A Study On ZengGuofan's Poetry

As a hero of the end of a feudal dynasty, Zeng Guo-fan has made a valuable contribution to politics and literature. Based on the famous achievements he obtained in Chinese classical prose creation, he was called the leader of Tong Cheng School. He has made public the taste of the time of Song Poems so that people all-round the world rushed to itimate and learn. These contributions he made has established the magnificent role in the modern history of Chinese literature.Zeng Guo-fan's confucius poetics and poetry had a great influence on descendants, therefore, he was the poet that deserved to be studied and even to be studied widely and deeply. Since the 1980s, more and more scholars have payed special attention to Zeng Guo-fan. But regrettably, all these studies have layed less emphasis on his poetry compared with his status and influence. The introduction in this dissertation summarized the study situations about Zeng Guo-fan's poetry since the 1980s and discussed the contents and thoughts of his poetry creation.First of all, the dissertation summarised Zeng Guo-fan's creational state. According to the end of official career and the beginning of establishment of local militia and the foundation of "Xiang Army", it was divided into two periods. Zeng Guo-fan's poetry, were truly represented the social state of the rapidly transitional times he was in, and they included all kinds of events such as matters of state, family and self-himself. Generally, it covered four kinds, aspirations of life, feelings of the inner connection of true love to the concern with the country, fellowship of relatives and friends and affection of loneliness. Afterwards, the dissertation deeply discussed the artistic characteristics of the tendency of Song Poems' nature of Zeng Guo-fan's poetry. Under the influence of the poetic style of Song-advocacy in the years of Daoxian, Zeng Guo-fan once more went to Beijing in 1840. Since then, his poetic creation had belonged to the Song Poems School by Chen, Qi and He. His poetry had the clear tendency of Song Poems' nature, such as putting wisdom into poems, treating a prose as a poem, upholding momentum, merging feelings and reasons, and emphasizing techniques. Finally, it expounded the status and the influence of Zeng Guo-fan's poetic thoughts. It analysed the relation among Zeng Guo-fan's poetic thoughts, Tong Cheng School and the Movement of Poems in the Late Qing Dynasty and the Early Public of China, and summarized the wide influence on descendants.Though the deep probe into Zeng Guo-fan's poetry, the dissertation tried to make an all-round, deep, objective and accurate analysis in order to objectively evaluate the status of Zeng Guo-fan's poetry in the current parnassus and the history of Chinese poetry, and also in order to supplement the insufficient of stdudies on Zeng Guo-fan's poetry and to promote the researches of modern Chinese poetry.