On The Argumentative Writings By Liu Yuxi

Argumentative prose, which played an important role in researching Liu yuxi's ideas about politics and philosophy, was the part of finest quality of Liu Yuxi's literary creation. As current studies on this theme are insufficient, this thesis demonstrates the all aspects of Liu Yuxi's argumentations systemically, based on an in-depth study on the texts and a holistic review of the ancient argumentations, by describing the idiographic achievements of ideas and art, studying their particular features and the reasons why these features came into being, probing into the sources from which the ideology and art existed in Liu Yuxi's argumentations derived, so that an objective and clear understanding on the influence and significance of Liu Yuxi's argumentations in literary history can be achieved.There are five chapters in this thesis. The first chapter is about the characters of Liu Yuxi's historical argumentations and political argumentations. The historical argumentations were written in the particular period when Liu Yuxi was demoted after Yongzhen Reform was frustrated, and then possessed a special implicative writing style. The political argumentations adequately reflected Liu Yuxi's political ideology and displayed a laconic and practical style in writing. The second part describes the achievements of Liu Yuxi's philosophical argumentations. In his philosophical essays Liu Yuxi achieved great breakthrough to Chinese traditional philosophy topic The Relationship between Heaven and Man , and showed excellent argumentative techniques which granted the precise logicality and the strong persuasion to his essays. The third part expatiates on the features of Liu Yuxi's allegoric argumentations and their contribution to the development of allegoric literature. These essays expressed abstract ideas and principles by virtue of some simple events the author experienced, so that the literal sense has or suggests a parallel and deeper symbolic sense. They inherited some writing methods from Chinese ancient allegories and formed their own unique characteristics to be discerned from the other allegoric works. Such characteristics were adopted by Liu Ji , a famous writer on allegory in Ming Dynasty. The fourth chapter analyses the peculiar artistic style of Liu Yuxi's argumentations. Compared with the argumentative writings by Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan, Liu Yuxi's argumentations exhibited an individual feature of dispassion, objectivity, sturdiness and flexibility. In forming such a feature, Zhong Dao mode of thinking and Na?ve Dialectics played an important role. Chapter V summarizes the idealistic and artistic sources of Liu Yuxi's argumentations and estimates their significance in literary history. Liu Yux's ideology was profoundly influenced by some ancient Chinese philosophers and philosophic schools such as Xun Zi, Lao Zi, Confucian school and Legalist school. He acquired some argumentative techniques from Chinese ancient prose works and sutras of Buddhism. The language and writing style of his argumentations, to a certain extent, was influenced by Liu Xiang and Ban Gu. In conclusion, Liu Yuxi's creation advanced the development of Chinese ancient argumentative writings and the movement of opposing rhythmical prose, and then gained great significance in Chinese literary history.