Dadu scholar-officials and their panegyric poetry in early fourteenth century China: With reference to the concept of Yazheng (orthodox correctness)

This paper aims at exploring the salient characteristics of Yuan panegyric poetry
with special reference to the concept of yazheng in the early fourteenth century. In order to examine its content and form, it is better to situate Yuan panegyric poetry within the larger backgrounds of the writing tradition of panegyric poetry. Since Tang 唐 (618-907) panegyric poetry best describes the highest standard of its kind in the Chinese poetic tradition, I will explore Yuan panegyric poetry in comparison with Tang poetry of the same nature. By making comparison to the Tang counterparts, I argue that we can further summarize several objective criteria which can be used to define what are the best means of writing a yazheng panegyric poem, and hence to discern what makes a yazheng panegyric poem worthy of being acclaimed.