The Study On Bantering Poems In Tang Dynasty

Bantering poems in Tang dynasty, as composed to make jests by Tang poets, were atvariance with the traditional principle “Ideal in Poems”, thus always neglected by researchers.In recent years, however, more importance has been attached to humorous literature and theresearch on the subject has been heating up correspondingly, whereas most research wasfocused on humorous poems with enriched connotations that expressed soulful and amorousfeelings. Despite the fact that bantering poems are regarded as a member in the family ofhumorous poems, the attitude of joking of and relatively shallow connotations in themrepeatedly excluded themselves out of the vision of researchers.The prosperity of bantering poems in Tang dynasty was not a fortuitous phenomenon,but resulted by profound social causes. For the growth of bantering poems, the flourishingfashion of teasing and the development of humorous literature in pre-Tang periods constitutedthe hotbed, while the prevailing tendency to pursue artistic diversification in Tang dynastyconstructed an open atmosphere. Besides, Tang people’s fancy to jesting and their teasingnature functioned as the direct impelling force for the development of bantering poems.Bantering poems, namely jesting poems, are a type of literature employed to make jests,thus a combination of poetry and jest as a kind of humorous poems with a unique stylecomposed by Tang poets. All bantering poems were created to make jests, of which thepurposes, however, differed. Some of these poems were meant to tease friends in good nature,some to land mockeries on people with poor appearances or subject to the absurdity of life,and others to pour sarcasm on corrupted and incompetent government officials. According tothe contents sorted above, bantering poems fall into three categories which are teasing poems,mocking poems and satiric poems.Ugliness is an indispensable element featured by bantering poems. Employed inindicating awkwardness, shallowness and abnormality of people and things, ugliness is theviolation and breach by people to the rules of harmony based on purpose and morality innature and human society. Ugliness, of which the denotation varies, is applicable in referringto appearance, thoughts and acts against will or virtue. It does facilitate revealing the truecolors of civilized people and regressing to the unity of primitive society, of which during theprocess relaxing and entertaining people. However, not all elements of ugliness could beeligibly elevated to be elements of humor, since the concept of ugliness, as situated between utter perfection and utter evil, would not arouse implacable abhorrence. Moreover, rhetoricplays an important role in effective jesting of the bantering poems, in which metaphors, punsand exaggerations were employed to most vividly and entertainingly depict various kinds ofugliness existent in human life.