Confucianism and Literature in the Jin Dynasty

Confucianism in the Jin Dynasty was heterogeneous and divided with various schools of thoughts.The co-existence of old and new schools of Confucianism constitute one of the important elements of the cultural ecological system of the Jin literature.The comeback of old Confucianism within the boundaries of the Jin Dynasty indicated a particular moving manner of the whole developing course of ancient Confucianism.Schools of Neo-Confucianism in the Northern Sung Dynasty were hidden among the mass,but in the Southern Sung Dynasty they spread to the North and attracted men of letters and boomed during the late Jin Dynasty and the early Yuan Dynasty.Yet the prevailing Neo-Confucianism that affected literary creation was the unorthodox Sichuan School.Men of letters held different attitudes to Confucianism: one group of them devoted themselves to the study and propagation of Confucianism old and new,and prided themselves on their purity;the other were more tolerant,allowing their Confucianism to be supplemented by Buddhism and Taoism.Generally speaking,Confucianism's significance to the Jin literature lie in the following three aspects: first,its idea and value were displayed in the various genres of literary creation at varying degrees;second,there were many poetic and prose works that elucidate Confucianism,especially the Neo-Confucianism of the Sung Dynasty;third,the sense that literary composition must express doctrines of Confucius and Mencius and writing works must be in line with sincerity was strengthened and deepened in literary creation.Confucianism had both active and passive influence on the Jin literature.The Jin writers and theorists made a considerable success on solving the relationship between writing art and political claims,and thus weakened the inertia and obstruction of Confucianism to literary to some extent.