Zeng Gong's Criticism Of The Literati And Their Literary Creation In The Northern Song Dynasty

During the Northern Song Dynasty,the status of scholar-bureaucrats has been greatly improved.The mutual evaluation of scholars in the Northern Song Dynasty who are both political and literary is to understand their valuable materials.Zeng Gong is known in the Northern Song literary circles as an ancient protagonist,and his literary achievements have always been praised.However,Zeng Gong's literary criticism during the communication with the scholars of the Northern Song Dynasty was also a concentrated display of his literary concepts,which also reflected the exchange of ideas among the scholars of the Northern Song Dynasty,but it has not attracted extensive attention from researchers.This paper discusses Zeng Gong from the perspective of literary criticism,in order to discuss Zeng Gong's specific criticism of literati and their literary creation in the northern song dynasty,reveal his inherent literary criticism,and get Zeng Gong's specific cognition and judgment of the whole and details of literature in the northern song dynasty.It is roughly divided into three parts:The first chapter is Zeng Gong's view of literary criticism,including three aspects: essay,poetry and Ci-poetry.Zeng Gong values Confucianism more than articles,he inherited the predecessor's concept of Confucianism and developed and refined the literary system.Under the premise of respecting the Confucianism,he attached importance to rhetoric and advocated the role of poetry to express personal emotions.This chapter also discusses the phenomenon of Zeng Gong's non-commentary Ci-poetry.The author thinks that the main reason lies in the concept of despising poetry in the early Northern Song Dynasty and Zeng Gong's personal preferences.The second chapter analyzes Zeng Gong's literary criticism principles based on Confucian classics and the criticism method which involve classify people and the common criticism of characters and literature.In order to maintain the orthodox status of Confucianism,Zeng Gong's literary criticism has a distinctive respect for Confucianism.Because of the particularity of the object of criticism and the applicability of the style of criticism,Zeng Gong adopted a humanistic and critical approach to the Northern Song literati,and emphasized the importance of "morality" for literati self-cultivation and essay writing.The third chapter to the fifth chapter are the third part of this paper,Zeng Gong's literary criticism activities mainly occurred during the process of communication,with many critics,therefore,this section mainly lists the important characters for discussion,headed by Ouyang Xiu and Wang Anshi,and the rest are divided into four categories: ex-sage elders,fellow friends,less advanced students,and the Zeng family.Analyze the causes of Zeng Gong's evaluation and its underlying ideological concepts and aesthetic value orientation based on the specific era background and his life experience,further research found that the Northern Song Dynasty literary system established by Zeng Gong,respected by Ouyang Xiu,followed by Fan Zhongyan,Yin Zhu,Wang Anshi,Wang Hui and others.Although Zeng Gong's criticisms of the Northern Song Dynasty writers and their creations were occasionally biased due to political factors and close relationships,on the whole,his evaluation was precise and unique.For the purpose of borrowing the ancient theory to the present,Zeng Gong's literary criticism of the former dynasty is more emphasis on Confucianism than the original dynasty,in order to emphasize the importance of applying the Confucianism in the Northern Song Dynasty.Zeng Gong's literary criticism originated from the Northern Song Dynasty's poetry reform movement and also echoed the Northern Song's poetry reform movement.It had a positive guiding effect on the poetry creation of the literati group in the Northern Song Dynasty,and his critical views were also studied by scholars such as Chen Shidao and Zhu Xi,with far-reaching influence.