The Incense Culture And Its Literary Writing In The Song Dynasty

In the Song Dynasty,incense culture reached its peak.The nobles,literati,and even the common people all took incense as the fashion.Inside and outside of the palace wall,incense is indispensable that from worshipping the god and ancestor to the food and clothing.It can be seen from incense culture that the material civilization and spiritual civilization of the Song Dynasty have reached an unprecedented height.This paper is based on a comparison of the ancient incense books and related notes,combine with modern understanding to research the common spices and censer of the Song Dynasty and restore style and features of different occasions,which can reflect the aesthetic taste and folk customs of the Song Dynasty.Common spices in the Song Dynasty include agilawood,sandalwood,kapur,ambergris and musk.The incense utensil includes hill censer,incense ball,beast censer,antique porcelain censer and so on.They not only inherited the former dynasty,but also blended with the aesthetics of the time.Material civilization and spiritual civilization in the Song Dynasty have reached an unprecedented height,which can be seen through incense.The style and features of incense is different on different occasions.The etiquette custom of the court has different kinds of incense burning.People burn incense to fumigate clothes in the boudoir.The incense in study is elegant and leisure,which makes literati calm the mind.There are many different customs in the festival incense,Which symbolizes good fortune.People burn incense in the banquet will add to the fun,that means their attitude towards life is carpe diem.The incense of marketplace has strong commercial atmosphere.In the Song Dynasty,the incense literature flourished,and the literati greatly enriched the ideological implication of incense.It mainly includes sorrow of lost,apperception of zen,thinking of homeland,blessing for good health and long life.Incense has its unique aesthetic meaning so that it should not be generalized with other scent images,especially when incense is used in meditation.It helps people to find their true self.Under the influence of incense environment,personality and life experience,different literati's incense image has different aesthetic characteristic.This article selects four special cases of Yan Shu,Liu Yong,Li Qingzhao and Wu Wenying,and takes incense lyrics as the starting point to analyze their aesthetic pursuits and emotional world.