甲申诗史--吴梅村书写的一六四四A Poet's History of 1644: Wu Meicun

Wu Weiye, courtesy name Jungong, sobriquet Meicun, was a celebrated poet of the Ming–Qing transition. His mastery of the long song-form ballad is ranked alongside the Changqing style of Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi. He was counted among the "Three Masters of Jiangzuo", yet was also listed in the Biographies of Twice-Serving Officials compiled under the Qianlong emperor. The twists and turns of his life shaped a poetic art unrivalled in his day, and as "a man whose country had perished, pouring out his heart's blood" across two dynasties, he wrote with the pen of a poet-historian. This session will use Wu Meicun's long ballads on the upheaval of 1644 to glimpse the joys and sorrows of every level of society, from the imperial family to commoners, at the change of dynasties, and the historical details that his poems "infer from the visible to the hidden". Questions to get us thinking: The love affairs in Meicun's poems: the Chongzhen emperor and Consort Tian, Wu Sangui and Chen Yuanyuan, Mao Pijiang and Dong Xiaowan, and Meicun himself and Bian Yujing Might Meicun's poems hold clues to one of the three great mysteries of the early Qing, the Shunzhi emperor becoming a monk? Recently the claim has surfaced that Wu Meicun was the author of Dream of the Red Chamber. For real, or not for real? Questions for discussion: What is the mutual verification of poetry and history? Wu Meicun's depiction of the late Ming The human dimension in laments for a fallen dynasty