Stephen Owen’s study of Tang poetry is deeply influenced by theory of new criticism. On the one hand, such influence can be traced in his construction of the history of poems in the early Tang Dynasty. The history of development of the early Tang poems recorded the evolution of poetic styles and subjectmatters in the early Tang Dynasty, namely a transition from court poetry to capital poetry. As a result, the literary accomplishments of those great poets in the early days of the dynasty cannot be really comprehended unless interpreted in the background of transferring from court poetry to capital poetry. On the other, his semantic analysis of Tang poetry also shows clues of influence of new criticism. He made holophrastic study in Tang poems, interpreted ironical poetics and analyzed the “threesection” structure all by study reading the text.

Stephen Owen; study of Tang poetry; theory of “new criticism”; a history of the flourishing Tang Dynasty; court poetry; capital poetry