Dongfang Shuo And The Evolution Of His Literature Images

Dongfang Shuo is a very legendary figure in the reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty as well as in the whole ancient China. The study of Dongfang Shuo, on his works and the evolution of his image in the literary writings in the past dynasties, are an indispensable part of the ancient Chinese literary and cultural researches.Probing into Dongfang Shuo and the evolution of his literature images, the dissertation mainly divides into three angles. Firstly, it’s the research on Dongfang Shuo’s life and friendship. This paper systematically combs out Dongfang Shuo’s life so as to find out his birthplace and the years of his birth and death which are quite disputable in the academic circle; it, for the first time, investigates Dongfang Shuo’s life experiences of admonishing against Dongyan’s stepping into Xuan Shi, recognizing the beast of Zou ya, congratulating the killing of Lord Zhaoping, answering Emperor Wu’s questions about talents issues and enlightenment of common people and submitting memorials to the throne on governing, and it tries best to determine the exact year for the writing of "Refuting Menkes’Arguments"; also this thesis discusses Dongfang Shuo’s friendship from three aspects, i.e. the friendship of Dongfang Shuo with Emperor Wu of Han, the friendship of Dongfang Shuo with court dignitaries and the friendship of Dongfang Shuo with jesters of Emperor Wu, to discover the lonely heart behind superficial jollification of "bosom friends among all civilian officials and military generals at court" and based on it, the paper further outlines the gradual changes of Dongfang Shuo’s mentality so as to dig out the real reason of his political frustration. Secondly, it’s the research on Dongfang Shuo’s works. By careful examination of Dongfang Shuo’s collections in the past dynasties and the academic views about "Twenty Pieces" in Yi Wen Zhi of Han Shu, this paper thoroughly analyzes all Dongfang Shuo’s works existed in historical materials and discusses his artistic achievements, which clarifies the works by Dongfang Shuo are at least up to thirty-two and the genres involved are diverse like Sao, Shu, Fu, Lun, Shu, Shenan, Song, Ming, Shi and Zhumeng. Thirdly, it’s the research on the images of Dongfang Shuo in the works after his death. Chronologically, the thesis demonstrates the characteristics of his images at different times and in different genres, disclosing the evolution process, the features and causes. With the time changing and the emerging of new genres, the stories about Dongfang Shuo are transplanted and augmented with hearsays and pseudo-graphs, and his images evolve gradually from man to a divinity leaving behind in the history a great number of memorable stories with relish of which the excellent ones inherit and carry forward Dongfang Shuo’s witty, funny and knowledgeable characteristics from the official history and biography while at the same time, the tellers of them at different times and in different writings, have entrusted Dongfang Shuo under their individual pens with various personalities, mentalities and plots, continuously updating and refreshing Dongfang Shuo’s images in history. In most of the above literary works which are related with Dongfang Shuo, this paper claims that Dongfang Shuo is so intimately involved with Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty that the story of Dongfang Shuo actually becomes a popular branch of the serials of Emperor Wu’s stories.