A Study On The Achievements And Influence Of Bibliography In Song Dynasty

Song Dynasty is a period when China's feudal economy developed relatively rapidly. The country's basic unity, the strengthening of centralization, the restoration and development of agricultural production, the development of handicraft industry and the business boom laid a solid foundation for the prosperity of the society and economy. In addition, the government adopted a more enlightened cultural policy, which allowed more freedom of academic thinking, and created objective conditions for cultural prosperity of Song Dynasty. Thanks to the economic and cultural development, the book industry got well developed. Official and private book collections were much larger than that of the previous generations, and reached the peak of China's feudal society. In order to resolve the contradiction between people's specific needs and the voluminous library materials, the study of bibliography in Song Dynasty began to flourish. This thesis paper studies the achievements of bibliography in Song Dynasty, and analyzes the ideology, culture, and unique theoretical system of bibliography in Song Dynasty. On the basis of this analysis, the author discusses the far-reaching impact of the development of bibliography in Song Dynasty on later generations, in terms of cultural heritage preservation, research and study on edition, and the development of bibliography history.This thesis paper can be divided into seven parts:The Introduction shows the significance of the topic, the research history and current situation, the research approach and the innovation of this thesis paper.ChapterⅠintroduces the historical background of the development of bibliography in Song Dynasty, and analyzes the historical root of the development. The flourish of bibliography in Song Dynasty was not fortuitous, but it had a natural link with the historical, political, economic, scientific, technological and cultural background in Song Dynasty. In politics, the government adopted the basic national policy of "desisting from armament and promoting culture and education", and implemented the imperial examination system. In economics, the feudal agricultural production flourished and the feudal business boomed. In science and technology, engraved printing and paper making were most advanced at that time. In culture and education, academic and cultural undertakings were prosperous, and education was well developed. All of these environments provided good conditions for the flourish of bibliography in Song Dynasty. ChapterⅡsummarizes the outstanding achievements of bibliographical compilation in Song Dynasty. Besides the two traditional types of bibliography, the official bibliography and the private bibliography, the author also introduces and analyzes the compilation of other different kinds of bibliography in Song Dynasty.ChapterⅢdiscusses the integration and innovation of descriptive methods of bibliography in Song Dynasty. The descriptive style of bibliography consummated. On the basis of researches on Liu Xiang's keynote of descriptive style, the bibliographer of both official and private bibliography created new systems of the descriptive style, and developed a lot of new theories and methods. At the same time, a new type of bibliography, the compiling style, was created by Ma Duanlin in his Verifying Documents·Confucian Classics. This created a new genre and opened up a new area in China's bibliographical history, and got great attention from bibliographers of later generations.ChapterⅣdiscusses the innovation and changes of bibliographical classification system in Song Dynasty. Facing the situation of sharp increase in new books and decrease in some traditional books, the bibliographers of Song Dynasty had to make some adjustment and innovation in the bibliographical classification system. They mainly used four types of classification systems, and made some reform and improvement in the setting up of category and catalogue. Generally speaking, they inherited the fine tradition and made some innovation at the same time, which reflected the characteristics of bibliographical compilation in Song Dynasty, leaving an important impact on later generations.ChapterⅤshows the summarization and sublimation of bibliographical theory in Song Dynasty. The bibliographers of Song Dynasty summed up experience of their predecessors, and made a lot of research and study. They finally set up some bibliographical theories in terms of bibliographical function, book searching, book classification, bibliographical description and bibliographical review. As a representative, Zheng Qiao wrote Tong Zhi Jiao Chou Outline, which was China's first monograph on bibliographical theory. The development of bibliographical thought in Song Dynasty put China's classical bibliographical theory to a new height.ChapterⅥsummarizes the influence of the development of bibliography in Song Dynasty on later generations. The bibliographer of Song Dynasty critically inherited the bibliographical theories set up by their predecessors, innovated these theories, and finally formed a new bibliographical system with characteristics of Song Dynasty, leaving a far-reaching impact on later generations. The influence mainly includes the following aspects: the bibliographical literature preserved a large amount of cultural heritage; the classification theory enriched the content of classical bibliography; the textual bibliography promoted research and study on edition; and the descriptive methods promoted the new development of bibliographical history.