If you don't pay attention to the rules and write down everything you have traveled, seen, taken and eaten, even travel notes, then you don't need to regard travel notes as a style. Therefore, the essence of this question is, what kind of travel notes are good travel notes?
I happen to have a book I don't know when I bought it: Travels of Past Dynasties, first edition of Hunan People's Publishing House 1980. Beihe (then a teacher of Hunan Normal University) was the editor-in-chief.
This book is a collection of more than 50 travel masterpieces by nearly 40 writers from Yuan Jie in Tang Dynasty to Lin Shu in late Qing Dynasty. It can be said that the best tourist works in ancient China are all here.
Before the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the description of natural scenery was mainly a vassal of poetry, not an independent style.
During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, literati began to indulge in landscape: poetry prevailed in landscape poetry, painting prevailed in landscape painting, and the article also had the category of landscape travel notes. Liu Xie said, "Old Zhuang excused himself, but the scenery was beautiful." "Love must be extremely beautiful to write, and words must be completely new." (Wen Xin Diao Long Shi Ming) This was the trend of literary creation at that time.
Unfortunately, except for occasional fragments, there are not many travel notes of Wei and Jin dynasties preserved. Xie Lingyun was a master of landscape poetry at that time, and also wrote some travel notes, which was regarded as the originator of China's landscape travel notes. Judging from the preserved articles, it is a pure description of the scenery.
Yuan Jie's travels in Tang Dynasty are a relatively mature travel work. When he was appointed as the secretariat of Daozhou, he discovered the beauty of the right stream: "Qingxi touches the stone, dancing and exciting, and beautiful trees and different bamboos hang in the shade." After describing Youxi in exquisite words, he expressed the feeling that "no one has appreciated love since the founding of the People's Republic of China" and expressed his incompetence. This laid the foundation for future travel notes: writing scenery should have sustenance.
Liu Zongyuan's travel notes have reached perfection. His Eight Chapters of Yongzhou is well known. It describes the scenery in detail and has far-reaching influence. After the book "Travel Notes at the Beginning of the Western Mountain Banquet" was written, he described the mountain as "leisurely and prosperous, but not limited; Yang Yang swam with the Creator, but he didn't know what poverty was. He himself is "in harmony with all things" and his artistic conception is extremely lofty. " I feel the remote place in the depths of the mountain. Although the scenery is good, no one cares about it, and I express my grief and indignation that I was relegated but not qualified.
Of course, not every article should express one's ambition. Yuan Jia Ke Ji is purely about landscapes, and its words are extremely beautiful, which shows the author's superb rhetorical level.
The travel notes in the Tang Dynasty formed a lyrical style. In the Song Dynasty, China's philosophy entered the Neo-Confucianism era. Influenced by learning, people in Song Dynasty wrote poems and travel notes rationally. For example, Wang Anshi's "Bao Chan Shan Jutu" has been researched all the way, but there are not many scenes written. Half of the space is about "the extraordinary worldview is often far from danger, but people seldom realize it, so people with will can't come." Su Shi's The Story of Shi Zhongshan is not so much a travelogue as a scientific investigation, and finally comes to the conclusion that "you can judge whether something exists or not without looking at it".
Lu You's travels are unique. His trip to Shu is a diary-like travel note. When recording scenic spots, he will study the traces of predecessors, related poems and stories, as well as human history and anecdotes. This should be said to be the originator of Xu Xiake's travel notes.
In addition, many literati have continued the tradition since the Tang Dynasty, mainly traveling and writing landscapes, and there are also a large number of excellent works.
The mainstream of literature in Ming Dynasty advocated spirituality and opposed Daoism. Representative proses include "Sanyuan", Zhong Xing, Zhang Dai and others. Due to the political chaos in the middle and late Ming Dynasty and the social unrest at the time of Dingge in Ming and Qing Dynasties, a group of celebrities attached great love to landscapes and created a large number of landscape sketches. Represented by Zhang Dai, his masterpiece "Looking at the Lake Pavilion Snow":
In December in Chongzhen, I lived by the West Lake. It snowed for many days, and the noise of pedestrians and birds in the lake disappeared. At about eight o'clock this evening, I took a boat, wore a fur coat and took a stove to see the snow in the middle of the lake. Haze, sky and clouds, mountains and water are all white. The shadow of the lake, only a trace of a long beach, a little outline of the lake, and my boat, two or three boat people on board. On the gazebo, two people sat opposite each other. A boy was cooking wine and the stove was boiling. Seeing this, Yu was overjoyed and said, "How can there be such a person in the lake?" Pull me together and drink with me. I tried to drink three glasses of wine and then said goodbye to them. Ask them what their surnames are. They are from Nanjing and are guests in this place. When he got off the boat, Zhou Zi murmured, "Don't say" xianggong "is crazy. There are more people like" xianggong "who are crazy."
From this article, we can see the characteristics of spiritual landscape sketch: short space, interesting style, fluent and humorous language, meaningful and vivid style.
Xu Xiake's travel notes accompany the sketch of supernatural landscapes. If the former is shallow singing, the latter is Huang Lu. Xu Xiake's Travels is a masterpiece, which was recorded by the author who devoted his life to travel. This is a wonderful book in the cultural history of China, which is unprecedented. His travel notes have gone beyond the scope of ordinary travel notes, similar to scientific records such as human geography and hydrogeology.
Travel Notes in Qing Dynasty: Significance, Textual Research and Ci Chapter
The literary inquisition prevailed in Qing dynasty, and the literary world was bleak. Scholars often bury themselves in textual research, forming a wind of simple learning. The literary world is also influenced by this, and Tongcheng School advocates paying equal attention to righteousness, examination and rhetoric. Therefore, the travel notes of the Qing dynasty are all rules and regulations, carefully textual research. Mountains and rivers have no spirituality, and articles preach more.
Looking back on the excellent travel notes of past dynasties, we can find the following characteristics:
First, the main object of travel notes is to write about the natural scenery of mountains and rivers, and solid rhetoric is the basic element of travel notes. This is determined by the basic goal of travel notes. The purpose of writing travel notes is to tell people who have never seen the scenery what the scenery of a scenic spot is like, which determines that the article must use a lot of figurative rhetoric. To a certain extent, travel notes are the "touchstone" to show literati's writing skills.
Second, travel notes are inseparable from the author. There must be the author's subjective feelings, otherwise it will become a description of scenic spots. The author must integrate his subjective feelings into the landscape, or express his will, or express his sadness, or criticize the current disadvantages, or create an artistic conception. In short, landscapes are not written in vain.
Third, the style of travel notes, in addition to directly reflecting the author's writing style, will also be influenced by the trend of the times and general cultural trends. The trend of thought of the times often determines the characteristics of travel notes writing.
Fourth, travel notes often retain a lot of information about customs, geography, culture and traditions, which is a by-product of travel notes writing.