To Yuan Haowen Epitaphs Study

Yuan Haowen is a great masterpiece of literature in the Jin and the Yuan Dynasty. He tops the literary achievements during this period in poetry, song lyric, essay and poetic criticism. Until now emphasis has been laid, in Yuan Haowen studies, on his poems and poetic theory, whereas the research into his essays is still at the pioneering stage. This status quo does not provide an objective overview of all his literary creation, nor will it facilitate the systematic evaluation of his status and achievements in the literary history. Through a study on the bulk of his essays—the epitaphs, this paper examines Yuan Haowen's historical responsibility"that features a conscientious historian"and his creative tenet of"recording history with inscription", tries to grasp the irreplaceable historic value and outstanding literary accomplishments of his epitaphs, and summarizes the excellent writing techniques of these epitaphs.In The Complete Works of Yuan Haowen, from Vol. 16 to Vol. 31, 99 epitaphs are included. Against the background of Yuan Haowen's life story, this paper divides the creation of his epitaphs into three periods, that is, the period of crossing the Huanghe River south to shun the war, the period of being detained in Shandong and the period of rushing about in late years. Though the epitaphs in different periods vary, half of them are written in the third period. For one reason, Yuan Haowen then takes the lead in the literary circle in the Jin and the Yuan Dynasty, when"all the prestigious men of letters have died", and"people all over the country come to him for the composition of epitaphs and inscriptions."For another, Yuan Haowen holds the opinion that when difficulty arises for keeping history for long,"inscription on stone and metal is the only thing to be trusted in keeping the story"of the protagonist of a biography"from falling into oblivion in history". As the stations of protagonists may vary, Yuan Haowen divides the epitaphs for them into six categories: famous ministers, famous generals, good officials, social elites, monks and Taoist priests, and others. Yuan Haowen is capable of highlighting the learning and moral character, grace and temperament, and achievements of different protagonists according to their different social stations.During his late years, Yuan Haowen bewails the loss of a national history. Assuming the responsibility and attitude of a conscientious historian, he tries to"keep the history with inscription"by portraying characters and relating the events. He believes that"the history is written after a state collapses"and"a historian is committed to the keeping of history."In the epitaphs he has created, he preserves not only the stories of many prestigious nobles, good ministers and officials, monks and Taoist priests and common people, caste and filial women, but also a lot of historical events"that involve the rise and decline"of the Jin Dynasty. His epitaphs provide both substantive historical materials for the historians in the Yuan Dynasty to write The History of the Jin Dynasty, and invaluable materials for the biographies of historical figures in The History of the Yuan Dynasty and The History of the Song Dynasty. More significantly, the historical materials included in his epitaphs make replenishment to the history of the Jin Dynasty and of great value in historical studies.In his epitaphs, Yuan Haowen grasps the main features of the characters he tries to portray. He creates beautiful characters through their action, words, looks, and emotions. He never hides the beauty of his characters, but gives full play to their merits; and he also never creates false beauty for them, but writes out their true mind. He has created vivid characters of all kinds in the Jin Dynasty. With the narrative technique of a multi-perspective view and the choice of typical materials, he portrays his characters and narrates the events appropriately. In the process of narration, he gives sharp comments of insightful opinions. His narration and comments are closely integrated and help each other. In the meanwhile in choosing materials, Yuan Haowen is capable of picking up one or two legendary events to add color to his writing, which does not suggest any deliberation, but can greatly arouse the readers'interest and make his writing full of humor and wit.Yuan Haowen inherits and develops the tradition of a Chinese historian in boldly recoding the history"without flattering any one in power". He objectively and fairly keeps many important historical materials in the Jin Dynasty. In the meanwhile, he inherits and develops the narrative technique that dates back to the historical essays composed in the Qin Dynasty and before and features the traditional Chinese biographies. While following the fundamental principles of the epitaphs, he is not confined to the routine way of creation. Thus he composes large quantities of interesting and attractive works"magnanimous and full of life vicissitude". Either from the perspective of history or that of literature, Yuan Haowen has won great achievements in epitaphs. His works has become the rare flowers that constitute an integral part of ancient Chinese biography literature.