A Study On The Capital Odes In The Literary Selections

Capital Odes,to trace its origins,the Capital as the theme of Odes first appearedin the Book of Songs.At that time,it was just a brief description of the geographical and architectural features of the capital.At the end of the Western Han Dynasty,odes of the Han Dynasty became mature.They mainly portray palaces,travels,sacrifices and hunting,covering many kinds of genres with rhetoric words.At the same time,the Capital Odes emerged from the fertile soil-the odes of the Han Dynasty,a symbol of which was Yang Xiong's “Ode to the Capital of Shu”,which provided much experiences for the creation of Capital Odes of the later generations.The origin of Capital Odes' writing styles could be found in the Intrigues of the Warring States.The latter one has exerted a profound influence on Capital Odes' modes of creation,styles of language,and purposes of writing.Capital Odes not only embrace magnificent styles,but also covers abundant contents;they could not only eulogize the governors' merits,but also disclose the contemporary social problems.What's more,Capital Odes as a symbol of the country's political culture,containing substantial imperial culture and consciousness,has incomparable legitimacy.Therefore,they are listed by Xiao Tong at the top of the Literary Selections.The anthology collects seven pieces of Capital Odes,including Ban Gu' s Ode to the Two Capitals,Zhang heng' s Ode to the Western Capital,Ode to the Eastern Capital and Ode to the Southern Capital,Zuo Si's Ode to the Capital of Shu,Ode to the Capital of Wu and Ode to the Capital of Wei.Among these odes above,Ban Gu's Ode to Two Capitals acts as a template in several aspects for the creation of Capital Odes in later generations,with its grand scale,question-answer form,colorful contents,elegant attitudes and tactful allegories,all of which are highly praised and actively imitated.As an extension of Ban Gu's Ode to the Two Capitals,Zhang Heng's Ode to the Two Capitals enriches the themes of Capital Odes and reinforces the sarcasm.Although his Ode to the Southern Capital describes local towns,it was included in the Literary Selections with high literary value for its neat patterns,flourish language and obvious antithetical parallelism.More importantly,it is also the only Capital Ode depicting the local towns in the Literary Selections.Besides,Zuo si's Ode to the Three Capitals pushed the creation of the Capital Odes to a climax.The ode amounted to more than ten thousand words,is clear in structure,plain in descriptions and beautiful in words with extremely harmonious melody.Once the ode was created,many people scrambled to read it so that the price of paper in Luoyang became expensive.Capital Odes,to trace its origins,the Capital as the theme of Odes first appeared in the Book of Songs.At that time,it was just a brief description of the geographical and architectural features of the capital.At the end of the Western Han Dynasty,odes of the Han Dynasty became mature.They mainly portray palaces,travels,sacrifices and hunting,covering many kinds of genres with rhetoric words.At the same time,the Capital Odes emerged from the fertile soil-the odes of the Han Dynasty,a symbol of which was Yang Xiong's “Ode to the Capital of Shu”,which provided much experiences for the creation of Capital Odes of the later generations.The origin of Capital Odes' writing styles could be found in the Intrigues of the Warring States.The latter one has exerted a profound influence on Capital Odes' modes of creation,styles of language,and purposes of writing.Capital Odes not only embrace magnificent styles,but also covers abundant contents;they could not only eulogize the governors' merits,but also disclose the contemporary social problems.What's more,Capital Odes as a symbol of the country's political culture,containing substantial imperial culture and consciousness,has incomparable legitimacy.Therefore,they are listed by Xiao Tong at the top of the Literary Selections.The anthology collects seven pieces of Capital Odes,including Ban Gu' s Ode to the Two Capitals,Zhang heng' s Ode to the Western Capital,Ode to the Eastern Capital and Ode to the Southern Capital,Zuo Si's Ode to the Capital of Shu,Ode to the Capital of Wu and Ode to the Capital of Wei.Among these odes above,Ban Gu's Ode to Two Capitals acts as a template in several aspects for the creation of Capital Odes in later generations,with its grand scale,question-answer form,colorful contents,elegant attitudes and tactful allegories,all of which are highly praised and actively imitated.As an extension of Ban Gu's Ode to the Two Capitals,Zhang Heng's Ode to the Two Capitals enriches the themes of Capital Odes and reinforces the sarcasm.Although his Ode to the Southern Capital describes local towns,it was included in the Literary Selections with high literary value for its neat patterns,flourish language and obvious antithetical parallelism.More importantly,it is also the only Capital Ode depicting the local towns in the Literary Selections.Besides,Zuo si's Ode to the Three Capitals pushed the creation of the Capital Odes to a climax.The ode amounted to more than ten thousand words,is clear in structure,plain in descriptions and beautiful in words with extremely harmonious melody.Once the ode was created,many people scrambled to read it so that the price of paper in Luoyang became expensive.In addition to their rich and colorful contents,these odes also reflect Xiao Tong's aesthetic orientation for literature because the Literary Selections is also a selection of literary works.Its preface basically expresses the aesthetic orientation of Xiao Tong,namely “the creation of any work is a matter based on contemplation,and its style is reflected by the words”.In answer to the anthology of the king of the east and the king of China,he also said: "Fu wen,the dictionary is exhausted,and li is also injured.Can li but not float,the classical but not the field,the gentle and elegant,have the gentleman's cause ",the single language is colorful also not good,still have to be the elegant and elegant,gentle and elegant.Xiao Tong advocated that literary works,including Fu,should be both internal and external,and both of them are beautiful.Therefore,some of the Capital assignments were not included in the anthology,such as Shu du Fu by Yang Xiong,and Du du's treatise on du Fu.The former subject matter content is relatively small,compared with the later world of Capital to give less imperial style of the atmosphere;The latter,with a strong political and political theory,is far superior to the rhetoric and quality,so it is not included in the anthology.At any time,men of letters and scholars are inevitably marked by the stigma of the times,so do men of letters in the Han and Wei dynasties.Since the acceptation of Dong Zhongshu' s suggestions,Emperor Wu of Han rejected the other schools of thought and respected only Confucianism.Therefore,Confucianism has taken the dominant position and influenced all respects of Chinese history extensively and deeply.As the carrier of the imperial culture in Capital,the creative ideas,creative subjects and evolution of Capital Odes are inevitably influenced by the Confucianism.