A Study Of Conceptual History Of Chinese Garden: From Pre-qin To Northern And Southern Dynasties

Chinese garden culture is an essential part of the Cathaysian Civilization, which is the single most extensive and enduring one in the world. It has a remarkable standing in the history of human thought. This culture is well preserved by traditional literatures, which have been passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. Its core is the thinking pattern of the ancients. An intensive and systematic study of the pattern is key to a full comprehension of the inherent law of the development of Chinese garden. The concept of Chinese garden has been studied for decades, yet a study from the thinking-pattern-perspective is never conducted. Thus figuring out the thinking pattern is the objective of this thesis.The historical segmentation of this thesis is from pre-Qin to Northern and Southern Dynasties, when the concept of Chinese garden had undergone from origin to a form of relatively complete structure. This structure is the foundation of the conceptual history of Tang Dynasty and later.This thesis is composed of two major sections. The first section(Chapter I) reveals the main thread of the conceptual history of Chinese garden by semantically analyzing words regarding to the concept of garden in traditional literatures. The second section(Chapter II-VI) discusses the development of the garden concept in detail through an intensive investigation of examples and historical backgrounds.