Between Politics and Poetry--A case study on Juan Chi
Donald Holzman has a similar phonic Chinese transliteration name, 侯思孟, which demonstrates his academic interests on classical Chinese literature and tradtional Chinese thoughts and ethics. The book I’ve read recently attributed to him is ‘Poetry and Politics—The Life and Works of Juan Chi’, which is recommended strongly by my instructor.
Juan Chi阮籍, whose position in the history of Chinese poetry was truly important, is regarded as a representive poet in Medieval Chinese history. He was an outstanding personage as one of Seven Sages of Bamboo Grove and known as his bizarre behavior against ritualism. As far as his literary value is concerned, his poems which sing of my innermost thoughts咏怀诗 erected a symbol of symbolism and which were deliberately imitated by many famous great poets including Yen Yen-tzu颜延之, Pao Chao鲍照, Chiang Yen江淹, Yü Hsin庾信, Ch’en Tzu-ang陈子昂, Li Po李白, Tu Fu杜甫 and so on.
The monograph tries to place Juan Chi to his own historical background, a period of changes in all aspects of human life and most value system overthrown, and analyses the ambiguities and contradictions Juan showed in his poetry and behaviors in regard to politics, to society and to the main current of contemporary philosophy. It is the first full length study on such a controversial figure which seemed be imperative to present all that can be known of his life and works so that the monograph has won a deserved fame.
The book is mainly divided into three parts approximately. Apart from the introduction on the significance of research and brief introduction of Juan’s family plus comtemporary events, politics influence is main issue of Part One(Chapter 1-3) , society consciousness consists of Part Two(Chapter 4-6) , his inner life attitude is extrapolated in Part Three(Chapter 7-11). The author takes advantage of Juan Chi’s biographical material and is so familiar with Juan Chi’s works that his analysis of the monograph has depth and brilliant viewpoints. As we all know, Juan Chi’s literary style is full of obscurities, even it will be difficult to fathom his true intentions many centuries later, the difficulities to research such a complicated person might be imagined, however, it can be safely drawn a conclusion that Juan Chi was indeed a pure Confucianist and yearned to supplement it with something new including Taoism and religious elements after reading the book. It was miserable for Juan Chi to exist in such a dangerous period in which he neither collaborated with the usurpers, nor resisted to serve, so he chose a kind of passive resistance to Ssi-ma and subtle loyalty to Ts’ao.
Everyone will benefit from the monograph absolutely if he happens to have interests in Juan Chi and Medieval history. The literal translations of most Juan Chi’s poems and poetic expostion赋 are smooth and comprehensive. If ask me to look for a bone in an egg, I am afraid I reserve my opinion in the his absolute relationship between poetry and politics. It is a little ineptitude to connect each poem composed by Juan Chi with his sorrow on decaying Ts’ao-Wei Dynasty and to guess and confirm the allusion of anecdotes due to Juan Chi’s character and mysticism---- The rites were not set up for the likes of me! 礼岂为我辈设也?
Juan Chi阮籍, whose position in the history of Chinese poetry was truly important, is regarded as a representive poet in Medieval Chinese history. He was an outstanding personage as one of Seven Sages of Bamboo Grove and known as his bizarre behavior against ritualism. As far as his literary value is concerned, his poems which sing of my innermost thoughts咏怀诗 erected a symbol of symbolism and which were deliberately imitated by many famous great poets including Yen Yen-tzu颜延之, Pao Chao鲍照, Chiang Yen江淹, Yü Hsin庾信, Ch’en Tzu-ang陈子昂, Li Po李白, Tu Fu杜甫 and so on.
The monograph tries to place Juan Chi to his own historical background, a period of changes in all aspects of human life and most value system overthrown, and analyses the ambiguities and contradictions Juan showed in his poetry and behaviors in regard to politics, to society and to the main current of contemporary philosophy. It is the first full length study on such a controversial figure which seemed be imperative to present all that can be known of his life and works so that the monograph has won a deserved fame.
The book is mainly divided into three parts approximately. Apart from the introduction on the significance of research and brief introduction of Juan’s family plus comtemporary events, politics influence is main issue of Part One(Chapter 1-3) , society consciousness consists of Part Two(Chapter 4-6) , his inner life attitude is extrapolated in Part Three(Chapter 7-11). The author takes advantage of Juan Chi’s biographical material and is so familiar with Juan Chi’s works that his analysis of the monograph has depth and brilliant viewpoints. As we all know, Juan Chi’s literary style is full of obscurities, even it will be difficult to fathom his true intentions many centuries later, the difficulities to research such a complicated person might be imagined, however, it can be safely drawn a conclusion that Juan Chi was indeed a pure Confucianist and yearned to supplement it with something new including Taoism and religious elements after reading the book. It was miserable for Juan Chi to exist in such a dangerous period in which he neither collaborated with the usurpers, nor resisted to serve, so he chose a kind of passive resistance to Ssi-ma and subtle loyalty to Ts’ao.
Everyone will benefit from the monograph absolutely if he happens to have interests in Juan Chi and Medieval history. The literal translations of most Juan Chi’s poems and poetic expostion赋 are smooth and comprehensive. If ask me to look for a bone in an egg, I am afraid I reserve my opinion in the his absolute relationship between poetry and politics. It is a little ineptitude to connect each poem composed by Juan Chi with his sorrow on decaying Ts’ao-Wei Dynasty and to guess and confirm the allusion of anecdotes due to Juan Chi’s character and mysticism---- The rites were not set up for the likes of me! 礼岂为我辈设也?
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