The Legend In Tang Dynasty And The Writing Style Of Diverse Genres

This thesis centers on the interaction between the developing of legends and the writing style in Tang Dynasty. Firstly, the influence between each other is discussed. Secondly, the mode of the interaction is presented. Specifically speaking, how the legend and the writing style of Tang Dyansty permeate and transform in terms of themes, subjects, narrative motivations, skills,status, and languages. Thirdly, the stages of such interaction is demonstrated. The legend has four stages, namely the early, the bloom, the middle and the late, during each stage the interaction is different. Fourthly, the reasons of the interaction is analyzed. The thesis explores the reasons from the difference and complementary among diverse genres, the mutual cultural and social backgrounds, and the communication of writers who compose legends, poetics and proses. Fifthly, the outcome of the interaction is explicified. It promotes the developing of narrative mode in novels, and the merging and transforming of lyric to narrative literature.This research includes thirteen chapters,,a preface and appendices.Chapter1to3are about the legend and the style of writing in early stage.Chapter1discusses the social and cultural backgrounds of them, and chapter2investigates the difference between them, especially the legendand narrative proses in terms of themes,subjects, narrative motives,status,skills and descriptive language, in order to understand the complementary relationship. Chapter3pays attention to the interaction of the two.The style of writing influences the legend in the following aspects:firstly, dominant Confucianism in poetics and proses impacts the legends, which tend to consider being worldly and moral. secondly, The compilation of eight history books in early Tang Dynasty makes the style of historical writing popular, and influences the narrative structure of the legends.thirdly, a taste of simplicity and elegance in harmony impacts the feature of legends in this stage. On one hand, skills in parallel proses, descriptive proses interspersed with verse and poetics penetrates to biographies and proses. On the other hand, excessive aspiration for delicacy like writers in the Southern Dynasties do is rejected by traditional authors, thus legends is less exquisite in writing style in the early age than in the bloom stage.Meanwhile, poetics and proses are influenced by legends as well. firstly, historical books take anecdotes as materials and are larded with fictional techniques such as Jin Dynasty, one of the eight history books in the early Tang dynasty, which is possibly influenced by Story of an ancient mirror by Wang-Du. secondly, the inscription of monks and Taoist priests are abundant in anecdotes, demonstrating a taste of novels.Chapter4to chapter6check the legend and the style of writing in bloom stage. Chapter4discusses the social and cultural backgrounds, and chapter5investigates the difference between legends and other genres in styles. Chapter6describes the interaction of them.The features of interaction between legends and style of writing in other genres are like following:firstly, the taste of unrestrained writing style during Zhenguan and Yuanhe leads to the developing of individual legends. For instance, it appears in themes, not restrained by Confucianism, in writing skills, not observant, which results to the bloom of legends about Buddhism,Taoism, love affairs, and gallant men with excellent arts. secondly, admiration for strangeness during Yuanhe is affected by the legends. Specifically, the motive of seeking strangeness in legends filters into the poetics. And the technique of absorbing advantages of diverse genres in legends inspires poets like Han-Yu and Meng-Jiao to break the boundaries between genres, such as plugging prose and descriptive verses in poetics. thirdly, the realistic trend has a great impact on the legendboth in contents and forms. In terms of the theme, it leads to describe worldly life and in art, and it brings about the maturing of narrative form towards the historical biography in legends. fourthly, the flourishing of narrative literature benefits the legend since it’s a kind of narrative genre in essence.Chapter7to chapter9review the legend and the writing style in the middle stage. Chapter7discusses the social and cultural backgrounds, and chapter8investigates the difference between legends and other genres in styles. Chapter9describes the interaction of the them.The features of this stage are as following:firstly, individual legends decline while the legend collections develop,which is aligned with the decaying of writing style in the late Tang Dynasty and the change of taste. secondly, the legendabout love affairs decline,which is consistent with the blame to flashy style in poetics by YuanZhen and BaiJu-yi from Du-Mu. thirdly, the legends use stories of ghosts and spirits as a pretext for expressing political opinions and feelings, which is consistent with the obscure writing style appearing during DaZhong and DaHe. For instance, poetics by LiShang-yin and Collection of Marvels by Li-Mei share the similar style. fourthly, poetic lyric style penetrates the legendin three ways:to be emotional,to express having unrecognized talents like Biogragy of LiChang-ji by LiShang-yin,biograghy of ZhongYuan by Luo-Yin, LiJun by LiFu-yan, to compose political lyric legend collections,which are influenced by poets. fifthly, BianWen affects the legend in easy-going language, complicated plot and figure’s Taoist magic arts.Chapter10to chapter12investigate the legend and the writing style in the late stage. Chapter10discusses the social and cultural backgrounds, and chapter11investigates the difference between legends and other genres in styles. Chapter12describes the interaction of the them.The features are as following:firstly, extreme stress on truth and comments pushes forward the declining of legends and the blooming of anecdotes fictions. secondly, legends which praise the good and depreciate the bad by means of the spirits stories like Xiaoxianglu and Datangqishiji are impacted by essays by PiRi-xiu,LuGui-meng and Luo-Yin. For example, the theme is regarded as satire of the reality, the plot is simple and the language is blank verse. thirdly, the content of legends is about affairs of the county, and has become the origin of history, satire and detective-style novels,which is affected by the tendency of disclosing the current fallings during this age.Chapter13explores the style of writing of the legends in Tang Dynasty and the periodic characteristics of the interaction, comparision of the wrting style of Tang Dynasty’s legends inthe early, the bloom, the middle and the late stages and the periodic characteristics of interaction are mainly concerned.Overall, the writing style of the legend appear different other genres featured by poets and proses,especially most comparative narrative proses. Further, they can interact with each other, and transfer inside themselves. It promotes the developing of narration and novels, the literature transferring of literature from lyric to narrative, and elegant to popular. And, in this process, the figures turn from emperors and high-positioned officials to the underprivileged, and the language from the rhythmical prose style or both rhythmical and prose to predominantly the prose.