The Life Story Of Yuan Kai

The poem collection Hai Sou Ji (The Collected Poems of Hai Sou) of Yuan Kai, the famous poet in the late Yuan Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty, has been circulating for over 600 years, during which there were eight editions, that is, Tianshun edition, Hongzhi edition, Zhengde edition, Jiajing edition, Longqing edition, Wanli edition, Kangxi edition, and Guangxu edition. Yuan Kai's poems were block-printed and collected by both the governments and individuals in Ming and Qing dynasties, which increases their documentary values.Yuan Kai, styled Jingwen, was of Sichuan origin. From Yuan Jie his father's generation, his family moved to Huating, Songjiang. Yuan Kai praised himself in a poem that, "I am an offspring of a scholar family in the south of Yangtze River", which shows the long tradition of learning in his family. Yuan Kai's whole life experienced about 12 emperors of the Yuan and Ming dynasties. Things were not what they had been, and the scholars drifted from place to place. His whole life was a long and rough journey, including reading, traveling, holding an official post in the Yuan Dynasty, escaping from the turmoil, drifting from place to place, holding an official post in the Ming Dynasty, being removed from office, teaching and living in seclusion.Yuan Kai produced a considerable number of poems, amounting to 400. All the poems are with a variety of styles, and rich in thoughts and substances. After the analysis of the above points, we can see Yuan Kai's political ideals, life attitudes, aesthetic interests, and poetic thoughts. His fresh and vigorous poems are well received by the later generations because of their "following Du Fu's example" and "the most orthodoxy style".Most of Yuan Kai's poems were produced after his middle age, and in autumn of the seasons. He traveled around such places as Yan, Zhao, Qi, Lu, Liang, Song, Wu and Yue, andhe mainly stayed in Huating, Songjiang after middle age. Yuan Kai made a large number of friends in all walks of life.The life story of Yuan Kai, the main part of the thesis, sketches out the grand political and cultural backgrounds between the Yuan and Ming dynasties, and vividly and realistically exposes the original look of the Yuan Kai's time. The writing years and periods of part of Yuan Kai' works are also found out on the basis of such documents as the poetic titles, annotations, texts, travels, historical records, notes and local annals.The preface, before the text of the thesis, tells the origin and the present study situations of the topic, states the situations of Yuan Kan's poems' being block-printed and collected in the over 600 years after his death and briefly describes the poet Yuan Kai recorded in Hai Sou Collections and the later documents.