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| From Self-presentation to Self-justification: On the Transformation of Writing Consciousness in the Self-written Epitaphs During the Song Dynasty |
| Zhang Yajing |
| School of Chinese Language and Literature, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China |
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Abstract The self-written epitaphs have integrated the style and purpose of epitaphs and self-narration tradition into one. Through a comparison of both self-written and other-composed epitaphs of Pu Yuanyou from the Northern Song Dynasty and Luo Biyuan from the Southern Song Dynasty, it can be observed that during the Northern Song period, there is a clear distinction between self-written and other-composed epitaphs; meanwhile, by the Southern Song period, the selection criteria and narrative style of self-written epitaphs tended to resemble those of other-composed epitaphs.Such a change originates from the inheritance of the self-narrative tradition in self-written epitaphs of the Song Dynasty and new developments shaped by societal and cultural influences. The self-narrative genre has evolved through changes in writing modes from self-assertion, self-comparison, and self-presentation to self-justification, represented respectively by Dongfang Shuo, Tao Yuanming, Bai Juyi, and Feng Dao. The self-narration requires confronting the issues of “social schema” and “personal schema”, namely, the contest between perspectives of subject and object. In the self-assertion mode, “subject” and “object” stand for the personal and worldly viewpoints respectively in debate, focusing on whether the “subject” should adapt to the “times”. In the self-assertion mode, the division between “subject” and “object” splits into the observational perspectives of self-written and other-composed epitaphs. Although the object is withdrawn in Tao’s case, scrutiny by others always remains. The contest and integration of subjective and objective perspectives also reveal the interactive relationship between two types of epitaphs, especially when abundant epitaphs composed by others function as implicit text to both the writers and readers, which increasingly intensifies scrutiny by others.Thus, when Northern Song literati emulated Bai Juyi, people, even those without great achievement must still elaborate on the difficulties of passing imperial examinations and officialdom in the epitaphs to legitimize their retreats. Meanwhile, in the self-written epitaphs of the Southern Song Dynasty, modes of self-presentation to self-justification ran concurrently, adopting a secular pragmatic perspective to reflect upon oneself.Other-composed and self-written epitaphs follow different cognitive and mnemonic paths. The other-composed epitaphs document individuals in the public life from an external perspective. On the other hand, the self-written ones display “self” from an internal perspective. In the Song Dynasty, especially in the Southern Song period, self-written epitaphs integrated the two writing traditions. This phenomenon stems from the amplification of external scrutiny due to economic and technological advances in the Song Dynasty. People who wrote epitaphs for themselves were no longer driven solely by a strong urge for self-expression but sought external recognition. Paper-based epitaphs predominated the dissemination of the texts, freeing contemporaries from the constraints of limited space on stone epitaphs. They integrated self-written and other-composed contents, often appending other-composed texts as “postscripts” to self-written epitaphs, thus altering the engraving and recording format of self-written epitaphs. At the same time, the actions and texts of self-written epitaphs also diverged, showing a negative correlation with the degree of ideological control.
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Received: 21 February 2024
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2024, Vol. 54 
