| dc.description.abstract | Mourning was not the sole purpose for writing mourning poetry and prose in the Six Dynasties, and the understanding of death among humans cannot be overly generalized through religion and ideas. In addition to the mainstream writing of poems and rhymed prose on death, other types of texts on funerals and burials presented varied views on death due to differences in the environment, period, and location of the writers. This study on mourning poems and prose of the Six Dynasties focuses on texts including dying poems, dirges, funeral addresses, condolences, elegies, laments, etc., from the gradual cessation of life to mourning after death, in order to demonstrate the features of different mourning texts depicting death. The study is divided into six chapters as follows:
In the first chapter, the introduction, the research motives, range of study, and procedure are elaborated upon to clarify “mourning poems and prose” in the study. Previous scholarship on this topic is reviewed, and the content and aim of each chapter is summarized.
Chapter Two: Facing Death and Release — Writings before Death of Six Dynasties’ Literati. From the change of content of writings before death, the concerns of literati of the Six Dynasties before death are observed, along with some changes in values.
Chapter Three: Farewell and Turbulence — the Transformation of Dirges by Literati in the Six Dynasties. The characteristics of the dirges of Lu Ji and Tao Yuanming are explored from the limitation of location and features of sound and rhetoric, along with the development of dirges of the period.
Chapter Four: From Ritual to Composition — the Development and Writing of Condolences and Funeral Addresses in the Six Dynasties. A preliminary organization and classification of the literature of mourning is carried out, with an analysis of compositional characteristics. Through ritual mourning texts, the literary value of laments on the past is observed, and through the writings of Qu Yuan, the relationships between the utilization of mourning texts and the assessment of historical figures are also discussed.
Chapter Five: Eulogy and Mourning — the Compositional Features of Elegies and Laments of the Six Dynasties and the Mutual Influences of these Texts and Ritual. The development of elegies is briefly discussed to reflect the subsequent development and literary characteristics of laments, including an identification of the problems of selection and standard examples of the ai category of mourning texts in the Wenxuan.
Chapter Six is the conclusion. This summarizes the whole study and demonstrates the fact that texts on death in the Six Dynasties were not merely an expression of mourning. Death depicted in different writings reveal the complicated views on death of the time. The chapter ends with a brief mention of the contributions and limitations of the study, as well as suggestions for future research. | en_US |