How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context: Poetic Culture from Antiquity Through the Tang

Editor: 
Zong-qi Cai

Publisher:
Columbia University Press

Publication Date: 
February 2018

Abstract:

How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context is an introduction to the golden age of Chinese poetry, spanning the earliest times through the Tang dynasty (618–907). It aims to break down barriers—between language and culture, poetry and history—that have stood in the way of teaching and learning Chinese poetry. Not only a primer in early Chinese poetry, the volume demonstrates the unique and central role of poetry in the making of Chinese culture.

Each chapter focuses on a specific theme to show the interplay between poetry and the world. Readers discover the key role that poetry played in Chinese diplomacy, court politics, empire building, and institutionalized learning; as well as how poems shed light on gender and women’s status, war and knight-errantry, Daoist and Buddhist traditions, and more. The chapters also show how people of different social classes used poetry as a means of gaining entry into officialdom, creating self-identity, fostering friendship, and airing grievances. The volume includes historical vignettes and anecdotes that contextualize individual poems, investigating how some featured texts subvert and challenge the grand narratives of Chinese history. Presenting poems in Chinese along with English translations and commentary, How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context unites teaching poetry with the social circumstances surrounding its creation, making it a pioneering and versatile text for the study of Chinese language, literature, history, and culture.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: The Cultural Role of Chinese Poetry, by Zong-qi Cai

Part I: Pre-Han Times

1. Poetry and Diplomacy in The Zuo Commentary(Zuozhuan), by Wai-yee Li

2. Poetry and Authorship: The Songs of Chu (Chuci), by Stephen Owen

Part II: The Han Dynasty

3. Empire in Text: Sima Xiangru’s “Sir Vacuous/Imperial Park Rhapsody”(“Zixu/Shanglin fu”), by Yu-yu Cheng and Gregory Patterson

4. Poetry and Ideology: The Canonization of the Book of Poetry (Shijing) During the Han, by Zong-qi Cai

5. Love Beyond the Grave: A Tragic Tale of Love and Marriage in Han China, by Olga Lomová

Part III: The Six Dynasties

6. Heroes from Chaotic Times: The Three Caos, by Xinda Lian

7. The Worthies of the Bamboo Grove, by Nanxiu Qian

8. The Poetry of Reclusion: Tao Qian, by Alan Berkowitz

9. The Struggling Buddhist Mind: Shen Yue, by Meow Hui Goh



Part IV: The Tang Dynasty

10. Knight-Errantry: Tang Frontier Poems, by Tsung-Cheng Lin

11. Tang Civil Service Examinations, by Manling Luo

12. Tang Women at the Public/Private Divide, by Maija Bell Samei

13. Poetry and Buddhist Enlightenment: Wang Wei and Han Shan, by Chen Yinchi and Jing Chen

14. Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon: Li Bai and the Poetics of Wine, by Paula Varsano

15. Du Fu: The Poet as Historian, by Jack W. Chen

16. Poetry and Literati Friendship: Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen, by Ao Wang

17. Li He: Poetry as Obsession, by Robert Ashmore