Discussion On Frontier Poetry Depiction During The Tang Dynasty Chinese Language And Literature

The use of frontier as poetry theme originated from The Book of Odes and Hymns.Frontier poetry was very popular during the Han Dynasty and Wei-Jin Dynasties.The glorious period of frontier poetry was during the Tang Dynasty where poets produced an abundance of creative and fascinating poems.Frequent and extended war broke out everywhere and this led to creative art work of poems in various styles and genres.The researcher explores poets' motive in creative writing on frontier war poem,poems' features and characteristic,especially poets' emotion and feelings towards the wars.There are 7 chapters in this dissertation.Chapter 1:During the late Tianbao era,the war of Nanzhao erupted,the researcher had chosen 3 poems written during this war to study how battling troop heading south to YunNan had led to poets' anxiety and awareness.Chapter 2:Due to frequent and extended wars,many soldiers sent to the battlefields in frontiers never returned,excessive resources were exhausted and this had caused tremendous damage to the country.This chapter discusses how poets criticized and condemned the ruler who neglected and trampled people like mud and ashes.Chapter 3:The researcher analyses complicated frontier wars during the Tang Dynasty,based on three poems,discusses on the poets' creativity,intention and behavior in performing the poems.Chapter 4:The researcher analyses the use of images in three poems to reveal how wars had shaken the society and had caused massive damage to the nation.Chapter 5:Discusses on how poets paid respect and feeling empathized with the injured and deceased soldiers in the Hu and Han War.Poets praised the soldiers for upholding the value of harmony.The prejudice of the Imperial Court that favoured the minority tribal troops had resulted in the infighting of Han soldiers,battle achievements were not reported correctly and merits were not awarded accordingly.Chapter 6:The poets exclaim soldiers' wives as the victims of the wars who lived a miserable life.Creative writing of poems reflects how poets criticized the Tang Dynasty ruler for their cruelty on people for building and supplying the military needs during the wars.Chapter 7:The researcher analyses on the difference of frontier war creative writing on poetry between Dunhuang and Central Land.The poems reflect how poets accused the ruler's decisions of setting war which caused into fear,anxiety and despair of the soldiers.The soldiers were also disappointed by the inequality in honour given to them after hard battle.The poems written during Emperor TangXuanzong's era mainly reflect suffering of the nation and poets perception of the wars.