The Narration Of Emperor Ascending To Immortality In Literature During The Wei,Jin,Northern And Southern Dynasties

Since the Wei and Jin Dynasties,the story of being immortals in literature has gradually taken shape,which contains narrative of ascending immortals represented by historical kings,such as Emperor Zhou Mu,first emperor of Qin and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.Emperors in this kind of narrative enjoy both similarities and particularities with other immortals.Taking evolution of the emperor’s image as an example,narrative of the emperor’s ascension to immortality is observed,showing that this phenomenon essentially reflects different creative intentions of creators.Political power possessed by the secular monarch and yearning for the fairy world have provided a realistic basis for formation of this narrative.Different purposes of creation leads to complex narrative contents and changeable plot.Therefore,the immortal creation of emperor image in Wei and Jin Dynasties has been enriched continuously,thus exerting a certain impact on later literary creation and character evaluation.Essentially,exploring the narrative problem of emperor’s ascension to immortality is to explore relationship between emperor and immortality.Seeking and ascending immortality of the emperor serve as an important part of novels and poems about emperors.From the perspective of poetry,stray-immortal poetry occupies the main position.In addition,poems about harmony and sacrifice for emperors,as well as the dreamland Ci made by religious believers also contain related contents,while sacrificial poems and eulogies are the main forms in terms of articles.Judging from the strange tales,meeting of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty with the Queen Mother of the West is made up on the basis of respecting the basic historical facts.Most of Taoist monks mentioned in this kind of strange tales are recorded in the official history,and all of them are played in the framework of big historical events.Emperor’s purpose of seeking immortality is to ascend to immortality,but there are different stories about the result,such as the text that the monarch’s fairy fate is shallow and his quest for immortality fails,the King Mu plays the flute to stop rain,the first emperor of the Qing dynasty comes to hold his dream,and the emperor Wu comes back from the dead and sells funerary objects in his grave,which have pulled them into the immortal camp.To explore causes of series of narration of ascending emperors,we need to analyze from two aspects.First of all,cultural internal causes of secular emperors are selected,including author’s creation purpose,times and religious development.Creation purposes of the author contain three aspects:making a statement for the emperor,making a statement for religion and making a statement for literature.Development of Buddhism and Taoism in the Wei Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties have promoted the social atmosphere of believing in the existence of gods and reincarnation after death.Secondly,secular emperors,as literary images,have their own particularity.Religion relies on emperors,while emperors make use of religion.Their converged social resources,frequent activities to seek the immortal,and rich burial culture have all become the basis to be adopted by literary.Therefore,it is of unique importance to explore dynamic relationship of literature,history and religion of Wei Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties.