Author:
Antje Richter
Publisher:
University of Washington Press
Publication Year:
2013
Abstract:
This first book-length study in Chinese or any Western language of personal
letters and letter-writing in premodern China focuses on the earliest period
(ca. 3rd-6th cent. CE) with a sizeable body of surviving correspondence. Along
with the translation and analysis of many representative letters, Antje Richter
explores the material culture of letter writing (writing supports and utensils,
envelopes and seals, the transportation of finished letters) and letter-writing
conventions (vocabulary, textual patterns, topicality, creativity). She
considers the status of letters as a literary genre, ideal qualities of letters,
and guides to letter-writing, providing a wealth of examples to illustrate each
component of the standard personal letter. References to letter-writing in other
cultures enliven the narrative throughout.
Letters and Epistolary Culture in Early Medieval China makes the
social practice and the existing textual specimens of personal Chinese
letter-writing fully visible for the first time, both for the various branches
of Chinese studies and for epistolary research in other ancient and modern
cultures, and encourages a more confident and consistent use of letters as
historical and literary sources.
Table of Contents:
Materiality and terminology --
Letters and literary thought --
Structures and phrases --
Topoi --
Normativity and authenticity
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