目前所知，最早提出意境論的是盛唐詩人王昌齡。本文分三節，第一節，立意與創新」。首先指出王氏對感興與立意的重視，而王氏所謂立意又與儒家詩「六義」有關。另外，王氏重視苦思，要求對「詞」與;「意」加以鍛鍊，以求超越前人，此種思想可能來自南朝追求「新變」的文風。第二節「照境與用思」。首先指出，精練意魄的最後目標是要取得理想物象以寄託情志(意)，而為了取得理想物象，則必須等待理想物境的出現，然後仔細觀察其中的物象，最後從中取得適合情志的物象。這一節最後特別舉出王氐「三境」說對「物境」的說明，確定王氏所謂照境，乃指理想的物境。第三節「佛道思想的影響」。本文舉出許多佛、道文獻，指出王氏「照境取象」的創作方法實參考佛道兩家之修養論，其「凝心照境」的方法有可能借鑑當時流行於京城的神秀一系的北方禪學。 作者認為：王氏詩學的重大貢獻之一，就是提出「照境取象」的創作方法，解決了意象論中意象契合及形似的問題，並使傳統的意象論轉變為意境論。根據六朝的理論，詩的意象是直接取自物象 (如傳統《易》學的說法)，而根據王氏的說法，則詩中的意象乃取自理想之境；因為是經由「照境」再取象一而非直接取自物象，故只能稱之為意境論而非意象論。

　　　　　It has been so far acknowledged that the pioneering proponent of the study on the fusion of meaning and scenery is Wang Chang-ling, the poet in the flourishing age of Tang Dynasty. The article is divided into three sections. The first section delineates Wang's concern for the establishment of the emotion and theme. The theme mentioned by Wang is also related to the six meanings of poetry m Confucianism. In addition, Wang valued highly of thinking hard. He made the great effort to achieve the attainment of the poetic realm with languages in order to forerun the precedent scholars. This idea is likely originated from the literary style flavored by the South Dynasty--"being bold to create something new that had not been written". The second section is entitled "reflection and thinking." Firstly it indicates that the ultimate aim of attaining the central theme of a work is to get the ideal object that could correspond to the mind of the poet. In order to do so, the poet has to await the emergence of the ideal objects, through which he obverses the images; finally, among these objects, he gets the ideal one that suits most to his will. The last part of this section also particularly describes the imagery of the object according to three kinds of scenery in poetry (nature scenery, emotion scenery, philosophy scenery), ensuring that "reflection," termed by Wang, refers to obtain the ideal object. In the third section entitled "the influence of Buddhism," a handful of literature reviews related to Buddhism and Taoism is illustrated to point out that Wang's creating method-- "getting the ideal object through reflection'--is actually based upon the religious philosophy practiced in Buddhism and Taoism. The method is probably based upon the North Buddhism that prevailed in the capital city at that age (Tang dynasty). The assumption made by the author is that one of Wang's major contributions is to tackle the problem in the theory on the fusion of meaning and imagery by devising the creating method---"getting the object that suits most to the will from the ideal scenery." He transformed the convention by turning the theory on the fusion of meaning and imagery into the theory on the fusion-of meaning and scenery. According to the theory proposed in the Six Dynasties, the poetic imagery is directly obtained from the object. However, according to Wang, the poetic imagery comes from the ideal scenery; the poet has to obtain the object via reflection instead of directly via the object so we could name Wang's theory as the theory on the fusion of meaning and scenery instead of the theory on the fusion of meaning and imagery.