南朝贵族的自我修养How to Be an Aristocrat of the Southern Dynasties

Some questions to spark interest: The Wang and Xie were famously illustrious great clans; what notable figures did they actually produce in history? What impression do you have of the Southern Qi regime? Who were the "Eight Friends of Jingling"? What brought them together? How were humble families and great families distinguished in the Southern Dynasties? What impression do you have of Six Dynasties literature? What are the representative works of Six Dynasties writers, and what advances did they make? As a member of the Wang clan of Langya who nonetheless suffered an unusual family misfortune, Wang Rong's life seemed from the very start to stray from the script of a standard Southern Dynasties aristocrat. Yet in his short life he used his own efforts to "reshape" himself into an exemplary Southern aristocrat, and as a leading literary figure of his day he left posterity the precious legacy of "Yongming literature", which influenced the later course of Chinese literature. Although he failed to help Prince Xiao Ziliang, a like-minded aristocrat, onto the throne, his friend Xiao Yan eventually founded the aristocratic Southern Liang. But this Liang regime, steered by the southern aristocracy, collapsed at lightning speed in the Hou Jing Rebellion, and the southern aristocrats became a laughing stock to the northerners. Was there something wrong with what Wang Rong pursued from the very beginning? Was the fall of the aristocratic Southern Dynasties inevitable? After this session we can also discuss questions such as: Why, though he was the literary leader of his time, did Wang Rong later become less famous than his fellow Eight Friends of Jingling such as Xie Tiao and Shen Yue? How does the era a person lives in shape how they judge works of literature? How should we regard the significance of tonal prosody and literary allusion in appreciating literature?