硯台所蘊涵的文學價値與儒生情操

Abstract

As one of the most important of the four treasures of the study (wenfang sibao 文房四寶), the inkstone is not just a writing instrument or a folkcraft article. It is a rich repository of moral culture which has the spirit of ancient scholars and literary men. The importance of the inkstone is arguably even greater in our current moment, as many people have recently cried out for the revival of Confucian ideas and traditional culture. This paper tries to discuss the cultural value of the inkstone, which retains both literary value and the spirit of literati-scholars. So this paper researches Chinese and Korean ancient literature concerning the inkstone and the relationships between the inkstone and ancient literary figures. The first section of this essay discusses some famous ancient works of Chinese and Korean literature concerning the inkstone, such as yanming 硯銘, ge歌, fu賦, zan 贊, song 頌 etc., focusing on the admiration expressed in these texts for inkstones and introducing the self-reflection of writers. The second section of this essay discusses the attitudes of ancient literary figures about the inkstone and focuses on the special relationships between the inkstone and ancient literary figures. This section focuses especially on documenting the Confucian spirit of ancient literary figures from their attitudes to inkstones. The love of these ancient literary figures for their inkstones was almost incomprehensible to the modern mind. Not only did they honor the the virtue of their inkstones, they wanted to enjoy an eternal friendship with these objects, even going so far as to frequently swear to be real life partners of their inkstones. Their care for these objects was so great they would often write “Yi yan ming” 瘞硯銘 and bury them when they were broken or rendered useless. What is more important, they did not simply praise the virtue and achievement of their inkstones, they sought to learn from them, a practice which they believed contributed to the development of their characters and training of their spirits.