Sung poetry differs in both spirit and form from the poetry at the Tang period, and it is in these essential differences that Sung poetry finds its greatest value and it’s standing in the history of Chinese poetry. These differences were rooted in the self-consciousness of the Sung poets - it was on1y through this self-consciousness, touched off by the cultural environment of the Sung period, that Sung poetry could live and develop, could form it’s unique characteristics after the resplendent poetry of the Tang period. Through research and study of criticism of Tang-Sung poetry since the Yuan-Ming periods, as well as Sung period writing's on poetry, the writer has found this self-consciousness to be expressed in six major aspects: 1) Amalgamation and fusion - borrowing form and assimilation of ideas from other artistic and intellectual disciplines. 2) Transformation and overturning - pushing away the old, bringing forth the new. 3) Electricism - drawing on a variety of influences, schools of poetry and poetic traditions; an opening and broadening of subject matter. 4) Assiduous refinement and tempering of artistry and technique 5) Extensive learning and profound scholarship embodied in a deepening of content and meaning. 6) Individual poets strive to create the new and original, to found their own schools. The natural interchange and influence of these six factors resulted in Sung poetry’s “singular realization”: unlike both the great poetry of the Tang and the imitative (of the Tang) poetry of the Ming, the poetry of the Sung is a distinct artist achievement.