A Study Of Sports Culture Based On Yuefu Poetry In The Han And Tang Dynasties

The Han and Tang Dynasties were two of the most powerful feudal dynasties in China's history.They were known as“ the golden age of Han and Tang Dynasties”because of the developed culture,great martial arts,enlightened politics,and economic prosperity.The ancient Chinese sports had gained unprecedented development during these periods,as a result of national unity,economic development,national fusion,and cultural exchange.In the history of ancient Chinese sports,the Western Han Dynasty(202 B.C.-December 8 A.D.)is the second great developing period after the Spring and Autumn Warring States period,and the Tang Dynasty(618 A.D.-907 A.D.)is the third one.While the sports was developing,Yuefu poetry had reached its peak in the Tang Dynasty,which was so long after its birth in the Western Han Dynasty.They also complemented each other in the following ways.Sports,as a daily activity of people,enriched the creative theme of Yuefu poetry.And Yuefu poetry,as a literary and artistic carrier of the sports culture in that era,played a vital role in the inheritance and development of sports culture.The study in this paper is focused on “Yuefu Shi Ji”,and supplemented by“Quan Tang Shi”,“Yu Tai Xin Yong",“Zhao Ming Wen Xuan" and "Wen Xin Diao Long”.The poems were divided into three groups according to their creation time((1)the Han Dynasty;(2)the Three Kingdoms together with the Wei,Jin &Southern and Northern Dynasties;(3)the Sui and Tang Dynasties).By adopting the methods of literature consultation,ancient Chinese textual research,historical comparison,and logic analysis,the author analyzed nearly 300 pieces of sports poems in the Han and Tang Dynasties,in order to explore the development level and the cultural characteristics of sports at that time.Conclusively,the aim of this paper is to acquire more information about the development,inheritance,and decline of sports culture in the poetry in Han and Tang Dynasties,and to supplement the existing sports history.After a series of studies,this paper finally comes to the conclusion: 1.Thedevelopment of sports culture from Han Dynasty to Tang Dynasty is inseparable from the development of Hanyuefu poetry,along with the relationship between Hanyuefu poetry as well as sports culture in Han and Tang Dynasties are of mutual promotion.On the one hand,Hanyuefu poetry from Han Dynasty to Tang Dynasty was widely sung by the people,the sports culture contained in them was also inherited as well as developed;on the other hand,because of the inheritance along with development of sports culture in the Han and Tang Dynasties,it also made Hanyuefu poetry acquire a amount of productive creative inspiration as well as theme.2.The development of Hanyuefu poetry & sports culture in the Han and Tang Dynasties was potentially influenced by the ruling class.The historical background of the Han and Tang Dynasties determined that whether literature,art or sports were influenced by the ruling classes of society,which was determined by the characteristics of feudal society.3.The sports culture from Han Dynasty to Tang Dynasty embodied in the poems of Hanyuefu has many commonalities.From the perspective of beneficial commonalities,the Han and Tang Dynasties could incorporate sports culture in the development process extraordinarily: they are good at absorbing the advantages of other ethnic sports culture,but also efficient at propagating their own excellent sports culture.Meanwhile,the development of some sports has a beneficial effect,but also possess a very huge impact on the surrounding countries as well as future generations.From the point of view of their shortcomings,there are also have some common issues in the development of sports-the monotonous development of sports,the low degree of organization,as well as the insufficient recognition of sports significanceHowever,as this research only analyzed the sports in the Han and Tang Dynasties according to the content of sports in the Yuefu poems,the result can only reflect a part of the sports culture at that time,which means it should be regarded as a sports history supplementary instead of the whole picture.