潘岳「西征賦」攷

Abstract

Though there are little points of similarity between a historical description and a literary work, they are to be distinguished. Why a literary work is to be a literary work? Pan Yue's "Rhapsody on a Westward Journey" (Xi-zheng Fu), which is full of historical contents, has been categorized for Xing-lü fu 行旅賦 (travel) or ji-xing fu 紀行賦 (relating travel). It is generally known that xing-lüfu is one of the important subgenre of the lyricization of the fu in the Latter Han dynasty. And the pieces of this genre is rich in descriptive details and full of comments on historical figures and places. Certainly, Xi-zheng Fu is also a travelogue from Luoyang 洛陽 to Chang'an 長安 and takes over several elements of the xing-lü fu. However, in regard of this piece, as some scholars already have pointed out, it has the "epical" tendency. But, of course, this "epical" tendency is different from what we generally recognize as the epic. Here, this term includes a sense of pu-chen 鋪陳, which is peculiar to the Chinese Rhyme-Prose 辭賦. In detail, when Pan talks about the journey from Luoyang to Chang'an and wandering around Chang'an, he entirely describes the sights of them not by visible landscapes and views, but by invisible historical episodes. Xi-zheng Fu is mainly composed of the series of these historical contents. Moreover, Pan Yue's self-consciousness unites those various units. Although such sentence structure which the poet himself talks about his own travelogue as a narrator appears to be similar to the xing-lü fu in the Latter Han dynasty, the way of describing himself is clearly different from them. Pan sometimes confesses that he has a shabby substance of meager talent (菲薄之陋質). Because of this humbling himself here, the narrator itself only works as the function to be impressed by historical places and contents. Needless to say, such narrative system is greatly important to this historical narration. I have called this system "eyes for the past" 過去への眼差し. Because all historical narration are based on such self-consciousness, this piece has been able to be the grandest travel poem.