Abstract:The love affairs between royal gardens and literature in Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties have distinctive features and show three phenomena: One reflects the course of history. The group creation tradition evolving from the cultural activities at the banquets in West Garden had far-reaching impact on the entertainments and poetry composition activities in the royal gardens in Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties. Xuanwu Garden (Lake) and North Garden presented stories about Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties through literary works. The second reflects the partition between south and north. The northern Hualin Garden was mostly for royal banquets and thus had little affinity with literary activities, while the southern Hualin Garden was closely related to literature, especially the Chunxi poems, which mostly mirrored the activities in Hualin Garden. The third reflects difference in literary styles. The poems and verses of Shanglin Garden displayed the affluent luxury of royal houses, but also the aesthetic trend synchronous with the literary world. They played up the sexual flavor of imperial harems, and could equal the popular palace poetry in Southern Dynasty in terms of their florid and exotic style. Xuan Garden in Jiankang was like an intellectualized royal garden. Moving away from a flowery and lush style, the poetry for Xuan Garden by the poets in Liang and Chen Dynasties were natural and fresh. The key factor to the affinity between royal gardens and literature is intellectualization. The royal family and intellectuals, and emperors and officials visiting gardens and having banquets together became the norm in royal gardens, and group creations like writing poetry upon the emperor’s order or for responsory also became a common practice.
王力坚. 魏晋南北朝皇家园林与文学结缘之现象[J]. 《深圳大学学报》(人文社科版), 2018, 35(1): 141-149.
WANG Li-jian. Love Affairs between Royal Gardens and Literature in Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties. , 2018, 35(1): 141-149.