Study Of Zhang Yong's Poetry

ZhangYong, the poet of early Song dynasty, had a strong sense of justice and ready to help the weak whose swordsmanship is unmatched among the land between the two rivers. He passed the imperial examination until 35 years old and was dispatched to different area as local official in his life. He was expert in governing locality, and especially famous for running Shu area well by means of establishing good prestige, caring for the people's livelihood, developing economy and improving culture and education which achieved far-reaching influence.ZhangYong's political irony-metaphor poems were few but representational which reflected social reality and the people's livelihood. Influenced by the exchange poem fashion of early Song dynasty, his exchange poems accounted for one thirds of all his poems, however, they indicated his true feelings and his send-off poems had positive emotion which broke through the sentimental style of the traditional send-off poems. Besides, his poems often showed the emotions on the run of official career and expressed his high ideals and noble personality.ZhangYong's archaic poetry was close to LiBai's and indicated unrestrained, natural, real character, and his Regulated Verse not only expressed his true feelings directly as Bai Juyi's style but also made feelings contained in the scenery as Late-Tang Dynasty poetry style which were both antithetic and ideological, and his seven-character quatrain also were lyric, graceful and restrained.ZhangYong attached great importance to the practical use of poems and pointed out emphatically that poems should be built on the foundation of nation-governing. His peoms expressed strong feelings of concerning for the country and the people and presented rational temperament of poets in Song dynasty. ZhangYong thought that experience and culture and artistic skill were both important for poem inditing and affected by contemporary spirits, swordsmanship experience and his own heroic character, he praised highly LiBai's archaic poetry and also exhibited heroic spirit in his peoms.The poetic styles of early Song dynasty was influenced by the late Tang dynasty, and FangHui advanced clearly that the poems of early Song dynasty were divided into Bai Juyi's style, Xikun poetry style and Late-Tang Dynasty poetry style which was followed by subsequent researchers. As ZhangYong's two poems were embodied in Xi Kun Chou Chang Ji, FangHui considered him as Xikun poetry. But his literature opinion was different from YangYi's, the leading figure of Xikun poetry style, and he held critical attitude toward the fashion of using flowery language admired by Xikun poetry style, and the two poems didn't cater to the fashion of quoting scriptures and constructing obscure, abstruse artistic conception which indicated he was not Xikun poetry. FangHui's biased opinion made the whole picture of ZhangYong's poems ignored by subsequent researchers chronically, and the three style classification was confused which reminds us that we should pay attention to the peot's personality and historical materials.ZhangYong were not limited by the poetic styles of the time, made efforts on poem innovation and got highly artistic achievement. He learned the unrestrained character from LiBai, also showed the simple style which represent the trend of classic poetry in Song dynasty, and his poems always expressed opinions and became prosy gradually,showing the character of poems of Song dynasty which using writing skills to create poems. Besides, his view on poem innovation with WangYucheng held significant position in early Song dynasty.ZhangYong devoted himself to reviving Confucianism and praised moral integrity highly and his noble personality of ivory-towerism gained far-reaching influence to posterity.