Abstract
Although there were mixed views on the shouxu genre among literary celebrities in the Qing dynasty, all of them showed a strong will to eliminate the drawbacks within the shouxu genre and ended up with certain degree of consensus on Gui Youguang's shouxu as the paragon. They not only summarized with an appreciation Gui’s creative techniques and writing styles characterized by simplicity, straightforwardness, and authenticity, but also developed these features in their own creative practices. The Qing intellectuals regarded Gui’s writing as the criterion for measuring works of similar genres and reaffirmed its canonical status through anthologizations. The canonization of Gui Youguang's shouxu was significant in literary history, which further reinforced the status of his classical prose writings. By revealing and promoting the similarities between Gui Youguang's shouxu and his prose, writers of the Qing dynasty transformed to some extent the shouxu genre from an embodiment of popular cultural psychology and secular interests to an instrument for the scholar bureaucrats to express their emotions and thoughts. As a result, the shouxu genre successfully evolved from a genre for entertainment unfavored by intellectuals into an esteemed genre of prose.
Keywords
Gui Youguang's shouxu, canonical, status, significance, in, literary history
First Page
144
Last Page
152
Recommended Citation
Dai, Liang. 2022. "The Canonization of Gui Youguang's Shouxu and Its Significance in Literary History." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 42, (4): pp.144-152. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol42/iss4/15
