Ancient Rites And Grand Banquet

This paper mainly studies about the banquets before Tang Dynasty, which have the closest relationship with the literature. As prototype banquets of universal significance, they are the Shidian(释奠) banquet, the farewell banquet, the Fuxi(祓禊) banquet and the public banquet. These banquets inherit the ancient rituals and will continue to develope, which represent the political culture and social customs before Tang Dynasty, and could be considered a carrier of political ideals and literary talent of scholars. This paper aims to investigate on the manners and customs of banquets, rebuild and demonstrate the abundance and complexity, and hope to gain something in many aspects, such as the situation and development of ancient rituals, the relationship between banquets and daily life before Tang Dynasty, the occurrence and development of literature from the perspective of banquets, the position of banquets in the scholar’s political ideals and so on.