Discussion On Yuan Mei's Literary Theory

This paper, based on the complete decording and combing some YuanMei's essays, uses the method of deduction to interpret and integrate his basic point of views on article ; moreover, in this paper, the writer analyses the complex relationship between YuanMei's literary crritics and TongCheng School's and other issues in a simple way.In Chapter One, the paper primarily interpretes YuanMei's basic views on article theory. In his commens, YuanMei had a strong sense of restoration to classics, just as he said, "Six classical scripts should be treated as the model essays," which was his major view on his ancient Chinese writing. In order to remain the purity of ancient Chinese essays, he strictly distinguished the ancient essays from the current essays, verses and textual researches. What's more, YuanMei brought forth some requirements of the format and style of the ancient essays. By seriously exploring the essay structure and the narrative methods, he held the argument that the ancient essays should pursue a pure, lofty state.In Chapter Two, the paper primarily presents the intrinsic connections between YuanMei's article critics and poetic critics. On the one hand, "Every word can stand alone, " and "Articles should keep pace with age," are his common views as to both ancient essays and poetry . On the other hand, there are many differend views on them. He commented on the essays based on its contents. In addition, he insisted that poems should have a character of that time while articles should keep the classic character.