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The secrets of Wen Tingyun’s life and poetry

University of British Columbia

This dissertation is an investigation into the secrets of the life and poetry of a major late Tang poet, Wen Tingyun (798-866?). Traditional Chinese literary criticism has subjected Wen to such misunderstanding that even many modern studies are not immune from agelong prejudices. This fact can be regarded, in a sense, as a continuation of the slanders Wen suffered in his lifetime, though it results from misconstruing Wen's poetry and ignoring the political implications of his life. A complete and careful restudy of Wen Tingyun the man and Wen Tingyun the poet is therefore a pressing academic necessity. By means of factual investigation and textual annotation, and with recourse to the mutual evidence of history and poetry, this study probes the political intricacies of the major events of Wen's lifetime and explores the artistic complexities of his "inexplicable" verses. The result is that it finds a series of hitherto uncovered facts, reveals the unreliability of Wen's official biographies and reconstructs a chronology of Wen's life. Meanwhile, in eliciting the biographical information via unraveling Wen's poetic puzzles, it reaches hold of the key to going in and out of Wen's artistic labyrinth and thus paves the way for a reevaluation of his poetry. With respect to Wen's life, this study consists of the following findings: Wen's birth year (798); Wen clan's marriages with the royal family and hostility with the eunuchs; Wen's marriage to a singer-prostitute (836); his secret attendance upon the Heir Apparent (837-8); his change of name in an effort to pass the civil service examinations (839-40); his numerous failures and final "success" in becoming a Presented Scholar (847-59); and his "cheating" (helping others) when sitting for the examinations. These findings spell out a new understanding of Wen's life that underlies his poetry. Drawn from Wen's poetry, they will unfold more secrets of his poetry and then lead to more discoveries of his life. Since Wen used his poetry as elaborate representation of himself, it is only natural that he wanted to express, rather than hide, his experiences, feelings and ambitions, however ambiguous they might be, because of the political pressure of the time. In this sense, to know Wen Tingyun the man is to understand Wen Tingyun the poet, and vice versa. In brief, Wen was deeply involved in the palace and court struggles of his time, especially at odds with the power-entrenched eunuchs. Some of the events he witnessed were too sinister to be recorded by histories, and his poems reflecting the truth too incomprehensible for causal readers, despite his efforts to put his secrets into them. These contradictory factors caused a long-lasting misunderstanding before he could be seen in his true light. Now it is high time Wen were rehabilitated.

Thesis/Dissertation

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2009-06-02

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/8574

Asian Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCV

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