潘岳論

Abstract

The custom of comparing the relative merits of the two Western Chin poets P'an Yüeh (d. 300 A. D.) and Lu Chi 陸機 arose from the competitive atmosphere which prevailed in the literary world of their day, and it was from a similar basis that the rhetorical tendencies characteristic of Western Chin literature and represented in P'an Yüeh's works arose. The exponents of rhetoric took over the modes of expression of the "Nineteen Old Poems" and the earlier yüeh-fu and worked to refine them by greater attention to parallelism, euphony and other devices of language. P'an Yüeh's "Lament for the Dead" is no exception to this tendency of the times, but rather a typical example. P'an Yüeh's poetry and prose contain elements of extreme sentimentality and egocentricity. In contrast to the Wei poets Juan Chi and Chi K'ang, however, there is no evidence in his works of a belief in immortals or an attempt to transcend the mundane world by pursuing the life of a hermit. Another characteristic of his work is his highly developed sensitivity to the changes of the seasons and the growth and decay of the natural world. These various disparate qualities of his work unite in the literary forms of the elegy (ai 哀) or formal lament (lei 誄) to create a new literature of sentiment. This study attempts to examine some of these tendencies in P'an Yüeh's work and determine his position in the history of Chinese literature.