The Shaping And Evolution Of Wen Tianxiang's Image

Wen Tianxiang is the representative of the late southern Song dynasty resisting Yuan, and another two against Yuan Lu Xiufu, Zhang Shijie are known as " the three heroes at the end of Song Dynasty". As one of "the three Heroes", Wen Tianxiang did not like another two people that immediately died for the country, but experienced a tortuous process. Wen Tianxiang firstly suffered the captured shame, and then was imprisoned for nearly four years by Yuan Dynasty, eventually he was killed for refusing to surrender. Wen Tianxiang was defeated and captured, he is no more brilliant than Lu Xiufu who bear emperor and jumped into the sea; he was a prisoner in Beijing for more than three years and immortality, compared with Zhang Shijie who died from defeat, Wen is not more the valiant ones.On the contrary, in the usual point of view, Wen Tianxiang seems no better than Lu Xiufu and Zhang Shijie in some respects. However, the three people have a great difference in the honor of later generations.For hundreds of years, Wen Tianxiang enjoyed a lot of glory, who was much respected. His heroic deeds become more and more wide spread, his image is also becoming more and more clear, and gradually become the model of loyalty in the eyes of the world and much of the worship. Compared with Wen Tianxiang, Lu Xiufu and Zhang Shijie's position in the future is very common.The main reason is that the future generations of people carefully shaped the image of Wen Tianxiang. The participants contain three parties: the official, gentry group and ordinary people.At the official level, after the Yuan Dynasty, mainly in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, in order to secure the rule, rulers praise Wen Tianxiang in different ways vigorously, and the temple built to worship and Ritual activities held to express respect.Gentry group carry forward the spirit of loyalty as own duty, shape the perfect image of Wen Tianxiang Confucianism, submit to the court and build the temple worship through the way including biography, poetry, singing. In the folk society, due to respect and miss, ordinary people created many myths and fairy tales,in order to gain the reputation of loyalty, and even he was regarded as God's protection of the local. With the help of mythology, Wen Tianxiang was incorporated into the localmemory. Under the joint action of the three parties,the image of Wen Tianxiang's loyalty ultimately established, and had a profound impact.To the end of Qing Dynasty, in need of the struggle against the Qing Dynasty,the bourgeois revolution chose some historic loyal people to remodel. Wen Tianxiang once again become a shaped object, he was changed from the loyal men to the representative of the national hero. After the outbreak of the war of resistance against Japan, for the cohesion of the people, altogether imperial foreign aggression, national hero Wen Tianxiang's image was again picked up and established in the end.This paper consists of six chapters, the first chapter briefly introduces the life of Wen Tianxiang. The second chapter describes attitude and action of the parties to Wen Tianxiang, the official attitude is generally not anti or supportive. To the end of the Yuan, there seems to be changing to write The Song Dynasty History; Gentry group and the public were full of enthusiastic to Wen Tianxiang, but they must be oppression and convergence because of the attitude of official. The third chapter describes reverence of the official and the scholars of the Ming and Qing Dynasties to Wen Tianxiang.Official improved and stabled the status of Wen,created the atmosphere of his exalted by the praise, the posthumous title, state sacrifice, from the worship of the Confucian temple, and other activities. And gentry group requested state recognition is by writing biographies, poetry, built a shrine to worship etc to actively participate in shaping the image of Wen Tianxiang. Among them, the scholars in Jiangxi province were the main driving forces. Fourth chapter elaborates folk about Wen Tianxiang's mythology and analyzes the unique role of folk in the Wen Tianxiang image shaping through many legends. The fifth chapter discusses the process of Wen Tianxiang's transformation into a national hero in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. The sixth chapter describes the influence of Wen Tianxiang, including the influence of the concept of life and death, the concept of loyalty, the influence of the folk, as well as the influence of overseas Korea, Japan and Vietnam.