ABSTRACT
As discussed in Chapter 1, although Qian Qianyi may be shishi’s most vocal and eloquent advocate in the early Qing, he was by no means the only poet who essayed and succeeded in it. We have mentioned Wu Weiye and Qian Chengzhi. Like Qian, Wu and Qian Chengzhi committed themselves to preserving history by virtue of shishi. Shishi was the kind of lyricism favored by the whole generation of survivors who witnessed the dynastic changeover to verbalize their feelings and unburden their memories of the Ming.
