| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 中國文學系 === 88 === In the Tang Dynasty, the economical center of the empire gradually shifted from the Yellow River valley to the Yangtze River basin because of its profound products, especially after the Mid-Tang Period. The main economical center of the new developed area was the famous city-Yangchou, which sited on the north bank of Yangtze River in the present Jiangsu Province. Because of its importance in traffic connection, goods transfer, and political and financial status, Yangchou became the largest city of the south half of the Tang Empire. As the saying went:"Yang, the best; Yi, the second." Yangchou was the richest city of the empire. Poetry of the Tang Dynasty was the most valuable cultural treasure and it represented the feeling of the poets rising from what they saw, what they heard, and what they felt. Although the poets visited Yangchou, one of the most attractive city of the empire, with variable reasons, they recorded the wonderful city with their poems, describing its social, cultural, economical, historical, recreational aspects. To know the images of Yangchou in poets'''' mind in the Tang Empire, I analyzed the images of the city presented in the poetry of the Tang Dynasty. In this thesis, I collected more than 400 poems associated with the city. Though poets'''' eyes and pens, we can see the real Yangchou of the wonderful empire.
In chapter 1, as the acknowledgement, I described the goal and method of my research, and the material I used in this thesis. The 2nd chapter is the historical and literary review of the city of Yangchou since the Han Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty. Chapter 3 discussed the poems mentioned the city before the Tang Dynasty to present the historical city images in poets'''' mind. In chapter 4, I discussed the poems describing the Yangchou of the Tang Dynasty in several aspects, such as political and financial position, industrial and commercial status, entertainment and recreation, and growing and declining of the city. I summarized the poems associated with Yangchou and reformed the images of the city in Chapter 5. Considering the poets'''' position, I divided the poems into 3 catalogues: before the poets visited Yangchou; when the poets stayed in Yangchou; and while they was leaving or had left the city. In the final chapter, as the summary, I concluded the four main images of Yangchou: (1) The image of romantic city with beautiful natural scenery; (2) The image of foreign city with cultural influence of Wu and Chu kingdoms of Ch''''un-Ch''''iu and Chan-Kuo periods; (3) The image of the perished Sui Empire with the dispirited and resplendent events and tales of Emperor Yangkwang; (4) The image of prosperous and lively metropolis with flourish industrial and commercial activities.
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