A Summary Of Fu’s Research In The First Decade Of The New Century (2001-2010)

Poetic Essays are among the most important branches of Chinese culture’s longand rich history. Over the first decade of the21st century, the research of PoeticEssays has developed tremendously on the basis of the results of previouslyconducted research. Most of the research on Poetic Essays’ in the last century onlycovers from the Tang Dynasty up to the Ming and Qing dynasties; although somescholars have thoroughly researched Poetic Essays in the Northern Song, Yuan, Mingand Qing dynasties. Expanding research on Poetic Essays is the only way to restorePoetic Essays to their original form. Interdisciplinary research has emerged as anoutstanding feature of the21st century’s research methods on Poetic Essays.Interdisciplinary research is not only about integrating different branches of science;it is also about the fusion of different research methods, and studying Chinese PoeticEssays from different points of view. The main topic of research not only includesscholars from the older generation, like Jigao Ma, WeisenGuo, Kechang Gong,ZhengangFei;but also includes mid-aged scholars likeZhongRuan,JianxunGuo,Hanglun Zhan,Jie Xu; as well as modern scholars likeXiaolu Feng,WeiguoLeng,Pei Liu, and Chenglin Zhao. Older generation scholarshave laid a solid foundation, middle aged scholars are considered the main force ofresearch on this topic, and modern scholars bring a fresh perspective to the PoeticEssays’ research already in place. These three groups compose the foundation of thispaper’s research topic.The results of scholarly research are mainly presented in the form of a book,paper or conference proceedings. In the first ten years of the21st century, the bookswhose main research topic is Poetic Essays total124volumes; research papers/thesesamount to2109, among whichMaster’s/PhD theses add up to264, while conferenceproceedings equal302. Research has been performed using two different approaches:literary analysis and systematic compilation and organization of texts. Literaryanalysis includes analysis of Poetic Essays’ history, style, themes, authors (and theirworks), theory and interdisciplinary research. Systematic compilation andorganization includes editing and commenting Poetic Essays, compiling andorganizing Poetic Essay theories from past dynasties, and analyzing existingmanuscripts. This paper shows a complete overview of the research performed on Poetic Essays in the first ten years of the21st century by presenting an introduction,categorization, evaluation and summarization from each one of the eight points ofview presented above.Based on these previously defined elements, this paper tries to summarize PoeticEssays’ research on the21st century, as well as its trends and features, while usingoriginal sources as a foundation.