The Collation And Research On Zhu Zhifan's "Record Of A Mission To Korea"

Record of a Mission to Korea is a record of Zhu Zhifan,s diplomatic mission to Korea in the 34th year of the period of Emperor Wanli in the Ming Dynasty(1606),which records the routes,inspirations,banquets and harmony communications with other literators in the form of poetry and essays.It reproduces the exchanges and communications between the two counties and between their literators.The record is not only a crystallization of Zhu's personal work,but also an important work of envoy literature,realizing the combination of chronicle and documentary.This paper is going to collect and study the Record of a Mission to Korea through analyzing historical materials,texts and philology.There are altogether four chapters in the paper.The first chapter is the introduction,which mainly introduces the purpose and significance of the topic,literature review,research methods and innovation of the paper.The second chapter mainly introduces the book and the editions of the book.First of all discusses the writing of the book from its writing background and purpose,the book not only has a distinctive brand of the times,but also by the influence of predecessors creation model.As well as the editions of the book.compared with Bingwu Huang-Hua-Ji.The third chapter goes to the systematic analysis of the arrangement and the theme of the book.As for the arrangement,the book presents two characteristics:one is that it writes poems first,followed by essays and the appendix of other's responsorial poems;the other is pomes arranged chronologically.The theme of the book can be roughly divided into four categories:promoting the superiority of Ming China,inquiring about Korean folk customs,recalling friendships,and expressing his hermitage ambition.The fourth chapter expounds the value of the book on literature,historical material and philology.Firstly,the book collects a variety of literary works,as a model for the envoy literature,and promotes the spread of Korean literary works in China,which has a certain literary value.Secondly,the poems of the book provide supporting information of Zhu's birth year and making friends.The records of inns,roads,landscape and customs of the two countries are important references of studying social conditions of Ming Dynast and Korea in 17th century,which has historical value.Finally,the text of the book can be used to collate Huang-Hua-Ji,and the appendix preserves Korean literati poetry,which has important value on literature studies.In the conclusion,this paper gives a summary to the discussions and shows limitations of the paper.