A Research On The Poetry Of Birthday In Song Dynasty

The Poetry of Birthday in the Song Dynasty especially in the Southern Song Dynasty, being a splendid sight and extremely rare in the ancient,has become a unique literary phenomenon.lt provides a brand new perspective as to the study of the Song Dynasty social life,folk culture,and the psychology and aesthetics of Song Literati. The thesis starts by an analysis of The Poetry of B irthday in the Song Dynasty as a whole,and proceeds to work out the reasons of its rise and fall, as well as explore the unique styles reflected in various.Poetry of Birthday.and then focuses on the thoughts and feelings behind these poems, self-Shou poems in particular.To start with.the introduction of this thesis defines.The Poetry of Birthday as those written for birthdays and in expression of birthday wishes or feelings about life.And then based on its concept, we narrow down the scope of our study. Finally,we elaborate the study situation of The Poetry of Birthday in Song Dynasty.This paper falls into four chapters.In the first chapter, we explore the root causes of the flourishing of The Poetry of Birthday.in the Song Dynasty,namely the development of the birthday rituals, scholar’s rise in social status, the strengthening Neo-Confucianism thought and the social atmosphere.Chapter Two and Three are devoted to classifying and analyzing shou poems.According to whom the poems are dedicated, birthday poems can be divided into the He Shou poetry and self-Shou poetry.Chapter Two is a detailed analysis of He Shou poems, and a summary of the main features of all kinds of shou poems. Chapter Three covers two aspects:firstly, we figure out what Shou poems are about:recollections and gratitude for parents,descriptions of the birthday scene, and a review of one’s life course;secondly, we figure out what kind of feelings shou poems try to convey, including feelings of leisure, life experiences and sad implications. As a new outlet of one’s feelings and ambitions, self-shou poetry is a departure from its original themes.Chapter Four sums up artistic features of the Song Birthday Poetry.First, the poets often use some specific images to come across one’s birthday wishes.The thesis will focus on the symbolic meanings of "peach of immotality(pantao) and "plum blossoms".Second, we explore its distictive artistic styles,that is rich and elegant, flattering,and plain and sincere.