The Study Of The Letters In The Tang Dynasty

Letter is a popular kind of prose styles in ancient China, also called ShuZha, ShuDu, ShuJian, ChiDu. It has wide range of subjects, free forms, diversal expressions, so the writers could express the true voice without bound. Each period literati have handed down a lot of works of letters. This paper chooses the letters that were written during the Tang Dynasty as the study object. Combining with the personnel selection system, political changes, the restoration of ancient essay, the strong trend of writing history during that period, the paper pays main attention to the self-recommend letters, the letters about literary theory, and the letters about history. This paper is divided into such four parts as introduction, body, conclusion, and appendix.The part of introduction, describes the research status on letter, and defines the scope of our research. In the history of research on letters, Liu Xie plays an opening role. His ’WinXin DiaoLong·ShuJi’not only summarizes the origins of the development of letter and stylistic features from macro-level, but also evaluates the famous letters in each period from micro-level. But from then on, The study on letters has been ignored by researchers for a long time. The comments from literati scatters among the preface of selected articles. From the 1950’s, the study on letters is gradually warming, and interests many scholars. The previous research mainly concentrates on two respects:first, summary of subjects and artistic characteristics of the letters in a certain period, which includes the Han Dynasty, Jian’An period, the Western Jin Dynasty, the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and the Six Dynasties period, while seldom the letters in the Tang Dynasty and that followed; Second, investigation into content and artistic style of the letters by such a certain writer, Who is well-known in history as Ji Kang, Wang Xi-zhi, Liu Zong-yuan, Su Shi, Yuan Hong-dao and so on, while among the Tang Dynasty literati, only Liu Zong-yuan’s letters is concerned. Accordingly, the paper takes the letters of the Tang Dynasty as the research object. Refering to XiaoTong’s style classification, the paper identifies the Tang Dynasty "letter" to the personal letters, while these letters to emperor are not within the scope of study.The first chapter, sorts out the trail of the development of letters from the pre-Qin period to the Tang Dynasty. Firstly, It analyses the concept of letter, and lists some other different names of letter commonly used in ancient, Then, in time sequence pre-Qin, the Han, Wei Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Tang Dynasty, It describes the development track of letter. Pre-Qin is the embryonic period of letter, some scholars regard the "ShangShu·Jun-Shi" as the origin of letter, which is in dispute among academic walk, however the text is of a clear purpose, the object of writing, and the sincere feelings, with the basic characteristics of the letters. Some also regard the essay of "Zheng Zi-jia’s letter to Zhao Xuan-zi" in "Zuo Zhuan" as the origin of letter, this essay is based on reasoning with simple language and simple style, but almost without any individual color, just similar to those official documents of the "credentials" to deal with the affair between countries, yet not independent from the official documents. By the Warring States period, YueYi’s "The letter reported to the king of Yan" describes his personal experience with sincere words and strong individual colors, letters begins the transition from "official document " to "private letter". In the Han Dynasty, the letter developed independently and document-off as a medium for personal exchange of thoughts and feelings. The letters in Han Dynasty gradually enrich the contents of the subject, among which excellent works spring up. The form is mainly prose sentence, the diction is natural, smooth, and direct, without embellishments in writing excessively.In the period of Wei Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, the themes of letters become more extensive, Lyricism and artistry are enhanced, particularly the parallelism letters, with the flowery language, neat sentence, phonological harmony, steady work with the code, reaching acme in form. Early in the Tang Dynasty letters are still influenced by the art of parallelism of the Six Dynasties, and then gradually restore to the style features of Han Dynasty letters with simple and prose sentence. In contents, the letters during the Tang Dynasty concern more about promotion, success and learning, rather than about friendship and relationship. The function of letters to express the leisure feelings recede, while to make a matter of practication enhance, this is a significant distinction on letters between the Tang Dynasty and pre-Tang Dynasties.The second chapter, researchs on self-recommend letters. In accordance with the identity of the self-recommend, self-recommend letters can be divided into four categories such as ordinary people, the people who prepared for the imperial examination, low official, demoted official. Self-recommend letters by ordinary people appeared mainly in the early period and prosperious period of the Tang Dynasty, when the emperor were hard, and repeatedly issued the edict to seek talent, officials took pride in recommending talent, which also encouraged ordinary people to self-recommend. These letters are full of the eloquent atmosphere and chivalrous spirit. Self-recommend letters by the people who prepared for the imperial examination are mostly written in order to seek office as well as to beg for money. On the other hand, it reflects the hurry feelings to achieve self-worth, it reflects the distress, helpless and sadness of their lives. In the letters by the low official, some point out the drawbacks of current affairs, and some talk of their frustrational emotion. The authors’self-expectations were high and not willing to sink, so they handed the letter to the power in the hope of getting promoted. The letters by demoted official, mostly thought back the life, analyzed the reasons of being demoted, described the misery life in remote places, recalled the old friendship with deep feelings and profound living experience, really moved the readers. Research on self-recommend letters of the Tang Dynasty, the inspection on object is also indispensable. Choosing different kind of object, will to a large extent affect on the content of letters, writing style, emotional expression, as well as the final results. Self-recommend letters of the Tang Dynasty have a wide range of object, which mainly include such three types as the prime minister, the important local officials and the officials in charge of personnel selection.The third chapter, discusses the letter about literary theory in the Tang Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, ancient Chinese movement beginning to rise, the writers, such as Liu Mian, Han Yu, Liu Zong-yuan, Li Ao, Huang-fu Shi, Sun Qiao, had not systematic theoretical work, and their points of view mainly scattered in the letters to their friends and students. After reading their letters, you will find their theory proposes are so clear.Liu Mian has seven letters about literary theory. Though the quantity is large, the point of view is simple. He advocated:respect for patients and education, changing the customs and traditions, changing the article, resisting the articles which overdo description and modification. In addition, the relationship between article, morality, emotion, temperament is also discussed. Han Yu’s letters about literary theory focuse on discussing the relationship between the article and the morality, teaching the methods of writing, evaluating the articles by the younger generation, criticising the abuse in contemporary articles. Liu Zong-yuan’s letters about literary theory expressed such keynote:remove the bubble reputation to seek the truth, make the morality clear with the article, teach the methods of writing, teach students in accordance of their aptitude. And some of them are close to Han Yu’s views, except for a little difference. Li Ao’s letters about literary theory converge the former writers’point of view, full of mastery and harmony. Huang-fu Shi had three letters that were "odd", and also biased. Sun Qiao claimed that Huang-fu Shi was his teacher, but according to his letters, he had modified to avoid the extreme tendency.The fourth chapter, analyzes the letters about the history in the Tang Dynasty. History writing was very popular among literati during that period, many of them had a strong inclination to write history, they used to discuss the history in the letters. The contents of the letters about the history in the Tang Dynasty concentrated on five major aspects:First, affirming the historial official’s duty. Literati of the Tang Dynasty had different views on the duties of the historial official. Han Yu’s "The letter answered to Liu xiucai about history " and Liu Zong-yuan’s "The letter to Han Yu about the historial official" had debated on this issue. Second, defining the standard of history talent. Liu Zhi-ji regarded "competence, knowledge, insight" as the standard of measure in his "The letter answered to Zheng Wei-zhong about the history talent ". Li ao, Sun Qiao also put forward their points of view in their letters about the standard of history talent. Third, illustrating the law about writing the history. The law of writing the history is the principle that should be followed, which is related to how to choose historical materials and how to use appropriate language and so on. Yuan Zhen, Liu Zong-yuan, Li ao, Sun Qiao and others all discussed this issue in their letters. Fourth, criticizing the abuse of History Museum. In "The letter to Xiao Zhi-zhong about the history", Liu Zhi-ji criticized that the History Museum in the Tang Dynasty in five aspects:more historial officials, rare historical materials, too much interfere, the lack of clear standards, dereliction of duty of supervisors. Fifth, some literati revealing their narrow-minded view of history. Most of the literati in the Tang Dynasty had very accessible view of history, but minority literati had narrow-minded view of history because of their over-respected the Confucian classics. Liu Mian’s "The letter to Magistrate Meng about the historial official" and Lu Gui-meng’s "The letter answered to Yousheng about literary theory" revealed their narrow-minded view of history.The conclusion part, summizes the character of the letters of self-recommend,the letters on literary theory and the letters about the history in structure, Language Style and rhetoric, reflects the inadequates, and puts forword the future direction of further study. In appendix part, the letters from "Quan Tang Wen " are compiled into a simple directory for reference.