Abstract
Lu-xiang Jin’s Lian-Luo-Fong-Ya is the earliest anthology of Neo-Confucian poems in the history of Chinese poetry. This book is the result of the change of the relationship between “Tao” and writing in Neo-Confucianism. Its main idea tends to Cheng-Zhu school of Neo-Confucianism, and most poets selected in this book belong to this school. It is an important sign of the attempt to dominate the tendency of literature for the Neo-Confucianism. Poems selected in Lian-Luo-Fong-Ya are representatives for Neo-Confucian poetry. They share the same world view and categorical correspondence system of Neo-Confucianism, and show the distinguishing feature of the kong-fu of the Cheng-Zhu school. This article is going to focus on how the system of categorical correspondence is formed and activate in Neo-Confucian thinking, and how it works with Neo-Confucian poems. Differing from the feature of grieving over the passing of spring or feeling sad with the advent of autumn in Chinese poetry, the world view in this system is an endless life circle, it makes these poems often show the poets’ gladness for the vivacious world. Besides, the sages and lively phenomena of the universe in this system are related to the kong-fu of Neo-Confucianism. The kong-fu of the Cheng-Zhu school in Lian-Luo-Fong-Ya can be divided to two parts: the first one is self-cultivation of "keeping reverence". It influences the genres of poems selected in this book, such as “Ming,” “Zhen,” and “Jie,” which are for warning oneself by admonitions. The second one is to study the underlying principle of everything to acquire knowledge, and this concept of kong-fu theory makes many Chinese ode poems become “ge-wu” poems in Lian-Luo-Fong-Ya. The categorical correspondence system and the theory of kong-fu of Neo-Confucianism distinguish Neo-Confucian poems from the others. They form a new value of poetry for Neo-Confucianism, but the mainstream of Chinese literature doesn’t accept it.