劉楨贈答詩論

Abstract

Liu Zhen has been considered to be one of the most excellent poets in Jian'an (建安) era. I suppose that is because he wrote several remarkable Zeng-da-shi's. This thesis will discuss what are their characteristics. "Three poems to my young cousin (贈從弟三首)" are made up of allegorical expressions from beginning to end, each with eight lines. They are stylized to the highest degree to increase their autonomy. They were written for a specific individual, but they are not so personal as they appear to be. The second and the third pieces of "Four poems to Wuguan-Zhonglang-Jiang (贈五官中郞將四首)" and "To Xu Gan (贈徐幹)" are the poems in which Liu Zhen aimed to express his feelings to someone closer to the poet. We should notice that he wrote about himself in those works, while most of the poets of Jian'an era wrote about the recipient above all else in their Zeng-da-shi's. After all, Liu Zhen tried to be free from the conventions of Zeng-da-shi, which was to serve the relationship between the poet and the recipient. Needless to say, that should not have been easy to achieve. It must have been necessary for him to build up his own way. As a matter of fact, we can point out some examples to illustrate this: the observation of private occurrences, the daring use of the words that had not been regarded to be poetical yet, the peculiar description of sights, etc. It should be said that Liu Zhen went ahead with the history of Chinese literature through writing his Zeng-da-shi's.