In the literature of the Tang Dynasty, the most brilliant achievement is poetry. The Complete Poems of Tang Dynasty compiled in Qing Dynasty contains more than 48,900 poems by more than 2,200 poets in Tang Dynasty, which is far more numerous, rich in content and diverse in styles and schools than any previous dynasty.
Poetry can achieve unprecedented development in the Tang Dynasty, except
In addition to the basic reasons for social and economic prosperity, there are many factors. The Tang Dynasty was a period when landlords from civilian backgrounds flooded into politics, adding a large number of new poets to the poetry circle. They reflect real life from different angles and styles, which makes Tang poetry break through the frivolous style of emphasizing form over content and enrich the ideological content and social significance of poetry. After Wei and Jin Dynasties, the literary form of poetry gradually matured. After the reunification of the Sui Dynasty, the beautiful style of writing in the Southern Dynasty merged with the simple style of writing in the Northern Dynasty, which provided a good foundation for the development of Tang poetry. In the Tang Dynasty, the imperial examination took scholars by poetry, and the feudal emperors advocated poetry, which stimulated the enthusiasm of literati for poetry creation at that time. In addition, the integration of various ethnic groups in China and the frequent economic and cultural exchanges with foreign countries at that time also added new nutrition to poetry. All these factors have promoted the prosperity of Tang poetry creation.
Among the poets in the early Tang Dynasty, He, Yang Jiong and Lu were called "four outstanding poets" and made great achievements. As a poet reformer, Chen Ziang has made great contributions to the establishment of a new poetic style with rich content and simple language. After Chen Ziang, Tang poetry entered a new stage of development. Talented poets have sprung up in large numbers, winning glory for each other. Wang Wei and Meng Haoran are famous for their beautiful pastoral landscape poems, while Gao Shi and Cen Can are famous for their tragic frontier poems. Li He is unique in that he is good at using image thinking and unique expression techniques. Li Shangyin is famous for his colorful untitled poems. Among the many poets in the Tang Dynasty, the most famous are Li Bai, Du Fu and Bai Juyi.
Li Bai, "Poet Fairy"
Li Bai (70 1 ~ 762), the word Taibai, was born in broken leaves in Ji Cheng (Qin 'an, Gansu) and moved to Sichuan with his father in his childhood.
He is an active romantic poet deeply loved by the people of China. His poems are rich in content, imaginative and passionate, with strong artistic charm and far-reaching influence on later generations, and are called "poetic immortals". Many of his poems describe beautiful nature, such as "Looking at Lushan Waterfall" and "Building Baidicheng Early". , has long been told by later generations.
Du Fu, "Poet Saint"
Du Fu (7 12 ~ 770), a native of Gongxian County, Henan Province, was an outstanding realistic poet in ancient China. The world calls them "poets and saints".
Du Fu experienced the changes of feudal society from prosperity to decline, and deeply felt the decay of the ruling class and the suffering of the people. Around the Anshi Rebellion, he wrote famous poems such as Chedian, Three Officials and Three Farewells, describing the sufferings of the people and exposing the corruption and cruelty of the ruling class. These are the essence of Du Fu's poems. In addition, Du Fu also wrote many beautiful and moving poems.
Du Fu's poems are profound in content, gloomy and vigorous in style, refined in language and rigorous in narration, which truly reflect the vast social real life. They are called "the history of poetry" and occupy an important position in the history of China literature.
Bai Juyi
Bai Juyi (772 ~ 846), a native of Xinzheng, Henan Province, was a representative of the New Yuefu Poetry School.
Bai Juyi has a very incisive view on literary creation. He advocates that all compositions and poems should be related to current events and reflect real life. In art, his poems have a unique style of being easy to understand, vivid and simple, and natural. Living in the declining period of the Tang Dynasty, he had more opportunities to get in touch with social reality and understand people's lives. Therefore, his poems show deep sympathy for the people. In addition, his long narrative poems "Song of Eternal Sorrow" and "Pipa Journey" are also rich in social content and are loved by people.
Ancient literary movement
Parallel prose, which dominated the Southern and Northern Dynasties, blindly pursued melody, rhetoric and allusions, with weak style, rigid form and empty content, which could not reflect rich real life. With the increasing dominance of landlords in the common people in the Tang Dynasty, the gentry's landlord power declined rapidly, and this aristocratic style could not meet the needs of society more and more, and a movement to promote ancient Chinese literature appeared.
The so-called ancient prose movement is nominally to restore the ancient prose style of Zhou, Qin and Han dynasties, which seems to be a retro movement. In fact, it is to inherit the excellent tradition of ancient prose and replace the desperate parallel prose with a natural and simple prose style that pays attention to content. It is an innovative movement that tries to adapt style, style and literary language to the requirements of the times. Chen Ziang was the founder of the ancient prose movement in the early Tang Dynasty, and Han Yu was the main leader of the ancient prose movement.
On the basis of ancient prose, Han Yu tried to create a new prose style that is more convenient to express his thoughts. He advocated inheriting and absorbing the achievements of ancient prose from Six Classics and Zhuang Sao to Sima Qian and Sima Xiangru, but opposed learning only the form of ancient prose and not the spirit of ancient prose. He stressed that writing articles should be creative and opposed to imitation. He applied his new prose style to all aspects of writing, and wrote more than 300 essays with high artistic skills. His works are magnificent, rich in emotion, concise in words and vivid in language, which have great influence on later generations.
Although Liu Zongyuan's role in the ancient prose movement is not as good as Han Yu's, his more than 400 essays have made great achievements. He not only wrote Tian Shuo and other famous works that promoted atheism, but also wrote the snake catcher Shuo and other works that exposed the darkness of society at that time. These works are concise in language, vivid in writing, strong in thought and profound in appeal, and they are excellent works in Tang prose. In addition, Liu Zongyuan's landscape travel notes vividly describe the natural scenery and have high attainments.
Legendary novels and their variants
In the middle and late Tang Dynasty, due to the prosperity of urban economy, corresponding legendary novels came into being. Compared with the novels of the Six Dynasties, the protagonists in the legendary novels are not ghosts, but people in real life, so the works are rich in social content. On the other hand, the ancient prose movement in the Tang Dynasty provided a new prose style with strong expressive force for novel creation, and the development of poetry also conveyed rich nutrition for it. Therefore, the creative art of legendary novels has made new progress in all aspects.
It can be said that the appearance of legendary novels marks that China's classical novels have begun to break away from the bud and gradually developed into shape. Famous works include Pillow Story by Shen Jiji, Biography of Conan Taishou by Li Gongzuo, Eternal Sorrow and Dongcheng Father by Chen Hong, Biography of Li Wa by Bai Xingjian, Biography of Huo Xiaoyu by Jiang Fang and Biography of Yingying by Yuan Zhen.
At that time, when Buddhist monks preached to ordinary people, they often popularized storytelling, combined prose with verse, and sang with narration and pictures to enhance the effect. This form of speaking and singing is called popular speech. This spoken language is called Bianwen. Because this form is lively and popular, Bianwen has rapidly developed from the initial story of singing Buddhist scriptures to social life content including historical stories, folklore and biographies of contemporary people, and has become a new literary genre. It had a great influence on the legendary novels at that time, the later scripts of Song people and folk rap.
carve
Stone carving and clay sculpture are the most colorful sculpture arts in the Tang Dynasty. For example, Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang and Bingling Temple in Yongjing have many stone carvings of the Tang Dynasty, which are magnificent in shape or beautifully described, and all of them have high artistic value. The giant statue of stone Buddha in Leshan, Sichuan, with a height of 7 1 m, is majestic and natural, and it is the largest statue of stone Buddha in China.
Among the stone carvings in the mausoleum, the famous relief "Six Horses in Zhaoling" in front of Emperor Taizong's tomb depicts the different postures, personalities and expressions of six horses, which is very vivid and realistic. In addition, the huge sculptures in front of Ganling and Shunling are extremely spectacular and exquisite, and they are also the treasures of stone carvings in the Tang Dynasty.
The famous Thousand Buddha Cave in Dunhuang is a rare art treasure house in the world. Among the existing 492 caves, there are 2 13 caves in the Tang Dynasty, accounting for almost half of the total. Among them, the three-dimensional clay Buddha statues are different in shape and lifelike, exuding the brilliance of bodybuilding. They are often combined with murals in harmony, showing the sculptor's high wisdom and talent. Tri-colored pottery figurines unearthed from tombs in the Tang Dynasty are exquisite and lifelike, and are world-famous sculptures.
draw
Painting in the Tang Dynasty not only produced many famous artists, but also made great progress in subject matter and painting techniques. The paintings in the early Tang Dynasty were mainly religious Buddha statues and noble figure paintings. Famous artists include Yan Lide and Yan Brothers. The existing Map of Emperor Taizong and the Map of Emperors in Past Dynasties are both representative works of Yan.
After the prosperous Tang Dynasty, figure painting began to pay attention to secular life, and landscape painting became increasingly prosperous. The most successful painter is Wu Daozi (also known as Wu Daozi). He is a painter, who has high attainments in figure painting and landscape painting, and is known as "the sage of painting". The existing Born of Gautama Buddha is said to be his work. Li Sixun and Li Zhaodao are famous for their gold and blue landscape paintings, which are colorful and detailed. They are the ancestors of the northern landscape painting school. The poet Wang Wei created ink landscape painting. His landscape paintings are exquisite, elegant and poetic. He is the ancestor of the Southern School landscape painting, which has a great influence on later generations.
In the Tang Dynasty, there were many painters who were good at painting flowers, birds and animals, such as Xue Ji's painting cranes, Cao Ba's and Han Gan's painting horses, and Han Han's painting cows. These painters were all famous all over the world. Murals in temples, grottoes and tombs are an important aspect of painting art in Tang Dynasty. The number of murals in the Thousand Buddha Cave in Dunhuang is extremely rare and rich in content. Although its theme is mainly Buddhist stories, it also reflects the production and life of the Tang society in large quantities, leaving valuable visual materials for future generations.
A large number of murals have been unearthed in the tombs of Huai Lishou, Prince Zhang Huai, Prince Li Zhongrun of Yide and Princess Li Xianhui of Yongtai in Tang Dynasty excavated near Xi 'an, Shaanxi Province. These works are colorful, magnificent and extremely rich in content. Such as Niu Geng, uncle, ox cart and handyman in Li Shou's tomb, vividly reflect the production and life scenes of the Tang people. The travel maps and hunting maps in the tombs of Li Xian and Li Zhongrun show the luxurious scenes of nobles. The guest map depicts the intimate relations of all ethnic groups in China and friendly exchanges with foreign countries, and so on. These murals are of great artistic and historical value.
calligraphy
The Tang Dynasty is an important stage in the history of China's calligraphy.
The regular script of Ou Yangxun, Yu Shinan, Chu Suiliang and Xue Ji in the early Tang Dynasty was elegant and agile, and inherited the style of the two kings in the Southern Dynasties. Sun is a famous cursive writer and calligraphy theorist in China, and his Preface to Book Spectrum has been handed down to this day.
The great calligraphers in the middle Tang Dynasty were Yan Zhenqing and Huai Su. Yan Zhenqing combined the four brushstrokes of seal script, seal script, official script, seal script and seal script, and created a new calligraphy style, called Yan style, which had a great influence on later generations. Famous works include Yan Jia Miao Bei, Duo Baota Bei and so on. Huai Su's cursive script is vigorous, unrestrained and fluent, and it is a treasure of calligraphy art, and "Self-Narrative Post" is his masterpiece.
Liu Gongquan is a famous calligrapher in the late Tang Dynasty, who is good at regular script. He integrated the brushwork of various factions into a whole. He is known as Liu Ti in the world, and his masterpiece is Li Chengbei.
Music and dance
On the basis of integrating the characteristics of domestic folk music and dance and absorbing the nutrients of foreign music and dance, the Tang Dynasty created China folk music and dance with diverse styles, beautiful scenery and harmony.
Emperor Gaozu used nine songs from the Sui Dynasty. Emperor Taizong set up ten tunes, namely Le Yan, Shang Qing, Xiliang, Tianzhu, Koryo, Qiuci, Anguo, Shule, Guo Kang and Gaochang. The band is very big, and Chinese and foreign musical instruments win glory. Since then, music has been divided into left and inner parts. There are six kinds of music in the left, sitting under the class when playing, and eight kinds of music in the back, standing under the class when playing. Tang Xuanzong himself was a musician. He once sent 300 children of geisha in the left and hundreds of maids to teach music in the pear garden, which was called "disciples of the emperor's pear garden", reflecting the grand occasion of music at that time.
Dances in the Tang Dynasty can be divided into healthy dances and gentle dances, accompanied by music. The dance is vigorous, and the dance music includes Sword, Hu Xuan and Huteng. The dance is soft, and the dance music includes Liangzhou, echo music, night bird singing and so on. At that time, the branch-folding dance from Central Asia was all the rage. Clothing and feather dance, which was handed down from Xiliang, was popular in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, which was reflected in Bai Juyi's Clothing and Feather Dance Song. But the dancers' costumes are gorgeous and incomparable, and they can't perform without court money.
astronomy
An outstanding astronomer and his entourage (683 ~ 727) in the Tang Dynasty were monks, whose real name was Zhang and Sui, and they were from Weizhou Changle (Henan Nanle). In 724 (the 12th year of Kaiyuan), together with a group of monks, an engineering expert Liang Lingzan and craftsmen, he created an ecliptic instrument to observe the position and movement of the sun and the moon. Through observation, a group of people discovered the phenomenon of star position movement. This is nearly a thousand years before the British astronomer Harley put forward the idea of stars' self-motion in 17 18.
In 724, the team also proposed to measure the height of the North Pole and the length of the sun shadow at the winter solstice and the spring and autumn equinox in 24 places across the country, and designed an instrument called the complex moment diagram to measure the height of the North Pole. From this survey, the team calculated that the north-south difference is 35 1 mile 80 steps (129.22 km), and the height of the North Pole is one degree. This data is the length of the meridian (longitude) of the earth at one degree. Compared with modern meridian length 1 1 1.2km, this is the first scientific measurement of meridian in the world, although there is still a big error.
A line began to make a new calendar in 725, and it was completed in 727 (the fifteenth year of Kaiyuan), and it was named Dayan Calendar. This calendar system is meticulous and reasonable in structure, which is more in line with astronomical reality. This was an advanced calendar at that time. Later calendars were almost written according to its structure, and it was not until the end of the Ming Dynasty that the western calendars were absorbed that they could be changed, which shows its far-reaching influence.
Engraving printing
Printing is one of the four great inventions in ancient China. The earliest printing method was woodcut printing, and in the middle of the 7th century, there were carved Buddha statues. In the 1980s, "printed paper" was used as a tax payment voucher for businessmen.
In 824 (the fourth year of Changqing), in the preface written by the poet Yuan Zhen for Bai Juyi's "Changqing Collection", it was said that some people took written and printed copies of white poems to sell or exchange wine and tea in the street. By the time of Emperor Wenzong Daiwa, people in Sichuan and Jianghuai printed calendars on wooden boards every year and sold them in the market, so that they were "printed all over the world" before the court promulgated the new calendar. It can be seen that block printing was quite developed in the late Tang Dynasty.
build
The construction of civil structure in Tang Dynasty has reached a quite mature stage.
Chang 'an, the capital at that time, was a magnificent and unique building complex in the world. According to the actual measurement by archaeologists in recent years, Chang 'an City is 865 1 m long from north to south, 972 1 m wide from east to west, with a circumference of 36.7 kilometers and an area of 84 square kilometers. There are three palace areas in the city: Taiji Palace, Daming Palace and Xingqing Palace. The palaces and pavilions are magnificent. Ancestral temples and official offices are located in the imperial city. Wide and straight streets, uniform alleys, religious temples and official offices constitute this magnificent metropolis. The architectural design of Chang 'an directly affects the urban construction at home and abroad. At that time, domestic cities and Japanese infrastructure were scrambling to follow suit.
The existing halls in the Tang Dynasty include the Nanchan Temple Hall and the Beigao Temple East Hall in Wutai County, Shanxi Province, which are the only two ancient wooden structures in China. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda and the Small Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi are the most famous among the Tang Pagoda.
Medical science
Medicine developed greatly in the Tang Dynasty. There are not only good disciplines, but also many famous doctors. The most outstanding one is Sun Simiao (58 1 ~ 682) from Jingzhao Garden (Yaoxian County, Shaanxi Province). In 652 (the third year of Yonghui), Sun Simiao wrote the first medical book, Prescription for Emergency Use, with a total of 30 volumes. Thirty years later, he wrote another thirty volumes of Thousand Girls and Wings, which made up for the shortcomings of previous books. These two works, usually referred to as Fang for short, are the fruits of Sun Simiao's hard exploration all his life.
In his book, Sun Simiao summarized the medical theory and treatment experience of doctors in previous dynasties before the Tang Dynasty, and collected more than 5,300 prescriptions. He paid special attention to gynecology and pediatrics, listed them at the beginning of the volume, and advocated setting up departments independently. He paid attention to the compatibility and syndrome differentiation of drugs, initiated compound prescription, and put forward the method of treating multiple diseases or multiple diseases with one side. Sun Simiao has also made remarkable achievements in the collection and application of drugs.
Qian Jin Fang contains more than 800 kinds of drugs, including the collection and processing of more than 200 kinds of drugs. Because of Sun Simiao's great contribution to pharmacology and medicine, he won the respect and love of the people and was called "the king of medicine" by the late Buddha.
Another outstanding achievement of medicine in the Tang Dynasty was the illustrated monograph Tang Xin Materia Medica compiled by Su Jing and others in 659 (the fourth year of Qing Dynasty). This book contains 53 volumes and 844 kinds of drugs. It is the first pharmacopoeia published by the state in the world.