Study Of The Song Dynasty City Notes

On the one hand, the urban notes is a kind of prose embarked from the urban city life experience, recording urban political culture, material culture, spiritual culture, folk culture and other cultural elements, etc. as its center. On the other hand, it is "the life recording of social gentleman which they have lost". The urban notes of Song Dynasty are one part of the miscellaneous notes, being an important part of the literature in Song Dynasty. They mainly focus on Bian Liang and Lin An life during the Song Dynasty, having recorded the boom city government ceremony, urban facilities, urban management, urban entertainment, restaurants, customs, etc., Therefore, they have a high historical and literary value. This paper focuses on the literary value of the urban notes, investigating the important role they have played in the development of the literature during Song Dynasty. In the introduction, the research significance, value, current research status and the research tendency are discussed. The dissertation mainly consists of seven parts.Chapter 1 mainly reviews the role that the capital cities Bian liang (汴梁)and Lin'an (临安)in Song Dynasty played in the urban development and its status it held by comparing with the history of other ancient cities. Section 1 discusses the urban development process before Song Dynasty, saying that of Pre-Qin, Han and Tang. And it also discusses the relationship between the city life on one side and the social division of labor and the commercial prosperity on the other side. Section 2 and 3 discuss the geographical, historical and cultural elements that led to the prosperity of Bian liang and Lin'an.Chapter 2 makes a thorough analysis of city life in Song Dynasty with the focus on the crucial impact of country's political ideal on urban life. Section 1 analyzes how the political ideals of the country promote and accelerate the city life during Song Dynasty. Section 2 analyzes the relationship between the urban life and social morality of pleasure and feast, finding that this kind of social morality is a result of mutual influence among the emperor, scholar-bureaucrat and the ordinary citizen. Section 3 studies the relationship between the urban relief and the resident's life, thinking that a city's prosperity cannot be separated from a complete social security. It is also an important factor attributing to the city prosperity in Song Dynasty. Chapter 3 examines city voice and urban scenes described in the notes of Song Dynasty. Section 1 analyzes the record of the urban music, ranging from the national celebrations gagaku, literary leisure as well as the street noise etc., showing the scene of peace and prosperity in the Song Dynasty. Section 2 analyzes the city's urban landscape including palaces, restaurants, apparel, festive landscape as well as the clasping flowers which is an indication of the material form of the cities in Song Dynasty.Chapter 4 focuses on the "odd concept" and the urban culture written down in the urban notes. Section 1 analyzes the city's "odd" shown in the notes: being rich in magical products, craftmen of magical energy as well as curious members of the public. Section 2 analyzes the city's "view" portrayed in the notes including the importance of hobbies such "allowing to look " and "as many audiences as a temple fair". Section 3 analyzes the civic culture category from five detailed aspects: politics, the folk custom article, the entertainment, the diet, the skill and so on. It proves the important historical and the civic cultural value of the urban notes.Chapter 5 mainly discusses the literary value of the urban notes. Section 1 discusses the relations between the city life and the writers. Section 2 surveys the notes' literary historical value, which includes the urban life of scholars, the court intellectuals' poetry and responsorial matter, the cultural trends as well as the information of drama in the notes. Section 3 discusses the literature characteristics of the notes, containing its note-taking practices, characters description, language, etc. which reflects the notes' literary value from an innovative way.Chapters 6and 7 respectively discuss two important cities notes in history: "Dong Jing Meng Hua Lu" and "Wu Lin Jiu Shi". The author's life, writing process, contents and artistic works of the main characteristics are studied. The artistic features of" Dong Jing Meng Hua Lu" are mainly as follows: First, it has a ground-breaking temporal structure and a "look at the approximation" spatial structure of the narrative characteristics; second, it owns a special way of emotional expression; third, the author's psychological intention of adaption common sayings and idioms is discussed. The artistic features of "Wu Lin Jiu Shi" are highlighted on its noting methods: appropriate and detailed tailoring, intercalation syria, interoperability certification practices between poetry and other arts and an elegant writing style.In a word, the notes of Song Dynasty portrayed a comprehensive reflection of the palace and cultural activities in the capital, the urban life and urban entertainment, the city Kabuki art and folk activities, as well as political lives. It gives a full reflection of peaceful scene, entertainment and creative spirit the Song Dynasty city. It also reveals the author's melancholy feelings. The notes have innovatively used the themes of urban life and paid more attention to importance of urban street life, shaping many characters of the lower class all of which has provided a new road for latter urban literature composition. In terms of the expression means, these notes have applied on-the-spot report primarily together with inserts narration, comparative narration, carefully approaching, in and so on. Eventually it has formed a style which appeals to both cultured and popular tastes, so that it has enriched performance scope of the the Song Dynasty literature.