Celestial Signs and Classical Rhetoric in Early Imperial China

Author: Jesse J. Chapman

Publisher: SUNY Press

Publication year: 2025

Abstract: Celestial Signs and Classical Rhetoric in Early Imperial China considers how the reading of celestial signs-including comets, strange clouds, halos, rainbows, and planets in retrograde motion-fit into broader understandings of the human and cosmic worlds in Han times. Advancing a cultural studies approach to celestial signs, Jesse J. Chapman traces the theory and practice of sign-reading across a range of genres, including technical manuals, historical narratives, and memorials to the throne. Moving from variegated materials in an early tomb to historical treatises compiled over several centuries, Chapman demonstrates that rhetoric and ideals drawn from classical texts gradually became fundamental sources of authority for interpreters of celestial signs. Sign-reading in practice proved both flexible and context-dependent, and interpreters of celestial signs rarely, if ever, read omens in isolation. Celestial signs became meaningful in the context of historical understanding, personal experience, the state of the empire, and the life of the court. Reading omens meant reading the state of the world at a particular moment in time. 

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Celestial Signs, Tianwen, and the Emergence of Classicism in Early China

Part I: Technical Manuals and Classical Authority
1. Practical Omenology and Classical Ideals at Mawangdui
2. Sign-Reading and Sagely Rulership in the Huainanzi and Shiji
3. Integrating Classical Texts with Omen-Reading Technology

Part II: Rhetoric in Practice
4. Classical Authority and the Elimination of Baleful Signs
5. Reading Signs, Reading the World

Conclusion: Interwoven Discourses and Contextualized Interpretation

Appendix A: Terminology and Translation
Appendix B: The Bibliographic Category of Tianwen