Poetic Fly

In the field of poetics research, image research is a rather important part and has unique status, because it is the research that relates to the inner nature of poem. Most studies focus on the image composition and its relationship with the text system, lay particular on aesthetics, poetry creation, etc. Until the end of the20th, study on the development of image begin to dawn the scholar’s attention. The formation of literary image always has a long and interesting process, some of them even eventually become the epitome of the culture of nation. So, I think that the research on the formation and devlepment of image has value and sense to a certain degree. This thesis tries to reference to specific image as the core subject study method, straightens out the development and evolution of the meaning and usage of bird image in the period of Pre-Qin Period to Southern and Northern dynasties, view the relationship between image and the background of poem creation,the style of work, as well as the poets’ personality.This paper consists four parts. The introduction talks about the development of the theory of image, points out the nature and the main characteristic of image, defines the topic of the research scope, analyzes the current situation of the study of bird image, and puts forward the method and purpose of this research. For the first part of the text, which can be divided into two chapters, through analyzes the meaning and usage of bird image in Pre-Tang Dynasty’s classic poetry, draws the outline of its development for bird image. In book of songs, bird is used as a Bi Xing object, with rich religion and the collective unconscious of the meaning; Quyuan’s poems give bird typically thoughts and feelings, and the imagery of the rich cultural connotation; the pair of flying bird in the poetry of the Han Dynasty has become the image to express love theme in later literature. In the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, bird image appears in the poetry widely, it is used to consign noble and pure guality, or a metaphor for life, or used to express lovesick, its connotation and symbolic meaning has its own innovation, and shows a distinct personalities, endows with certain personality vaule. Along with the development of the poem art, a painting and aesthetic features of the bird becomes the main types of image in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The next for the second part of the text, which can be divided into three chapters, is the study of the history of bird image theme. This part regards the main poetry in Pre-Qin period as research subject, combines with the myth, legend and history of allusion, to summriszes the symbolic meaning and emotional connotation of bird image, it also discusses the theme of swan goose, phoenix and mandarin duck, crane, etc.All in all, from Pre-Qin Period to Southern and Northern Dynasties, bird image appears in the main poetry text frequently. From the various kinds of birds which are used as Bi Xing object in book of songs to the bird image that is full of myth colour and personality in Quyuan’s poems, from the pair of flying birds in the poetry of Han Dynasty to the personality characteristics bird image in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the meaning and usage of bird image has a process of inherition and variation. After thousands of years of reciting and descrption by poets, bird also has become the symbol of the symbolic significance, used to express the diversified topics.