The Research Of Liu Xie's Theory Of Fu

Liu Xie epitomized the theory of Fu of Han Wei and the Six Dynasties, which made his theory been a milestone in the history of Fu theory. His theory was so systematic,comprehensive and objective that he surpassed anyone before him. Its production was closely related to the wide and deep historical background: the social environment became mitigatory in Qi and Liang Dynasties, which promoted the status of the lower intelligentsia, and at that moment, the rulers worshipped the Confucianism. All of these gave Liu Xie a chance to engage in politics by his writing talent, and made the Confucianism played the key role in his ideological system.Additionally,the Confucianism,the Buddhism and Daoism's interflow made Liu Xie's ideological system diversified: the Confucianism played a leading role, the Buddhism and Daoism supported some special methodologies.Along with the awakening of literature,the literati's concept about writing changed a lot and literary works emerged in endlessly,but the theoretical summary was relatively behindhand. It not only provided rich soil for Liu Xie's writing,but also created a great chance for his theoretical innovation.Liu Xie's theory of Fu is mainly seen in Quan Fu which is the eighth piece of Wen Xin Diao Long,and dispersedly existes in other pieces.It includes the stylistics,the creation and the criticism of Fu, and it has many creative points compared with the previous theories.For the stylistics of Fu, Liu Xie insisted that Fu had many sources which avoided predecessors' one-sidedness at first. Secondly, Liu Xie analyzed the history of Fu objectively and fairly,and he expounded the factors which influened the Fu's evolution.Thirdly,Liu Xie divided Fu into “the great style”and “the small style” according to the theme,scale,content and artistical of different Fu works. They are the origins of today's Da Fu and Xiao Fu. At last, Liu Xie creatively exponded that the Fu works have a“Xu” in the beginning and a “Luan” in the end. For the creation of Fu, the Han Destiny attached importance to the allegorical ideas of Fu works, but Wei Destiny and the SixDestiny payed more attention to the formal skills.Liu Xie combined them by proposing that the Fu works should have “elegant content” with “magnificent form”.Furthermore, he expounded how to write Fu works like that: by delineating objects with magnificent words and expressing sincere feelings.For the criticism of Fu, Liu Xie put forward the “six justice”and “six points should be considered” of Fu.He emphasized that the Fu works should both have elegant content and magnificent form,and the content should be more important than the form.Furthermore,he criticised a lot of writers with their Fu works and he refered to the writers' literary talent, acquired learning and their different personalities.Although Liu Xie's theory of Fu scored tremendous achievements, it still had some insufficients.On the one hand, he attached more importance to Da Fu than Xiao Fu;on the other hand, he recommended some Fu works without elegant contents, which was against his critical standard. These insufficients are connected with Liu Xie's worship to the Confucianism, his desire to make achievements and the motive to correct the superficial and inflated style of writing.