英文摘要
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Wang Xizhi's calligraphy work Timely Clearing after Snowfall became one of the imperial collections in Kangxi era. In the eleventh year of the Qianlong Emperor's reign, Qianlong acquired Wang Xianzhi's Mid-Autumn and Wang Xun's Boyuan. Qianlong then designated a room in the West Warmth Chamber of Yangxin Dian and named it ”the Room of Three Rarities.” However, the art-loving Qianlong didn't treat the three calligraphy works equally: he wrote more than seventy poems and postscripts for Timely Clearing after Snowfall but only three or four for the other two works.Why did Qianlong adore Timely Clearing after Snowfall so much? I approach this question through examining his poem Mimicry of the calligraphy work Mid-Autumn and find that the young Emperor wanted to demonstrate his ambition of initiating a new era and extending the Kangxi Golden Age by establishing the Room of Three Rarities. Furthermore, the content of Timely Clearing after Snowfall is related to the auspice of a physiocratic country. The poems and postscripts of Qianlong could be deemed as ”epochal notes” of his sixty years reign.Although the Room of Three Rarities was situated in the center of politics, it only housed three historic artworks. Therefore, establishing the Room of Three Rarities probably obscured the boundaries between politics and culture. Whenever Qianlong appreciated Timely Clearing after Snowfall, he would find it difficult to grasp the adequate role and attitude for interpreting the poem. His writings often included emperor's political thinking such as ”a timely snow promising a good harvest.” On the other hand, the owner of the Room of Three Rarities still tried his best to be a literatus and excluded snow poems based upon local officials' reports. In this way, Qianlong preserved the formal purity of Timely Clearing after Snowfall.
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