A Metaphorical Analysis Of Li Bai’s Romanticism&a Metonymical Analysis Of Du Fu’s Realism

Li Bai and Du Fu are two brilliant masters in Chinese ancient poetry. Li Bai is therepresentative poet of romanticism while Du Fu is the representative poet of realism.Although many scholars have studied on two poets’ poetry, studies related with theirdifferent styles mostly focus on poetic imagery and artistic features. Jakobson, in talkingabout linguistics and poetry, once pointed that romanticism is based on metaphor whilerealism is relied on metonymy. Jakobson’s hypothesis offers an inspiration for the thesis, sothe thesis tries to have a metaphorical analysis of Li Bai’s romanticism and a metonymicalanalysis of Du Fu’s realism from linguistic aspect.Through a metaphorical analysis of Li Bai’s romanticism and a metonymical analysisof Du Fu’s realism, the purpose of the thesis is to offer a new perspective of appreciatingLi Bai’s romanticism and Du Fu’s realism. In the metaphorical analysis of Li Bai’sromanticism, the thesis employs Lakoff&Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory toanalyze metaphors used in his poetry, pointing out their relations with romanticism. Inaddition, the paper further discusses the relations between metaphorical meanings ofdominant images and romanticism. In the metonymical analysis of Du Fu’s realism,according to Radden&Kovecses’s metonymical classification, the thesis explores therelations between various metonymies and realism. In addition, the paper also analyzes therelations between metonymical meanings of some dominant images and realism.Through a metaphorical analysis of Li Bai’s romanticism and a metonymical analysisof Du Fu’s realism, it can be seen that the thesis has offered a new perspective tounderstand Li Bai’s romanticism and Du Fu’s realism, which will gain more attentionsfrom scholars to study poetic style from metaphor and metonymy. The author hopes thatthe thesis can contribute to the future poetic study and encourage more people to explorepoetic style from linguistic aspect.