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As a whole, discussions of poetry and poetics of Ming Dynasty mostly focus on some leading schools such as regional poetics, Taige style, Li Dong Yang and the Chaling school, the first and after seven (前後七子), the Gong-An school, the Jingling school and so on. However, all these discussions seldom mentioned about Li Zhi, who influenced the poetic circles during late Ming Dynasty greatly. Li Zhi inherited the characteristics from the Taizhou School, and affected the literature thinking of late Ming Dynasty by turning the “Conscience”, a concept in Xin Xue thoughts (or the mind study) of Wang Yang Ming, into “Childlike Heart.” The theory of Childlike Heart had a big influence on the Gong-An school so much so that even on the whole viewpoints in literature during late Ming, for instance, the theories which were against imitating the ancients and payed attention to human soul were developed from the theory of Childlike Heart. As a result, many thoughts and work of Li Zhi are not only the guiding principles of literature creating, but also the core of Aesthetics in late Ming. Therefore, this article will try to link the literature theory of the first and after seven from the aspect of poetic history with some concepts mentioned by Li Zhi, including the nature of his poetry, origin of his work, all his writings, commentary and historical view of poetry styles. On the other hand, this article will also show the appreciation of poetic theory from Li Zhi, and further provide the poetic background of late Ming which gives priority to the concepts like Xingling (性靈), Childlike Heart, and the innocent heart of a child. Meanwhile, the researcher hope to initiate a new path to research the poetic theory of Li Zhi and poetics in late Ming as well as give some additional ideas based on the research from predecessors.
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