Research Of Zhang Yan And His Thoughts Of Literary

Zhang Yan is an important figure in the tz’u-hsueh’s development of Ming Dynasty. However, relatively little attention is paid to Ming-tai tz’u, and the concern Zhang Yan gets is less. And now mass studies about Zhang Yan focus on the concept of tz’u-hsiieh and studies of tz’u p’u, but the true significance is failed to recognize. In fact, Zhang Yan plays an important role in the process of putting poems into tz’u and ch’ u of restorative trend, he is the heir of tz’u-hsiieh field in the movement of restoration, and its meaning can not be ignored.In the field of shih-hsueh, he learned from poets of the late Tang Dynasty when young and praised Tu Fu highly when old. In the field of tz’u-hsueh, he valued tz’u writers of the Northern Song Dynasty, and respected ch’in kuan, favoured the graceful, preached the unity of tz’u and music, thus investigated and studied the melody, and composed tz’u p’u. All of these were effective in promoting the renaissance of Ming-tai tz’u in Jiajing period. On that account, this paper is based on the background of evolution of restorative trend since Ch’eng-hua and Koji periods, and discusses the origin and evolution of Zhang Yan’s literary thoughts, finally defines his real meaning in literature history. This Paper is divided into four chapters:The First chapter is about Zhang Yan’s life and thoughts. We Overview his life-changing experiences, his life can be divided into three stages, adolescence (Hongzhi the fourteenth year-Zhengde the sixteenth year), middle age (Jiajing the first year-Jiajing the tenth year) and old age period (Jiajing the fourteenth year-Jiajing the twenty-second year) in three stages, and we analyse his ideological changes from doing business in early years to showed his detestation of officialdom and had hermitage in South Lake under the concept of mundanity and transcedentality.The second chapter investigates Zhang Yan’s social intercourse and family.we choose four persons, Wang p’an, Wang Yang-ming, Gu lin, Gu Li, as representatives to survey Zhang Yan’s ideological changes in different periods. Throught this, we want to perspective climates changes of scholastic since Ch’eng-hua and Koji periods. In family, by inspecting Zhang ancestry in Gao-you, we discover that Zhang ancestry had inherited tradition of hermitage. This tradition influenced the thought formation of Zhang Yan deeply, and was the motivity of selecting and introspecting evolution of restorative, and exploring shih-hsueh and tz’u-huseh again.The third chapter considers his shih-hsueh. Starting with Zhang Yan’s transformation in poetry styles in early and late periods, We want to illustrate the changes of his poetry theories. As a matter of fact, in Zhang Yan’s opinion, learning from poets of the late Tang Dynasty when young and praising Tu Fu highly when old are not in conflict, the poetic thought that Tao is the key to poem run through it all. Zhang Yan inherited the poetics concept of restorative trend, stepped backwards by praising Tu Fu. After this, when he was in memory of the most prosperous age of Tang Dynasty, he could imitate Tu Fu’s poems, then try to recover rite of the High Tang period and ideal Political stability.The last chapter examines Zhang Yan’s tz’u-hsiieh. We approach it from the view of history of tz’u and consciousness of differentiating genre, analyse his tz’u-hsiieh theories in detail. Through this, The penetration of restoration thoughts from shih-hsueh to tz’u-hsiieh is very clear. Although Zhang Yan’s dream that recovering tradition of musical education with tz’u couldn’t realize, his efforts in respecting tz’u style and distinguishing poem and tz’u and ch’ iipromote the revival of the Ming-ch’ing tz’u-hsiieh once again in the end. Hence, his work shiyu tupu is one of the important symbol of Ming-tai tz’u-hsiieh.