On The Mentality Of Tang Intellectuals From Tang Novels About Love And Marriage

Tang novels are conscious artistic products of Tang intellectuals in which their emotion, personality and characters are fully revealed. Since the heroes in those novels are epitomes of the intellectuals in reality, it thus serves as a means of discovering the emotions and special psychological state of the Tang intellectuals to analyze the Tang novels about love and marriageThe whole thesis can be divided into three chapters. The first chapter is again divided into two parts according to the types of the novels about love and marriage. The first part is about love and marriage on a dreamland, while the second in reality. Heroines in the first type of novels, whether they are fairies, ghosts or spirits, all cater to the writers' mental demands. On the other hand, wives in the second type of novels are usually jealous and brutal, so the heroes have to look for genuine love in whorehouses. Thus there come many stories about intellectuals and prostitutes Intellectuals can find real love as well as clearing off burden whenever they want. Furthermore they can attain fame by singing and other performance of prostitutes Additionally, relationship between intellectuals and nuns can also be ascribed into the pattern of love between intellectuals and prostitutes. Finally, there is summary about emotional value judgement of intellectuals.The second chapter is a discussion on the dilemma intellectuals have to face when they are encountered with the problem of love. Though Tang intellectuals hope to pursue free love, they are actually restricted by earthbound rules, traditional morality and realistic law, so they are bound to face to the conflict between emotion and reason. They have devised three ways out for their natural desire for love, namely,compromise, deformation and rationalization. However, all of them are resignation to reason. This is not only because the power of reason is so strong, but also for their emotion is very frail. This end, thus, is not at all amazing.The third chapter compares novels about love and marriage in the Tang Dynasty with those about love between intellectuals and beauties in late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty. In the latter, a new standard is set up, i.e. genuine love. No love, no marriage. What is more, jealous and brutal heroines in Tang novels are of no existence in Ming and Qing novels. Instead, in the latter, a husband can marry two or even more wives at the same time, and these wives can get on well with each other. This is romantic as well as impossible. Finally, the existence of the conflict between emotion and reason is admitted in Tang novels but ignored in Ming and Qing novels.Thus, this thesis makes a study on Tang novels according to types of love and marriage on the one hand, and compares them with those in later Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty. What is special is that this thesis discloses the dilemma in the intellectuals' hearts. In earlier studies, students often ascribe the tragedy into the conflict between future and emotion. This is admittedly one of the reasons, but what are more important are the family status, conditional concept, patriarchy and all kinds of laws which all confine the action of the individual. So the conflict between emotion and reason is the real tragic origin of Tang novels about love and marriage.