Hong Liangji Poetic Thought

Hong Liangji, one of the renowned scholars during Emperor Qianlong and Emperor Jiaqing in Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), is good at both manipulation of words and textual criticism. Hong's personality was so unique and independent so that the major literature genres at that period had quite a few disagreements with him. One of Hong's works-Beijiang Shihua-can fully reveal his thinking on poetry. Of course, Hong's thinking on poetry can also be found in many of his other works.Though Hong was not the first-class man of letters during Emperor Qianlong and Jiaqing period, he had some opinions of his won by combing theory and practice. Moreover, he maintained an active relationship with preventative figures of each genre, and therefore had a mutual influence from each other. Hence, Hong's thinking on poetry can help one have a general view of poetry theory at that period and help one see the change of it and finally make one's own judgment of Hong's thinking in the history of criticism of Chinese classical literature.However, the current research and study on Hong's thinking on poetry is far from enough. Bearing this fact, the author started his thesis from Hong's works (including his poems, preludes, letters, Beijiang Shihua, and Yuchen Ji which was seldom studied before), combining with Hong's life experience and the social environment Hong lived in. Based on others'research findings, the author then summarized Hong's major views and built up a complete system in order to clarify the author's understanding of the status and valuation of Hong's poetry thinking.In this thesis, Chapter One contains Hong's theory on the origin and function of poetry, views on "Shijing is the focus of my thinking on poetry", and the emphasis on the teaching role of poetry. Chapter Two contains Hong's theory on creativity. Chapter Three is about Hong's views on writers, which he believed that a man needs a disposition, some knowledge and a character to be a writer. Chapter Four the author wrote about the relation and differences between Hong and Zhao Yi's views on poetry history. The Appendix is a brief introduction of one of Hong's works in his early years Yuchen Ji.