|
In Yingchang, Su Zhe(1039-1112)("Zi You") named himself“Ying Bin Yi Lao”in his late years, when his poetry reached another peak in this period. In addition to Biography of Ying Bin Yi Lao, Su Zhe also shows special temporal and autobiographical traits in his poems. He identified himself as " Yi Lao "(遺老) to suggest a retreat from factional conflicts of his time and the anxiety of falling into forever oblivion, which both can be found in his late-period poems .
While the poems written in Yingchang period (1100-1112) show his understanding of personal life and employments of historical writing to imply political events, the name Ying Bin Yi Lao also reflects the life philosophy of how the Song Dynasty scholars faced difficulties.The meaning of Ying Bin Yi Lao is plentiful, including the ones with an old man who lives leisurely in Yingchang, an elder teaches the family’s younger generation, an aged who refurbishes houses to enrich his mind, and the one who pursues the spirit of " Confucius and Hui’s Cheerfulness ". Ying Bin Yi Lao became the prototype for scholars who turn to immanence. As a result, Su Zhe's poems in Yingchang period have significant meanings in the development of Song poetry.
Relevant topics are demonstrated in five chapters.Chapter 1 is the introduction. In Chapter 2, the poems are arranged when Su Zhe is relegated to Lingnan to figure out the reason for Su Zhe's concern about selves. In Chapter 3, the aim is to discuss the poems with special temporal and concerning selves, including the poems using the weather to suggest politics, the poems with life record, and unique birthday poems. In Chapter 4, Su Zhe's position of selves in his later years and the specific image content of Ying Bin Yi Lao is analyzed. Then, Chapter 5 is the conclusion. This thesis aims to complement deficiency of research on Su Zhe’s poems, and to re-evaluate his achievements and status on literature history of Northern Song Dynasty. Moreover, I hope this research would also secure and amplified the long- lasting argument about Su Zhe as a typical "turning inward " scholar of the Song Dynasty.
|