The Construction And Transmutation Of Ouyang Xiu's Wenzong Image

This thesis includes a preface and five chapters.The preface introduced the reasons why I chose this topic and the researching purposes and methods of this thesis.Chapter 1: The analysis about the concept of Wenzong. As to me, the word Wen was combined with the word Zong in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Wenzong was used firstly as a composite word in the Cui Yin's biography in the history book named Hou Han shu. It said that Cui was Wenzong and his successive generations inherited the literary talent. From then on, there were more than twenty people who was called Wenzong such as Lu Ji, Zhang Zai, Yuan Hong, Cui Guang, Xu Ling, Xue Dao-heng, Wang Wei, Han Yu, Yang Yi, Ouyang Xiu , Su Shi and so on. The criterion of Wenzong was transmutating in the history. Wenzong became a respectable title to the person with excellent literary achievements. Of course, Wenzong was not the only criterion, it was also lied on the integral achievments of his clan, his upright moral trait, wide knowledge of Confucianism, the compliments from sovereign, his age and the insight of the historiographers. Gradually, the people with the title of Wenzong tended to be great personages and usually had the identity of Hanlin Academician. The reason that Ouyang Xiu was known as Wenzong in the Song Dynasty also included many-sided factors.Chapter 2: The five aspects constituting Ouyang Xiu's Wenzong image. They were the excellent literary achievements, the literary theories, the honest personality, the theories about Dao and his extensive association.Chapter 3: The research of the transmutation about Ouyang Xiu's Wenzong image took by a perspective of the identity of Hanlin Academician. In history there were some people with the same identity of Hanlin Academician who revered and learned from Ouyang Xiu, such as Su Shi in Northern Song Dynasty, Zhou Bi-da in Southern Song Dynasty, Yu Ji in Yuan Dynasty and Yang Shi-qi in Ming Dynasty. The same identity led to their similar working atomasphere, political ideal, literary conception and esthetic interests, which together with respective historical reasons causes several relatively high tide during the history of Ouyang Xiu's communication. As a result, Ouyang Xiu's Wenzong image was canonized step by step.Chapter4: The comments on Ouyang Xiu by Tang and Song School in the Ming Dynasty. Ouyang Xiu's literature and morality was spreaded widely again thanks to the literary activities of Tang and Song School which included writing letters to comment literature and compiling collected works to express their viewpoint about Ouyang Xiu and his literature. Wang Shen-zhong believed that Ouyang Xiu's essay contained the trait of Sima Zichang's essay. Tang Shun-zhi compiled Wen Bian and the amount of Ouyang Xiu's essay was at most. Mao Kun revelled in Ouyang Xiu's essay and he compiled Tang Song ba Da Jia Wen Chao .He considered that Ou got the soul of Sima Qiang's essays. Gui You-guang held in esteem Ouyang Xiu, too. Their comments placed emphasis on Ouyang Xiu's essay achievements which were a part of Ouyang Xiu's Wenzong image, that is to say, to a large extent they considered Ouyang Xiu as a literateur rather than a confucian scholar or a politician. Their comments had a great influence on today's concept about Ouyang Xiu's Wenzong image.Chapter5: The comments about Ouyang Xiu's Ci. This chapter paid attention to the relationship between the position of Ouyang Xiu in the history of Ci and Ouyang Xiu's Wenzong image. Ouyang Xiu's Ci widely spreaded through the geisha's mouths in the middle and later periods of the Northern Song Dynasty. Several anthologies of Ci established Ouyang Xiu's important position of the history of Ci in the Southern Song Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty the Ci world paid close attention to Ouyang Xiu's Ci about love. The position of Ouyang Xiu in the history of Ci was established in the Qing Dynasty which was an important part of what we understanded about Ouyang Xiu's image as the title of Wenzong.