Abstract Epitaph as a writing style, often presents a stylized creative mode. For a long time, people paid attention to stylized phenomenon in the epitaph writing, but they failed to make in-depth investigations because of different research perspectives. Moreover, some scholars still hold negative views about stylized phenomenon. In fact, stylized mode of epitaph creation is a common phenomenon existing from the Six Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty, which is decided by its own character of practical writing. But stylized mode of epitaph creation is different from that of general applied style. Epitaph usually consists of two parts. One is Zhiwen, which narrates life, background and death time of the dead and the other is Inscriptions, which always recognize the merits and achievements of the dead. Zhiwen and Inscriptions have different functions and characteristics, especially different in writing styles and language forms and so on. Great differences in these lead to different forms of Zhiwen and Inscriptions in stylized mode of epitaph creation. The stylization of Zhiwen mainly shows the patterning of writing style, modeling of special types and identicalness of content while the stylization of Inscriptions mainly lies in adopting classical poems, transcribing Zhiwen words into sentences and following fixed templates. Although the form of stylized epitaph is relatively single and its structure is relatively fixed, it has great significance in literature. Many literati in the Wei Jin and the Northern and Southern Dynasties have appeared in the literary works of the Tang Dynasty in different ways. In terms of the newly unearthed epitaph, there are two characters worthy of our attention. They are Pang Tong and Tao Yuanming. When the author of the epitaph in the Tang Dynasty describes tomb owners with great talents working in a low position or living in seclusion, they tend to compare tomb owners’ background and life experiences. This tendency gradually becomes a pattern of composition used in the Tang dynasty and it provides new material to explore their classical image and acceptance for later generations. Some polite formulas recurring in the epitaph of the Tang Dynasty, such as Shed Tears when Seeing Flowers, Feel Heart-broken when hearing the Birds, Live as a Distinguished Person and die as a Hero, etc., become eternal works after being modified by Du Fu and Li Qingzhao. Undeniably, it is not only a matter of following templates, but it also includes the transferring of context, devotion of feelings and other important factors, which make these expressions more exquisite in language and broader in meaning after being recreated. However, we also have to admit that the investigation on stylized mode of epitaph is helpful for us to get a more intuitive understanding about the creation method of using predecessors’ verses as reference and generative process of classics in poetry composition. At the same time, it is necessary to properly evaluate stylized the phenomenon in the Tang Dynasty epitaph writing so as to fully exploit its distinct connotation and value.
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