From The Edge To The Center

Shatan scholars live in the faraway area of guizhou,zunyi. They are respectable in our cultural development history.They created many poems and proses which are rich in contents and styles. They influence many scholars in the world. However,association is especially important for shatan scholars because of the restriction of the geographical position. They were a whole at home,they studied each other between father and son,or among friends. They taught each other in study and encourage each other in lives. They insisted on the traditional ways abroad. They not only associated with their own scholars,but also associated with the scholars of the world. Li Shuchang even went abroad to communicate with the foreign friends.It widened the lives of the shatan culture and expanded their visions.Then it changed the traditional thought into a modern one.We can see these new changes in some poets,especial contents and structures. Meanwhile,it wrote down many things such as politics,economy and literature thouht. These articles not described the emotions of the traditional scholars but the new feelings.Thus, the foms of their poems are simple ,most of them are poem, epitaph or zengyan.Then,there were many other styles of creatures------Letters, preface, postscript , sylloge,and so on.In addition, Shatan scholars had known about the serious disaster which was brought by the history.It leaded to the new changes in spirits and brought the modern things.It was closely related to the social situation.In the late Ching Dynasty,when the governers dreamed of becoming gods,the politics was decayed,the economy fell behind,the mind was blind.In fact, shatan scholars can go out of Zunyi and our country due to the opening-up policy of the late Ching Dynasty.At last,it was involved the development of the world capitalism .It is an epitome of the chinese social development of the late Ching Dynasty.