A Study On Shen Deqian's Poems

Poems of Qing Dynasty reached another climax in the domain of Chinese classical poetry, which are spectacular for their tremendous quantity and considerable poets. Shen Deqian, as the master of poetry in Emperor Qianlong period of Qing Dynasty, advocated "Style Theory", which manifested with Wang Shizhen's "Spirit Theory", Yuan Mu's "Soul Theory" and Weng Fanggang's 'Texture Theory" as the four poetic schools of mid-Qing Dynasty that played an important role in Qing's poetic stage and the history of Chinese classical poetry.Compared, however, with the wide and profound study of Shen's "Style Theory", Shen himself, as a poet, didn't catch much attention of people and the corresponding study was loosely grounded. This paper, focusing on the status quo, starts with the analysis of the scripts of Shen's poems, refers to the then social, cultural, regional background and his poetic theory, and finally conducts the study of Shen in the more spacious academic contextContents of this paper mainly contain: Shen's biography and main friends-making tour experience; the analysis to the central idea of Shen's poems, Shen's artistic style, aesthetic tendency and the effect of "Style Theory" on other artistic styles etc. By the means of the categorization and the analysis to Shen's great number of works, the paper objectively unveils Shen's spirit outlook, elaborates on the primary style of "gentle and simple" as well as "just and peaceful" supported by the "Style Theory", and relatively covers the aesthetic thinking of Shen's poems and the aesthetic value that should be justly deserved. This paper, in addition, casts the special care for the unique relationship between Shen and Emperor Qianlong that caught concern from people of that period and next generations, and analyzes the predetermined exchange "starting with poems and ending in poems"sung highly by people, between the Emperor and the subject, based on the given historic circumstances. Hence, this paper objectively evaluates the role of Shen's poems in the then poetic altar and the history of Chinese poetry.