A Study Of Puzhou Poems In The Tang Dynasty

Puzhou, located in the southwest of Shanxi province, was also known as Hezhong or Hedong, as it was located in the middle of the Yellow River, and on the east coast. As a significant city in Hedong Dao, Puzhou city (which is the Puzhou town, southwest of Yongji now) had always been the site of local government since ancient times. It was160km from Puzhou to Chang’an in the southwest, and it’s292.5km from Puzhou to Luoyang in the southeast. Puzhou was exactly in the middle of Chang’an and Luoyang, the two capitals of the Tang Dynasty, which was not only the throat hub from Guangzhong to Hedong and Hebei, but also the prosperous city on the way between the two capitals. In the eighth year of Kaiyuan (720AD), Puzhou, Shanzhou, Zhengzhou, Bianzhou, Weizhou, Huaizhou became the Six Cities. The dominator of the Tang Dynasty set Puzhou as the Four Auxiliary Cities with Tongzhou, Huazhou, Qizhou in the twelfth year of Kaiyuan (724AD). Among the Sui-Tang Dynasty, lots of emperors, officers, scholars and merchants came and went frequently, some of them stayed there for a time. Because of the special local characteristic and strategic position of Puzhou, it bloomed magnificent literature in Tang. This paper chooses Puzhou as the study district, tries to show the style and feature of Puzhou poetry and help us to know the experience of poets in certain region, by collecting the poems of poets who was from Puzhou and stayed there, analyzing the themes and style of Puzhou poetry. This thesis consists of three chapters basically:The first chapter is the outline of Puzhou, which is divided into three parts:the first part sketches Puzhou history, highlighting its administrative evolution during the Sui-Tang; the second part states the status of Puzhou from political, military, economic, folk custom and products aspects in the Tang Dynasty; the third part discusses the unique natural and cultural landscapes of Puzhou in the Tang, combining with poems which were created there, and projects the cultural atmosphere of Puzhou of the Tang.The second chapter states poets of Puzhou and their poems in the Tang Dynasty chiefly. On the hand, this chapter collects Puzhou poems recited by the local poets to analyses quantitatively, combined with local literature families’ works. On the other hand, it differentiates the poets who stayed in Puzhou with their poems between who was an official there and who visited for a time. The former outlines the poems created by the prefectural governors, Hezhong governors and Hezhong scholars, who were in official circles in Puzhou. The latter focuses on the poets, who traveled in Puzhou, and their poems, projecting the literary activities there.The third chapter is aim to find something in common in these poems more than200. It discuss the themes of Puzhou poetry, namely reciting on the journey, farewell conversations, landscape pastoral, meditating on the past, chanting objects, and lament about common people and times. Then it generalizes the simple, straightforward and intelligible language style of Puzhou poetry.