On Li Guang’s Change in His Poetic Style and His Practice of “Learning for Self-cultivation and Academic Standards” before and after His Relegation

Abstract

The poetic style before and after the relegation of Li Guang, a well-known minister of the Southern Song Dynasty, showed a relatively clear trajectory of change. Before relegation has a strong realistic pertinence. The themes of his poetry are the anxiety about the turmoil of state affairs and the belief in victory over the nomads. The style of his poems took on a vigorous, high-spirited and vehement look, which is closely associated with the general trend towards national salvation in the wake of the Jingkang Incident, where the Northern Song capital was besieged and sacked, as well as the “Sino–barbarian dichotomy (華夷之辨) in the Confucian tradition. After relegation, Li Guang indulged in landscapes and books and history to relieve his grief. His poems mostly expressed rationality and interest in a leisurely life, but he did not lose his true quality of being bold and unconstrained. The key to the change in his poetic style is to practice “ learning for self-cultivation and academic standards,” to cultivate morality and self-development with the art of “inner sage”, to penetrate the outer falsehood, and to stay calm and wait for mandates from the “outer king” to come.