Wang Fuzhi's Shijing scholarship and literary thought = 內極才情, 外周物理 : 王夫之《詩經》文學研究

Abstract

During the Ming-Qing transition, Chinese literati and officials were deeply concerned about the social and political tensions of the country as well as their own future. As one of the Ming loyalists, Wang Fuzhi (1619-1692) was actively involved in the anti-Qing resistance movement at his early age. After the anti-Qing movement eventually failed, he devoted his life to study and aimed to promote the national spirit by writing works on history, philosophy and literature.

Wang Fuzhi’s Shijing scholarship was one of his most significant achievements, crossing the boundary between Confucian classics and literature studies. This study will focus on Wang’s Shijing scholarship and literary thought by analyzing his literary theory and criticism in three aspects: the intellectual interpretation of qing and li, the gentleness and harmony of poems, and the organizational technique and method of poems.

It was found that Wang Fuzhi’s Shijing scholarship comprises the following characteristics: having a strong and intense sense of loyalist consciousness, demonstrating a well-rounded comprehension of poems, exhibiting judgments or assessments of poems through comparison, and establishing advanced interpretations of xin, guan, qun and yuan.

This thesis will illustrate the above findings with appropriate examples. Also, comparison between Wang Fuzhi and other Shijing scholars will help to demonstrate the remarkable significance of Wang’s Shijing scholarship.