Research Of The Festival Customs And Literature In The T'ang Dynasty

The richness of the festival customs in the T'ang dynasty had been paid much attention by the scholars afterwards. And the literary activities in (or about ) the festivals were also commom scenes in people's life of T'ang dynasty. In a word, the festival customs mainly followed the traditional ones from the past generations in the early T'ang dynasty. In the seventh century, the customs became varied and colourful, and the poetry banquets got more and more, some new elements of festivals emerged. In the time of Li Longji, a new festival came into being: the birthday festival, and the other festival customs were written into the nomal observance. After the rebellion of An Lu-Shan, people were so eager to rebuild their life, so as the tendency to entertainment was displayed in the festivals, People paid more attention to them. With the development of Taoism, some festival customs were affected. In the late T'ang peoriod, festivals were more a bait for the poets to express themselves than the contents of the poetry.This article is about the custom and literature of the the T'ang festivals. It is devided into five parts and an appendix.Part one : summarizes the festivals of Pre-T'ang dynasty and T'ang dynasty, and distinguishes the customs with that whether they had change or not. Part two : utilizing with all kinds of historical materials, studies five new festival customs of the T'ang period,such as Hanshi , Qingmin and so on. Part three :studies the elements of festival customs.Part four:studies the poetry banquets, trying to reveal the development of the customs and literature. Part five : studies the encyclopedias about festivals . And at last the appendix showes the records of the festivals in the T'ang period .