Zhi Buzai Fish

Image is the most basic and important element to a poem. This thesis analyzes the fishing images appearing in Poetry of the Song Dynasty. It explains the abundant connotations of these fishing images from four aspects: the development of fishing images in the texts before the Song Dynasty, the overview of the fishing images in Poetry of the Song Dynasty(summary), the combinations of fishing images and the profound analysis of the fishing images in Poetry of the Song Dynasty. Then a conclusion is drawn that "The Aim of Fishing Is Not in the Fish".From the beginning when they appeared in literary writings, the fishing images as literary images have had special connotations besides its functions in productive practices and entertainment activities. For examples, the series of stories about Jiang Taigong going fishing hint the relationship between fishing activity and politics, while the fishing images in "the Book of Songs" have sexual meanings. Meanwhile, two literary works named "the fisherman" which were written by Qu Yuan and Zhuang Zi separately were regarded as the beginning of the fisherman literature and set the tone for the fishing images of the later literature — to stay far away from politics. From the Jin Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty, fishing images were mainly used to express the scholars' desire to live in seclusion. By creating these elegant images, the Chinese scholars concealed their thirst for political fames. To combine different images is the basic method of creating a poem. The choice that those scholars made among different images reflected their judgment on values and emotions. By analyzing the six common combinations in Poetry of the Song Dynasty—"fishing-water", "fishing-moon", "fishing-snow", "fishing-white bird", "fishing-wine" and "fishing-bamboo flute" — we can see how the elegant superficial connotations of the fishing images are emphasized and intensified.However, combining the era background , the cultural atmosphere and the analysis of the Chinese intellectuals' psychology, we can draw a conclusion that the so-called "The Aim of Fishing Is Not in the Fish" just implies the contradictory mentality of these scholars: they wanted to refuse the political fames but still unwittingly welcomed them.