Study On The Party Fighting In Northern Song Dynasty And Partisans' Epitaphs

The creation of scholar-bureaucrats' epitaphs produces a new change of literary style with evident characteristics of historical biography, as well as marking and glorifying. Through the study on partisans'epitaphs in the party fighting in Northern Song Dynasty, we could exploit partisans' mentality in the party fighting from news standpoints like poetry, and learn the writing traits of epitaphs under particular political background, understanding the party fighting in Northern Song Dynasty more and more clearly.Based on extensive partisans'epitaphs in Northern Song Dynasty and related materials, this article thoroughly examines the influence of the party fighting in Northern Song Dynasty on the writing of partisans'epitaphs, and also examines the writing traits of epitaphs under particular political background in order to promote the correlational studies on the party fighting and epitaphs in Northern Song Dynasty.This thesis consists of an introduction, the main body and a conclusion. Its main contents are as follows:The first part is introduction, which mainly makes a brief summary of the basis, significance and thought of the study, in the meantime defines the relevant concepts.The second part is the main body, which is made up of four chapters:Chapter One mainly collects the extant epitaphs in Northern Song Dynasty, and examines convention of epitaphs in Northern Song Dynasty in the aspect of choosing characters, drawing materials, writing and printing. Meanwhile, this chapter summarizes the proposal of scholar-bureaucrats' writing epitaphs in Northern Song Dynasty, and compares the differences of epitaph writing styles between Tang and Song Dynasty, in general examining convention of scholar-bureaucrats writing epitaphs in Northern Song Dynasty.In terms of partisans'epitaphs, Chapter Two epitomizes the four most frequently narrative themes in epitaphs during the party fighting in Qingli Period, i.e. Yuan Hao's invading frontier, Nong Zhigao's rebellion, the abolishment and preservation of the queen, and Qingli New Deal, especially the first two events. In times of the party fighting between the radical and conservative party, Wang Anshi's Reform became the most frequently narrative themes in epitaphs. These narrative themes have composed the main narrative content in epitaphs and the focus of partisans'debates in the party fighting in Northern Song Dynasty. In the party fighting in Qingli Period and the party fighting between the radical and conservative party, the writers of partisans'epitaphs had a same ambivalence between recording facts and escaping disaster. Partisans' epitaphs in the middle and later periods of the party fighting in between the radical and conservative party have resulted from personal feelings more than that in the party fighting in Qingli Period. In terms of writing epitaphs, a party member would write epitaphs for another one belong to the same political alliance. In the party fighting in Qingli Period, tomb masters stand at the same side of epitaph writers in Fan Zhongyan's group, i.e. their allies would write epitaphs for them as they died. While some core members of Lu Party such as Lu Yijian had the epitaphs not been written by their allies, entirely different from Fan Party. In addition, partisans of Fan Party often wrote epitaphs with the tone of victims, so as to represent their loyalty against slander, implying the politics of worshiping Fan while opposing Lu. Concerning the dividing line among partisans, we shall realize the leading members of Fan but shall not apperceive that of Lu from the extant partisans'epitaphs in the party fighting in Qingli Period. Compared with the later party fighting between the radical and conservative party, the dividing line among officials appeared relatively clearly in the party fighting in Qingli Period, while the later had a larger scope and members, and a more complicated dividing line. What's more, this chapter reviews relevant problems between unpolitical relations and the party fighting, and between generals and eunuchs in partisans' epitaphs.Chapter Three mainly investigates the characteristics of information and style in writing partisans'epitaphs in the party fighting. Partisans'epitaphs included sensitive factors especially about events and characters, for which writers adopted corresponding strategies in content and style. Since the particular political and ecological environment, scholars wrote epitaphs with an unusual mentality in the party fighting, resulting in content and style's difference from common epitaphs. Generally speaking, it's the peculiar context caused by the stress of the party fighting in Northern Song Dynasty that intensified the tendency of evading writing epitaphs for others. In the condition of party fighting, writers didn't write down all the facts in order to seek a balance between recording facts and escaping disaster, for which writers had to apply rhetoric. For instance, writers would intentionally abridge the account of sensitive political event and substitute generalization for specific characters. From partisans' epitaphs writing of Ouyang Xiu, Su Shi, Wang Anshi, Sima Guang and Fan Zuyu, this chapter examines respectively the writing convention of partisans'epitaphs in the party fighting represented by them. All in all, this chapter gets rid of fixed patterns and limits of traditional epitaph writing to examine the relation between the general convention and rhetoric strategy of writing and drawing materials and the party fighting, thus concludes that the peculiar stress of the party fighting does influence the epitaph writing more or less.Chapter Four takes into consideration the spread of partisans'epitaphs in the party fighting, furthermore analyses the influence of the spread. The ban of political parties had arisen in Chongning Period as the late party fighting in Northern Song Dynasty, and the ban had fettered not only official organization but ideology until Hui Zong's abdication. The ban, which lasted for more than twenty years, had impacted the writing and spread of epitaphs. The party fighting had greater influence on the spreading and reading epitaphs, which embodied in the boom and decline of the tendency of evading writing epitaphs for others, prohibition and destruction of stele, and expurgation of content when carving epitaphs in stone and including in collections.The last part is conclusion, which propounds relevant problems of the style between partisans' epitaphs and official history in the hope of further study in the future.