Ode To History In Song Dynasty Poems

In recent years, the study of history commenting poems in Song Dynasty has intensified to some extent, but the research still focus on the appreciation of the great masters'works or the macro analysis on the overall artistic features. However, people seldom conduct research on the history commenting poem sequences in light of their rich thought implications, multiple artistic expressions and high academic values, let alone the professional thesis elaborating the poem-composition from the unique Song culture perspective and its far-reaching influence in history. In fact, the composition of poem sequences in Song era is brilliant for its character of times throughout the whole historical poem composing history. According to the Full Song Poems and The Revised Edition, there are over 7000 history commenting poems in Song Dynasty, among which the original 50 kinds of medium and large sequences turn into 31 in present, the small poems are even more. In terms of writing group, both authorities and the masses are able to produce works; the content refers to the history from ancient, modern to contemporary times and family history as well. Besides, the Confucian and philosophical chants are renowned for unique features. Concerning the form, multiple styles ranging from five and seven characters old verses, Yue-Fu modern verses through new merging poems, Chu Ci to six-character history commenting poem sequences. In view of the above-mentioned cases, taking history commenting poem sequences in Song period as starting point, the dissertation discusses their inheritance and acceptance and lays out the developing process. Furthermore, a thorough analysis has been implemented around the close and subtle interrelationship between the composition of poems and various factors including political society, imperial examinations, historical education, official historian culture, and other styles and arts. And the investigation of their documentary values is also involved in the dissertation.The body section of the dissertation is composed of five parts, namely introduction, thought, art. catalogue and description, and revision.The first part is the introduction which consists of two chapters. The first chapter delimits the concept and category of the history commenting poem, and draws forth the concrete suite poems in point by defining their quantity, scale and contents. Then, it reviews the current research on the history commenting poems in Song Dynasty and summarizes the purport of the present dissertation. The second chapter first lays out the developing course of the history commenting poems before Song era, next introduces their overall development in Song Dynasty, and finally expatiates on the status of the small and medium-sized poem sequences in Song period.The second serves as the thought part which is composed of eight chapters. Taking the history and culture in Song Dynasty as perspectives, this section probes into the interaction between the history commenting poems and various factors including social politics, official historian culture. academic idea, imperial education, geographic study, popular literature and art, etc. By doing this, underlying reasons for the birth and development of this kind of literary phenomenon are expected to be revealed. The first chapter mainly investigates the interrelationship between politics in Song Dynasty and history commenting poems. "Change of writing style in association with changes of times", the development of history commenting poems in Song era closely related to the social culture then. Imperators in Song Dynasty not only highlighted the redaction of the historical records so as to draw lessons from the past, but played an exemplary role by reading historical works extensively and writing history commenting poems largely. Under the emperors'advocate and the influence of academic atmosphere then, people in Song Dynasty tended to love and write history-relevant materials. Moreover, composition of the history commenting poems was perceived as the symbol of intellectuals with talent, learning and knowledge who deserved wide respect at that time. Besides, People's strong sense of patriotism and responsibility indirectly affected the subjects and styles of the composition. As a result, the history commenting poems then were characterized by taking wording, argument and talent as poems respectively. Also, emotions like fidget and vehemence and the realistic feature could be read through the poems which, in turn, invisibly reflected the instable and changeable political situation in Song Dynasty. The second chapter elaborates the mutual relationship between official historian culture and history commenting poems. The prosperity of historical study serves as the premise of the production of poems on history, the boom of which, in turn, promotes the transmission and popularization of historical knowledge to a large extent. Large amounts of historical masterpieces compiled by people in Song Dynasty were regarded as the excellent textbooks on the part of authorities and the masses then, which facilitated the historical education during the whole Song period and greatly boosted the prosperity of the writing of historical poems. What's more, the culture of official historian represented by those masterpieces was also embodied in the composition, making the poems on history gradually integrated with historical works like historical essays and criticisms in the spreading and accepting process. Also, the course witnessed the successful transformation of the poetic functions from expression of emotion and ideal to lessons-acquisition from history, from dissuasion to education, and from elegant appreciation to mass entertainment. The third chapter focuses on the analysis of relation between imperial examinations in Song Dynasty and history commenting poems. The intensification of Confucian and historical contents in examinations facilitated scholars to study relevant classics and poems, which laid solid cultural and physical foundation for the composition of poems on history. The creation of poems on history, in reverse, indirectly served the imperial examinations by not only training candidates with skills in texts ideation and arrangement, and helping them understand and apply what they have learned, but also laying the groundwork for the production of novel and vivid poems. Scholars attached great importance on historical knowledge. Their historical rational consciousness and spirit far surpassed the former poets', and what they have valued about history was rich and comprehensive in contents. All of the above-mentioned premises contributed to the great prosperity of history commenting poems in history essay and cassation styles. The fourth chapter mainly discusses the substantial connection between education in Song times and history commenting poems. Education in Song Dynasty far excelled that in former era. Under the authority of imperial examinations, Confucian and historical education were highly valued during this period. Educational scholars have put the establishment and study of Confucian and historical courses into important schedules and published a series of textbooks about history commenting poems on the basis of inheriting the similar teaching material in Tang Dynasty, which to some extent boosted the development and boom of the creation of poems on history. The fifth chapter probes into the interrelation between academic thoughts in Song Dynasty and the composition of history commenting poems. The inclusive attitude adopted by authorities in Song period towards Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism made the academic culture then more flourishing than ever before. The construction of ideology and culture were also revealed in aspects of composition of poems on history of which the most influential were idealist philosophy, Buddhism and Taoism. The idealist philosophy required the historical study to inculcate feudal ideology and ethic, as a result, exerting certain impact to the intention of poem-composition, categorization and estimate of personalities and historical ideas. Meanwhile, philosopher in Song period also used poems on history to interpret the truth and contents of Confucian classics and explained their philosophical thoughts in the remarks of the rise and fall of dynasties. They demonstrated Confucian thoughts with historical evidences and had an insight into the features of the age. Under the ideological trend of integration of three religions, officials in Song Dynasty, who have been exposed to the Buddhism and Taoism, implemented the thoughts in the literature creating process and attempted to explain and represent the integrated idea through history commenting poems by introducing plenty of historical personalities of Buddhism and Taoism into composition. However, the Buddhist and Taoist figures, more often than not, were proficient in Confucian and historical classics and tended to critiqued gain and loss in both ancient and modern times. So they not only produced large numbers of history commenting poems, but also made the Buddhist recorded utterances and cases the history-intoned poems, praising Buddhist characters and representing the delicate ideas of Buddhism. The sixth chapter intensively discusses the frequent interaction between the local records in Song Dynasty and the history commenting poems. Geography has achieved the thriving status in Song stage. The compilation of local chronicles was defined by complete styles, rich contents, integration of ancientry and present, illustration of historical sites, graves and pavilions, etc, which provided poets with abundant writing stuffs and tourism guidance. Refined scholars also described landscapes through poems. They would make inscriptions on any historical site or scenic spot they visited, making the sceneries more attractive and bright. The Song Dynasty saw the 24 kinds of geographic and historical poems, of which the wide-spread were One Hundred Poems Composed in Gu Su and Jin Ling by Yang Bei, Historical poems in Kuai Ji by Hua Zhen, One Hundred Poems Composed in Nan Hai by Fang Xinru, One Hundred Poems Composed in Jin Ling by Zeng Ji, etc. These works followed the propositional, structural and stylistic features of the masterpieces in the late Tang and Five Dynasties like History Commenting Poems by Hu Zeng, Nostalgic Poems in Liu He by Jia Pang and Ding Quo Poems by Li Xiong. The form of poem has shifted gradually from the pure history-commenting style to the historical sites-intoned type with combined Ci. The inscriptions on landscapes invisibly served as the media of historical spots, also the inscribed poems were vastly quoted as evidences when local chronicles were revising, which strengthened the humanity implications of these historical sites. When later generations compiled their local chronicles, they could utilize the geographical and historical poems as evidences. In this case, the wide quotation of the local records would lead to the fact that the value of these poems would be gradually realized by readers or even included in the geographic masterpieces. Accordingly, the local chronicles and geographical and historical poems supplemented and facilitated each other. The seventh chapter investigates the connection between the filial piety culture in Song period and history commenting poems. Authorities at that time attached great importance to the tradition of filial piety. They educated the masses with book of filial piety and made use of affection between father and son to consolidate the king-subject relationship, making filial piety the most influential ethic criterion throughout the whole Song Dynasty. Therefore, this period witnessed many earnest filial persons and masterpieces about filial piety culture. Among the history-intoned poem sequences in Lianzhang style eulogizing filial activities in past dynasties, the most illustrious masterpieces are Filial Poems by Lin Tong and Appreciating Collection of poems on filial piety by Fangxin. The books complemented and developed the filial tradition in Confucian classics and played an indispensable role in spreading the filial piety culture as well. Thus they were praised as the collective representation of Chinese filial history. The eighth chapter chiefly analyzes the relevance between the history commenting poems and the historic Pinghua in Song and Yuan Dynasty together with the historic novels in Ming and Qing periods. The developed official historian culture and prosperous historical poems have set up a kind of strong cultural atmosphere for storytellers and offered them rich historical stuffs. Besides, the high degree of consensus between the two literary forms in composing purports and educational functions made the poems on history widely applied in the historic Pinhua and novels, the acceptance and transmission of which, in return, acted as the carriers contributing to the dissemination of official historian culture and history commenting poems.The third part refers to the artistic dimension, including three chapters. The first chapter concentrates on the accomplishment the history commenting poems has obtained in aspects ranging from the main idea, way of proposition through genre innovation, theme expansion to artistic technique, and so forth. The second chapter conducts a case study of the large-scale suites of history commenting poems. In this section, anthologies committed by Wang Shipeng, Liu Kezhuang, Lin Tong, Zheng Sixiao and Chen Pu have been elected for the discussion of their major achievements in poem-composing sphere respectively. The third section takes the works of Zeng Ji and Fang Xinru as cases in point so as to probe into the artistic characteristics of the geographical and historical poems in Song times.Part four serves as the catalogue and description which consists of two chapters. In order to roundly describe the outline of the large-sized history commenting poem sequences or composition of anthologies, the present dissertation makes a collation and textual research on the existing medium and large suites of poems in light of authors' life stories, circulated versions, main ideas and academic values on the basis of collecting plenty of firsthand documentations. Furthermore, the thesis gathers and arranges the scattered texts and relevant materials about the poem sequences which were nearly lost in history. The authors and their era involved in catalogue and description are quoted from the Full Song Poems. Concerning the chapter arrangement, this part firstly conducts textual research on the relative intact works. then the scattered materials. Meanwhile, each chapter is designed according to different literary genres, following the sequence of history commenting poems, geographic and historical chants, history-intoned Gong Ci, and Confucian and philosophical classics. Works of any of the four genres is illustrated by chronological order. The fragmentary materials successively found during the catalogue and description composing process are enclosed at the end of the dissertation on condition that they are originally included in Full Song Poems or its revised version. The fifth acts as the revision part. This section involves the existing medium and large suites of poems in independence or offprint edition. The collected texts, to the largest extent, are extracted from the present rare books and other versions, during which any variant entries are by no means revised for the sake of retaining their original appearance. Nevertheless, if the originals display obvious mistakes, revision marked by [Revision] is needed; if notes, by author or others, occur in original texts, then modified comments represented by [Present explanation] are located beneath; moreover, remarks signified by [interpretation] or [annotation] are illustrated in the texts on condition that there is no any notes in originals.