chen's Cis was not large,yet they have a significant influence on later generations.In terms of achievements of his Cis,there has been heated debate for a long time.Therefore,in the eighth chapter,the author doesn't makes a point on the Cis of Chen Liang in separation,but judges them in the vision of Ci history of South Song,analyses them in terms of their inheritation from previous Ci writers,comparison among comtemporary Ci writers and influence on later Ci writers,and selects Li Qingzhao,Xin Qiji and Liu Kezhuang who lived in different period as the representative writers to make a comparison,in order to give Chen Liang an objective judgement with regard to his status in the Ci history of South Song Dynasty.As for Chen Liang's thoughts and his achievements,numerous researches can be found and some of them have been mentioned in the first part.So in this part,the author doesn't discuss them in a specific chapter,but list them in appendices.In addition,the appendices 2 and appendices 3 are respectively the chronological catalogue of Chen Liang Collected Works and the Lost Works of Chen Liang.This is to make some contributions to the revision of Chen Liang Collected Works and its annotated version in the future.