| Sui Dynasty(581-618A.D.), established by Yang Jian the grand councillor of Northern Zhou from whose emperor Jing he took the throne, was an empire of grand unification reestablished by Han race since Five Hu Uprising, by which terminated the division and confrontation between the south and the north of more than two hundreds years ever since the last days of the Western Jin Dynasty. As Sui is an important link between the preceding Northern and Southern Dynasties and the future Tang Dynasty, so the literature of Sui is also an important transitory stage between the two, inheriting from the former and influencing on the later, its palce in history and its literary merit should not be underestimated.In spite of its short living, there were many new things happened to its politics, economy, culture-education and literature, which had a great effect on the integration of the literature between the south and the north, on the thriving of Tang literature, and on many other aspects too. But as Sui has only lived37years, there was nearly not a single writer both born and died in this dynasty, whereas most of its writers had gone through several dynasties to enter into Sui, which make the literature of Sui less independent. As a consequence of this, research done on the Sui literature is very little, achievements gained are less than morning stars, people has not fully realized its literary merits and its place in the history of literature, published works devoted to a comprehensive and systematical study on Sui dynasty are yet not seen. In view of this, a futher exploration on the literature through the Sui dynasty is required.This dissertation are divided into8chapters in addition to an introduction, appendix and epilogue. In this8chapters, I have taken a comprehensive analysis on Sui dynasty by the means of textual criticism, expounding and the combination of the two.In the introduction, I firstly gave a defination to "the Sui literature", then I sketched the research status of the Sui literature before20th century and after1995, after which I described its inheritance relationship with the literature of Northern and Southern Dynasties.The first chapter is Sui dynasty literature and Cultural environment. I began with the influence on literature by unification. The south and the north confronted with each other for nearly three hundreds years ever since the last days of Western Jin dynasty, this period was marked by war and division. There were some cultural and literary exchanges between the south and north, but due to the political and territorial barriers between the south and north, these exchanges and interactions are very small, basically the south and north each walked on its own way. There was not a regional precondition on further exchanges and integrations of culture and literature between the south and north untill the unification achieved by Sui empire, which gave a new scene to literature. This welcome new scene of literature came from a series of reformations on politics, economy and culture-education. For example, Emperor Wen took great reformations on politics, united the whole country, broke through the regional barrier between the south and north which has last for more than two hundreds years, by which deed literati from south or north can be assembled under one roof, giving a precondition on further exchanges; after the unification, the two emperors of Sui created a good social environment for the integration between south and north literature by their culture-education policies, imperial examination system and supporting Buddhism and Taoism. All this presented a possibility for new things to happen to Sui dynasty literature.Chapter two is Writer groups during Sui dynasty. As Sui was a short-living dynasty, there was nearly not a single writer who spent his life all in Sui dynasty, most of its writers were those who went down to Sui from South et North dynasties or those who was born and grew in Sui and went down to Tang dynasty. So to study the literature of the Sui dynasty, a clear classification of writers is required. Because writers and works of different periods have different contents and styles. Characters of Sui dynasty literature can be revealed by a vertical comparison between the works written in Sui dynasty and works of the same writer written before Sui dynasty, as well as a horizontal comparison between works of the writers went down to Sui from South et North dynasties.So it is necessary to pay attention to writer groups. Sui dynasty writers can be divided into three groups, i.e. Guanlong writer group, Shanzuo writer group, and Jiangzuo writer group. This is one of the Characters of the literature of Sui dynasty which has removed territorial barriers between south and north, united the whole country.Guanlong writers were from the ruling class, I further divided them into royal family et palace writers and other writers. Shanzuo writer group was formed by those writers who went down to Sui from Western Wei and Northern Qi, this group was relatively large. Western Wei and Northern Qi were originally in Shandong area, rulers of Northern Qi during its later stage created a strong literary atmosphere by their advocation, and what’s more, Shanzuo writers had a high enthusiasm for learning from the south, this laid a foundation for the integration between south and north even before their going down to Sui dynasty. For example, writers as Lu-Sidao, Xu-Daoheng, their styles were obviously influenced by south literature as early as they were in Northern Qi. Those writers who went down to Zhou and Sui from the Later Liang Dynasty, and those who went down to Sui from Chen, formed Jiangzuo writer group. These writers went from south to north as Sui united the country. It is necessary to make clear their writing time, before studying the works of writers of these groups.Chapter three is Literature works during Sui dynasty. Here applied the several points that should be noted on studying Sui dynasty poetry advocated by Song-Jingchang and Wang-Zengwen into the study on Sui dynasty literature:firstly, Sui dynasty literature should be treated historically, secondly, Sui dynasty literature should be treated roundly, thirdly, the poems and proses included in Complete Sui poetry and Complete Sui Proses should not be all regarded as Sui dynasty works, our research must be based on the determined real Sui dynasty works, fourthly, we shall not reject an opinion on account of the speaker, fifthly, we shall not confuse some certain love poems of Sui dyansty with Qi Liang poetry style, sixthly, we shall not curtly treat the literary propositions of Emperor Wen and Wang tong in his Zhongshuo as literary restoration, seventhly, our research on Sui dynasty literature must be based on extant works, we shall not deny it easily by quoting some single words of historians. Due to regime changes, most literati of Sui has gone through several dynasties, so the first step to study Sui dynasty literature is to determine the works written in Sui dynasty. This includes to make clear the changes and preservations of anthologies and individual collections of Sui literati, in addition to Sui dynasty novels and other works. A comparison between those works written in Sui dynasty and those written in other dynasties will show the similarities and differences of writers and works, by which the characters of Sui dynasty literature will come to be known, this is a vertical study on literature. While horizontal study was conducted in the works comparison and interactions between royal family writers during the respective periods of the two emperors of Sui. Chapter four is Works of royal family writers during Sui dynasty. Royal family writers belonged to Guanlong writer group, but they played a guiding role in Sui dynasty literature, exerted a great influence on the creative tendency of Sui writers, therefore deserve a whole chapter. This chapter has commented on twelve writers, but gave much attention to the poems et proses of the two emperors, and the influence on Sui literati by the works of the two. The methods I adopted here included vertical research, horizontal research and the combination of the two, vertical research was conducted in the literature during the respective periods of the two emperors, horizontal research was conducted in the literary works of other royal family writers, and the influence on Sui dynasty literature by the two emperors. Of the two, Emperor Yang deserves more attention by his poetry. Emperor Yang cherished a plain and vigorous style which was typical with northern writers, in addition to learn from southern a comely and bright style, only not to be confined by the southern style, but created a integrating aesthetic style of the northern vigorousness and the southern beauty. As a scholar put it,"Emperor Yang cherished a kingly temperament, and was good at adopting southern rhymes, his style was gorgeous but not profligate, he incorporated great momentum into brightness, his magnificence won’t be covered up even in love songs, thus promoted development of literature and aesthetics in Sui dynasty, he changed the debauchery of southern literature, and inspired magnificence in Tang peotry." So works of Emperor Yang affected the development direction of Sui dynasty literature during its later stage, brought a new air to literature.Chapter five is Works of Guanlong writers. Apart from royal family writers, I confirmed93Guanlong writers for the moment according to the extant documents. Besides Yangguang, Yangsu was a prominent writer in this group. Yang su was among the founders of Sui empire, though a military man, he was highly talented in literature too. His peotry bore a character of vigorousness and uprightness, which in fact was an outcome of the integration between the southern and northern literature.Besides male writers, works of females among Guanlong writers are also impressive. There was a female consciousness of responsibility as a member of the collective in poems of Princess Dayi, which was rare under the pression of old feudal ideology. There were maybe only two women from Chunqiu period to Sui dynasty who had this consciousness, namely Madam Xumu and Princess Dayi, which make the later all the more adorable. After the waking of subject consciousness during Wei Jin and Northern et Southern dynasties, Sui empire enjoyed a relatively open-minded social atmosphere, the presence of females with consciousness of collective duties in this atmosphere was accidental, but all the more inevitable. Her achievements lied in the expression of her feeling about rise and fall, the toughness she displayed during hard wandering time, which inspires emotions and enthusiasm even in today. She expressed her emotioms by experiences of her own, yet was not confined by her individual sadness, but gave a universal significance to it, made it a historical type. The works of other female writers were poems bent on love, displayed a strong subject consciousness in pursuing love, which revealed some characters of the time. To whatever sort of a feeling, whether sweet happiness or sorrow of separation, they gave a most incisive expression without reservation. Exemples can be taken from to lover of Li-Yuesu,memory of lover of Qin-Yuluan,on the return of oid friend of Su-Chanyi, to Mr Ruan of Zhang-Bilan and so on, they were different from love ballads of Southern dynasties, and not the same with Qi Liang style too, they were implicit and sincere, fresh and urgent, bore a character of Sui dynasty, they were outcomes of that time, rich of the flavour of that age. From these poems we can tell that civic culture of Sui dynasty has had a certain development, the economic growth in cities has produced this kind of civic culture. Aside from all above, works of Wangji also reflected the societal circumstances during the last days of Sui dynasty, as can be seen in his poem resignation from Liuhe, proses biography of Sir Wudou, a travel on the drunk country etc.Chapter six is Works of Shanzuo writers. Shanzuo writer group was formed by writers went down to Zhou Sui from Eastern Wei and Northern Qi,23of them was confirmed for the moment by the extant documents, seven of which have both poetry and proses, namely, Lu-Sidao, Xue-Daoheng, Li-Delin, Xin-Deyuan, Weidan, Sun-wanshou, Yuan-Xinggong. Lu-Sidao, Xue-Daoheng, Li-Delin,Sun-wanshou were the most outstanding among them.Both of the poetry and proses of Lu-Sidao were valuable, but his achievement on proses was relatively more highlighted in Sui dynasty. On hard life, on the rise and fall of Northern Qi, on the rise and fall of the later Zhou were his famous works written in Sui dynasty, amomg which on hard life was the best. In this work, he attacked flatterers and slanderers intensely. In spite of adopting a dual type, his concern was not to produce ornate terms, but to criticize the reality, he incorporated his criticism into the flowery form, thus can not be equaled by those who creating feelings for writing. Based on his experiences of a life-long official career, his criticism was a deep one. As Qian-Zhongshu has commented:"It’s plot has some likeness to Responses on queries of a guest and Defence against mockery, only the later two use euphemistic expressions while the former just curse in rage, by which doing it has some commonness with On breaking off a friendship and Pandect of biographic sketches of Jin dynasty emperors in intentions. The best article in Sui dynasty is this one." Xue-Daoheng has been elected into Literary college as well as Lu-Sidao when in Northern Qi, he has gone to Chen many times as an ambassador, and has had many contacts with southern literature, so he also was an expert of integrating northern literature with southern literature. Poems of Sun-wanshou bore a strong individual character, his works were reflections of his life experiences, his feeling was sincere, his style was vigorous; he was good at using stories, and his couplets were neat, he had a certain influence on Tang metrical poetry.Apart from those above, these writers are among representatives of Shanzuo writers, Li-Delin, Xin-Deyuan, Yuan-Xinggong, Li-Xiaozhen, Weidan, Du-Taiqing. Of them, Li-Delin enjoyed a great fame for his poetry and proses.Chapter seven is Works of Jiangzuo writers. The unification removed territorial obstacles between north and south, many southern literati come to the north, northern and southern literati gathered in the capital, creating an advantage for further exchanges and interactions between northern and southern literature. Theoretically, Sui dynasty literature should be a fusion of north and south more highly fused than any time before, but the fact was not so. Because the rulers of Sui empire with Guanlong military group as its core held a wariness to the old nobility of Jiangzuo and Jiangnan, and suppressed them consciously, also because the life of Sui was too short that it hardly could spend enough time to do more integrating works before being overturned by the storm of peasant uprisings, so the three literary groups had not been really fused into one thing, and thus had not been able to do more contributions to the development of the Sui dynasty literature. The achievement of Jiangzuo writers was the smallest, this is because Jiangzuo writers were highly repressed during Emperor Wen period, during Emperor Yang period, most of them were literary attendants of the emperor, they had to produce works under the order of emperor, although there were some changes on style, their achievements could not be too much.I confirmed33writers of Jiangzuo writer group for the moment according to the extant documents, among which there are14writers who have extant poems or Fu or both, namely, Jiangzong, Yaocha, Yu-Shiji, Yuchuo, Wangzhou, Xu-Shanxin, Zheng-gongchao, Ming-Yuqing, Hetuo, Cen-Derun, Zhuge-Ying, Yu-Zizhi, Yu-Shinan and Liubin. Among those writers, there were not much innovations during Sui dynasty in the poetry of Yu-Shiji, Wangzhou and Xu-Shanxin, the marks of integration between south and north were not obvious. Although Yu-Shiji had exchanged poems with northern poets, his works could not be considered equals of the works of northern literati for the deficiency in style, in spite of his changing from softness to freshness.Chapter eight is Evaluation of Sui dynasty literature. Sui dynasty literature has its achievements as well as shortcomings. It has inheritance as well as innovations, on innovations, Yuefu poetry of Sui dynasty made a great breakthrough comparing with previous dynasties, such as creation of new tunes, increase of subject matters, changes on styles, and innovations of artistry, all affected directly the development of Tang Yuefu poetry. Sui dynasty presented a number of writers and works such as Yangguang, Yangsu, Lu-Sidao, Xue-Daoheng who brought a new air to literature by integration of southern and northern styles. Sui dynasty poetry gives revelations and lessons to literature of later dynasties, which makes literature more prosperous, for exemple, the contributions made by Emperor Yang to Yufu poetry enriched the treasury of Yufu poetry, pushed Tang Yufu poetry to a new stage. Again, in return of official Xu-Shanxin by Xue-Daoheng is a poem about new spring circus play around Luoyang. It enumerated many folk arts such as farces, balls jumping, birds playing, monkey playing, gave a manifestation of the social lives in Sui dynasty during its flourishing time. It made an antecedent for the poets after Sui dynasty to manifest social lives by poetry. As can be seen in the poem lady Tanrong by Chang-Feiyue a Tang dynasty poet:"She raised her hands to tidy her hair accessories, and danced on the brocade carpet. Horses were crowed on the way, and the audiences formed a circle. Her songs evoked echoes, and her emotions delivered in soft words. How big can the heart to be, bearing so much love in it?" This poem brought back to life the performance and told how welcome it was to people. It inspired Tang writers to explore for new subjects of poetry by reflecting civilizations and customs, also gave a firsthand material to later schlars for researching drama development of that time. In the matter of composition rules and forms, it dealt a great promoting effect on Tang poetry, even its lines were directly borrowed by Tang writers. Aside from all this, the realistic character of the ballads in the last days of Sui and the poetry of nameless ones had a profound influence on Tang and so far as to later dynasties.The shortcoming of Sui literature is that the literary theories have not pointed a right way for the development of literature, that is to say, the utilitarian literary views of Emperor Wen and the metaphysical literary views of Wangtong, correcting one sort of a bias with another one sort of a bias, have not made literature walk into the right way, rather deviated from the rules of literature development.Emperor Wen and Lie intervened in literature by political power, this did not work on repressing Qi Liang style, only brought some improvements in practical writings public or private. Although the reconciling literary views of Yan-Zhitui has already appeared, but the ornate style still dominates untill the early days of Tang dynasty when the criticisms from Emperor Taizong, Wangbo, Chen-Ziang and some historians were eventually evoked. But these criticisms from the people of early Tang are relatively objective, represented the demand of literature development. These criticisms accomplished a change on aesthetic ideology, that is from political criticism to emotional criticism whose essence is making the form be accommodated to the content. This reflected a consciousness of assimilating the literary thoughts of previous dynasties and by that exploring for the rules of literature itself and the demand of literature in a certain period. This laid a solid foundation for the development of Tang dynasty literature.In addition, in order to discuss the integrity of the literature of sui dynasty, setting the northern prose study-superior Pillar of state Su duke of zhou dynasty military of hezhou PuTunWei inscriptions, as well as YanZhiTui’s YanShi family precepts and other prose research and so on, into the sui time,the sui and important small but its works of this kind of sui dynasty of the teachers of the law of creation in the appendix. Chronology and sui dynasty literature, these will complement each other with the text, look after each other, to the understanding of the sui dynasty literature is more comprehensive, deeper and more profound.Although on the whole the Sui dynasty achieved not much in literature, but after all there were a great progress in the integration between northern and southern literature comparing with previous dynasties. Sui dynasty literature bear a distinctive character of its own, shaped by the development of poetry subject matters, rules and forms of poetic composition, construction of poetic world, and the refining of expressions, all of which benefited from the integration between the north and south. This is as Emperor Yang put it:high spirit and profound thoughts, clear words and smooth form, deliberate mind and novel ideas. This is also the aesthetic standard of the whole Sui dynasty, which is not merely intent on artistry, but includes a concern for style. Especially high spirit and profound thoughts, it already became an inherent style of Sui dynasty literature. It flows in the river of literature history, nourishing literature of later dynasties, its contribution shall not be forgotten. Summary, the innovation of this paper are as follows:one, the sui dynasty in the northern and southern dynasties to tang dynasty transition stage, the literature has both inheritance and innovation. Although the sui dynasty literature presents different clutter transition state, but on the whole, the sui dynasty literary style can be summarized as clear body, high gas well, word meaning new secret. Especially "high gas system far" is the unique style of sui dynasty literature. This style are evident in the sui dynasty representative writers’works. Such as scholars Luo Zongjiang, Hao Shifeng editor of the sui and tang dynasties of the five dynasties literature, think of the sui dynasty literature is a "no personality, no angry" literature. Completely negate the sui dynasty literary achievements and literary style.Two, sui dynasty had a breakthrough of poems. Like new song ci-poetry initiative, content of expansion, and the new change, the artistic skill of fu style has many aspects, such as innovation breakthrough, a direct impact on the development of the poems in the tang dynasty. Before such as the history of innovation of master thesis of "sui as poem", Zhao Hong master’s thesis research of sui dynasty poetry Yu Yingli dissertation studies of sui dynasty poetry, li jianguo, doctoral thesis studies of sui dynasty literature, Yang Jinmei post-doctoral mobile stations of the outbound report "sui dynasty poetry study" and so on were put forward.Three, the innovation of the sui dynasty literary thought. Sui dynasty literature in the literature of the northern and southern dynasties to the tang dynasty literature transition stage, the literary thought appeared to reconcile the compromise literary thought of literature, such as YanZhiTui mediate between the north and the south of the compromise literature. As he in the YanShi family precepts, the article proposed should pay attention to content and gas, from the artistic conception and gas of the sui dynasty on the map. But he told the south "gaudy" style for criticism, but not completely, finally presents an uncompromising attitude, such as "what go too" compromise attitude. Most writers of sui dynasty literature are mostly have this nature. Before no one has clearly put forward the point of view, such as before the sui dynasty Thurber works were put forward.In addition, in the analysis of the characteristics of the sui dynasty writer works, have individual personal opinions and comments. Along with the textual research of the sui dynasty writers and works set, clear up roughly have sui generation of writers and works. Shorter because of the sui dynasty countries elementary, only37years, the aboriginal writers have little, after several dynasty mostly, and moving in the sui dynasty, or in the sui dynasty grew up, and into the sui dynasty. The results of the research on the study of sui dynasty literature has important literature value. Time hasty, however, still need to modify, strengthening of space, the deficiencies in the future continue to supplement and perfect. |
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