Abstract

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Keywords:: ancient taste; Imitating the Ancient; poems imitating the ancient Yuefu style; literary elites

Abstract:: During the Qi and Liang Dynasties，there appeared a great number of poems imitating the ancienttaste in that not only the subject matters of the poems were about the people，things and events in the pastbut their form and style were also modeled on the poems in the Han and Wei periods. This trend originatedwith Tao Yuanming and Bao Zhao，who had both written poems entitled“ Imitating the Ancient Taste” andrepresented a style showing great affinity with the people from humble origin. The development of this trendin the Qi and Liang period reflected a convergence between the literature of noble class and that of commonpeople：the refined style of the former was combined with the simple but lively elements of folk poems. Thepoems with ancient taste were usually modeled on those of Yuefu 乐府（ literally music bureau） but had theirown characteristics in both theme and form as well. This creative imitation speaks of the efforts made by theliterary elites in the Qi and Liang period to integrate the literary legacy with the then political and other realities，which imposed great demand on the poets’ writing capacity and had great poetic implications.