Gaoqi's Poetry Studies

Gao Qi was the most outstanding poet at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. But in the history of the study of classic poetry. Gao抯 position has not been fully ascertained. There has practically never been any earnest all-round study of his poetic creations. As a result of racial discrimination by the Mongolian rulers and of the suspension of the imperial competitive examinations, the intellectuals lost opportunities of participating in the regime. They either became recluses or indulged in debauchery, or made a living by selling their poems, writings and paintings; thus, the relationship of dependence on the rulers was dissolved, hence the divorce from the regime. Like most of the intellectuals of the time, Gao Qi had a soul of non-inhibition and personal freedom. The ideological contents of Gao Qi抯 poems are very extensive: they reflect the disaster and chaos of war and the misery of the common people; they also display the optimistic appeal of the poet himself through his eulogies of history, of Nature and of humans. Gao抯 poems are characterized by the main features of majestic uniqueness, vigorous, bold and unrestrained flowing of feelings, which coincide with his personality. Besides, he learned extensively from his predecessors, grasping their techniques of poetic expression. As he was gified extraordinarily, this simulation did not become a new straitjacket to his creation The reason for the low evaluation of the historical position of his poems is that, firstly, poetry of the Ming Dynasty has ever been underrated, which has much adverse effect on the estimation of Gao Qi, and also Ofl the estimation of other poets that reached a very high level. Secondly, Gao himself?had some intrinsic defects, such as his neglect of the fact that the source of literature comes from life and not from composing poems in bitterness. His social association was limited to the townspeople, divorced from wide contact with and understanding people from all walks of life. Thirdly, his ideas of learning and imitating ancient things were accepted and practiced in a way varying from the original by people in the mid and late Ming Dynasty So when the posterity was clearing up the ill impacts of the trend of back-to-the-ancient, he could not help being dealt with in an unfavorable light.