Cultural Reorganization and Literary Transformation in the Early Southern Song Dynasty

Author: Qian Jianzhuang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-10-01
Features: The research topic of "Cultural Reorganization and Literary Transformation in the Early Southern Song Dynasty" focuses on a weak yet urgent aspect of Song Dynasty cultural and literary studies. It aims to provide an anatomical map of cultural features, scholar spirit, and literary trends of a specific era against a broad historical backdrop. Striving to find a mediating point between culture, literature, and the social life of scholars is both a starting point and an important objective of this book. Regarding the early Southern Song Dynasty, the southward migration of a large number of northern scholars had a profound impact on the cultural and literary landscape of the Song Dynasty, reshaping the cultural map and altering the fate of literature. Therefore, factors such as the social strata and types of southward migrating scholars, their migration routes, and the geographical distribution of scholars—all of which are crucial to the reorganization of the cultural map—are the research objects this book seeks to elucidate. The second chapter of this book centers on these aspects. Meanwhile, political changes, the connotations of the times, geographical environments, scholars' lives, and the deep connections between the Southern Song government's policies for scholars and literary progress and literary trends are also key points this book thoroughly examines. Chapters three and four of this book focus on these aspects. With empathetic understanding, this book attempts to present a primary source of the lives of southward migrating scholars during the transition between the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties as a main perspective for research. Therefore, although this book selects only one type of scholar—"ci poets"—as its subject of analysis, its intention is to highlight the living conditions of scholars of that era and, consequently, to analyze the reorganization of the cultural ecosystem and the new trends in scholars' cultural creation during that time. Thus, when describing the overall characteristics and styles of culture and literature, the book does not focus on phenomenological descriptions but delves into historical records to explore in depth the background of the era and the living environment of the people. Mutual verification between literature and history is a principle this book strives to practice in its research methodology. This is reflected in the text: on one hand, the interpretation of Song Dynasty poetry, ci poetry, and prose in this book differs from traditional literary criticism and appreciation methods, as it is more concerned with the historical value of these cultural achievements and the new attitudes and spiritual appearances of scholars they reveal; on the other hand, regarding the literary creation and ideological dynamics of scholars, the book often analyzes them from the outside in, from the surface to the inside, focusing on identifying their causes rather than merely describing their appearances and judging their values.