On The Memorials To Emperor Of Eastern Han Dynasty

This thesis is on the memorials to the Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty.The object we’re talking about,in the broadest sense,is a collective name of discourses used by people who lived in a unified autocratic society to present opinions to the Emperor,following the proper wording and established procedures.The memorials to the Emperor in ancient China is seen as the most important article governing the country and plays an important role in collecting information and in the operation of the regime.Therefore,previous studies usually regard the memorials to the Emperor as historical document instead of literary text which was given the cold shoulder.However,as an important genre of writing,it not only has the value of presenting information about political and academic viewpoints of litterateurs,saving the sayings and ballads of that time and helping to know stylistics by comparing with other writings of different genres or memorials to the Emperor in different dynasties,but also has something impressive about writing and spirit as it belongs to literature originally speaking.Especially in the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties,memorials to the Emperor was one of the most important literary genres.According to my statistics,there are 1180 memorials to the Emperor in 3629 articles from "All Articles in the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties" and "All Articles in the Eastern Han Dynasty"which are both compiled by Yan Kejun,the memories accounts for nearly one third.Scholars of past dynasties have analyzed the memorials to the Emperor from multiple angles and on multilevel,such as the stylistic classification,development of style,content,main idea and features.Their studies have provided us a wealth of information and inspirations on which we’ll further classify the memorials to the Emperor,explore the humanistic value of the memorials and elucidate the cultural connotation of the memorials.We’ll try to set up an effective system of explanation in order to revivify the objective feature of the memories in the Eastern Han Dynasty.The concept of "literary historyt" and "literary genre" are the core concepts in this thesis.The conclusion will be based on a large amount of evidence and drawn by scientific methods,such as documentary analysis,comparative analysis,social historical criticism,methods of statistic and psychology,which involves in the study of literary and literary criticism history,bibliography,literary genre morphology,philology,philosophy,historiography and other subjects.We strive to do further study more comprehensively on the expression and inwardness of memorials to Emperor of Eastern Han Dynasty from diachronic and synchronic perspective.This thesis consists of six parts,including introduction,chapter one,two,three and four and epilogue.The introduction mainly contains the significance and value of this topic,the documentary survey of existing study on memorials to Emperor of Han Dynasty,research ideas,sources and methods and chapter arrangement.Chapter one elaborates the formation of genre cluster and genre of memorials to Emperor,including the formation,the nomenclature,the demarcation,another name and secondary genres of memorials to Emperor.As a literary genre,memorials to Emperor had been officially formed in Qin Dynasty.The memorials to Emperor are meant to be submitted to the highest authorities or the nominal authorities in a grand unified and autocratic society.Authorship of memorials to Emperor belongs to people who have not been deprived of political rights in Han Dynasty.There are several words considered as the alternative name of memorials to Emperor,such as Shangshu,Zoushu,Shangshu,Zoushu and Shuwen.In fact,none of them has the same meaning as the memorials to Emperor in Han Dynasty.Four secondary genres of memorials to Emperor in Han Dynasty was formed during the Western Han Dynasty.The chief difference with them is submitting procedures.Chapter two elaborates the main contents in memorials to Emperor of Eastern Han Dynasty.In existing memories to Emperor of Eastern Han Dynasty,attention is focused on considered important affairs,including the empress’s powerful families,eunuch,Emperor’s behaviour,foreign affairs,agriculture and commerce,legislation and implementation,administration of officials,selection,government organization,Confucianism,ritual and music system and calendar.Chapter three elaborates the knowledge and thoughts of memorials to Emperor of Eastern Han Dynasty.The knowledge in memorials to the Emperor of Han Dynasty is rich,grand and complicated.The center of the knowledge-rich world of memorials to Emperor of Eastern Han Dynasty are Confucianism and history.The major components of the memories are the Confucian classics and historical stories of this Dynasty.Various schools of thought,like Taoism,Mohist,Legalists and Military Strategists are cited,though,Confucianism is the main idea of the memorials to Emperor of Eastern Han Dynasty.There is a profound cultural background for the appearance of Chen Wei as knowledge and materials in the memorials to Emperor of Eastern Han Dynasty.The commonsense thoughts from Confucian classics are political principles drawn by nobles in Shang and Zhou Dynasties and Scholars during period of Pre-Qin and Han Dynasties.These thoughts always take monarch as a central category.The discussion and debate about judicial decision in memorials to Emperor in Han Dynasty is the embodiment of ideological infiltration of Confucianism.Chapter four elaborates the literature characteristics of memorials to Emperor of Eastern Han Dynasty."The best style of memorials to Emperor is classically elegant",put forward by Cao Pi,is a summary of creation practice of memorials to Emperor of Han Dynasty.The mainstream style of Han Dynasty is namely gentle.Although,the style of memorials to Emperor in Eastern Han Dynasty is deeply influenced by the rise of utilitarianism,pragmatism and social atmosphere that placing great emphasis on the reputation.The personality model established by intellectuals in Eastern Han Dynasty,which is clean,pure,loyal and honorable,leads to the hard boiled style of memorials to Emperor in Eastern Han Dynasty.The sentence and syntax of memorials to Emperor in Eastern Han Dynasty become more regular.People consider memorials to Emperor as an elegant style which is different from magnificent style of poems.It has various of rhetorical skills like quotation,comparison and analogy and their application is deeply influenced by non literary factors.It has been endowed with unique humanistic values because of the relationship between it and morality.There are some emotional memorials to Emperor in Eastern Han Dynasty.Maybe Biao in Eastern Han Dynasty with a passionate secondary genre leads the style of Biao and Qi in Wei and Jin Dynasties.The epilogue mainly contains the literary value of memorials to Emperor in Eastern Han Dynasty,the shortages of this thesis and the possible research space and direction about memorials to Emperor of Eastern Han Dynasty.