Research On Zhang-Yue: A Famous Literati & Statesman At The Turn Of Early To High Tang Dynasty

Zhang Yue (667-730A.D.) was a famous statesman, militarist and literati at the turn of the early to high Tang Dynasty, who styled himself Dao-ji or Yue-zhi. He had come into power in politics for three times and had been in charge of literature for about thirty years. He had acquired great achievement in many aspects such as construction of ceremonial rites, enterprise of culture, creation of literature, promoting youth, he played an important role both in history of Chinese politics and literature. Therefore, a case of study of this individual writer can help us to understand his life, thinking and literature works, by which we can re-evaluate his literal significance and value, at the mean time, it helps to reveal the profound reason in transition of the literature of Early to High Dynasty through the study on Zhang Yue.Without a whole research monograph, or any annotated edition, the research on Zhang Yue is still fragile up to day. Based on the studies done before, Zhang's curriculum vitae, personal relations, thought and works in four different styles (Poetry, Prose, Verse and Chuanqi, an early form of novel) are reviewed completely in order to illustrate his true panorama and to evaluate his literary effort and position for any further study at the best in this dissertation.The dissertation is divided into four major parts: introduction, main body, conclusion and appendix. In addition, the main body is separated into five chapters. Introduction:A brief introduction on the situation of the study conduced, the significance of such project, the anticipating goal and so on. Main Body:This part includes five chapters.Chapter 1: The review of Zhang's curriculum vitae, lineage and his political effort. The first section introduces the political and cultural background of Zhang's era, the second section checks his native place: Fan-yang, Luo-yang and He-dong, illustrates his lineage and chronological table to emerge all his life. Zhang's achievements in culture and military can be estimated completely in the third section. In this section, Zhang's political achievements is summarized in many special topics, which includes his supervision national history, compilation encyclopedia, contribution towards Li-zheng (Ji-xian) Hall College, dispute over administration of officials or literati, administrative opinions of Confucian scholar, three times experiences of military, the reason and mood of demotion, etc.Chapter 2: The study on Zhang's personal relations. According to the types of his personal relations, the chapter divides them into three kinds: emperors, intellectuals and intellectual groups. Among them, his relationships with about 50 intellectuals are described in detail as individual section. The main purpose of this chapter is to show the each visage and the same trend of the intellectuals and intellectual groups at the turn of early Tang Dynasty to high Tang Dynasty on the center of Zhang Yue, and to learn Zhang's contemporary influence and effect in politics and literature.Chapter 3: The outline of Zhang's thinking. The Confucian thinking of Zhang is discussed in the first section. It emphasizes the Confucian spirit including humanism, rites, harmony upon Zhang's thinking. The Buddhist thinking of Zhang is induced in the second section. It elaborates his religion faction, communication with monks, Buddhist activities and Buddhist literature respectively. The third section debates Zhang's Taoist thinking, his Taoist ability, communication with Taoist and Taoist literature are elaborated respectively. The last section discusses Zhang's literary thinking. Zhang emphasized the form and content at the same time, brought much positive and enlightened suggestion forward and led the right direction of literature development at the turn of Early to High Tang Dynasty.Chapter 4: The sketch of Zhang's creation of poetry. Zhang was looked as the key character of poetry ethos at the turn of Early Tang to High Tang Dynasty, so his poetry had been impressed by the transition. The discussion on general outline of Zhang's creation of poetry in the first section summarizes its character and position in the history of Tang Poetry and analyzes the background and content of his poetry. Reviews completely Zhang's poetry based on his literary works, from the second section to the fifth section, the chapter dissertates different types of Zhang's poetry in detail from the view of doing textual research, namely, poem according to the emperor's order, poem on landscape, poem about farewell, poem of others themes, including poem about frontier, poems of thoughts and feelings, poems of leisure, poem of history, etc. The sixth section generalizes Zhang's art of poetry in three aspects, that is, form types of literature, tones rules of classical poem, trope. The seventh part mentions Zhang's influence on high Tang and mid Tang's poet, especially on Du Fu.Chapter 5: The complete arrangement of Zhang's articles, the verse, the prose and chuanqi included. The first part introduces the main impression on Zhang's creation of articles and stands out his innovative characteristic, in which Zhang tried to break the ice between the verse and the prose and exhibited his own great literary skill. The following two sections try to discuss Zhang's various types of the verse and the prose, The second section classifies all types as lyric style, narrative style and commentary style, which include Fu (one of the Chinese literary forms akin to poetry), eulogy, funeral oration, preface, written narration, letter, political questions and answers for ancient examination, memorial to emperor, official document, and so on. The third section studies on Zhang's inscription on upright stone tablet or the memorial tablet within a tomb wholly and displays the characteristic of great literary skill, which is well known by contemporary scholars. Discussion on Zhang's nominal chuanqi one by one in the fourth section including Biography of Four Old Men in Liang Dynasty, Biography of Green-coated Emissary, Heraldic Swallow, Story of Mirror-Dragon, Biography of An Old Man With Dragon Whiskers. is to determine whether Zhang had ever written chuanqi or not. The conclusion:Based on the whole study on Zhang Yue in the main body, his achievement in literature is summarized briefly and his great contribution to literature is affirmed completely in the conclusion. Found on the complete reviewing of Zhang's achievement in either politics or literature, the inequitable appraising in academia ubiquitously should be analyzed and corrected. The appendix:The appendix is the supplement to the main research. Based on the correlative literature, Appendix I draws the outline of collection of Zhang's literary works into volumes and inheriting of the editions. Besides, grounded on "the Chronicle of Zhang Yue' s life" and all his works, Appendix II attaches the creation of forty-nine poems and twenty-one articles to the concrete year.