清代竹塹地區是北臺灣的文學重鎮，歷來更有「北臺文學之冠」的美譽，不過迄今因為缺乏相關的論述，故箇中情形仍然蒙昧不明。本文嘗試透過方志、詩文集等相關文獻，歸納探究當時的作家群及其文學活動，以求深入了解清代臺灣竹塹地區文壇發展的概況。
研究中，除了描繪勾勒竹塹文人的生平梗概外，並就文人的組成及其社會背景加以分析，大致可見本地文學作者多數擁有科舉功名，而以居住塹城之內的閩籍人士為主，粵籍文人較少；且其中二分之一以上出身商人子弟，家族色彩濃厚；文學作者大率為男性，偶見女性。另外，又有若干流寓來臺的文人，參與切磋較技，得使竹塹文鳳更形多彩多姿。
再者，本土及流寓文人間，由於彼此存在著複雜的交遊網路，包括家族、婚姻、師生、朋儕、商業、官紳等諸種關係，故能在個別創作之餘，又促成文人集體活動鳳氣的興起，並集結設立詩社的組織，尤其是環繞「北郭園」「潛園」而起的文酒盛會，更臻高潮，對於竹塹文學的蓬勃興盛，尤有推波助瀾之功。本文便透過上述文人及其相關文學活動的描摹，以呈顯清代竹塹地區冠於北臺的文學榮景。

　　　　　During the Ch'ing period, the Chu-ch'ien area was developed as an important literature place in northern Taiwan and had been even honoured with the title of "The Leadership of The Northern Taiwan Literature" for a long time. However, until lately, owing to a lack of related study on this subject, its inside story is still quite vague. Therefore, by exploring the corresponding records of local monographs, prose and poetry, this paper tries to investigate the literature groups at that time and seek out the facts of their literature activities. It attempts to deeply unveil the visage of the literature development in the Chu-ch'ien area during the Ch'ing period. This research, in addition to describing and capturing the major life instances of the literary intelligentsia in the Chu-ch'ien area, also analyzes their organizations and social backgrounds. It can be largely observed that most of the local literature authors gained their merit and fame by passing the civil service exams; most of them were the local South Fukienese living in the Chu-ch'ien town, while few were Cantonese; over half of them were merchant descendants bearing strong family colors; literature writers were mostly male and seldom female. In addition, there were some literary intellectuals immigrating and residing in Taiwan, who are involved in a sort of literature skill rivalry, and thus made the literature fashion in the Chu-ch'ien area more colorful and beautiful.
Among the local and the immigrated literary intelligentsia, there existed complicated interpersonal friendship networks, including the various relations of family, marriage, tutor-student, mating friends, commerce, officer-nobleman, and so on. This engendered the rise of the group-activity trend for the literary intelligentsia, aside form their individual artistic creations. They gathered and set up poetry group organizations, and reached an activity climax especially in the literature festivals surrounding the "Pei-Kuo Yuan" (北郭園) and the "Ch'ien Yuan" (潛園) poetry clubs. This trend particularly contributed to the splendor of the Chu-ch'ien literature. This article portrays the above literary intelligentsia and their literature activities, thus showing and demonstrating the splendid literature scenes in the Chu-ch'ien area, which led the northern Taiwan literature during the Ch'ing period.