唐代의 詩歌에 나타난 柘枝舞

Abstract

This paper deals with how the Zhezhi(柘枝) dance of the Tang(唐) Dynasty was described in the poetry of the period. The age of the Tang Dynasty was the period when the royal feast music and dance were highly developed in the history of Chinese dance. Zhezhi dance is known to have been spread from the western region to China at the time of the Tang Dynasty, and gained tremendous popularity among people including noblemen, mandarins and poets who left behind many poems on the dance. Although the main flow of the court banquet dance of the Tang period can be roughly traced in a few history books, it is still difficult to acquire specific information on each dance item due to the lack of historical records. In this respect, pictures, poems and songs that describe the dance are useful means to complement the lack of historical data. Especially, among the poetry of the Tang period, which is evaluated as the acme of Chinese poetic literature, there remain poems that describe the Zhezhi dance of the time. A representative one is ‘Zhezhi-ci(柘枝詞)’, composed by eight poets including Xue Neng(薛能), Liu Yuxi(劉禹錫), Bai Juyi(白居易) and Zhang Hu(張祜). Their poetry vividly described its music, technique and female performers. In particular, concrete descriptions of its costume, movement, and form, along with the atmosphere of the performance space, provides important materials for deeper study on Zhezhi dance while historical records are highly lacking.