Study On Song Xiangfeng

Song Xiangfeng was born into the Song Clan of Fengxi,Soochow. He was a famous Confucian master during the period of Jiaqing and Daoguang of the Qing Dynasty. He had many works in his lifetime, especially in the study of Confucian classics. His literary accomplishment was also impressive including two collections of poems, three collections of ci-poetry and some works of ci-criticism. Song was always known as a celebrated Confucian master while his literary achievements was disproportionally rarely-mentioned.In order to give an objective evaluation of Song’s literary achievements, this article conducts an intensive research into Song’s life, social activities, writing practice and thoughts of ci-poetry based on the reading and sorting of firsthand information. The article includes five chapters:The first chapter mainly gives an introduction of Song’s family and lifetime. Song was born into a literary family and his mother’s family, the Zhuang Clan was a distinguished one in Changzhou. The first section of this chapter investigates Song’s family. Opinions are divided as to Song’s year of birth and the article gives an amendment based on the combing and analyzing of his anthology. The third section tells Song’s life story from his experience of participating in the imperial examination, being an adviser and an official.The second chapter introduces Song’s academic origins and social activities. Song was himself a celebrated Confucian master and was in contact with many Confucian masters, which makes his academic origins complicated. In the respect of study of Confucian classics he received the education of ’plain learning’ from his father, Song Jian, during his childhood. Then he learned ’New Text School’ from his uncle, Zhuang Shuzu. At last, he became a student of Duan Yucai. In the respect of ci-poetry Song not only learned from Zhang Huiyan but also became a student of Wang Quande after Zhang’s death. At the same time Song’s contact with scholars like Shu Wei, Gong Zizhen, Zhao Huaiyu, Pan Shien, Pan Zengying, Pan Zengshou reflects his literary achievements and influence.The third chapter tells the particularity of Song’s thoughts of ci-poetry primarily from the reading and understanding of ’The Remaining Discussion about Yuefu’,’The Preface of Xiangcao Ci-poetry’ and’The Preface of Double Inkstone Room Ci-poetry’. The chapter elaborates on his understanding of the particular genre of ci-poetry, his intention of building a history of ci-poetry and his evaluation of ci-poerty writers and works. On the basis of Zhang Huiyan’s theory of’internal meaning covered by external language’, he also accepted the assertion of attaching great importance to the appreciation of ci-poetry by the West Zhejiang School of Ci-Poetry and thus he formed his own particular thoughts of ci-poetry.The fourth chapter analyzes the themes and styles and characteristics of Song’s ci-poetry works. The themes of Song’s ci-poetry works could be roughly divided into six kinds:the ci-poetry on painting, the ci-poetry on objects, the ci-poetry on travel, the ci-poetry on history, the ci-poetry on preface, the rewarding ci-poetry. The article studies the characteristics and involved emotions of each kind of ci-poetry. Song’s ci-poetry on painting is the most common one. Hence, it is the focus of this chapter. The article also elaborates on the style of Song’s ci-poetry, which was elegant, with the characteristic of subtle gist and beautiful words. Under the comprehensive and meticulous survey and analysis, the remaining part focuses on Song’s status and influence in the history of ci-poetry. As a ci-poetry writer belonging to the Changzhou Ci-poerty School, he didn’t stiffly hold the view of the Changzhou Ci-poerty School but intentionally absorbed the composition features of the West Zhejiang School of Ci-Poetry. He perfected the theory of the Changzhou Ci-poerty School and acted as a bridge between Zhang Huiyan and Zhou Ji. During his communication with the Wuzhong Ci-poetry School, his opinions about ci-poetry had a certain influence on them, which contributes to the spread of the theory of the Changzhou Ci-poerty School.