Research On Wang Xizhi's Life, Thoughts And Letter Works

Wang Xizhi is one of the most famous writers in Weijin and Nanbeichao dynasties.But people pay so much attion on studing his handwriting, while pay not enough attention on his letter works.The number of Wang Xizhi's letter works is great.According to Mr Liu Maochen's statistics, the number of Wang Xizhi's letter works is nearly 700.These letter works are all about four themes.The first one is about the politics and militaries, the second is about families and friendships.The third is about personal interests.The forth is about his Taoism religion.The study on a writer's works should be based on the study on the writer himself firstly.Understanding the writer's life experiences,such as his political position changes,is the first work we should do before starting to study on the writer's works. Consequently,this paper is made up of two parts.In the part of study on the writer,after absorving the formal sholars' study results,I did a study on Wang Xzhi's life families and his friendships.Wang Xizhi kept in touch with his friends frequently,sucn as Erxie (Xie'an,XieWan),Erxi(Xi Yin,Xi Tan),Liu Dan,Sun Chuo,Xu Xun,Xu Mai,Huan Wen,Yin Hao,Zhou Fu,Zhi Daolin,Wang Shu and so on.During the study I payed much attention to the influences on Wang Xizhi by his family tradition,sunch as his family's academic tradition,his family's style,and his friendships.The Dongjin dynasty is a very speical time in Chinese history.The Confucionism is also the dominant thought in the whole society,though it had to face the shocks from the Buddisim which came from the west,and the Toaism and metaphysics,whic generated in China.Taoism gets a speedy development in Dongjin dynasty. In order to be welcomed by the upper circles,the buddists changed the buddhism spirits with the spirits of the Taoism and the Confucionism. In the end the Buddhism gets being welcomed by the people from the upper circle.Addtionally, metaphysics develops to its highest lever.Wang Xizhi has ever organized a potists' meeting.The meeting's purpose is to do a discussion about the metaphysics.Living in such a time when different thoughts developed togther,Wang Xizhi has to be influenced by the different thoughts. In the second charpter,I did a study on the relationships between Wang Xizhi and the Confucionism,the Toaism,the Buddisim and the metaphysics.The second part is the study on his works.It's another important part of the paper. Wang Xizhi's letter works can be made a catregrioes of four parts according to the themes. The first is about the politics and military.Thet second is about families and friedships.The third is about personal interests.The forth is about his Taoism religion.Wang Xizhi's living time is a time full of tumoil.In the north,there are Xionglu and Qiang nations' usual volation.Besides, in the west part of Sichuan province,it's also not in peace.In the government,officals are also not rally.In order to deal with these problems,the goverment dispatched Yin Hao,Huan Wen and Xi Chao gradulally. There are so many letters which are about such political and military events.Besides,when Wang Xizhi left the capital Nanjing,he was sent to be an local official in Kuaiji city (Shaoxing city today)for five to six years.During this period,Wang Xizhi did so many good things for the local people,such as opening the rice warehouse to feed the hungry people, forbidding dringking wine to save rice,appilicating for better living conditions for the common peple,appliticating for forbidding tranforming rice to the army instead for the people,relaxing the crule punishment,promoting the good education,preventing the floating population,recommending the excellent officials for the governments and frequent investigating.These actions are all based on Wang Xihzi's Confucionism thoughts.The seoncd theme is about his families and friends.Wang Xizhi's family is a big family.In his own family,he has seven sons and a daughter.There are a great number of his letter works on such theme.In these letters,sometimes he cared about the male members'political future.Sometimes he cared about the health of his families or friends.Once he heard the members in his family or his friends' death,he felt so sad.So,we can say Wang Xizhi is a very emotional person in his time.The third theme about his letter works is about his interests.There are so many loves in his letter works,such as.the love about the garden,the flowers or the fruits,the love to the animals,the delicious food,and the mountains and the the rivers.The forth theme is about his Taosim religion.Letters on such theme can be divided into two parts.One is about his religion,the other is about his habit of taking medicines.Taoism gets a speedy development in Dongjin dynasty.Wang Xizhi is so pious that there are so many letters about his Taoism religion activites. His Taoism religion is for longer living,while by the way,taking the medcines is for having an exciting experiences in his life.In the forth charpter,I did a study on the characters of arts in Wang Xizhi's letter works,mainly studying on two areas.Firstly,discussion is done on the whole style of all his letter works.Next, discussion is done on the language characters. Firstly,he liked to use simple words.Secondly,though his letters look simple, they're full of meanings.Thirdly,the double sentences and the single sentences are both used in his letter works.Those are the language characters.Moreover, I did a study on his rhetoric.The first one is quotation.The second is asking a question in reply.The third kind is about repetitions in his letter works.