The Historical Value Of Novels Of Tang Dynasty

Novel developed very fast during the 3 hundred years of tang and Wu Dai dynasty. Biographical is one of the most important characteristics of tang novel, which showed that biography, having a great influence on tang novel. Besides the abundant culture relics, culture environments of tang dynasty has also boost the development of tang novel. The claim and experiment of several leaders of ancient literature campaign encouraged the confidence of tang novel writer. While at the same time, folk talk and speech have set good examples for tang novel.Much has been done about tang novel and the same is true to the historical value of tang novel. Liu zhiji, a historian of tang dynasty, had analyzed the 10 types of novel in his book shitong. He takes pianji novel as a branch of history records and emphasis the facticity. The researches of early 20th century are rather limited and focus on several novels mostly about competition between colleagues, imperial examinations and errantry aspects. Since 1950s, academic circle has broadened its research scope and nearly all novels of tang dynasty have been studied. Different people have different emphasis and there's still more to learn in tang novel, which is full of literary achievements. A scholar once said that tang novel have many break through in both writing and implication, so we need to look further in it if we want to know a picture of tang dynasty vividly and lively. It is not sufficient to depend only on historical records and novels can give us a potential support in research. Which is a special way to combine literature, history and sociology together.The country flourished after tang dynasty has been set up. The government realized the import ants of history and set a system to build historical records for each previous dynasty. Many writers take proud of writing historical things in this atmosphere and many important things get recorded. Since a lot of things were missed in formal records, the records in novel are very precious for us to have a clearer picture of tang dynasty.There are many records about loyal court struggle, which is vivid and in detail while many of them are real facts of that time. Such as loyal court struggles, seize the scepter and so on. So we can know the true picture of that time. A lot of novel was written in a cryptically manner other than directly told. A lot of scandals have also been disclosed. The snobbish attitudes of people in that time have been supported with much evidence. Since many people got improved through loyal examination, thus the related changes of it have also been revealed in tang novels. A lot of wars have also been written down which help us to know the military conditions of tang dynasty. The riot of An Lu Shan and Shi Si Ming lead to a chores condition of china, which cause bitter live for ordinary people. We couldn't get such a clear picture of tang dynasty if the novels haven't keep the related records for us.The economy of tang dynasty reaches its peak in kaiyuan and Tianbao period of emperor Xuan Zong after a century's development. Both the technology and types of products exceed before of handicraft industry. Merchants have also increased rapidly. They have abundant capital and have relations with dignitaries, which showedtheir status has been lifted remarkably. There's also much record about their brilliant mind in doing business. Land meager is popular in tang dynasty, and dominator grasp vast sum of land and put higher taxations thus made many people became destitute and homeless. The uncertainty of the society is also recorded in novels and poems of that time while didn't mentioned in formal history. Only in novels can we learn how stupid and atrocity of the dominators of that time.The tang government pays much attention on culture development. Documents were compiled in large scale during Tianbao period. Emperor Xuan Zong like music and operas, and that have a great influence on culture circle. There's many records about this in tang novel thus give us a clear picture of culture development of tang dynasty. Some...