Form Shanglin Garden to Shanglin Fu: The Natural History Space of the Han Empire and Its Writing

Abstract: Shanglin Fu （《上林赋》） is a verse depicting Shanglin Garden（ “上林苑” ）. In the process of transforming the landscape into text, literary creation and the real world present a subtle interaction that is both interdependent and independent of each other. Shanglin Garden displays multiple species and exhibit the nature, while Shanglin Fu transformed it into a text form. From this point of view, the exaggerated description in Shanglin Fu was not entirely based on fiction, but matched the spatial layout intention of Shanglin Garden to “reproduce the world” and “become a god”, and transformed it into “reality” with the help of text. The Shanglin Garden present the meaning of power. Shanglin Fu modified this power and broke through the constraints of time and space, so that power could be permanently and widely displayed. It can be seen from this that the power of the landscape was mainly reproduced through the texts that describe it with a modified description.