The Study Of Shen Yugui And His Poetic Activities In Late Qing Dynasty

In the middle and late 19 th century,a large number of Western missionaries came to China with the wave of Western learning.They brought modern science and technology to China through preaching,publishing newspapers,setting up schools in order to enlighten the Chinese people.In this exchange and collision between Chinese and Western cultures,those intellectuals who were unable to make their careers began to choose to join the newspaper industry,using the modern media to express their ambitions and attitudes toward the nation and the world.Facing the rapid changes,they either choose to adhere to the spiritual core of traditional culture,struggle and compromise in the predicament and turmoil;or look at the world,accept Western studies,and explore in the process of improvement and change.When intellectuals first joined the newspaper industry,their poems and essays fully demonstrated the persistence in traditional culture and the awakening in ideology.The newspaper poetry further promoted the transformation of classical literature to modern literature.The early professional reporters who involved themselves in both Chinese and Western cultures deeply felt the science and advanced of Western learning and Western technology,on the other hand,they were shackled by the spiritual constraints of traditional ideology,which naturally gave them an identity of the writer and spreader of that turbulent,contradictory,and confusing cultural fission and social situation.Shen Yugui,the research object of this paper,is one of them.Shen Yugui(1807~1907),courtesy name Shoukang,art name Zhuiweng,from Wujiang County,Jiangsu Province,was a famous translator,thinker,and educator in the late Qing Dynasty.In the mid-19 th century,he came to Shanghai and converted to Christianity.He cooperated with many missionaries in China to translate more than 30 kinds of Western studies in social and natural sciences.From 1868 to 1894,he was the editor and the owner of the most important missionary newspaper in the late Qing Dynasty,WAN KWOH KUNG PAO(formerly known as The News of Churches),which published a large number of political articles and ancient poems that spread Western learning and advocated change.From 1881 to 1894,he was hired to run the Chinese and Western Academy,and proposed the teaching philosophy of “traditional Chinese values aided with modern Western management and technology”,and educated a large number of scholars in western science.In the 22 nd year of Guangxu(1896),the collection of engravings,Paoyinlu Poetry and Manuscript contains 47 articles and 98 ancient poems,which is the concentrated expression of his modern thoughts in his later years.In 1904,the Qing royal court conferred him with the title of Secondary Official with honor.It can be said that Shen Yugui was an important newspaperman with modern enlightenment thought in the late Qing Dynasty.In view of the above understanding,this article puts Shen Yugui in the historical and cultural background of Western Learning in the late Qing Dynasty.On the basis of fully possessing the original literature,it is based on literature,combining history and theory,and using such philological methods as compilation,research,and collation.The method comprehensively and systematically sorts out his life experience,enlightenment thought,poetry creation and poetics activities,and further explores the interactive relationship between the modern transformation of traditional literature and the development of newspapers and periodicals in the late Qing Dynasty.This article contains six parts: the first part is the introduction;the second part is Shen Yugui's life and thought,and these two parts make up the first chapter;the third part is the research on the relationship between Shen Yugui and Shanghai,namely the second chapter;the fourth part is the study of Shen Yugui's creation in ancient poetry,which is the third chapter.The fifth part is the study of the poems published in the WAN KWOH KUNG PAO,the fourth chapter;the sixth part is the appendix,including the catalogue of Shen Yugui's poetry and the catalogue of the ancient poetry published in the WAN KWOH KUNG PAO.Details as follows:Introduction: On the basis of discussing the basis and significance of the topic selection,through the summary of the research results of the predecessors,the research direction of the topic is determined,and the research framework of the system is constructed.The first chapter is “Shen Yugui's Life and Thoughts”: The first section is a textual research on Shen Yugui's life.Shen Yugui's life is divided into two stages because he came to Shanghai to survive.In the early days,he followed the traditional Confucian lifestyle in his hometown and studied for exams.Due to the death of his father in the early years,he was prepared to feel fickleness of human nature,forming a depressed and restrained character.In his middle age,he came to Shanghai to help Westerners translate and publish newspapers,and converted to Christianity.He spent nearly 50 years spreading Western studies and teaching enlightenment thoughts and ideas,becoming an important newspaper literary writer in Shanghai in the late Qing Dynasty.The combing and research on the life story will lay the foundation for the follow-up study.The second section examines the various cultural undertakings that Shen Yugui engaged in after he came to Shanghai in his middle age.Shen Yugui worked with many missionaries to translate Western books,edited important missionaries' newspapers and periodicals in the late Qing Dynasty,participated in the establishment of Chinese and Western Academy,and put forward the idea of “Chinese Essence and Western Utility”,becoming an important figure in Chinese and Western cultural circles.The third section studies the thoughts of Shen Yugui.In the half-life western education career,Shen Yugui gradually established an enlightenment thought with modern values and methodology.Compared with contemporary literati,he is relatively more independent,more democratic,and can more rationally and thoroughly criticize traditional ethics and feudal rule.After running the school for many years,he gradually changed from a fallen scholar to a modern intellectual.But this change of thought had a certain duality.On the one hand,Shen Xigui's thoughts had more features of modern enlightenment.On the other hand,he repeatedly emphasized the fundamental status of middle schools,and his spiritual beliefs have been in a state of drift.The second chapter is “Shen Yugui's Friendship”: The first section combs Shen Yugui's experience in the traditional cultural circle.Although Shen Yugui converted to Christianity and spread Western learning,he still maintained the inherent traditional way of life and close ties with Chinese people and traditional culture.Many Hanlin Scholars,imperial court and foreign affairs personnel were in his circle of friends,and he has established a good teacher-student relationship with his later generations in many years of publishing and education.The interaction with the Chinese people is the traditional cultural background preserved under the Western thought,and it is an embodiment of adhering to the spiritual character of the Confucian scholars.The second section outlines the map of Shen Yugui's interaction in the Western culture circle.After Shen came to Shanghai,he maintained friendly cooperation and exchanges with many missionaries and Westerners in various cultural undertakings.Among them are his leaders who helped him converted to Christianity and those who established career with him together.Shen Yugui's comprehensive and all-round interaction with them has a significant influence on the development of Western thought and the formation of enlightenment thought.The third chapter is “Shen Yugui's Poetry Creation”: The first section combs and textually studies Shen Yugui's poetry creation,and divides it into three stages of development.Meanwhile,it examines the literature value of the Paoyinlu Poetry and Manuscript from the aspects of publication,thought content and time context.It is a collection of Shen Yugui's Western thoughts and poetry creations.It includes important Western articles and most of his poems in his later years.Among them,the poems are mainly for the early missionary and the creation in Shanghai in his later years,demonstrating the poet's thought and transformation of the two most important periods.In the second,third,and fourth sections,on the basis of the previous historical stages,Shen Yigui's creation ideas and poetry thoughts are studied at different stages.The poems in the early days of the religious teaching show that Shen Yugui shuttles between the traditional society and the Christian faith,while striving to maintain the original literati's life background,while being trapped in the mental state of the heterogeneous culture's resistance and contradictions,which also reveals the nostalgia for tradition and the desire to return to the career.When editing the newspaper,Shen Yugui began to try to integrate religious content into poetry,trying to be consistent with the editorial purpose of the newspaper.However,after experiencing a series of blows such as newspaper suspension,he began to sigh his life in the self-reported poetry and loneliness in the evening,to return to the traditional poetry style.He expressed his persistent pursuit of Western learning in the poems of many friends and friends.The fifth section uses the time of publication as a clue to explore the interaction between Shen Yugui's poetry creation and newspaper poetry.As a beginner in the newspaper circle,Shen Yugui's creation was in a trial period of new subject matter and new artistic conception.It praised the missionaries' personality and knowledge,in fact,to seek supporting points and rationality for the spreading of Western learning.After that,the theme of his poems was further expanded,focusing on the people's livelihood with more autonomy.After the republication of the newspaper,Shen Yugui's creation concept has become increasingly mature,the number of poems has increased significantly,the subject matter is more extensive,and the style is more diverse.The fourth chapter is “A Study of Poems in the Poetry Column of WAN KWOH KUNG PAO”: The first section is a summary and overview of the poetry published during the period of newspaper publication,focusing on the relationship between the changes of the columns as well as the numbers changes of columns and numbers of poems published in different periods and their relationship with the purpose of newspapers.The second section examines the features,functions and significance of the early publication of newspaper poems to the spreading of Christianity from the perspectives of subject matter,genre,content,artistic conception and artistic style.The translated hymns and the original doctrines are innovative in subject matter and genre.The main purpose is to reach out to local church members and lean towards traditional society to get more attention.The third section studies the poetry of newspapers in the transition period to comprehensive newspapers and periodicals,and explores the changes and new life of poetry creation under the influence of modern newspapers and periodicals.After the name was changed,the number of poems was increased and the subject matter was more various.Missionary poetry is no longer simple and straightforward to preach,more to show the spiritual journey of the believers.Besides,a large number of exhorted poems were published,with popular and plain language as well as explanations of profound reasoning in simple terms,further strengthening the status of poetry in the newspaper.The fourth section proves the poetry's independence from religion,choosing poems in a more autonomous way.After the resale,the number of poems published has decreased,but the artistry and aesthetics have been improved;the utilitarian and practicality has been weakened,and the traditional poetics concept has been returned.The fifth section combines poetry in the newspaper to explore Shen Yugui's poetry thought and principles of selecting poems.At the beginning of the publication,the selection of papers tends to be religious propaganda,which is consistent with the principle of running newspapers,and is also consistent with the religious belief of Shen Yugui at this time.After the revision,the number of poems with traditional themes increased,highlighting the admonishing function of newspaper poetry.After the re-sale,the quality of the selected articles was further improved and Shen Yugui's works enjoyed the dominant position in quantity.From the selection to the publication of poems,the concept of poetry creation has been gradually realized mainly based on literary aesthetics and guided by the society.Appendix:1.Shen Yugui's poetry catalogue;2.the catalogue of the poetry published in WAN KWOH KUNG PAO.