The Research On Collection Of Special Ming Poems

Ming poetry had been collected and summarized even by Ming people themselves. For example, Li Panlong compiled Selected Ming Poetry in Jialong period. There were many elevant works after the establishment of Qing dynasty, including Selected Dynastic Ming Poetry by Chen Zilong, Poetry of Dynasties by Qian Qianyi, Selected Ming Poetry by Wang Fuzhi and General Ming Poetry by Zhu Yizun. Today the research on Ming poetry has gone deeper. However, for various reasons there has not been any monograph about the history of Ming poetry. In this case, researching anthologies can still be considered as an important way to learn the trend of development of Ming poetry.In Qianlong period, Shen Deqian advocated a unique theory of style on poetry to suit the flourishing age then. In order to expound and publicize this theory, he wrote a monograph of poetics On Poetry and compiled a series of poetry antholofies including Collection of Special Ming Poems. The latter was based on the principle of"firstly tenet, then norm, and verve", analysizing and judging Ming poetry in detail. Upon the tenet of selecting poems, Shen emphasized the disposition of poets as well as the Confucian poetry tradition. As for the norm of poems, his evaluation of Ming poetry was greatly influenced by Tang poetry, owning to his preference to Tang poetry. Futhermore, Shen inherited the reasonable core of Wang Shizhen's verve theory and strived to realize the perfect unity of style and verve. Under this kind of standard, Shen Deqian set his unique historical viewpoint of Ming poetry. He viewed Former-and-latter Seven Scholars as the model of Ming poetry writing, whose works occupying the top six in his selection. He cosidered Gao Qi and Liu Ji as the top poets in early Ming dynasty, whose quanity of poems preceded only by the Seven Scholars. Chen Zilong and Gu Yanwu in late Ming dynasty whose quantity of poems selected next to the preceding were also favored by Shen.Throughout Shen Deqian and his selection of Ming poetry, there are value and weakness existing at the same time. He emphasized the value of poetry intself and pronounced"poetry as people and model", instead of the old poem-selecting conception of"poetry as history". However, during the process of compiling, he unfairly depreciated some poetic schools like Gong'an and Jingling, selecting only one poem of the former and none from the latter. Moreover, he often altered the original without reference to selecting basis. All these show the lack of being fair and objective which are required in a good selector.Since it came into being, Collection of Special Ming Poems has been quoted and evaluated constantly. With short passages, refined content, proper and polished topic, it can still be considered as an excellent selection of Ming poetry.