On The Yuanjia Poems

Transitions from the dry and abstract metaphysical poetic style in East Jin Dynasty to the smooth and natural Yong Ming poetic style in Nan Qi dynasty; from the "elegant" style in Wei and Jing Dynasties to the "secular" style in Qi and Liang dynasties, took place in Liu and Song dynasties, which can be divided into two phases: Yuan Jia phase and Da Ming, Tai Shi phase. The 30th year of Yuan Jia serves as a link between past and future; and Da Ming, Tai Shi can then be viewed as the continuation and development of the poetic style of the late stage of Yuan Jia.The early stage of Yuan Jia, represented by Xie Lingyun, Yan Yanzhi, has a couple of poetic styles coexisted: the elegant style and the style of mountains and waters. Xie Lingyun represents the style of mountains and waters and Yan Yanzhi represents the elegant style. The two however has quite a number of points in common in terms of artistic pursuits: the pursuit of depicting the similarities of different objects, poetic creativities, the decentralization and fragmentation of poetic images, .in general, the poems in the early stage of Yuan Jia mainly aim to restore the poetic traditions of Xi Jin dynasty and as supplementary, reflect other poetic styles as well. So these poems are more likely to inherit the past.In the late stage of Yuan Jia, many new poetic changes occurred while the previous style was followed. Tha eminent poets then are Pao Zhao and Yan Yanzni. Yan Yanzhi, due to mishaps in his late life, created some poems different from his early life in style. Pao Zhao, born in a poor family, writes more about the complicated psychological world of the poor scholars climbing up the social ladders. In the late stage of Yuan Jia, the decadent poetic spirit of the early times has been reversed and many new tendencies appear in artistic pursuit. These tendencies, having been developed in Da Ming and Tai Shi, eventually evolved into Yong Ming poetic style. Those new artistic pursuits include: poetic length getting shorter and terser, poetic language getting natural (compared with the stiff and strange language), poetic images getting united and completed, poetic syllables getting fluent and smooth. There is however a common feature between the early and late stages, i.e. the emphasizing in poetic representation of the actual objects. With the analyses of those changes, the paper elaborates the deep reasons of the transitions of Yuan Jia poetic style from the perspective of a poet's life being influenced by social changes.