A Comparative Study Of Han Yu And Wang Anshi’s Epitaphs

As masters of epitaphs, Han Yu and Wang Anshi played pivotal roles in the history of epitaphs writing. Han Yu, in particular, was the innovator of epitaphs. He was the first to break the traditional forms of epitaphs writing since the Pre-Qin period, which injected new vitality to the creation of epitaphs, and had profound significance to the future generations. In addition, it also affected Wang Anshi’s epitaphs writing.Researches on Han Yu and Wang Anshi’s epitaphs have long been the rise, and have their own focuses in different periods, involving textual research of epitaphs, structure analysis as well as the study of artistic styles. These researches have also made deep exploration to Han Yu and Wang Anshi’s epitaphs, but they are mostly restricted to the mode of a single text analysis, and the analysis that is confined within the text, rarely from a holistic point of view, or from the perspective of an era, which consequently caused certain limitations to the researches.Although comparative studies on Han Yu and Wang Anshi’s epitaphs have been referred to in previous researches, but most of them are fragmented reviews, lacking of a systematically comparative analysis. Therefore, comparative study on Han Yu and Wang Anshi’s epitaphs is still a gap in current academic research. Based on Han Yu and Wang Anshi’s epitaphs, this thesis attempts to find out the similarities and differences between them from vertical and horizontal angles, with the combination of both macro-level and micro-level.In the meanwhile, it also means to explore the spreading conditions of their epitaphs in the past dynasties.This paper is divided into five parts:the introduction and four chapters. In the part of the introduction, it makes a summary of the past researches on Han Yu and Wang Anshi’s epitaphs, and tries to ensure a full understanding of the current research situations. Chapter One is an overview of the excerpts and collections of Han Yu and Wang Anshi’s epitaphs in the past dynasties; Chapter Two makes a comparison of the contents of Han Yu and Wang Anshi’s epitaphs; Chapter Three is a comparison between the styles of Han Yu and Wang Anshi’s epitaphs; Chapter Four compares the spreading of Han Yu and Wang Anshi’s epitaphs.