Han Dynasty Literature

First, writing purposeDissertation about literature history of Western Han Dynasty, which is commonly more used at present, is style of dividing types. There are strong points and advantages about this style, and there are its defects and deficiencies too. The style of dividing types often disperses and describes works of the same writer's different types in different chapters, which is unfavorable to an overall, concentrated understanding and realization of the writer's life, thought and creation. The style of dividing types still often disperses and describes different writers and different works which belong to the same period in different chapters, This is also unfavorable to an intact, accurate understanding the literature overall picture of this period. It is obvious that the statement way of dividing types in literature history not only impairs the writer's integrity to a certain extent, and also impairs the integrity of literature for every period to a certain extent. In order to overcome the defects mentioned above, it is necessary to adopt a kind of new style.This kind of style exists in our country, and has a long historical tradition, which is chronicle style. The earliest one could trace back to Confucius' Chun Qiu and Zuo Qiuming's Left Biography in Chun Qiu Era of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, which were more than 2,000 years ago. Since then chronicle style works formed a great series in our country, large quantities of famous works had come into being. The advantages about chronicle style works which capacity is enormous, time is clear is obvious. Just because of these, it has had so long historical tradition and so strong and vigorous vitality. It was later that chronicle style developed into the sphere of academy, Mr. Liu Ru-lin's Academy Chronicle of Han and Jin Dynasties should be earlier work about this kind of style in sphere of academy. After this had appeared Mr. Lu Kan-ru's Literature Chronicle of the middle ancient times that was a pioneering work in the region of literature research, then had appeared Mr. Zhang Ke-li' Literature Chronicle of Eastern Jin Dynasty, and now had appeared Mr. Fu Xuan-zong's Literature Chronicle of Tang and Five Dynasties and Mr. Cao Dao-heng and Mr. Liu Yue-jin's Literature Chronicle of the Southerm and Northern Dynasties. Chronicle style's influence in the research field of literature is expanding day and day.However, works which sort out and study the literature of Western Han Dynasty in term of chronicle style has not appeared yet. Mr. Liu Ru-lin's Academy Chronicle of Han and Jin Dynasties involved some respects of the literature of Western Han Dynasty, but its focal point was in academy, so in fact it was few that the content involves the literature of Western HanDynasty. Literature Chronicle of the middle ancient times, Mr. Lu Kan-ru's masterpiece, studied from Yang Xiong who Lived in the Later years of Western Han Dynasty, whose focal point was in Eastern Han and Jin Dynasty, only involved four writers of Yang Xiong, Liu Xiang, Liu Xin and Huan Tan in the literature of the period of Western Han Dynasty. Most writers and most works of Western Han Dynasties were still neglected. Mr. Wu Wen-zhi's major issue chronological table of Chinese literature history only had the simple narration of the major issue of literature history, had not explained the historical data based on, and not carried through textual research, and its academics was not strong enough. Whereas such research actuality of the literature of Western Han Dynasty, this thesis plans to sort out and research the literature panorama of Western Han Dynasties systematically and all-round among 233 years (B.C.209-24). Perhaps it could fill in this academic blank about the literature research of Western Han Dynasty.Second, writing objectThe main study object for this thesis is Western Han Dynasty writers. Since works are the basic basis which confirm writer's identity, whether Western Han Dynasty people had writing records or whether they had works to hand down, is the main basis that this thesis confirms their writer's identity. This thesis consults the recording and embodying materials about people in Western Han Dynasty from Mr. Lu Qin-li's Poems of pre-Qin Han Wei Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, the records of literary works in the Bibliography of History Book of Han dynasty, the records of literary works in the Bibliography of History Book ofSui Dynasty and The Whole Writings of Han Dynasty etc., and confirmsl30 Western Han Dynasty writers as its research object.Western Han Dynasty writers are the main study object for this thesis. Furthermore, some relevant persons are studied in this thesis according to the circumstances, too. These relevant persons are very extensive, some were from old and well-known literati family, some were people who had close relation with leaning, some are people who had close relation with the Book of Songs studying, some were people who had the special relation with the writers, some are famous debaters during the early years of Han Dynasty, some were people who were the leaders of the literature group, etc.. 59 relevant persons are embodied in the thesis.Above-mentioned, the writers are 130, relevant persons are 59, totally 189 people.Besides writers, works and relevant persons, literature phenomenon and things correlated with literature, such as ballad, dance accompanied by music and music office etc. are also the study objects by the thesis.Third, break-throughs and innovationsThrough completely researching life stories of 130 writers and 59 relevant persons above-mentioned among 233 years of Western Han Dynasty history, through determining its time clearly of more than 1000 works, relevant literature phenomenon and belongings, the time skeleton of the development about Western Han Dynasty literature became clearer than ever, and the whole appearance of Western Han Dynasty literature became more intact than ever. The academic blank that the literature of Western Han Dynasty had no chronicle has been filled in.With year as unit in the thesis, combining the concrete reality and difference from each other in the ruling time of every Emperor and Empress at the same time, the history of Western Han Dynasty literature was divided into six periods. Namely: period of Emperor Gaodi and Emperor Huidi and Empress Gaodi, period of Emperor Wendi and Emperor Jingdi, period of Emperor Wudi, period of Emperor Zhaodi and Emperor Xuandi, period of Emperor Yuandi and Emperor Chengdi, period of Emperor Aidi, Emperor Pingdi and Wang Mang. By textual researching year by year, nearly all writers and all works of each period are included. Undoubtedly, this thesis has offered a great facility for centralized grasping the panorama and whole characteristic of the literature in every periods. Furthermore, this thesis is attached a index of the writers and relevant persons after text. Life stories in every year and works of writers or relevant persons are concentrated together by the index, which is favorable to overcome the limitation that life stories and works of writers are dispersed in relevant each year. This is favorable to an overall, concentrated understanding of writers' life stories, thoughts and writings. These two points have overcome the defection of literature works in style of dividing type mentioned above to a great extent.Certainly, this thesis has not only filled in a blank from style that there is no chronicle in literature research in Western Han Dynasty, not only overcome the defects mentioned above of literature works in style of dividing type too, and also made a series of true break-through and innovation by entering various kinds of complicated relations that literature of Western Han Dynasty was among, in the course of ordering the whole history of Western Han Dynasty.(1) Aspect of textual research of writers and relevant personsFirstly, the number of writers that this thesis investigates has exceeded any relevant works of Western Han Dynasty literature in the past. The numbers described in relevant works are as the follows: there are 9 people in Mr. Liu Da-jie's Development History of Chinese Literature, 13 people in Mr. You Guo-en's Chinese Literature History, 15 people in Mr. Yuan Xing-pei's ChineseLiterature History, 28 people in Mr. Luo Zong-qiang and Mr. Chen Hong's Development History of Chinese Ancient Literature, 96 people in Mr. Liu Ru-lin's Chronicle of Han and Jin Dynasties, 75 people in Mr. Wu Wen-zhi's Major Issue Annals of History of Chinese Literature, 113 people in Mr. Mr. Cao Dao-heng's Chinese Writer's Dictionary. Embodies 130 people in this thesis, it is obvious that the writer's quantity of Western Han Dynasty in this thesis including was the most at present.Secondly, the thesis has made overall and careful textual research about writers and relevant persons' birth year or death year, and have made more abundant new achievements. The quantity that relevant chronological tables or chronicles involved Western Han Dynasty people's birth year or death year, or age are as the follows: there are 43 people in Mr. Liang Ting-can's Birth and Death Table on the Famous persons in the Past Dynasties, 67 people in Mr. Jiang Liang-fu's Comprehensive forms for the Persons' Year, Place, Steles and Biograghy in the Past Dynasties, 58 people in Mr. Wu Rong-guang's Chronicle on famous person 's in the Past Dynasties, 62 people in Mr. Wu Wen-zhi's Major Issue Annals of History of Chinese Literature, while there are 139 people in this thesis. It is obvious that the achievements of this thesis are plentiful and substantial. This thesis has absorbed many achievements of fore wisdoms, and more is development, innovation, because many writers and relevant personages had not been textually researched ago, they were textual researched in this thesis for the first time.The confirmation about writers and relevant persons' birth year or death year is the basic prerequisite of their localization in the history of Western Han Dynasty literature. It is also very important to clarify the time of their life stories for these writers and relevant persons'. In this respect this thesis obtains more advance and innovation too, especially in the life stories of some important writers, such as the time about Dong Zhong-shu's writing the article of Dui Ce, the time about Yang Xiong's becoming Lang, the time about Wang Bao's waiting upon Emperor Xuandi's prince etc. Verifying some important writers' life stories plays a driving role to deepen the study of Western Han Dynasty literature. And much more common writers' life stories appear and clarify, which make the collective image of Western Han Dynasty writers become more integrative, clearer, plumper, vivider than ever.(2) Aspect of textual research of worksIn the thesis I have did meticulous research work about works of 130 Western Han Dynasty writers and 59 relevant persons, and about a large number of ballads, which have made quite abundant achievements. Tt is concentrated reflected in the two following respects:Firstly, the amount of works which have been ordered according to the time is so many, that it is up to more than 1000. According to my preliminary statistics, the number of literary works of Western Han Dynasty talked about in each relevant literature history is as the follows: there are 74 in Mr. You Guo-en's Chinese Literature History, 93 in Mr. Zhang Pei-heng's Chinese Literature History, 173 in Mr. Nie Shi-qiao's Literature History Manuscript of Qre-qin and Both Han Dynasties, 209 in Mr. Bian Xiao-xuan's Literature of Both Han Dynasties. This group of figures indicate that the number embodied by this theses is maximal at present. And the number if works above-mentioned are just only stated in those books, in practice, the proportion on explanation of their writing time is smaller.Secondly, some writing time of the works with important significance in the history of literature of Western Han Dynasty, had not been studied for a long time, or the conclusion was wrong. This thesis has carried on initiative textual research to it, or researched it again, and corrected some mistakes in the past, which have positive function to deepening the study of the history of Western Han Dynasty literature. For example, about the writing time of Zhong He, Yue Zhi, Xuan Bu poem and SiZi JiangDe Lun by Wang Bao, the writing time of Mei Sheng's Qi Fa, the writing time of Yang Xiong's Four Odes, etc.. As for the general works which few people paid attention to in the past, have been researched by this thesis for the first time, are more. The chronicling of a large number of works makes the appearance of literature in every periods of Western Han Dynasty more integrated, clearer, more overall. It is of great advantage to dividing periods of Western Han Dynasty literature, to development of literature of every periods, and to further investigation of its characteristics and laws.(3) Aspect of the background and reason of writers and works.It seems that it is only the data's arranging that this thesis appears out. But each datum is a lens, several lenses converge into a picture of this year, year in and year out, form the more than 200-year long and continuous relatively integrated picture scroll of Western Han Dynasty literature. In this long picture scroll, the life stories of every writers or relevant personages, every works or every thing that every lens represents, didn't exist in isolation at all, all get in touch each other and all have deep and complicated background and reason. For example, at the second year of Emperor Wendi(B.C177 ), the thing that Jia Yi had been demoted and had been appointed as Changsha Taifu reflected scholar stratum's weakness and independence of their status among the political pattern in the early Han Dynasty, refracted the influence balance between Confucianism and Taoism in the ideological sphere in the early Han Dynasty. It is the concentrated reflection of Jia Yi's political tragedy and literature serious drama. These are the double meanings in deep social background and on his individual's life reflected from Jia Yi's demotion. And for another example, at the sixth year of Yuan Guang(B.C129), the thing that Dong Fang-shuo expostulated with Emperor Wudi's dinner Dong Yan, had Showed Dong Fang-shuo's deep insight about political situation changing at that time, his accurate understanding to Emperor Wudi's new idea of running his country and Dong Fang-shuo's remarkable intelligence, which made him become an alonewake person critic in the turbid society to a certain extent. His funny life way and his humorous literature style could receive some explanations from here too.It is like this to the writer, it is like this even more to the works. This is because, first of all, creators of the works themselves are persons in various kinds of crisscross complicated social realistic relations, which has determined their works rich and varied realistic connotation. Secondly, Works are often the results of writers' some emotion or thought broken forth or manifested in some special moment after a regular period accumulation, which often makes works have a strong reality, and a deep historical accumulation at the same time. For instance, Liu Bang's Strong Wind Song, which had a generalization of the career to fighting in the past eight years as well as had a introspection managing the world in the next seven years, was a sign of turn from fighting for the world on horse to managing the world off horse. It not only had great heroic spirit, but also had a simple and exquisite human nature-the word "return" in the poem was not merely the return of place, the more important thing was the return of his vagrant identity. The poem had also molded a multidimensional three-dimensional space-time, where there were retrospect to the past, feeling to the scene at the moment, worry to the future. It had manifest naturally the heroic figure of Liu Bang's foresight and width bosom, however, it had also revealed a certain feeling to variable destiny.(4) Aspect of relations between literature and other superstructure in Western Han Dynasty.History, say on its original meaning, is the accumulation and sediment that the mankind moves about and creates within a range of certain time. This kind of accumulation and sediment which the mankind moved about and created, are usually calculated with year as the unit. Fields of the human activity are in many aspects, among which literature is the main content in this thesis, other aspects correlated with literature are involved at the same time. The thesis has represented omni-directionally correlation between literature and other superstructure such as literature and politics, literature and system, literature and study of Confucian classics, and literature and academy, etc.. This kind of correlation is not only horizontal static existence and change, but also dynamical existence and change during the time to pass year in and year out. This thesis, thus by arranging and narrating literature data of Western Han Dynasty year in and year out, has represented such crisscross complicated relation between literature and other superstructure.For example, at the first year of Jian Yuan(B.C.14O), this thesis has narrated 14 things, which show the relation and influence between literature and politics, literature and system, literature and Confucianism, and literature and academy, and see the important change of the literature itself at the same time. A major political issue this year was making the etiquetteand music, which had fully displayed the people's loyalty, love and praise to Han Dynasty. The impact on literature was very enormous, from then on, extolling Han Dynasty became a great theme in the Western Han Dynasty literature, which formed the tradition of praising disputed endlessly so far yet In the field of system, the adoption of two kinds of election ways of impressments and recommendation at the same time, had stimulated thousands of persons who submit a written statement to the emperor. As a result, a large quantities of scholars showed their talent. In the field of Confucianism, five major classics of the Confucian had been confirmed as the political guideline of the national politics. The establishment of study of Confucian classics influenced literature of Western Han Dynasty in many aspects, of which one was facilitating Confucianization of literature in middle and later periods of Western Han Dynasty. In the field of academy, Huainan Zi of Liu'an, the king of Huainan kingdom had been finished and Liu De, the king of Hejian kingdom had offered Book on Filial Piety, which stated academic prosperity of the enfeoffinent countries of Western Han Dynasty. Academic center being in the enfeoffinent countries had promoted the development of enfeoffinent countries' literature, and the development of culture and literature of central imperial court too. As regards literature itself, one important change appeared too: the center of literature of Western Han Dynasty turned from locality to the central authorities. With Sima Xiangru waiting upon Emperor Wudi as the sign, the center of literature of Western Han Dynasty turned from locality to central from then on. It is not excessive to say in any case about its influence and meaning on literature of Western Han Dynasty.Break-through and innovation in the four respects above-mentioned, indicate from a side that it is necessity and importance to carry on the omni-directional, multi-level research to literature of Western Han Dynasty. Literature does not exist in isolation, we should put literature of Western Han Dynasty into an intricate crisscross whole history course of Western Han Dynasty, then we could get a deeper understanding and assurance to Western Han Dynasty literature's development, form, evolvement and its background and reason. In the same way, every writer and every work do not exist in isolation, we should go on research by putting it in the integer and whole journey of literature of Western Han Dynasty, by putting it to various kinds of complicated relations, then we could make new progress and breakthrough in the research of these writers and works, which will conversely promote the whole progress and break-through of the study of literature of Western Han Dynasty. Firstly, it needs us to grasp various kinds of data related to literature of Western Han Dynasty in an all-round way to carry on above-mentioned research, and then to analyse and put these materials in order. Adopting the unique style of chronicle, the author has made his efforts in power incollecting, arranging and ordering a large number of materials in the thesis, which provide comparatively primitive materials that could be consulted to the research concerned, offer the reference that can't be neglected for examining closely again and discussing thorough about some important problems in the study of the literature history of Western Han Dynasty.