Abstract

The basic different character which creates the originality of Tu Xuong's poetry compared with other traditional confucian scholar's in general and Nguyen Khuyen's saritical poetry in particular, is undeniably its self-ridiculing aspects. Tu Xuong ridicules his own weakness as a gentlement - scholar, as a citizen in the time when his country was dominated by the French colonists, and as a husband living dependingly on his wife's earnings to criticize negatively Confucian scholars who had been worshiping feudal Confucianism. But at the same time, there always exists another completely different Tu Xuong with his self – reliance as a gentle urbanite as a very understanding and loving husband towards his wife, and as a citizen always paying attention to his country's fate. That's his way of self expressio of an urbane intelligent personality. With an urbane sensivity and with a saritical self - expression, Tu Xuong creates a type of urbane scholars, and a free, talented satire. Before Tu Xuong there had not been this kind of poetry and even nowadays it is hard to find such an original, saritical one.