Neo-confucianists Of Last Song Dynasty And Poetics Of Liu Kezhuang

Liu Kezhuang,the last great master of literature in the late Song Dynasty specialized in poetry,term,and writing,was a prominent leader in poetics.Meanwhile as a poet,he had profound academic knowledge and maintained good relationship with many Neo-Confucianists in the late Song Dynasty.These Neo-Confucianists spent most of their time engaged in philosophical activities,but as a school of traditional Confucianism the poetics penetrated in works of various Neo-Confucianists and being displayed in many ways.The main content of this paper is to discuss at the time of Neo-Confucianism as prevailing theory,how the poetics of these Neo-Confucianists in the late Song Dynasty influenced Liu Kezhuang.In this paper the author selected three schools which has greatest impact on Liu Kezhuang including Ai Xuan School,Taoism(Cheng Zhu Neo-Confucianism)and Yongjia School,then introduced the connections and differences between those theories,and discussed the influences of Lin Guangchao,Zhen Dexiu and Ye Shi 's Poetic Theory on Liu Kezhuang.This paper is composed of four chapters.The introduction part is literature review summarizing previous studies in resent years.It covers researches on the Liu Kezhuang's poetics,the theoretical background of poetry in the late Southern Song Dynasty and the relationship between Neo-Confucianism and literature in the Southern Song Dynasty.After that,the author illustrates the research principles and methods and the main content of the paper.The first chapter discusses the relationship between theorist from Aixuan school and Liu Kezhuang poetics.In this part the author mainly talks about the academic thoughts and poetics of Lin Guangchao,the founder of Aixuan school.Influenced by the moderation and practical attitude of Aixuan school,Liu Kezhuang formed introspective spirit and critical thinking.He also cultivated by Lin Guangchao and his followers whose works strongly emphasis on poetry art and emotional factors formed profound historical accomplishments.The chapter two is centred on representative figure Zhen Dexiu,discussing the influence of Taoist poetics theory on Liu Kezhuang poetics.He holds different opinion on Zhen Dexiu`s strict standard to select poetry,but he still can not get rid of the idea of ancient worship and indoctrination in Taoist poetics.The chapter three concentrates on Yeshi school,presenting the relationship between Liu Kezhuang poetics and Yongjia school`s poetic theory.There are some similarities between them,for instance opening attitude to poetry.So even though Liu Kezhuang did not have mentor-disciple with Ye Shiyi,they are quite intermixing both in academic thinking and in poetic theory.And the criticism of Ye Shi on Taoists also provided an important perspective for Liu Kezhuang to think the development of poetry.