The Study On "twenty-four Stories About Filial Piety"

By the study on "Twenty-Four Stories about Filial Piety", this paper is aimed at illustrating the attribution of "Twenty-Four Stories about Filial Piety" as "general knowledge, ideas and beliefs".This paper applied textual criticism and comparison of traditional history as study methods, carrying out a great deal of analysis of materials, which include literary writings, archaeological reports, class books compiled by the government, remaining characters in Tun Huang, children's primers, drama scripts and so on. At the same time, the paper drew lessons fully from research results created by predecessors, inquiring into the formation history of "Twenty-Four Stories about Filial Piety"; the correspondences and differences concerning "filial types"in preferences, contrasting with "biographies of filial people" in the records of authorized history; and the reasons for its widespread.As a very common cultural phenomenon, "Twenty-Four Stories about Filial Piety" has passed through a long long time in ancient China. Its formation benefited from the mutual between "Elite Culture" and "Popular Culture". Broadly speaking, "Twenty-Four Stories about Filial Piety" origined in the Han and Wei Dynastics, and continued in the Yuan and Ming Dynastics. In addition, during this process, the tendency of "cultural popularization"in Song Dynasty has great significiance on its final appearance.For wide-angle, there are respective standards on the choice of "filial types" between "biographies of filial people" in the records of authorized history and "Twenty-Four Stories about Filial Piety". The reasons for the existance of such a difference is related to the textual orientation of "Twenty-Four Stories about Filial Piety". Moreover, the difference still contains information of sociocultural changes.Compared with other modes of transmission, drama is more sensitive to the things that people like or hate. Because of this, dramas got materials from "Twenty-Four Stories about Filial Piety" and recreated it, which had strongly impelled "Twenty-Four Stories about Filial Piety" to be common sense, and caused a positive effect on its popularity.