Zhang Xuecheng (章學誠) of the Qing dynasty summarized the shihua (詩話) tradition of Chinese poetic criticism into two streams, namely "discussing poetry in relation to matters" (論詩及事) and "discussing poetry in relation to words" (論詩及辭). Hong Liangji's Beijing Shihua (北江詩話) belongs to the former. Although some positive comments were given to this work, they did not stand from an appreciation of its value as a form of poetic criticism. And the reason could be traced to a deep-rooted perception among scholars that those shihua which focused on "matters" are lacking in theoretical significance. By explaining and exploring the different "matters" that were discussed in Beijiang Shihua, this study attempts to reveal the depth and complexity of its textual world, thus proposing a new approach tow...[ Read more ]

Zhang Xuecheng (章學誠) of the Qing dynasty summarized the shihua (詩話) tradition of Chinese poetic criticism into two streams, namely "discussing poetry in relation to matters" (論詩及事) and "discussing poetry in relation to words" (論詩及辭). Hong Liangji's Beijing Shihua (<北江詩話>) belongs to the former. Although some positive comments were given to this work, they did not stand from an appreciation of its value as a form of poetic criticism. And the reason could be traced to a deep-rooted perception among scholars that those shihua which focused on "matters" are lacking in theoretical significance. By explaining and exploring the different "matters" that were discussed in Beijiang Shihua, this study attempts to reveal the depth and complexity of its textual world, thus proposing a new approach towards the study of shihua. The three hundreds and one entries that make up the book are records of various activities that Hong Liangji undertook in handling poems. Although he did not present a complete theory or system of criticism directly, his basic attitude and principles towards poetry are contained in these records. Thus, this study also attempts to explain the basic elements of Hong Liangji's poetic criticism.

There are five chapters in this thesis. Chapter one describes the motivation and organization of the thesis. Chapters two, three and four discuss the three dimensions of the textual world of Beijiang Shihua respectively. The three dimensions are: "Dimension one: in between different poems", "Dmension two: relations with non-poetic texts" and "Dimension three: relations with life experiences". Besides looking into the inter-relations between poems, between poems and other kind of texts and between poems and life experiences, reasons for the presence of entries which do not seem to be related to poetry are also analyzed. In the concluding chapter, the form and content of Beijiang Shihua are summarized from a social perspective. The poetic views of Hong Liangji is also investigated further with reviews of existing studies by other scholars.