Lu Ji’s Structural Imitation Method and His Influence on Poets of the Southern Dynasties

This paper explores how Lu Ji’s influence on later poets makes his poetry regarded as classic in the Southern Dynasties. Lu always composes his imitations of ancient poems by meticulously maintaining the structure of the originals and exchanging their words. Southern Dynasties poets such as Xie Ling-Yun, Xie Hui-Lian and Shen Yue keep using this structural imitation method to compose imitations, primarily of Lu’s works. Of all methods of imitation writing, structural imitation is the one that most clearly indicates connection between the original poem and the imitator. For this reason, this paper inspects Southern Dynasties poets’ imitations of Lu’s works to discuss Lu’s influence on them. First, Lu’s poetry describes time and things with structure made of fu poetry’s quality, creating a new appearance for the topic of lamenting the past. This structural feature is the point of Southern Dynasties poets’ imitation. Second, Lu influences not only the form of poetry but its emotions, displaying the scholar-official poet’s inner conflict and sentiment about whether to be an official or a recluse. Southern Dynasties poets use the method to respond to and identify with Lu, transforming Lu’s hesitant image into a prototype of scholar-official in dilemma. In addition, Xie Ling-Yun and Xie Hui-Lian use this method to follow Lu Ji and Lu Yun’s example of presenting each other with poems as the method of dialogue, in which Lu’s dilemma and grief over his career become the inner voice of the two Xies’ poems. The above are the reasons and significances of the canonization of Lu’s poetry during the Southern Dynasties, which are to provide Lu with a more adequate evaluation and position in the history of literature.