A Research Into An Adherent Poet Of Ming Dynasty-Gu Mengyou

Gu Mengyou was a famous poet who was very active on the Parnassus of Jiangnan from late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, and he was the successor of the restoration association in Nanjing in the late Ming Dynasty and the key figure of adherents of Ming Dynasty in Nanjing in the early Qing Dynasty as well. Gu devoted himself to promoting elegance of poetry, he traveled and made friends in Nanjing in the late Ming Dynasty, leading the mode of Jingling School. In the early Qing Dynasty, he responded poems to poems of other adherents of Ming Dynasty, advocated the emotion of poetry. He was name the Best Poet on the East Side of Yangtze River, and his poems, uniquely concise and elegant, were highly praised by the later generation. This thesis probes into Gu Mengyou's family background and life, social intercourse and travelling, in order to find out which caused the transformation of his concept of poetry. Consequently, the poetic circumstances in Nanjing from late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty will emerge with the clarification of Gu Mengyou's concept of poetry.This thesis is divided into three parts: the introduction, the main part consisting of three chapters, and the conclusion.The first chapter is about Gu Mengyou's family background and all his life. Gu Mengyou, born in an aristocratic and elegant family, was quietly talented and proficient in poetry. And he was a just person liking making friends. His life was full of roughness and obstacles with failure in the imperial examinations, decline of his family, exile from home, depending on others for a living, due to conditions in the end of Ming Dynasty. Thus, the research into Gu Mengyou's family background and his life illustrates his growing background and experiences, which is also the basis of exploring him and his poetry.The second chapter is about Gu Mengyou's friendship with others and his travelling. Also two thirds of Gu Yuzhi's Poems are responding poems to others' poems, which is evident to reflect his frequency of responding and broad friendship. According to the existing data, Gu Mengyou has formed organizations and taken part in the activities for more than fifty times, making no less than three hundred friends, which is only from Gu Yuzhi's Poems. In this sense, Gu Mengyou was an very vigorous and capable person from late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, and most of his poems were closely related to his social intercourse and travelling. The research into Gu Mengyou's social intercourse and travelling can not only know more about his activities, but also strength the basis of research into Gu Mengyou's transformation of his concept of poetry, trace and change of feeling of the adherents of Ming Dynasty.The third chapter probes into Gu Mengyou's transformation of his concept of poetry from late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty. Gu Mengyou has transformed from an elegant person in the late Ming Dynasty to a temperable person in the early Qing Dynasty, with the tremendous change of his concept of poetry. In the late Ming Dynasty, Gu pursued the elegance of Jingling School, so his poems were with aesthetics of freshness, quietness and loneliness. He expressed his interior emotions and introspected life in the quiet outer circumstances. However, after the reign of Qing Dynasty, he was dragged back to reality by the pain of ruin of both nation and home. As an adherent of Ming Dynasty, Gu was deeply aware of the pain of fall of nation, pity for the nation, grief at his life experience. In this case, his heart was filled with anger and sorrow, which broke his interior stillness. Thus, he took the musing state of mind instead of the temper.The conclusion undertakes brief assessment of Gu Mengyou's contribution and value to scholars'associations and poetry from late Ming Dynasty to Early Qing Dynasty. Apart from that, it provides access to further research into Gu Mengyou and related groups.