History of Song Dynasty Literary Thought - (Revised Edition)

Author: Zhang Yi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: The history of literary thought not only needs to study the literary thought of individuals but also the literary thought trends. Sometimes, a literary thought tendency becomes an unstoppable force, driving the development of literature in a period. There are countless examples in history. The Jian'an period, where literature expressed personal emotions and pursued a strong style, became a fashion of the time; the court poetry style of the Liang and Chen dynasties; the retro fashion in the poetic circles of the era; the craze for romantic novels of scholars and beauties during the Ming and Qing dynasties—all are well-known examples. Behind these creative tendencies that became fashionable at the time, what common literary thought was dominating? This is the key focus of the history of literary thought. Literary thought must not only study the literary thought trends that shape an era but also the literary thought of different literary schools. In the history of Chinese literary thought, we can observe an interesting phenomenon: in the early stages of literary development, the development of literary thought tends to be relatively singular, while later on, it becomes more pluralistic, producing different literary thoughts within the same socio-economic and cultural background.