The Art of Contentment: Happiness, Exile, and Literary Innovation in Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi

Abstract

This thesis compares how Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi used writing in exile to fashion literary selves. Focusing on persona, literary register, and natural imagery, it argues that Su's Huangzhou writing inherits Ouyang's literary model while also extending it. By reading these two writers together, this thesis shows that Su's response to exile emerges not in isolation, but through both continuity with and divergence from Ouyang's earlier literary voice.