六朝模擬詩小考

Abstract

There remain today nearly two hundred “imitative poems” (mo-ni shih 模擬詩) in the Six Dynasties period, including the sixty-three poems by ten poets in the Wen-hsaan JsZme. These poems are significant both in terms of their literary value and in their import for literary history when examined from the point of view of their critical and allegorical meaning. Mo-ni shih may be described as having the following three characteristics: 1) It arose on the swell of literary criticism that developed from the Wei and Chin periods on. 2) It designates a poetry written in imitating a poem and interpretation of its poet, and is the result of inquiry in a personal mode (i. e., the coherence of the poet's self, as well as the uniqueness of the other). 3) It has a probability of including an allegorical meaning such as hidden satirical or emotive import. There follows a considration of the mo-ni shih in the Wen-hsüan of the poets Lu Chi 陸機, Hsieh Ling-yün 謝靈運, and Chiang Yen 江淹. A) Lu Chi’s “Ni-ku Shih Shih-ssu shou” 擬古詩十四首: These poems reflect Lu Chi's feelings of lonliness in Lo-yang 洛陽. These poems may also be seen as putting into practice the theories on the Wen Fu 文賦 in which Lu Chi discussed his ideas concerning the many aspects of literary creation. B) Hsieh Ling-yün's “Ni Wei T'ai-tzu Yeh-chung Chi Shih Pashou” 擬魏太子鄴中集詩八首: There is a strong probability that the Yeh-chung Chi Shih that is the object of these poems did not exist, or, even if it did, that Hsieh's mo-ni shih are extremely free creations. The emotions expressed in these eight poems agree with the complex contradictions that his life and poetry so of ten contains. As such, these mo-ni shih may be regarded as the poet's projection into a series of poems of the emotions that were moving him. C) Chiang Yen's "Tsa-t'i-shih San shih Shou" 雜體詩三十首: Chiang Yen may have been writing about the period when he held the post of Historian. In these mo-ni shi he creates a history of poetry from the Han to Liu Sung Dynasties with an objective attitude toward literary history. However his investigation of the personal mode is detailed, the poems are in fact merely Chiang Yen's own interpretation of various poets. In mo-ni shih we can see both the continuity of tradition and a scheme of creativity. It is a genre that brought together those who received the poetical tradition with those who created it.