A Study Of The Records Of The Western Expedition

Wang Dashu,a writer and a zhiographer of the Qing Dynasty,created the book of The Records of the Western Expedition,which can be called a spiritual support for writing about reality.This book has a variety of genres,combining poetry and literature;it is rich in subjects and has a wide range of contents,including landscape,geographical resources,religion and folklore,culture and history,etc.It is a bright pearl among the writings of local literati in the Qing Dynasty,and is worth treasuring.In this paper,we will analyze the life of Wang Dashu,the objects and space of his travels,the edition of The Records of the Western Expedition,and the characteristics and value of his poetry and writing.The whole paper is divided into the following parts.The introductory section provides a broad overview of the book’s background and structure,revealing its literary and documentary value.Because of its extensive travels,the book defines the scope of the work as a "travelogue".In addition,the lack and shortcomings of the current study of the Western Expedition are explored,with the aim of exploring the topic in terms of research significance and methodology.The first chapter is an examination of Wang Dashu’s life and a brief description of the edition of The Records of the Western Expedition.Under the divergent state of the scholarly community,Wang Dashu’s birth and death dates are discussed and corrected,and his real birth and death dates are confirmed to be 1732-1816;his family history and writings are macroscopically sorted out,and it can be seen that Wang Dashu was of good character and profoundly learned;and then his travels are examined to explore the landmark events in his life experience and restore the true nature of his life.Through the introduction of the five existing editions of The Records of the Western Expedition and the comparison of the editions in four aspects:the introduction,the preface,the table of contents,and the drawings,the differences in the content of each edition are explored and the original appearance of the ancient book is restored.The second chapter is an examination of the author’s travels in The Records of the Western Expedition.Wang Dashu spent 13 years in the frontier and traveled with a wide range of people.In terms of the geographical groups,the objects of friendship can be mainly divided into two categories,namely,the officials stationed in the town and the deported garrison members.Among the officials stationed in the town,he was close to Soap Youzhai,Baoning,Li Youquan and others;among the deportees,he was close to Zhu Meifen,Yang Tingli,Chen Tingxue,Hua Qiuyan and others,thus revealing the characteristics of the "grouping for warmth" form of the friendship of the exiles.In terms of the literary interactions under the threshold of space,these spaces with vitality are mainly the Listen to the Lotus Study House,Jian Yuan Building,Sui Yuan,etc.,which reproduce the glorious scene of interweaving physical and life.From the above two aspects,we can explore the historical streamers represented by the author from the individual to the group,reflecting the current existence and emotional state of the streamers.The third chapter is a study of the poetry of The Records of the Western Expedition.By counting the number of poems and looking at the contents of the relevant volumes,it can be seen that Wang Dashu himself composed a large number of poems and excelled in various genres.In terms of poetic style,he preferred to write rhythmic poems and stanzas,and his poetic tendency was based on the standard of Reverence for the Tang Dynasty,and his mode of composition was characterized by the title being what he wrote,the content being annotated,and the chanting of many groups of poems.The poems are divided into five categories: "stimulation," "contemplation," "communication," "canticle," and "criticism," thus revealing the different social functions of the poems,a glimpse of the common style of the poems of the Qing Dynasty,and the life and thoughts of Wang Dashu at different stages.The fourth chapter is a study of the prose of The Records of the Western Expedition.The number of essays is also considerable,and by understanding the number and layout of the compositions from a macro perspective,and by tracing the succession of the creation of The Records of the Western Expedition to the writing of the local history,and the pioneering of regional writing in terms of chronicles,the spirit of historical documentation and evidence is revealed.The content of the book further explores the rewriting of the impressions of the western regions in the Qing Dynasty,capturing the documentary value of the two major aspects of the physical geography and the social and human environment.The distinctive features of the scholarly style of his work are traced and analyzed,and the esteemed Qianjia scholarly style behind Wang Dashu’s writing is deeply interpreted,thus revealing the value and significance of his writing again.