A Study Of "Essays Of Wang Ruoxu, A Survival Of The Past Dynasty In HuNan"

Wang Ruoxu is a well-known scholar in the late Jin Dynasty, who writes considerable excellent poems and prose .As a remarkable literary theorist, classicist and documentalist, he and Yuan Haowen are considered to be the "Two Jades"in then cultural fields. Yet with more concern on Wang's literary criticism and less exploration of his perspectives in poetry, classics ,prose and history in today's literary world, the present thesis intends to detail Wang's remaining and lost works ,his "Essays of Wang Ruoxu"in particular ,and comment on his classical masterpiece "Studies of Confusing Problems in the Analects"and his brilliant ideas in history as well as the features of his prose-writing. Wang Ruoxu was a prolific writer, with "Essays of YongFu"and "Essays of HuNan"handed down. The former has failed to be handed down .It is said the "Collection of Interpreting ShangShu"might be one of its separate chapters, part of which are cited by HuangJian(in Ming Dynasty) into his "Sellected Interpretation of ShangShu". So that it can be passed down.. Moreover, Zhang Jinwu(in Qing Dynasty) compiles and writes eight volumes of "Collection"out of "Secteed Interpretation", which are preserved in ChangShu Library . "Essays of HuNan"are engraved three times in the Yuan Dynasty but all the engraved books are lost. The existing version is kept in the library of Chinese Academy of Science ,which is a hand-writing copy by a man named Qi in the late Ming Dynasty. Most of the late versions are based on Qi's copy. Wang Ruoxu, a pure scholar of Jin Dynasty, was inclined to hold just and complete opinions on Sinology and Song Doctrines, owing to his distinctive identity as a free scholar. In the book "the Analysis of the Analects", he insists on humanistic means of interpreting classics, based on which he criticizes the viewpoints on "the Analects"made by the Song scholars. This paper attempts to analyze the academic characteristics and values of Wang's, in order to make known his important position in the field of studying classics. Compared to Liu Zixuan, Wang Ruoxu inherits and develops Liu's thought on history. Wang is good at textual research and forms his unique theory in historical records and his outlook , which is quite distinguished during the Jin and Yuan dynasties, due to his critical spirit and materialist conception of history. Wang Ruoxu insists on "No Prescriptive Pattern or method for a text", so he makes an assessment of his predecessors'prose to give instruction by "the criteria based on reason and common sense". His prose is easy but smooth and expressive ,for he carries forward the good traditions of ancient Chinese prose since the Tang and Song dynasties .His theory in writing prose plays an important role in the sound development of prose-writing in the late Jin Dynasty.