Research On The Literature Thinking Of Zeng Gong

Zeng Gong, one of the Eight Masters of Ancient Literature, plays an important role in the development history of ancient Chinese essays. Although being a distinguished writer for 900 years, he was mistaken during and after his lifetime. His essays were well known during the Song and Yuan Dynasty, and known during the Ming and Qing Dynasty, but were largely neglected nowadays . This paper, focusing on his literature thinking, intends to do further research in order to know his writings and contribution to the literature history.The preface of this paper give a brief account of Zeng Gong's family, life and his literature thinking , the body of his thesis is divided into four parts to study Zeng Gong's literature thinking.The first part analyses the origin of Zeng Gong's literature thinking.The origin of Zeng Gong's literature thinking dates back to the mid-Song Dynasty when the society underwent a great change which had a deep influence on social culture.The formation of his literature thinking is based on his knowledge of Confucianism and further by the former and contemporary literati. The second part is a detailed presentation of Zeng Gong's literature thinking, this is the key part of the paper. Zeng Gong's viewpoint on literature influence upon society and people, content and form on literature, viewpoint on writing, and the " dao fa doctrine " forms his literature thinking system. His viewpoint on influence upon upon society and people of literature is linked with the viewpoint of making doctrine known. He regarded that the aim of literature is to make doctrine know by people, and the further aim is to control society and people . His viewpoint's content and form on literature shows personal thinking. He thinks that the aim of writing is making law known, only by thus, can writing be known from generation to generation. Although he thinks literature and law is connected closely, he didn't think literature is independent. His viewpoint on styles of writing follows OuYangxiu's opinion, which is put forwards during the Renaissance Movement of Ancient Literature and he advocated the nature writing style. As to his view on the writer's self-possession, Zeng Gong insists that the ethics cultivation is essential for a writer, that a writer's moral character is theprerequisite for his writing.He thinks that a writer should learn from the strong points of various schools and to enrich himself with all kind of knowledge. His viewpoint on "dao fa doctrine" is the important part of his viewpoint on essays. He thinks that "dao "is the main content and the essence, "fa" is the expressing ways and can be changed His viewpoint on" dao fa doctrine "was scattered, but influences the literature after his time greatly and pays enough attention by people because it is established much early in the ancient literature history. The third part studies his literature thinking and practice. His literature thinking influences his writing practice guided by his literature thinking, he advocated writing ancient-styled essays and writing style become ancient and noble. His content is wide but the main aim is making law known and controlling the world. He formed the sole literature form and writing characteristics. His poems achievement isn't so great as that of essays, but it isn't too small .the tend towards discussing and essays of poems is the orient of the development of the Song Dynasty's poem. His style of poem is plain powerful and new, which is consistent with the viewpoint of writing nature essays. His writing practice improved his literature thinking system. The fourth part studies the influence of Zeng Gong and his literature thinking. He was well known during the Song Dynasty and known during the Ming and Qing Dynasty, influenced the development of essays during the Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing Dynasty.