TERMBASES
This
term, concerning the motivation in poetry writing, was first used by the Southern
Dynasty poetry theorist Zhong Rong (?-518?) in his The Critique of Poetry. He emphasized the impact upon a poet's creative activities of
seasonal changes and encounters between humans, maintaining that the poet uses
his work to show his inner feelings and aspirations. Zhong's poetic aesthetics,
while recognizing the role of the outer world in inspiring poets, also valued
the unique aesthetic value of feelings to poetry. This view was clearly more
mature than that of "writing poetry for moral indoctrination only" held by Han
Dynasty Confucian scholars.