Study Of Wang Shizhen’s Epitaphs

Since the rise in the Han Dynasty,epitaph creation reached a peak in the Tang Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty ended the unrest of the Yuan Dynasty and established an unified dynasty,The epitaph creation also reached another peak of the feudal society epitaph creation.During this period, the epitaph creation inherited and developed the writing style of the previous generation.The creators increased and the creation subject matters had been repeatedly extended.With the development of social economy,this literary theme which could make people immortal got more and more attention of people. More and more people requested celebrities to write epitaphs for their relatives,even themselves. They want to achieve the effect of being famous in the world with the reputation of the epitaph creators.Driven by the trend of chasing immortality in the Ming Dynasty, Wang Shizhen’s family background, the text name or integrity are sufficient to make him become an respected epitaph creator.As can be seen from the existing corpus, Wang Shizhen created249pieces of epitaphs in his lifetime and he was one of the literati who created epitaphs more than others in the Ming Dynasty.In recent years, As the the prevalence of epitaph researches,Wang Shizhen epitaph creation also enters people’s vision。 Academia has some researches. This paper want to master the epitaph creation of Wang Shizhen through a comprehensive and deep study of Wang Shizhen’s epitaphs.This thesis consists of an introduction,chapter one,chapter two,chapter three, conclusion and an appendix.The introduction mainly describes the situation of the Ming Dynasty’s funerary customs and epitaph writing. Through collecting datas and learning about research results, this part aims to summarize the origins and development of the funeral and to sort out ancient epitaph writing situation.Chapter one details the life, works and epitaph writing of Wang Shizhen. By the introduction of Wang Shizhen’s life experiences and his case of keeping company,we find he had many works all his life.In particular, the high contribution in the field of history and literature.This chapter also focuses on the analysis of the owners of the tombs in Wang Shizhen’s epitaphs. This part want to interpret Wang Shizhen’s personal emotional point and his principle of life and writing.The second chapter discusses the literature value of Wang Shizhen’s epitaph works. This part reveals the features and techniques of Wang Shizhen’s epitaph creation from the content and form. In terms of content, the epitaphs highlight his true feelings. In terms of form, his epitaphs are known for lively and clever forms. In short, his epitaph creation has a higher literary value.The third chapter examines the value of historical documents in Wang Shizhen’s epitaph works.By comparing the description for the owners of the tombs in Wang Shizhen’s epitaphs and the description for these characters in biographies of History Of The Ming Dynasty, this part mainly researches the differences between Wang Shizhen’s epitaphs and the biographies in History Of The Ming Dynasty,as well as discusses the point these biographies drew on Wang Shizhen’s epitaphs.This chapter also inspects the payment expenses what Wang Shizhen got through epitaph Writing and proves that Wang Shizhen was not the kind of writer who flatters the owners of the tombs for money. Wangshizhen’s description about the owners’ life experiences and achievements is more fair.The conclusion of this paper summarizes and emphasizes the value of Wang Shizhen’s epitaph works.Appendix section of this paper is Contents Index Of Wang Shizhen’s Epitaphs. This part is the supplement of first chapter and also the basis of the many chapters of this thesis.