A Study Of The Literary Criticism Of Tang Poetry In The Annotated Catalogue Of The Emperor's Four Treasuries

Si Ku Quan Shu Zong Mu (The Annotated Catalogue of the Emperor's Four Treasures) compiledin Qing Dynasty is the most illustrious bibliographic work in Chinese history. The AnnotatedCatalogue consists of categories, classified preludes and synoptic bibliography appraisingand elaborating on more than ten thousand most important works before Qing Dynastysystematically, including literary criticism of collected works and anthologies of writersin Tang Dynasty, and criticism of Tang Poetry. It has highly significant academic values.Whereas in The Annotated Catalogue poetic criticism has always been drawing much criticalattention, criticism of Tang Poetry in Qing Dynasty has its own characteristics and thus hasestablished its school of thought.First, this thesis is to review the study of Tang Poetry before Qing Dynasty in general.Then I will focus on specifically the criticism of Tang Poetry in The Annotated Catalogue byintroducing in the context of literary history of Tang Poetry and the criticism of Tang Poetryin Qing Dynasty in particular. I will mainly approach the criticism of Tang Poetry in TheAnnotated Catalogue by comparing it with criticisms by other critics'in Qing Dynasty andin other dynasties in the same tradition of Confucian poetics. Meanwhile, I will talk aboutthe debate of the status of Tang Poetry and Song Poetry and the reconciliation of the two inlater dynasties. Moreover, I will discuss the circumscription of the stages of Tang Poetry.My conclusion is that literary criticism of Tang Dynasty in The Annotated Catalogue accordswith the mainstream of literary criticism in Qing Dynasty in that it attempts to combine thevarious schools of criticisms in history and give a proper, unbiased and objective evaluationof Tang Poetry.Second, this thesis is to tease out the opinions and characteristics of the criticismsof Tang Poetry in The Annotated Catalogue. They are: the politics of writing as an initiativefor conveying truths, the emphasis of poetics as a form of art of refinement and character,strongly evident, antagonist to the far-fetching authorial definition of Tang Poetry,bibliographic and annotated, and an amalgam of textual research and literary criticism. TheAnnotated Catalogue is widely acknowledged as a prodigious and profound masterpiece everproduced. As an unprecedented work, it also serves as a bridge between tradition and modernism. Its tremendous and complex structure, copious research materials and nuanced polemics havealready shown the features of modern academics and are still referential.