Philosophers In The Rurality

This dissertation is a comparative literature thesis between Chinese literature and American literature, concerning two poets: Tao Yuan-ming and Robert Frost.Tao Yuan-ming (365-427) is an outstanding pastoral poet living at the end of the East Jin Dynasty. He has introduced a variety of rural scenery and the sections of country life to the writing, treating them as the particular aesthetic objects for the first time. He employs the ordinary images and daily diction. He keeps his fresh style of simplicity and unaffectedness, without following the fashion of ornate language. Robert Frost (1874-1963) is a famous American pastoral poet as well as a philosopher. Because he describes a lot of New England scenery and borrows New England natural spoken speech in his narrative poems, he is also called New England poet. He tends to use the simple and few-syllable words, while endowing with the deep philosophy of life in the common images by adopting symbolism. He creates a style of deceptive simplicity. He has made such huge literary distinction in his career that he has got Pulitzer Prize for four times, and become the nation's unofficial poet Laureate.The dissertation is to distinguish the similarities among a number of obvious differences, and then dig out the further hidden reasons for the similarities. It can be concluded that the similarities between Tao Yuan-ming's and Frost's poetry are not in coincidence at all. Their similarities in the poems' contents, themes and poetic features come from their common factors which include the objective reasons and subjective reasons.The objective reasons respectively include the temporal backgrounds, living environments and personal experiences. Both Tao Yuan-ming and Frost lived in the unstable and unsafe societies. Their living surroundings are the rural world far away from the urban cities. It's amazing that they have the similar personal experiences. To be specific, they suffered from poverty and their family members' deaths. The subjective reasons are categorized into two. The first is that they have the same poetic thinking. They both believed that writing poems is an inner impulse and instinct and that "poems should begin in the delight and end in wisdom." The second subjective reason lies in the consistent elements in their philosophical thinking. They insisted that human beings should have a harmonious relationship with nature and should make a simple life byreturning to nature.The dissertation is expected to analyze the similarities in their poems, poetic thoughts and philosophical thinking to provide valuable information for the further researchers.This dissertation is made up of four chapters. Chapter One introduces the life and career of Tao Yuan-ming and Robert Frost, and the possibility of the comparison between them. Chapter Two tells the similarities in their poetry in terms of contents, themes and poetic features in detail. Chapter Three analyzes the subjective and objective reasons for their similarities. Subjective reasons are also the novelty of the dissertation. Chapter Four gives the conclusion for the dissertation.It is a new writing aspect to make a comparison between the two poets who belong to the different nationalities, races, countries and even times. The process of finding out the similarities from the contrast of Transcendentalism and Taoism which are rooted in different cultural soils also can be regarded as an academic exploration and novelty.