The Study Of Li Gou's Poetry

Li Gou is a very characteristic poet in the field of poetry of North Song Dynasty, so his poems are highly praised by Wang Shizhen, Lu Yaolin, Gao Tianjue, Qian Zhongshu and so on. However, there has been no further research on Li Gou's poems for many years, because people pay more attention to his political ideology than his poems as a result of his remarkable achievements on academy. Because of this, this thesis will make comprehensive and deep study on Li Gou's poems, based on his political thoughts and literary ideas. This thesis is made up of five parts.Part one : Disscussing Li Gou's life and thoughts tendency. He came from an ordinary family and he was very poor. He made a living by teaching and writing with great concentration on Confucianism despite the fact that his political life was not so successful. He made friends extensively and formed the complete ideological system under the influence of his teachers and friends, which contains reviving Confucianism, correcting the shortcomings by transformation and serving the society by studying classics. These have very deep influence on his literary ideas.Part two : Disscussing Li Gou's literary ideas. Under the background of Confucianism's rejuvenation in North Song Dynasty, he pays attention to article's political function as well as teaching function and opposes ostentatious writing style because of the inherited traditional Confucian literary views. He advocates the Fengya tradition, requiring literature paying close attention to reality and criticizing reality. He advocates the innovation and objects to imitation in view of the atmosphere of following a set routine in literary world at that time.Part three : Disscussing the content of Li Gou's poems. Realistic meaning permeates through Li Gou's poems because of his traditional Confucian literary ideas . Some criticize reality by revealing political darkness,displaying his worry about the incompetent army and criticizing the immoral behaviours of the public. Some show solicitude for the people by displaying the sympathy for the people and expectation to good officials. Some advocate Confucianism by publicizing the meaning of the Confucian classics and advocating scholar's high moral integrity. Some describe his feelings by expressing sigh of unrecognized talents, worry of living abroad, happiness of appreciating scenery and sadness of life misery.Part four : Disscussing the artistic characteristics of Li Gou's poems. Li Gou's poems"meaning and words are often peculiar"(Qian Zhongshu's words)because of his literary ideas of innovation and artistic individual character of pursuing peculiar things, so his poems show peculiar plot, creative words and diverse style. Some are strange and vigorous, some are tactful and implicit, some are clean and elegant and some are humorous.Part five is epilogue. Disscussing the reason why " Li Gou is not famous in the field of poetry in Song Dynasty". Li Gou's poems don't have heavy influence on the field of poetry at that time and later, firstly because he is a poor person and his social status is very low, secondly because he values academy more than literature, thirdly because there are deviations in his poetry writing from the prevailing custom of poetry circles at that time.