On Character Variations In Du Fu’s Poems

The variations on charactersin Du Fu’s poems are derivative forms of the original text of Du Fu’s poems,and the corresponding arrangement and study is the primaryissue that cannot be avoided in the collation and study of Du Fu’s poems.This dissertation takes the variations on charactersin Du Fu’s poems as the research object,and the corpus mainly comes from the volume of Du Fu in the imperial Complete Tang Poetrycompiled in the Qing Dynasty.Focusing on the variations on charactersin Du Fu’s poems in Complete Tang Poetry,this dissertation traces back to the variationsin the old versions of the Song,Yuan and Ming dynasties and traces the rheological influence of the variations on charactersin Du Fu’s poems after the publication of Complete Tang Poetry,and explores the relationship between the collections of Du’s poemsin different times from the perspective of character variations.This paper is based on 28 extant collections of Du’s poems with collations and definite authors in successive dynasties(see “Bibliography”).On the basis of sorting out character variationsin Du Fu’s poems,this paper discusses the morphological characteristics and generative factors of those variations,tries to establish their theoretical framework and system,and thus forms the principles and methods of dealing with character variationsin Du Fu’s poems.The central points are as follows:(1)the identification and determination of character variations are the basis for the interpretation and appreciation of Du Fu’s poems,and they are an unavoidable and important issuesin the arrangement of Du Fu’s poetry anthologies;(2)As a symbolic form representing “meaning” of culture by the “difference” of characters,character variations are the historical traces and behavioral results of readers’ re-creation activities in the process of interpreting Du’s poems in previous dynasties.This form of symbol immediatelyrefers to the cultural concept behind the text,and participates in the cultural multiplication in the process of the diachronic spread of Du Fu’s poems,which is an important part of the canonization of Du Fu’s poems;(3)There are still laws to be followed behind the heterogeneous phenomena with different forms.Understanding the condition of generating and rulesofvarying is the premise to establish the principles of dealing with character variations and collation of Du Fu’s poems.(4)There is a binary interactive relationship between character variations and the canonization of of Du’spoems: the variations promote the canonization,and the canonization in turn shapes the variations.The research on this issue is mainly based on three objectives.First,through sorting out the character variationsin Du Fu’s poems,this paper explores the overall features of the different versions of character variationsin Du’s poems from the Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty,and summarizes their basic characteristics and types in different versions.Second,this paper explores the particularity of character variationsin Du Fu’s poems,the ideas under the form of character variations,and the important value of the corpora of character variationsin Du Fu’s poems in linguistics,especially in cultural history and ideological history.Third,this paper explores the possible influencing factors of these character variations and their internal laws of developing,establishes the theoretical framework and system for the study of character variationsin Du Fu’s poems,so as to provide theoretical support and experience for the collation of character variationsin Du Fu’s poems.In order to achieve the above objectives,this paper starts the study of character variationsin Du Fu’s poems from the two dimensions of “intentionality” and “intertextuality”.The core questions are as follows: 1.What is the appearance of the character variationsin Du Fu’s poems for a thousand years? As character variationsin literature,what is the particularity of the character variationsin Du Fu’s poems? 2.What is the relationship between the variations and the“ortho-characters”in Du Fu’s poems? What is the reason for the annotators to issueannotates with one variation rather than another? 3.What factors contributed to the generation of character variations in Du Fu’s poems? How does the generation and spread of Du’s poems influence thepoems,the literature and culture of an era? The first two questions concern the “intentionality”of the character variationsin Du Fu’s poems,that is,to explore the causes of the variations from the perspective of the interpretation psychology of the “then” of those who wrote the variations in previous dynasties: linguistic,literary and cultural.By constructing the relationship between the varied characters and “ortho-characters” and withinthe variations,this paper summarizes six generative factors of character variationsin Du Fu’s poems under the influence of the above three aspects.The third problem involves the “intertextuality” of character variationsin Du’s Poems at two levels.The first is the intertextuality between thecharacter variationsin Du’s Poems of different versions.Through sorting out the character variations,the inherence relationship between Du Fu’s poetry anthologies of different versions can be revealed,which is a new perspective for the study of the versification of Du’s poems.The second is the intertextuality between the character variationsin Du Fu’s poems and the specific social,historical and cultural contexts.By metaphorizing history and culture into a large text,this paper explores the mutual restriction between the formation and appearanceof character variations and the specific historical and cultural context,which reflects the “dialogue” and “mutual infiltration” between text and context.Focusing on the above issues,the main body of this paper discusses the factors in the formation of character variations of Du Fu’s poems from six aspects: the confusionover the likeness in form(character appearance),the mixing of the likeness in meaning(word definition),the similarity of the likeness in sound(word pronunciation),the ambiguity of rhetoric(literary rhetoric),the differentiation of aesthetic interest(literary aesthetics),and the cultural agreement(discourse and context).The research idea of each part is as follows: First,a combing of phenomena.A subordinate category is constructed under the big category,and the different text materials are listed respectively,and selected accordinglyfor the interpretation.Second,a search for rules.Based on the inter-character(word)relations betweencharacter variations and “ortho-characters” and within the varied characters,this paper tries to find the internal logic and annotation rules of each large and small category,so as to provide the basis for the collation of this kind of character variations.Third,a study from phenomena to essence,from epistemology to methodology.On the basis of the above research,this paper tries to solve the problem of “ortho-characters” of character variationsin Du’spoems,and to provide the experience of studying and distinguishing the character variationsin Du’spoems.The seventh chapter is a case study.From the perspective of cultural anthropology,this chapter explores the relationship between “dialogue” and “mutual infiltration”between the character variations andthe historical and cultural context of the Qing Dynasty.The research content involves the relationship between the character variationsin Du’spoetry and its canonization in Qing Dynasty,and the relationship between the character variations of Du’spoetry and the special cultural context(culture and identity politics)in the Qing Dynasty.In particular,this chapter discusses the dual interaction between the imperial version of Du’spoems in the Qing Dynasty and the development of the character variationsin Du’spoems,expounds the profound influence of the imperial Complete Tang Poetrycompiled in the Qing Dynasty,and holds that the imperial collectionby the official school under the cultural governance of the Qing Dynasty leads to the “unity” of various versions of Du’s poetry anthologies and the character variations therein.On the basis of the case study,this paper discusses in the conclusion part the dualistic interaction between the character variations and canonization of Du Fu’s poems.The innovation points of this paper:(1)the breakthrough of the traditional perspective of the study of character variationsin ancient texts.The traditional perspective is collation and philology,mainly text and language research.Considering the particularity of the character variationsin literature classics,especially the position Du Fu and his poems occupy in the history of Chinese literature,more elements concerning history,culture and more creative ideas should be involved behind the character variations in Du Fu’s poems.Therefore,from the perspectives of literary linguistics and cultural anthropology,this study breaks through the tradition and explores the process of signification from form to concept in the character variationsin Du Fu’s poems.This paper explores the relationship between “dialogue” and “mutual infiltration” in the character variations and contextual culture,and based on the establishment and confirmation of the relationship between the “dialogue” and “mutual infiltration” of character variations in Du Fu’s poems,the cultual governance of the Qing Dynasty and the canonization of Du’s poems(Chapter 7and Chapter 8),the following conclusions are drawn: The character variations in Du Fu’s poemsrepresent the identity politics of Qing Dynasty and the identity politics in turn regulate the appearance of character variations.Through the continuous revision in successive dynasties,the character variations construct aesthetically the classical texts of Du’s poems,promotes the occurrence and development of the canonization,and the canonization in turn constructs thepublic rationality of the character variations in Du Fu’s poems.This has never been seen before.(2)It tries to establish the theoretical framework and system of the study of the character variations in Du Fu’s poems.In the traditional study of the character variations in Du Fu’s poems,the similarities and inter-structures among different characters were explored from the three aspects of sound,appearance and meaning,thus three basic types of Chinese characters appearance deformation,sound transformation and meaning transformation were concluded(see the study of the character variations in Du Fu’s poems by Guo Zaiyi and Hu Shaowen).This paper claims that the above classification is not enough to explain the general form of the character variations in Du Fu’s poems,for a considerable part of character variations in Du Fu’s poemsare excluded.The current research should break through the traditional framework of linguistic research,and reclassify the character variations in Du Fu’s poems from the perspective of the relationship between language and literature,language and culture,in an attempt to cover all thecharacter variations in Du Fu’s poems.The turn of literary and cultural anthropology in the study of character variations in Du Fu’s poems finally leads to the one framework,four dimensions and six basic types of character variations(see chapter 2).(3)In the process of sorting through the character variations in Du Fu’s poems,the author has gained a new understanding of the generation logic,annotation rules and transformationprinciples of such variations.The author reckons that there is actually a law to follow behind the heterogeneous phenomena of character variations.It can provide theoretical support and empirical reference for the collation of the character variationsto find out the generation logic and annotation rules of the character variations of Du Fu’s poems.There are several new ideas in the discussion of the laws: 1)There are relatively fixed transformationprinciples between the characters varieddue to the confusion over the likeness in form(character appearance),and the collators need to examine the “invisible intermediary characters” that exist indifferent versions,so as to find out the“ortho-characters”in the original text.The concept of “invisible intermediary characters” is innovatively put forward by the author,which is used to explain the confusion caused by the likeness in the formsof the character variations.As a result of the tradition of “the old versionis abandonedonce the new oneis published”,these characters are lost with the old anthologies and become “invisible”,most of them character variationswithout annotations.In order to study and distinguish the character variations in Du Fu’s poems,we must find out the law of transformation between different characters and take the discovery of “invisible mediating characters” as the prerequisite.2)The author’s research on the mixing of the likeness in meaning(word definition)of character variationsin Du Fu’s poems shows that the phenomena of “mutual explanation” and“antithetical parallelism” in Du Fu’s poems have a good suggestive effect on the determination of the different versions of Du Fu’s poems.3)Theresearch on the character variationsowing to the similarity of the likeness in sound(word pronunciation)reveals that readers’ different understanding of the tone is also an important reason of variations,and on the basis of such variations was found a note: the rhyme of character variationsin Du’s poems is in the full rhyme or near rhyme,whether the rhyme in the first line influences the choice and annotation of the character variations,and the character variations rarely occurat the last rhyming word.4)In terms of the character variationswith the ambiguity of rhetoric,the author finds that the common rhetorical devices in Du Fu’s poems are easy to be obtained by readers,which makes character variations unusual.But once the rhetorical devices are beyond reader’s comprehension,the readers tend to “change charactersaccording tothe meaning” in order to make them accessible.The“incomprehensible”rhetorical devices in Du Fu’s poems,such as “space-time antithesis”,“color antithesis”,“number antithesis”,“phonetic antithesis”,“semantic antithesis”,“intertextuality”,“reduplication and declension”,etc.,render it common for the readers to “change words to access”.In particular,the situation is more complicated with “reduplications and declension”.The author differentiates and analyzes the psychological factors of the annotators based on the difference between the “dominantreduplication”and “recessivereduplication”.It is found that there are few character variations of the “dominantreduplications” in Du Fu’s poems,while“recessivereduplications” produce more character variations.The author innovatedboth of the two terms,which are effective for the recognition of the figures of speech in Du Fu’s poems and the examination of the character variations.This is a study of the law of character variations in Du Fu’s poems,which can provide ideas for the collation of such character variations.Shortcomings of this paper: The collection of the linguistic data of character variations in Du Fu’s poems should be based on various versions of Du Fu’s poetry anthologies.In this study,there is a lack of overall sortingdue to the limited citation of the literary criticism of character variations in Du Fu’s poems from the Song and Yuan dynasties.With the rich corpora of character variations in the poetic criticism of the Song,Yuan,Ming and Qing dynasties,the in-depth study of the character variations in Du Fu’s poemsawaitsa continuous exploitationof the linguistic data of the character variations,and a systematical combing and comparing of suchdata,so as to complete the construction of the corpus of character variations in Du Fu’s poems.