A Study On The Aesthetic Mentalities Of Travel Literature By The Demoted And The Banished That Were Exiled To Lingnan In The Tang And Song Dynasties

Banishment and demotion of government officials is a unique phenomenon in the history of China.Since Qu Yuan,banished and demoted government officials have been existing in all Chinese ancient history.The history of such exiles and demotions shows that Tang and Song dynasties banished far more officials than any of the other dynasties.Because of its unique geographical location,Lingnan(South of the Five Ridges)has become the place where most of the demoted and the banished exiled during Tang and Song dynasties.Travel literature is an ancient Chinese literary form,which can be traced back to the book "The Story of King Mu" in Zhangguo Period----the Warring States period.With the development of travel and of the literature itself in ancient China,travel literature has become a special literature form and a part of Bianguan Literature(the literature works created by the demoted and the banished).It should be noted that travel literature does not only refer to one single literary style but also serves as the general term for a variety of styles,such as poetry,letters,notes and inscriptions which were created by the demoted officials in the period of exile.Therefore,travel literature of the demoted and the banished include poetry,ci(a type of classical Chinese poetry,originating in the Tang Dynasty and fully developed in the Song Dynasty),memoirs,odes,forwards,inscriptions,stone carvings,wall inscriptions,letters and other various styles whose topics with deeply reflecting the writers' moods and emotions widely relate to a series of cultural phenomenon such as society,politics,military,philosophy,religions and so on.Through travel and creation of travel literature,the demoted and the banished escaped temporarily from embarrassments of their lives and identities,filled their inner emptiness with landscape and sightseeing and eased their moods.By studying travel literature,we can understand the psychological transformations of Chinese officials when they were forced to leave the government and to observe influence of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism on them.In this paper aesthetic cultural mentalities refer to people's various feeling,comments,and state of mind to aesthetic objectives in different natural and living environment.This paper systematically studies the aesthetic cultural mentalities of the demoted and the banished who were exiled to Lingnan during the Tang and Song dynasties,including general introduction to the travel literature created by the demoted and the banished who were exiled to Lingnan during the Tang and Song dynasties,the formation of the aesthetic cultural mentalities of travel literature of the demoted and the banished,the development of the aesthetic mentalities and creation of travel literature of the demoted and the banished,the reason to change of aesthetic cultural mentalities,and the comparison of differences of the aesthetic cultural mentalities of travel literature with different backgrounds.Thus,this paper is divided into five chapters.The first chapter is an overview of the ones who were exiled to Lingnan during the Tang and Song dynasties,which describes the distribution of the demoted and the banished,reasons to be demoted and banished,and style and form of travel literature in Tang and Song dynasties.The second chapter summarizes two forms of aesthetic mentalities----sadness and relieved,explains the reasons to the forming process of aesthetic mentalities by the theory of Psychological Field and further divides travel into four types:to extricate,to socialize,to explore and to recluse.The third chapter demonstrates the changing of aesthetic mentalities in travel literature by comparing the travel literature written before and after writers' exile,and analyzes the alteration of aesthetic mentalities.The forth chapter analyzes the reasons of changing in aesthetic mentalities in terms of geographic environment,of culture of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism,and of culture of politics.The fifth chapter explores the differences and similarities of the aesthetic mentalities by comparing and contrasting the images in the travel literature written by Liu Zongyuan and Su Shi,the two representatives of the banished and demoted government officials who were exiled to Lingnan in the Tang and Song Dynasties.This research paper systematically analyzes the travel literature and aesthetic mentalities of the demoted and the banished who were exiled to Lingnan in the Tang and Song Dynasties,explains the aesthetic culture of such travel literature in a new prospective.