Shen Yue and Zhong Rong:Impact and Development of the Poetic Theory in the Qi and Liang Dynasties

Zhong Rong's criticisms of literary theory were related to Shen Yue,a literary giant of that period.According to a historical story,Zhong Rong attempted to seek fame from Shen Yue,who rejected him. In order to release his long-harboured resentment,Zhong Rong wrote up Comments on Poems in which he judged poems with each line made up of five Chinese characters and placed Shen Yue's poems in the middle rank.This paper explains and analyses this much discussed issue.Also,it discusses the relationship between Zhong Rong and Shen Yue.Their relationship was not only the relationship between a well-known high-ranking official and a little known insignificant official and one between a literary giant and a young literary critic,but also one between the two theoretical giants.By making a study of the relationship between Zhong Rong and Shen Yue,we can straighten or sort out changes of views that appeared when the development of Chinese literature history and of the history of literary criticism reached the historical stage of the Qi and Liang dynasties,as well as the personal factors that permeated those changes of viewpoints;we can discover how the reason in sentiments and the feelings in the rational,as well as the dissimilarities in the similarities and the similarities in the dissimilarities were tied up or bound up and intertwined together,and how their interaction and interplay promoted and pushed ahead the history of Chinese literature and that of literary criticism.