Western Jin Dynasty Poet's Personality And Poetic Style

This dissertation mainly contains two parts. The first part relates to the personality of all poets of the Xijin dynasty. The other part discusses the characteristics of poems of the Xijin dynasty. The poets of the Xijin dynasty had worldly and meek personalities which were closely related to the political situation and the social custom of the Xijin dynasty. There were sharp conflicts between the people in dominant position and there was a general mood of pursuiting private benefit and seeking ease and comfort. Living in the confuse society, the poets of the Xijin dynasty became worldly. Their attention focused on private benefits and took any measures in order to attaining their aims. Some of them were self-indulgent or self-satisfied. Some of them followed the trend and fended for themselves. The poets of the Xijin dynasty had meek personalities. They sought success in the official career but had not the Confucianists' enthusiasm of running the country well and giving the people peace and security. In the confuse society; they wanted to live in seclusion. So they often expressed their ideas using ideas of Laozi and Zhuangzi. They were not depressed and discontented with the society and their personalities became meek. The author of this dissertation manages to discuss the characteristics of poems of the Xijin dynasty in five respects. Firstly, compared with the poets of the Jian'an dynasty who had lofty sentiments and aspirations, the poets of the Xijin dynasty mainly focused on their own's worldly sentiment. In their poems, the range of expressing emotion became wider and the emotion became minute. Secondly, the poets of the Xijin dynasty often thought nature and human-being using ideas of Laozi and Zhuangzi. That the poems had abstruse theory was a prelude for Xuanyan poems which were borned in the Dongjin dynasty. Thirdly, the poems of the Xijin dynasty had contradictory idea about being an official or being a hermit. In their poems, on the one hand, they were sentimentally attached to the official Career. On the other hand, they looked forward to being hermits. Fourthly, there was a atmosphere of modelling their works after the ancients between the poets of the Xijin dynasty. Some of those poems were not only works without any originality. Some of them reflected the customs of that society. Some embodied poets' sign with emotion. Finally, the poets of the Xijin dynasty sought a clever move in the writing. Their poems especially some poems describing the scenery had some flowery Language and minute description, which had important contribution to improving the technique of expression and aesthetic value.