Conclusion

Proportion of Each Social Class in Tang Network

Sex

Men dominates Tang poems. However, in Nara poems, women porportion is much higher than that in Tang poems.

Women in Tang poems usually come from royal family, which is similar in Nara poems.

Men in Tang poems are usually court officials, provincial officials and unclear poeple.

Names

Names in Tang poems usually appear as combinations. We identified nine components of names: surname, given name, title, location, family ranking, kinship, faming, zhi and zi. The chart above shows proportion of each component. Surname is the most popular one. Title is the second popular one. The leading two components are far ahead of the rest of the components.

Type F K K G L K L S G K OTHER T T F T G L T K T K G T L T L F T L K T S T S G T S G F T S G K L T S L T S L K S S FR S FR L S FR L T S FR T S FR T G S G S G FR S L S L G S Z ZH
Frequency 3 8 13 3 1 75 79 27 6 7 5 3 2 2 268 51 1 2 52 1 15 51 1 1 11 1 130 13 15 1 4 186

We identified 32 kinds of name combination in Tang poems. The most popular combination is title and surname. The second one is comprised of a single component—zhi, which is an honorific title for emperors. However, it means that this combination is specifically used between officials and emperors. The third one is surname and given name. By comparing this chart with the chart above, we found that title with surname is a very important combination. The reasons that the combination is popular are: first, the combination can refer to anyone precisely; second, avoiding the usage of given name is more polite. Therefore, using surname and title is favored.

The chart above shows the preference of name component when referring to people from each social classes.

Inclination

Provincial officials, court officials, poets and people from royal family were four major contributors of relationship in Tang poems. Court officials initiated 480 interactions, provincial officials initiated 190 interactions, poets initiated 177 interactions and royal familly initiated 17 interactions. To understand the class of people that each group frequently interacted with, we made this chart.

We can draw several conclusions by analyzing the chart:

First, court officials played an important role in Tang poetry. Court offcials are always one of the most frequently mentioned population among the four groups.

Second, different social background had different religious inclination. It seems that provincial officials favored Daoism more than Buddhism; court officials favored Buddhism more than Daoism; royal family was extremely passionate to Daoism.

Third, the boundary between provincial officials and court officials is fluid. Provincial officials and court offcials interacted frequently and mutually. It shows that there is not a solid boundary that restricts the interaction of life in capitals and in provinces. But we found that provincial officials had no interaction with local officials, but court officials had. It is a strange phenomenon. It may suggest that provincial government was controlled by the central government, but the provincial government didn't had tight control of local administrations, because they were isolaed from local officials' daily life.

Geography

We compared poets' personal experience with hometown, living places and related places of the people that they interacted with. The result shows that poets' personal experience had strong impact on the location of people that they interacted with. However, court officials may not. CASES

Keywords

The table below shows 20 key words of all the poem titles that we analyzed.

Key Word Weight Explanation
应制1.0Yingzhi: Written under the command of the emperor.
奉和圣 0.4029443754451576Fenghe Sheng[zhi]: Written under the command of the emperor.
侍宴 0.24131105283595822Shiyan: Serve the emperor in feast.
使君 0.22399689196943445Shijun: Provincial Officials' title.
公主 0.20802523382373883Gongzhu: Princess.
留别 0.15786828911471967Liubie: Send-off.
安乐 0.15759494430696092Anle: The title of Princess Anle.
少府 0.1443259568715823Shaofu: Court Officials' title.
圣制 0.1402108714216284Shengzhi: Written under the command of the emperor.
学士 0.12047912384036644Xueshi: Court Scholar.
挽歌 0.1149336051101337Wange: Elegy.
制送 0.11001711776599993Zhisong: Send-off under the command of the emperor.
判官 0.09902667465704433Panguan: Provincial Officials' title.
禅师 0.09469361200684134Chanshi: Master of Chan School.
天台 0.09447265942407483Tiantai: The Headquarter of Tiantai Buddhism School.
山庄 0.08966828727130682Shanzhuang: House of Wei Sili (court official).
处士 0.08818627234962548Chushi: Half-Daoist.
赋得 0.0844006083217985Fude
道士 0.08222660850906807Daoshi: Daoist.
见赠 0.07879448793820487Jianzeng: Dedication.