The Position And Impact Of Yan Yanzhi In The Records Of Literature

It is recorded that Yan Yanzhi, Xie Lingyun and Bao Zhao are considered as the most important"Three Yuanjia Writers"and the leading light in the field of literature in Nanbei Dynasty of China. Evidently, Yan Yanzhi gained fleeting fame at his time. However, with thousands of years passing by, more and more attention is paid to the works of Xie Lingyun and Bao Zhao. As for Yan Yanxhi and his works, seldom researches have been made today and those having been made in the literature textbooks only deal with pieces of words which bears more derogatory than commendatory. Gradually, Yan Yanzhi, the great famous writer at his age, is given a cold shoulder at present, which confuses some of the devotees of literature. The particular misfortune of Yan Yanzhi reminds us to consider deeply the authentic state of Yan Yanzhi's literature works and to the probe into the cause of the great discyepancy between the two periods before and after his death.The works of Yan Yanzhi, though mainly in ornate style, dealing with eulogy and allusions, was truly one of the most important components of the literature in Nanbei Dynasty of China. Therefore, this thesis attempts to make an all-round and systematical research on Yan Yanzhi, including detailed account of his life, thoughts, literature view, works and characteristic of his works, so as to make an impartial comment on him. In this paper there are altogether six chapters.The first part is the introduction, which gives a brief account of the present research and the criticism on Yan's works given by critics of different ages.Chapter one deals with the introduction of Yan's whole life and character. Yan's life can be divided into two major periods according to the time before and after his being an official. In the first period, Yan lived in poverty and was absorbed in reading and learning. In the second period, when he became an official, Yan was dismissed once and again due to his frank character and unflattering remark in officialdom. During this period Yan lived at his remote hometown before he took his office again, when he changed his way of speaking and behavior and finally died in peace.Chapter two probes into Yan's ideology and literature view. Three pieces of ideology, namely Xuan, Confucianism and Taoism, and Buddhism comprise Yan's thought system, among which the ideology of Confucianism and Taoism occupies the leading position. This can be proved in his article Ting Gao and his unique literature features both plain and ornate. Furthermore, the pursuit of beauty in literature genre is also of great importance in Yan's ideology.Chapter three makes a research on the intention of Yan's poetry and pursuit of beauty in literature form. The content of Yan's poems covers wide fields, for instance, they include portrait of history events and journey, poems for exchange and for emperor. In Yan's poems, various methods were employed, including the variety of genre, the application of allusion, antithetical parallelism and modification of language.Chapter four discusses the artistic feature and ideological content of Yan's works and the contributing factor of them. Though Yan's works cover various styles and a wide range of themes, they can be classified into four purposes, namely, for emperor, for emotion, for objective and for philosophy. To express his feelings, Yan adopts a variety of methods such as antithesis, allusion, ornament, modification and flat narration. The dominant causes of his wide range of methods are the unique social and literature environment, bound life experience, complicated personal character and the profound literature accomplishment.The last chapter is the conclusion part, which gives a brief account of Yan's position in literary world and influence on literature. In different periods, Yan Yanzhi has different positions. He made his name during the period of Late Jin Dynasty and Early Song Dynasty, when he contributed a lot to the probe into the poetry genre. His literature style of applying allusion to poems was followed by quantities of literature devotees. However, the misuse of allusion in the poem brought some not so god impact on the later generations. From the experience of Yan Yanzhi at different ages, we conclude that the aesthetic conception of literature is not fixed and unchangeable. In brief, Yan Yanzhi enjoyed his name during his lifetime but stays desolated after his death.