The Study On Zeng Gong's Poetry

The paper is mainly centered on Zeng Gong 's poetry , elaborating from three perspectives---thought content, artistic individuality, the sources of poetry creation--to find out the values of Zeng's poetry.The introduction part briefly lists the comments about Zeng Gong's poems by various writers from Song to Qing dynasty, which shows the worthiness of studying his works.The first part mainly studies the thought content of Zeng's poetry. According to the content, we analyze his poetry from five categories–sentimental poems, documentary poems, historic poems, scenery poems, responding poems. His sentimental poems express his feelings either through external objects or openly, very sincere and profound. The documentary poems are substantial in content, caring for people's livelihood sufferings, arguing national affairs, reflecting social problems. The historic poems express ideas and feelings by describing objects, use the past to satirize the present, thus have very practical significance. The scenery poems describe lots of sceneries, in which feelings and settings blend together, which he's paid much attention to perfect. The responding poems are rich in content and deep in feeling. The analysis of all these shows that Zeng's poetry is informative with sincere feelings, succeeding the tradition of excellent Chinese classics Li Sao and The Book of Odes , as well as going with the temporal tide of reform in poetry and prose. Through rich thoughts and contents Zeng has glorified the tradition of Chinese realistic poetry, made which be an important component of the tide of advanced literature at his time.The second part mainly studies the artistic features of his poems, which can be summarized in four aspects: grandness, sentimentality, profoundness and elegancy, and being prose-like. As for the style of grandness, his poems are mainly analyzed from three perspectives, i.e. the grand manner of the poems, plentiful emotions, and the excellent use of metaphors and imagination. For the poems'sentimentality, it is elaborated from the following three parts: internal feelings, the application of Bixing (a traditional Chinese figure of speech) and the environmental description. Profoundness and elegancy refers to the rich quotations in the poems and the poet's temperament. Lastly, by talking about the prose-like way of his poems, we mean his fondness of using narration and argumentation, as well as the prose-like diction and syntax. From all the above finally it is drawn a conclusion that by possessing varied kinds of artistic characteristics and presenting his aesthetic judgment, Zeng's poems shows the artistic features striking enough to have him occupy a place in the history of poetry.The third part focuses on the creation sources of Zeng'poems. It is analyzed in three aspects. Firstly, it talks about how Zeng Gong succeeded from the writing style of Tao Yuanming, Xie Lingyun, and Bao Zhao (all of them are poets in Wei and Jin dynasty). The second part elaborates how Zeng Gong studied from the poets of Tang dynasty: Li Bai, Du Fu and Han Yu. In the third part it is discussed about how he was influenced by the contemporary poet Ou Yangxiu. Finally a summary is made about how by learning carefully from varied aspects and in varied ways Zeng Gong ultimately formed his own artistic individuality.The conclusion part provides a summary for Zeng Gong's poetry creation. Although there are not many of his poems left, his poems deserve great attention for the rich content and striking artistic value. It is also pointed out that Zeng Gong plays a substantial role in the poetry field of Song dynasty. As an important member of the poetry and prose reforming movement, he contributed a lot in promoting the development of writing style of Song dynasty.