A Study For Du Mu's Biographical Articles

Du Mu was not only a poet but also an essayist of the late Tang Dynasty.He was one of the most excellent people who wrote ancient prose following the classical prose movement.He came from a distinguished family of Tang Dynasty,and he was concerned about national affairs.Unfortunately,he was abandoned by the superiors and was only slightly reused in his later years.In the high position and inferiority,Du Mu put his concern of national affairs and the understanding of life in the article,and then created a lot of excellent prose.The academic circles paid more attention to his political essays,but rarely paid attention to his biographical articles which were as good as the former.This thesis is trying to study Du Mu's 20 biographies,including his single biography of characters,tablet prose,and posthumous biography.Biography has the dual attributes of historiography and literature.Therefore,this thesis mainly discusses the biographical articles of Du Mu both the perspective of history and literature.The first chapter describes the creation overview of Du Mu's biographies.It's trying to understand the culture,literature and family background of Du Mu's biographies,and then to overall grasp the content of Du Mu's biographies.The second chapter focuses on excavating and discussing the historical value of the biographies.Du Mu's biographical works,which provide an important reference for us to understand the social reality of the late Tang Dynasty,not only reflect the problems include the party struggle and the people's livelihood,but also present the life of different identities.The third chapter focuses on the literary value of Du Mu's biographies,and shows the literary features of Du Mu's biographical works from three aspects: language art,narrative features,thoughts and emotions.On the basis of inheriting the biography experience of Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan,Du Mu combines his literary creation ideas and unique life experience and creates many biographies which present a literary style that is different from others.The last chapter discusses the position and influence of Du Mu's biographical articles.Through the appropriate comparison with Han Yu and Li Shangyin,We can know that Du Mu is the heres and pioneer on the artistic creation of biography in the Tang Dynasty.His biographies have influenced his later generations from the aspects of historiography,literary thought and creation.