Abstract:

The poetry styled Xi Kun Ti originated in some superior entertainment places in the early Song Dynasty, but it was not an aristocratic style. As a poet, Yang Yi was the representative of the Xi Kun Ti. He was a man of integrity and possessed a character which was independent of imperial power and typical of the Song dynasty intellectuals. The Xi Kun Ti was opposed to the Bai Ti, and meanwhile they both influenced each other and developed mutually. Accordingly, the Xi Kun Ti was a mixture with different styles such as Bai Ti, Yi Shan Ti and Tang Yanqian Ti. On the one hand, it paid attention to the accumulation of knowledge and cultural accomplishment, which was in the line with the tendency of cultural development in the Song. On the other hand, the Xi Kun Ti inherited an allegorical spirit represented in the poems written by Bai Juyi and poems in the late Tang Dynasty. Yang Yi's poems on history and his own feelings might be regarded as irony songs in a flourishing age. We might not consider the Xi Kun Ti to be just a simple "return" to the style of late Tang poems, and in fact it did benefit the establishment of Songslyle poems.

Key words: Yang Yi, Xi Kun Ti, Song poems, reappreciation