Study On The Relationship Between Sima Guang's Poems And His Thoughts

Sima Guang was a famous scholar in the middle of North Song Dynasty. He was well accomplished in politics, history as well as poetics. Many researches have been done on the first two areas, but the last one has rarely been touched upon. The inadequacy of the research on his poetics is due to two reasons. First, he wrote too many poems which results in the obscurity of his artistic feature. Second, his reputation as a historian outranks his fame as a poet. The author of this thesis expounds that Sima Guang was well qualified as a poet because he wrote a large quantity of poems in various forms. His thoughts reflected in the poems cover many aspects. The author attempts to explore the reflection of his thoughts in the poems in two ways: the relationship between his poems and his thoughts; the influence of his thoughts on his poems.This thesis includes four parts.The first part introduces the relationship between his poems and his thoughts. Through the analysis, the author finds that Sima Guang's poetic thought was in accordance with that of Mei Yaocheng, Ouyang Xiu, etc. Therefore, his poetic thought should be looked upon as an indispensable part of poetics in Song Dynasty.The second part focuses on the relationship between his poems and his thought on state administration. As a prominent official, he showed great concern for and actively participated in state affairs, thus forming his own thought on state administration. This thought can be classified into four categories: political area, economic field, diplomatic aspect and personnel system. Some of his viewpoints were advanced at that time and conformed to the historical trend of social development.The third part elaborates the relationship between his poems and his philosophical idea. Sima Guang advocated the philosophy "obey the Destiny and respect the Heaven" Due to this philosophic idea, his poems are characterized by their peacefulness, serenity and idea of nonaction. Another significant idea is manifested in his belief in atheism. He was a faithful follower of the Neo-Confucianism in Song Dynasty. Therefore, he also paid much attention to ethics in his poems.In the fourth part, the author investigates his historic viewpoints through the analysis of his poems on history. He believed that the turmoil of a country was caused by the fatuous emperors and historical trend.