A Study Of Qiang Zhi And His Poetry

Qiang Zhi (1022-1076),zi is Ji sheng.He was born in Qian Tang (now Zhejiang Hangzhou). The evaluation about him in Imperial Collection of Four in Qing Dynasty says in volume one five two that he can develop a school of his own among poets at that time because of his profound and forceful poems of high status. Zeng Gong said of the talent and achievements of Qiang Zhi in his Qiang Ji Sheng Wen Ji Xu that as a Jinshi, Qiang Zhi dwarfed his peers and that his poems were so popular that they were collected. Qiang Zhi benefited from reading in his leisure when he was an official. He was especially good at writing poems, which was said by Fang Hui in his Ying Kui LV Sui. However, Qiang zhi didn’t win much attention of scholars in spite of his outstanding works for a long time. This paper will explore the four aspects about the poet, his life, friends, opinion of poetry and the content of his poems.The first part mainly discusses the poet’s life and his friends. Qiang Zhi lived in the mid quarter of the northern song dynasty. He won Jinshi in the sixth year of Qingli (1046), and took charge of Sizhou Sili canjun, Pujiang, Dongyang City, Yuancheng respectively. Han Qi loved Qiang Zhi’s literature so he appointed Qiang Zhi an official in Yongxing Army taking charge of the work of words, then became a herd magistrate and took up similar duties of high status. Qiang Zhi made friends widely with his peers and officials as well as monks.The second part mainly discusses the poet’s opinion of poetry. Qiang Zhi advocated that poems should convey the ideals of poets and Mengzi was his favorite. Poems, he thought, should be natural and spontaneous. Qiang Zhi especially praised Han Yu and regarded poems by Du Fu as models. He practiced what he advocated in his writing of poems and developed his own school of poetry among poets of his time.The third part explores the content of the poet’s poems. Qiang Zhi’s poems can be classified into festival feast poems, farewell poems, poems of praising objects to express thoughts, poems of the livelihood of suffering people and so on. Qiang Zhi’s feast poems mainly write about the joy and sadness of festivals and his farewell poems are highly emotional, telling the depression due to his parting with friends. His poems of praising objects to express thoughts are full of twists and turns and poems of the livelihood of suffering people show the poet’s concern of the low class.The fourth part research on Qiang Zhi artistic features of poetry. From the perspectives of characteristics,it aims to follow the characteristics of Du Fu,and expresses feelings in a profound and forceful way with high tunes. From the perspectives of art skills,it put highly stresses on perfectly accurate words and cites allusions. From the perspectives of structures, it tells in a simple, straightforward way,transits smoothly with pauses and transitions,strictly following the classical writing style of chinese poems.