The Study On The Poetics Of The Series Note By The Recluse Of The Brook Tiao

The Series Note by the Recluse near the Brook Tiao is another series note on poets and poetry after Shizong written by Ruan Yue. The author, named Hu Zi, was born in the North Song Dynasty, but became active during the Shaoxing and Qiandao epoch. His reasons for writing this book were, firstly, the theory provided by Ruan Yue in Shizong was incomplete; secondly, Ruan Yue had collected no poems and theories, from Yuanyou authors; thirdly and lastly, people in this era had met major divergences in attitudes towards the poetry of Song Dynasty, so Hu Zi, after living in Huzhou for 20 years, decided to compose a new book on poetry. He collected parts of poems and novels that are facts written by other authors ever since the Yuanyou epoch, parts that already exist in Shizong were not reincluded. The note by Hu Zi, containing 100 volumes in total, subjecting to time order, outlining according to the object of discussion, has developed a new form of theory composition. In the book Hu Zi has not only demonstrated the poem and poetic inclination of the poets, but also he added his own arguments and opinions. This book had shown in a concise and clear way to the development history of poetry, because of the aforementioned merit, it had emerged itself among all so many poetry summarization books, making Hu Zi the most well-known scholar. Although this book had some shortcomings, its thoughts of mastering Tang and Song established the important position of the poetry of Song, what’s more, it provided a rational direction towards the controversy on poetry of Tang Dynasty and that of Song Dynasty at the first time when it came about.