The record of Xie An’s “deep affection of elegant poets” in the chapter of “Letters and Scholarship”, A New Account of Tales of the World has sparked long-lasting and extensive debate due to its concealed tension between classics and literature and another tension between “aspirations” and “sentiments”. For ages, scholars such as Song Qi, Liu Chenweng, Wang Shizhen have questioned Xie An while highly extoled Xie Xuan. In fact, “elegant poets” is not referring so much to “noble and refined persons” as to “poets”, or more precisely, “elegant poets” in contrast to “folk poets” in The Book of Songs. To understand the “deep affection of elegant poets”, we should know that “elegant poems” and “folk poems” are two different styles in The Book of Songs and even “elegant poems” consists of two different categories, one as “great” or “orthodox” while the other as “small” or “changed”. In addition, we should discern the internal difference between Xie An and Xie Xuan in terms of personality and life realm when they quoting particular verses to express their own aspirations. Wang Fuzhi once argued that both of the two verses, which were respectively quoted by Xie An and Xie Yuan from The Book of Songs, “equally expressed emotions in an excellent way”. Wang’s observation is not enough since he failed to discover the aesthetic difference between “elegant poems” and “folk poems”. Based on the traditional distinction between “elegant poems” and “folk poems” in Confucian poetry, Shen Zengzhi, a renowned Confucian scholar in the late Qing dynasty, returned to original condition of the ritual and musical cultivation of poetry by arguing that “the style of elegant poems is noble, while that of folk poems is humble”. From the perspective of personality, Shen argued that “elegant poets” are “gentlemen who tirelessly perform virtuous conducts”, profoundly revealing the Confucian concern and administrative responsibility of Xie An as a famous literatus. In that regard, Shen knew Xie An very well although they lived in a different historical period. In short, a correct understanding of the “deep affection of elegant poets” is not only a matter of poetics, but also an issue of personality. In other words, it concerns not only poetry education and poetry quality, but also human education and personality. Xie An is a famous literatus who has the most detailed records in A New Account of Tales of the World. He has played a vital role in the formation of China’s “elegant culture”. His poetic idea of the “deep affection of elegant poets” contains rich implications, which also proves the poetic value of A New Account of the Tales of the World from one aspect.
国家社会科学基金学术期刊资助入选期刊
