In The Natural Disasters Of The Song Dynasty And Literature Writing

In recent years,natural disasters occur frequently.As an interdisciplinary subject,disaster literature has attracted more and more attention.The essence of disaster literature is to discuss the two-way relationship between disaster and literature.Real disasters can promote the birth of literature,and literary creation can reflect people’s real feelings and deep thinking about disasters,and guide people to better deal with disasters.Song Dynasty is an important era of disaster literature research.It not only has a long and accurate disaster record,but also has an extremely rich disaster literature.This paper attempts to break through the traditional research method that scholars mostly discuss disasters from the perspective of literature,and try to look at the disaster literature creation in the Song Dynasty from the perspective of disasters.According to the song people’s cognition of natural disasters and the disaster records of historical books such as the history of the Song Dynasty,"Xu Zi Zhi Tong Jian Chang Bian","Song Hui Yao Ji Gao",it can be found that floods,droughts,epidemics and locusts are four important natural disasters that occurred more frequently in the Song Dynasty and deserve attention.The following will focus on the specific and detailed exploration of the causes,temporal and spatial distribution,disaster hazards and relief methods of these four types of disasters.Based on the systematic cognition of the disaster situation,we will have an in-depth understanding of the disaster literature and perceive the various emotions of Song people in the face of disasters.Flood was the first natural disaster in Song Dynasty.Abnormal climate and improper activities are the important causes of floods.According to the different states of flood,it can be divided into flood caused by river lake crevasse,waterlogging caused by too much water and unable to discharge,and storm surge disturbed by strong wind.If we study the location of the flood,we can distinguish between urban waterlogging and rural flash floods.In the Song Dynasty,floods mostly occurred in the three dynasties of the early Northern Song Dynasty and the Xiaozong and ningzong periods of the Southern Song Dynasty.With the influence of monsoon climate,floods often occur in summer and autumn,and the floods in the eastern and central regions are far more than those in the western regions.As a natural disaster that occurred most frequently and seriously damaged the social ecology of the Song Dynasty,flood not only directly led to population death,destroyed agricultural production,washed away Song people’s houses,affected land and water traffic,but also exacerbated the phenomenon of refugees and caused social unrest.Song people living in flood prone areas not only need to constantly resist water and protect their lives,but also need to overcome the fear and sadness caused by water.As a matter of fact,the struggle against floods is a beautiful tradition left by ancient ancestors.In order to better deal with the flood,the song people and the Song government also adopted multiple water removal strategies,such as direct water control,building dams,providing financial help and organizing praying for sunshine.Around the floods that often appear,the literati will not only reproduce the magnificent flood phenomenon with their works,but also pay attention to the positive water saving methods and the heroic figures who bravely save the water.As for the disadvantageous of flood relief and the exploitation of corrupt officials,they also did not stint in denouncing them,and expressed their sympathy and concern for the people affected by the disaster.Specific to the writing skills of flood writing,we can find that song people have more prominent flood imagination and flood imprint.They can not only use history and imagination to write about floods in reality,but also grasp famous buildings and figures related to water control,and solidify them into proprietary flood literature and cultural symbols.As the second largest disaster in Song Dynasty after flood,drought also has great discussion value.The drought in the eyes of the song people not only has the natural reason that the weather has not rained for a long time,but also includes the political factor that heaven and man respond to each other and warn of drought.The temporal and spatial distribution of drought is not completely opposite to that of flood.The Shenzong Dynasty and Xiaozong Dynasty are more prominent in time,but still prominent in summer in season.In space,the north and South are different,and the two Zhejiang roads have the most records.In terms of harming society and individuals,drought and flood are consistent.It can also cause food shortages,population exiles,inconvenient shipping and secondary disasters including epidemics and famines.What’s more,the summer drought will give birth to a special bitter and hot behavior.In the face of such a severe drought,the song people and the Song government actively responded:they built water conservancy,used water tankers and wells to actively save the drought;Take the initiative to give money and food to the people affected by drought;Actively organize activities with good hopes,such as praying for rain and snow.In view of this series of drought process,the song people also left a lot of drought creation on the basis of inheriting the bookofsongs and the Tang people’s drought writing.They reappeared the bad drought environment,definitely considered comprehensive drought relief measures,praised and cheered the rain and snow,and strongly criticized improper man-made disasters.Observing the specific ways of writing about drought in Song Dynasty,we can find that they are very romantic.They can not only make full use of fairy tales and folklores to artistically express the drought situation,but also focus on describing personal symptoms of suffering and heat,so as to realize the important transformation of drought writing from "looking outward" to "turning inward".Unlike floods and droughts,which mostly affect the external environment,the epidemic disease has a clearer individual experience for the people of the Song Dynasty.The physical and mental damage caused by the epidemic is often more obvious than other disasters.Specifically,abnormal climate and large-scale population flow and aggregation are important factors that cause epidemics.The epidemic diseases in Song Dynasty were recorded more in Shenzong Dynasty and Xiaozong Dynasty.Most of them occurred in spring and summer,and the north and South were distinct,and the two Zhejiang roads were still the important places of occurrence.The impact of epidemic diseases on society includes causing a large number of deaths,restricting local economic development and threatening local ruling order.For those who are ill,they will not only be physically affected,but also have mental disorders.Faced with such a terrible disease,the song people and the Song government were not helpless.They were able to prescribe the right medicine and deal with the disease in time.Different from the government’s advocate of eliminating epidemics with medicine,people often use witchcraft and medicine together,especially in remote mountainous areas far away from the political center,and even a common phenomenon of "believing in witchcraft rather than medicine" may occur.The literary writing of epidemic diseases in Song Dynasty not only reviews the scenes,symptoms,psychology and prevention methods of epidemic diseases,but also highlights the characteristics of both narrative and lyrical creation of epidemic diseases.In terms of the creation time and space of the epidemic works,the timely creation in the epidemic area can often reflect the real situation at the time of the outbreak of the epidemic.On the contrary,most of the reminiscences in other places show unforgettable epidemics or memorable special scenes in epidemics.For the people in the Song Dynasty who were mainly agricultural,the destruction of crops caused by locusts and the shortage of food were also important social issues that could not be ignored.Song people believed that the causes of locust disaster included natural factors such as long drought and little snow and political factors such as immoral monarchs and ministers.As for the temporal and spatial distribution of locust plague,the Zhenzong Dynasty in the Northern Song Dynasty and the Xiaozong Dynasty in the Southern Song Dynasty are more prominent;The season is more obvious in summer and autumn;Spatially,affected by the free flight and active migration of locusts,the affected area extends to the Yellow River Basin in the north and the southeast Sixth Road in the south.Song people’s understanding of the plague of locusts was initially inherited from the traditional understanding of the Tang Dynasty that locusts are auspicious.However,with the great destructive power of locusts and the stagnation of people’s production and life,they also gradually realized that locusts were harmful.Therefore,both the government and the people in the Song Dynasty could actively catch and kill locusts.Looking back on the creation of locust disaster in Song Dynasty,we can find that they not only "redrawn" the locust disaster scene with words,but also recorded in detail the pain and pleasure of man controlling locusts,and even extended an important reflection on national governance and social stability on the basis of the reality of locust disaster.From the perspective of narratology,we can see sufficient narrative elements in the locust disaster poems of Song Dynasty.If we consider from the comparison between literature and art and ideological theme,we can find that the locust disaster writings of Song people have an obvious tendency to serve politics.This is the unique epochal nature of disaster literature,which deserves more attention today.In addition,in order to better grasp the natural disasters and literary writing in the Song Dynasty.This paper also makes a specific exploration on the natural disasters such as hail,snow,wind,earthquake,fire and so on.In fact,each type of disaster has its own unique personality,such as the overwhelming hail disaster,the disaster in auspicious snow,the helplessness and sadness of the strong wind,the extreme fear brought by the earthquake,and the clear space of fire.Therefore,when paying attention to the disaster literature of the Song Dynasty,we must have a comprehensive and broad vision.Only on the basis of grasping the essence of the disaster,can we better understand the various emotions of the song people facing the disaster and achieve the common spirit with the creators.Generally speaking,there is an inevitable connection between the disaster literature creation in Song Dynasty and the phenomenon of natural disasters.Disaster literature works can often play the role of preserving and supplementing history,and truly reflect the natural phenomena at that time.At the same time,disaster literature works can also break through the relative rationality and objectivity of history and depict the real response of Song people to disasters incisively and vividly.Although the song people had the coexistence of scientific disaster relief and feudal "disaster relief" in dealing with natural disasters,their spirit of actively resisting disasters and giving full play to their collective strength could surpass the times and give us important enlightenment.