Research On Chin Sheng-t'an's Commentary About Tu Fu

This thesis consists of two parts. The first part focuses on characteristics of anthology of Tu Fu's poems from Chin Sheng-t'an's perspective. As mentioned in this part, the anthology is charicterized as follows: firstly, the anthology covers Tu Fu's poems composed in all the important periods after he won fame, especially the poems written after his age of 29, which were almost commented on by Chin Sheng-t'an every year. Chin Sheng-t'an was most interested in Tu Fu's poems which were composed after the Rebellion of An and Shi in Tang Dynasty and in the period when Tu Fu was living in Cheng Du. His comments on these poems were also the most incisive ones. Besides similarities with predecessors in the history of Chinese Literature, what is more worth mentioning is his difference from them in commenting Tu Fu's poems, which refelcts the fact that Chin Sheng-t'an not only stressed the common points people had on Tu Fu's poems, but also thought differently of them. In the thesis, Chin Sheng-t'an classified the selected poems into three categaries according to the themes, namely, outing, recollecting and commenting. The theme of outing includes the following forms: ascending a height, seeing off friends and going for get-together dinner party, in which Chin finds good expression of Tu Fu's insights about family relationship and friendship. As for recollecting, the largest part of the anthology, Chin Sheng-t'an sellected Tu Fu's poems concerning how Tu Fu expressed his sorrow and narrated the miserable era. When it comes to commenting, Chin mainly made comments on Tu Fu's comments on natural living beings and works of drawing. It seems that Chin Sheng-t'an put much thinking into phyolosophy or warning in Tu Fu's poems. In the second part of the thesis, the author explores the features of Chin commenting on Tu Fu's poems compared with research on Tu Fu's poems in Ming Dynasty. In the beiginning, giving a simple introduction of the research on Tu Fu's poems in Ming Dynasty, the auther unscrambles Chin Sheng-t'an's explaination about Tu Fu's words and sentenses in the poems, and admires his putting significant and original thinking into simple sentenses. Following that, the author proves the fact that Chin Sheng-t'an attached much importance upon the purport of poems; for example, he dissected the title of poems, explained the theme from the perspective of Zhuang Zi or Buddhists and expanding the theoretic connotation of poems, etc. Chin Sheng-t'an thought that the purport was especially important when he appreciated the leitmotiv of art , which demonstrated his distinctive quality as a scholar and artistic characters as well. Finally, the thesis looked into the features of Chin's comments from the view point of structure elucidation, affirming his quaternity methodology, say, introducing, continuing, transtion and conclusion; at the same time, the author studies Chin's trying to understand the poem by means of elucidation and seeks for a better understanding about Chin's aim to expound poetic theory of his own by expressing his own ideas or refuting others or combining both of the two. In the conclusion, the author sums up both parts of the thesis and finds evidence to see the far-reaching influence made upon Chin Sheng-t'an by Tu Fu's poems, with the belief deeply rooted in heart that Chin Sheng-t'an and Tu Fu were just like bosom friends, although they were living in different dynasties. After that, the thesis points out what Chin Sheng-t'an's comments on Du Fu's poems means to the thriving study of Tu Fu's poems in Ming Dynasty. Finally, it is noted that Chin Sheng-t'an's comments on Tu Fu's poems made limited influence in Qing Dynasty, or were even defied, but it won incessant praise as well, so Chin Sheng-t'an's comments deserve enthusiastic attention from the contemporary scholars and it is convinced that the value of Chin's comments must exert significant impact, both idealistically and theoretically.