Title

The “Return of the Spirits” and“Sad Thoughts of Jiangnan”: A Study of Trauma Writing and the Narrative Aesthetics of Shen Jiong, Yu Sin, and Yan Zhi-tui

Author

Chi , Li-feng  

Genre

Article  

Pages

625-656  

Download

PDF

Language

Chinese  

Key words

Shen Jiong’s Return of the Spirits 沈炯〈歸魂賦〉, Yu Sin’s Sad Thoughts of Jiangnan 庾信〈哀江南賦〉, Yan Zhi-tui’s Contemplating

My Life 顏之推〈觀我生賦〉, trauma writing, narrative aesthetics

Abstract

        In 548 AD, Jiankang City 建康城 was destroyed in the Hou Jing Rebellion 侯景之亂. Thousands of people lost their homes and became refugees. This destruction caused trauma to the writers of the Southern Dynasties 南朝. In my opinion, the representation of what is “Real” in history is re-created through the memory of each writer. Therefore, how a writer describes the facts is important to us. In this paper, I study, from the point of view of trauma writing and the aesthetics of narrative, the odes of three survivors: Shen Jiong’s Return of the Spirits 歸魂賦, Yu Sin’s Sad Thoughts of Jiangnan 哀江南賦, and Yan Zhi-tui’s Contemplating My Life 觀我生賦. According to the theory of trauma and the aesthetics of narrative, the three authors observed the disaster in different ways. Through a discussion of rhetoric, allusions, imagery, and intertextuality, I re-examine the traumatic experiences in the three works and add to the study of odes from the Liang-Chen 梁陳 Dynasties.