A Tentative Study Into The Comments About Zhu Shuzhen And Her Poem In Different Times

As a female-poet of one-in-a-million with all God's gifts in the Song dynasty, Zhu Shuzhen, her personal experience and poem had always been attracted the attention of the literators in the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasty, thus producing endless comments and paeans from literators coming afterward. The diachronic and synchronic characteristics showed in these comments and paeans constitute a colt which links all of them into one.Surveying the comments and paeans to Zhu Shuzhen and her poem in different times, we can find that they are approximately based on two themes – "poetry" and "ethic". The literators offered their opinions from various positions, either praising her superb poetry and extraordinary talent, or arguing issues like "ethics" and "talent" or "faithfulness" and "lasciviousness".In general, the critics in the Song and Yuan dynasty tended to argue from the perspective of poetry, represented by Wei Zhonggong and Yang Weizhen. In the archives now available, 《＜断肠诗集＞序》 by Wei Zhonggong in the Song dynasty is the earliest comments to Zhu Shuzhen and her poem, which also gives the highest praise to her talent and poetry; Yang Weizhen in the Yuan dynasty, however, argued negatively, and his direct purpose was to give the "unethical" characteristics of Zhu's poem as counterevidence so as to canonize the poetry of Cao Xuezhai, his female disciple. The comments and paeans in the Ming dynasty are generally the contest between ethics and poetry. On the one hand, the opinions condemning Zhu's unethical sayings gradually gathering strength. Yang Zhen, by his 《词品》, led this wave, tried every kinds of written and verbal allegations to condemn severely that she had neither talent nor ethics, and gave her the sin of a "adulteress" based upon 《生查子 元夕》. Feng Menglong, Mao Jin, etc. added fuel to the fire, influencing profoundly as far as those like Yan Xiyuan in the late Qing dynasty. On the other hand, Tian Yiheng, Zhong Xing, etc. argued positively to Zhu's poem, praising her literature culture and talent, establishing another fortress in the storm of ethical condemnations to counter those song the praises of ethics.Although a minority of scholars still firmly embraced the old sayings and libeled Zhu Shuzhen as "adulteress" in the Qing dynasty, as the trend of learning dialectics became deeply rooted, their were continuous efforts to justify her in the literary arena and gradually became dominated. "Redressing" Zhu Shuzhen from ethical perspective became the main stream of comments towards her. From Wang Shizhen to Si Gu Guan Chen, and to Liang Shaoren and Lu Yitian, the scholars in the Qing dynasty gradually became zealous in commenting Zhu Shuzhen and 《生查子 元夕》. Kuang Zhouyu gave a systematic summary to those justifying comments. And Xue Shaowei, through thorough analyzes and consideration from Zhu Shuzhen's point of view, formed the final opinion concerning Zhu's "talent - ethics"/"faithfulness - lasciviousness" from a level as high as apotheosizing "three obediences and four virtues" and emphasizing the "obeying-the-husband" quality of women.Horizontally speaking, literators in various times shares certain similar psychological characteristics when they comment and wrote about Zhu Shuzhen. These are synchronic characteristics. These synchronic psychological characteristics can be broke down into tow layers: "superficial characteristics" and "deeper characteristics"."Superficial characteristics" mainly reflects the "curiosities" of both literators and ordinary people. People searching for miracle as chatting subjects, collecting articles for compiling into collection and dissemination, and even fabricating and making-up, directly contributed to the widespread of Zhu Shuzhen's fame. "Curiosities" directly procured the expansion of the audience base, attracting more people to become interested in her, searching for her life-stories and read her poem, and even appreciating her elegance and beauty, all of which have indel...