扬雄甘泉四赋新解读

A New Interpretation of Yang Xiong's Four Poems on Ganquan

将扬雄甘泉四赋放到其产生的时代背景下重新审视,不难发现,扬雄四赋实为西汉后期社会批判思潮影响下诞生的优秀作品。四赋均针对当时重要的政治事件而创作,因以讽谏,具有极强的现实针对性,典型反映了当时士大夫期待社会变革、延续国运的普遍心理。四赋运用借刺古以刺今、借美古以刺今、借美今以讽今、借第三者之口直接刺今等四种讽谏艺术表达方式,虽然达到了扬雄本人"诗人之赋丽以则"的赋论要求,却未能获致其期待的讽谏效果,昭示着这时期士大夫补衮努力的失败与西汉国运的无法挽回。

This essay examines Yang Xiong＇ s Four Poems on Ganquan by placing them in their historical contexts and discovers that they were some of the finest works born out of a climate of social critique in late Western Han. All four poems targeted at important political events taking place at the time, a highly critical and allegorical reminder of the literati＇ s social expectation for social change so as to ensure that the national fortune continue. To that end, Yang Xiong employed four types of allegories, namely utilizing the ugly past, the good past, the good present, and voice of the third person, to criticize the present. Exquisite as they were, the poems, however, failed to achieve their intended effects of admonition, a chilling reminder that the literati＇ s efforts were doomed to failure and that the national fortune was irreversible.