Southern Song Literati Zeng Feng Studied

Born in the era of Southern Song Dynasty,Feng Zeng,whose courtesy name was Youdu,also known as Zunzhai,was from Le' an,Jiangxi province.In the fifth year reign of Emperor Qiandao(1169 AD),he came into office,appointed as Jiaoshou(ancient official position for professor)of Shouyong state,followed by Assistant of Gan county magistrate in 1180,agent official of Huichang county in 1182,then promoted in 1185 at Caoshu,Guangdong province.After that he served as magistrate of Pu county in Shaoxing,then Vice-Prefect of Qiongzhou.At the beginning Jiatai reign,Feng Zeng resigned.In the year of Kaixi,he resumed his career,governing Deqing Fu.Later in his life,Feng Zeng was out of office,dwelling in Zunzhai,immersing himself in poem and liquor.As a government official,he had a lot of achievements and literary works such as twenty volumes of “Collection of Yuandu”.Printed copy from Wanli reign period of the Ming dynasty and written copy from Qing dynasty still exist.Befriended with well-known philosophers like Jiuyuan Lu,Fuliang Chen,E Xie and Pu Ouyang,Feng Zeng is also an important Confucian philosopher of his time.His ideas is an important part of “li” ideology,new school of Confucianism,in the mid of Southern Song Dynasty.Following the idea of Dunyi Zhou,Yong Shao,Feng Zeng 's thoughts have its own character of his time.He advocates “Tao is your mind and vice versa” which echoes to Jiuyuan Lu ‘s philosophy of the Mind.greatly influenced by Confucianism,Feng Zeng is a court adviser who has strong sense of political mission and social responsibility.Though ambitious and talented,his gift was not recognized by imperial government.As a result,Feng Zeng works as local official all his lifetime.This paper consists of four chapters: the fist chapter gives a brief introduction of Feng Zeng's life experience at office,the copies and existence of his literary works-“Collection of Yuandu” and his interactions with friends and family.The next chapter summarize Feng Zeng's rational principle,also known as “li” from the view of origin and preference of his theories.The third and last chapter are the heart of this paper which illustrate Feng Zeng's prose and poems respectively.The third chapter analyzes Feng Zeng's opinion on relation of “Art” and “Tao”,his politic propositions and his momentous,original and thought provoking prose.The last chapter discussed his poems in two aspects: one is about the content in regards of his unappreciated ambition,gracious sentiment and nostalgic feeling;the other is the aesthetics of his poem which is creative,natural and fresh in the view of origin of his style,principle formed in Jiangxi.