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Title:: Fall of Nobility and Rise of Literature: The Downward Mobility of Scholars in the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Significance of Writing History

Keywords:: scholars in the Eastern Han Dynasty; mobility; downward trend; history of written texts; rise

Abstract:: The mobility of scholars in the Eastern Han Dynasty shows a downward trend compared with that of scholars in the Warring States period and the Western Han Dynasty. Its characteristics are as follows: lots of scholars chose to study away from home regardless of their origins; places for study were extended to rural or remote areas; more scholars regarded acquiring knowledge as their objective instead of taking an official career. The downward mobility of scholars led to the emergence of writing groups and new changes of literary genres, hence a boom in writing articles in the Eastern Han Dynasty. With the mobility of myriad scholars and the formation of writing groups, there were an increasing number of non-practical articles characterized by the strengthening of lyrical function. Thus, literature gradually separated from historiography and the study of Confucian classics, and became independent in a real sense.