A Research On Great Eight Masters Of Prose In The Tang And Song Period And Prose Theory In Qing Dynasty

This dissertation initiates an inquiry into the attitudes of literati in the Qing dynasty towards "Great Eight Masters of Prose in the Tang and Song Period",and examines how these influential literary paradigms were followed by Qing people and were utilized,as an elastic category,to establish their own literary critical discourse.The Qing dynasty is a period marked by the synthesis of theories about classical proses.Scholars during this time who explored traditional literary theories and elements of prose style far transcended their predecessors in depth and width.Therefore,such an investigation could not merely offer a descriptive account of the perception history of "Great Eight Masters"in the Qing dynasty,but provide a retrospective view over the learning experience of "Eight Master’s" works within the circle of classical prose.The introduction part gives a general picture of issues concerning"Great Eight Masters",and outlines the perspective,cases,and theoretical framework adopted in this dissertation.Chapter one,as a case study,examines Qian Qianyi’s opinions on Su Shi’s proses and reveals disagreements on how to learn Su’s works between writers in the early Qing period,even though all of them belonged to the "Circle of Classical Prose".Chapter two brings to light a noteworthy but always neglected issue:how did scholars of Han Learning School imitated the style of "Eight Masters" when composing proses?I try to illustrate the great differences between their learning of these essays and what was done by their peers from Tongcheng School who were holding different interpretation of the literary experience of "Eight Masters".Chapter three jumps forward to the Late Qing period,and focuses on how the literati community of Tongcheng School utilized the style of Wang Anshi as panacea for the sensuous and effeminate style caused by the influence of Ou Yangxiu and Zeng Gong.Through the perspective of history of ideas,Chapter four explores the developmental trajectory of two literary notions within the Qing period,namely,Han Yu’s "Cliche must be deleted" and Liu Zongyuan’s "Refer to Grand Historian’s[work]to develop a concise style".In a word,diverse attitudes towards these elastic literary categories were held by literati with different academic backgrounds or aesthetic pursuits.Investigation into these great gaps may serve as an ideal window through which we can observe not only the growing trends of literary theory in the Qing dynasty but also the changes in zeitgeist of late imperial China.