There were many different poetic schools from late Ming to early Qing. The main concern of these poetic schools was how to respond to the Neo-Classical criticism of the Former and Latter Seven Masters in the Ming period. School of Gongan and School of Jingling in late Ming and School of Shenyun in early Qing were closely associated with the Ming Neo-Classical school. They rectified and revised the shortcomings of their predecessors to form their own poetic theories. Shen Deqain, who emerges after these schools' prevalence, provided the best answers to the debates from late Ming to early Qing. Starting from criticizing Li Panlong's "The Issue of the 'Ancient Veres' of Tang" (Tangwu gushi eryou qi gushi), Shen advocated "moderate, gentle, sincere, and deep" (Wuru dunhou) as the point of...[ Read more ]

There were many different poetic schools from late Ming to early Qing. The main concern of these poetic schools was how to respond to the Neo-Classical criticism of the Former and Latter Seven Masters in the Ming period. School of Gongan and School of Jingling in late Ming and School of Shenyun in early Qing were closely associated with the Ming Neo-Classical school. They rectified and revised the shortcomings of their predecessors to form their own poetic theories. Shen Deqain, who emerges after these schools' prevalence, provided the best answers to the debates from late Ming to early Qing. Starting from criticizing Li Panlong's "The Issue of the 'Ancient Veres' of Tang" (Tangwu gushi eryou qi gushi), Shen advocated "moderate, gentle, sincere, and deep" (Wuru dunhou) as the point of breakthrough to the great achievement of Tang poetry. The advocacy of his poetic methodology "ways of manipulating the poetic principles" (Yiyi yunfa) released the limitations of the poetic methodologies of the Ming Neo-Classical School. In short, on the contrary to the Ming Neo-Classical school's emphasis on imitation, Shen advocated creation. On the other hand, Shen transformed "formal style" (gedaio), the core idea of the Ming Neo-Classical theories. He creatively advocated the supplementation of "Wunru dunhou" and "Gedaio". Moreover, he unified these two poetic concepts into a norm of his poetic criticism. Shen's reaction to the poetic debates from late Ming to early Qing as a whole was demonstrated in his poetic anthologies in different dynasties. All in all, Shen demonstrated an honorable personality of a traditional idealistic literati and scholar in terms of his creative poetic insights and independent attitude on the relation between poetics and ideology.