Abandoned Women and Boudoir Resentment: The Construction of the Feminine Voice in Early Medieval Chinese Literature

Author: Qiulei Hu

Publisher: Brill

Publication year: 2023

Abstract:

This book studies the formation of the male-constructed conventional voice of women in Chinese literature from the 3rd to 6th century. It highlights specific moments during which the feminine voice became recognized, accepted, and stabilized, including the shift of focus from the performative to the textual in female representations; the formation of a male literary community; the popularity of romanticized historical narratives; and the emerging sense of literary history. This study emphasizes the historicity of the feminine voice and strives to question and challenge established notions about textual stability, authorship, the literary canon, and literary history.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Chapter 1 A New Type of Gaze and the Rise of the Feminine Voice

Chapter 2 Longing for a Worthy Match: Jian’an Writing about Women and the Beginning of a Poetic Tradition

Chapter 3 Gender, Genre, and Historical Narrative

Chapter 4 Is It a Man or a Woman Speaking? Mapping Gender in Early Texts

Chapter 5 Neglected Voices of Early Medieval Women Writers

Epilogue: Creating the Voice of an Other

Writing and Community in 300 BCE China: The Canonical Poems (Shi) at the Chu Capital of Ying

Author: 
Martin Kern

Publisher:
Brill

Publication year:
2026

Abstract:

Writing and Community in 300 BCE China is the first study to examin

e the anthology of the canonical Poems (Shi 詩) within their social and interpretive community at the ancient capital of Chu. Based on archaeological data and the analysis of recently discovered bamboo manuscripts, it identifies the Poems and other literary texts as the teaching tools of a class of low-ranking intellectuals who served the Chu royal court. From the manuscripts’ visual and literary features it reconstructs the procedures of writing, reading, and teaching at a single time and place: the court of Chu around 300 BCE.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. The Chronology and Geography of Early Shi-Related Manuscripts

2. The Distribution of Literary and Technical Manuscripts in Warring States Finds

3. Literary Manuscripts and Their Agents

4. Material Format, Visuality, and Use of Shi-Related Manuscripts

5. Writing, Vocalization, and the Procedures of Reading in Comparative Perspective

6. Reading the Poems in Manuscripts: Writing, Orality, and the Question of Stability

7. Defining the Canonical: the Poems as Discourse and Social Practice

8. Writing after Interpretation

Conclusion: The Poems as Discourse in Their Interpretive Community at Ying

Appendix: List of the Poems in Warring States Manuscripts from Chu

[Dissertation] Philological Botany: The Poetics of Plant Classification in Early China and Japan

Author:

Loren Waller

School:

Yale University

Year:

2023

30312999

Abstract: 

Flowering plants are a primary topic in Chinese and Japanese poetry, often used figuratively to express human emotions. Over time, as poets alluded to earlier works, these plants developed conventional metaphorical meanings. It is natural that such meanings would shift over time, but what is also striking is that historical understandings of the plants themselves, as well as the names used for the plants, also changed over time. An examination of three case studies will show how the identities of these plants changed over time as they were collected within literary texts and commentaries.
Chapter 1 on the hibiscus (Ch. mujin; J. asagaho, kikkyō, kenikoshi, mukuge) demonstrates the broad diversity of different flowers that share the same name, as well as the references to this ambiguity within some poetic works themselves. This chapter also introduces the complexity of the textual commentary tradition and considers how texts may be interpreted through reading between the lines of commentaries on literary works.

Chapter 2 on the orange tree (Ch. ju; J. tachibana) shows how the trope of regional loyalty to southern China changed as it was adopted in Japan. More than other plants with a shared cultural heritage between China and Japan, the Japanese tachibana developed dominant allusive connotations based on a well-known poem in the Kokinwakashū (905). Still, Chinese examples were not unknown in Japan, and it is productive to consider how Japanese texts might be reinterpreted considering alternative pretexts.

Chapter 3 on the plum looks at how a plant marked as representative of China became domesticated in Japan over time. While there are no plum poems in the Kojiki (712), Nihonshoki (720), or the early period of the Man’yōshū, plum poems and banquets suddenly became popular around the time of a well-known plum banquet at the residence of Ōtomo no Tabito in 730, making plums the second most popular plant in the Man’yōshū poetic anthology. The proliferation was so thorough that plum poems were anachronistically attributed to earlier times. The most extreme case was one commentary’s claim that the plum was the subject of the famous Naniwazu poem, which was also associated with an encounter with a Wani, a scribe from Paekche who was said to have brought writing in Japan in the early fifth century. Another wonderous tale of the plum is the famous flying plum of the apotheosized statesman-poet Sugawara no Michizane (845-903), whose plum tree from Kyoto uprooted and flew to be with him when he was exiled to Dazaifu. Such narratives show how the plum could be seen as a representative Japanese plant.

In addition to tracing the literary history of these important plant tropes, this study also offers cases studies of how plant metaphors are used in cases when the identities of the plants themselves change over time, between languages, or between genres.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Chapter 1. Of the Hibiscus and Fleeting Faces
Chapter 2. Of Orange Trees and Transplantation
Chapter 3. Of Plums and Origins

Anecdote, Network, Gossip, Performance: Essays on the Shishuo xinyu

Author:
Jack W. Chen

Publication date:
March 2021

Publisher:

Harvard Asia Center

Abstract:

Anecdote, Network, Gossip, Performance is a study of the Shishuo xinyu, the most important anecdotal collection of medieval China—and arguably of the entire traditional era. In a set of interconnected essays, Jack W. Chen offers new readings of the Shishuo xinyu that draw upon social network analysis, performance studies, theories of ritual and mourning, and concepts of gossip and reputation to illuminate how the anecdotes of the collection imagine and represent a political and cultural elite. Whereas most accounts of the Shishuo have taken a historical approach, Chen argues that the work should be understood in literary terms.

At its center, Anecdote, Network, Gossip, Performance is an extended meditation on the very nature of the anecdote form, both what the anecdote affords in terms of representing a social community and how it provides a space for the rehearsal of certain longstanding philosophical and cultural arguments. Although each of the chapters may be read separately as an essay in its own right, when taken together, they present a comprehensive account of the Shishuo in all of its literary complexity.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

The Title of the Text

The Structure and Composition of the Text

Anecdote and History

Individualism and Typology

The Shishuo and “Pure Conversation”

Overview of Chapters

1. A Textual History of the Shishuo xinyu

The Shi Jingyin and Liu Xiaobiao Commentaries

Liu Yiqing’s Biography

The Shishuo in the Bibliographic Treatises of the Official Histories

The Shishuo in the Tang Dynasty

The Shishuo in Song Dynasty Encyclopedias and Bibliographic Writings

Wang Zao 汪藻 (1079–1154) on the Shishuo

The Dong Fen, Lu You, and Yuan Jiong Editions

Modern Editions of the Shishuo

Conclusion: On Medieval Textuality

2. On Social Networks

The Shishuo as Network

Six Degrees of Separation, or a Walk through the Network

First Degree: Xu Zhi and Chen Fan

Second Degree: Chen Fan and Li Ying

Third Degree: Cai Yong, Sun Chuo, and Wang Xizhi

Fourth Degree: Wang Xizhi and Xie An

Fifth Degree: Xie An, Wang Xianzhi, Liu Jin, and Huan Xuan

Sixth Degree: Huan Xuan, Huan Xiu, and Madame Yu

Conclusion: Network and Anecdote

3. On Gossip and Reputation

Defining Gossip and Reputation

Gossip and Anecdote: Four Stories about Hua Xin

Knowing Others and Being Known: Chu Pou’s Silence

The Mingshi or “Gentlemen of Repute”

Conclusion: The Anxiety of the Second-Rate

4. On Praise and Insult

On Praise and Appraisal

The Politics of Praise

Virtuosity, Aptness, and Inadequacy

Theories of Insult

Taking Liberties with Pronouns

Three Stories about Sun Chuo

Unintended Offense

Conclusion: The Economy of Reputation

5. On Competition and Composure

Three Stories about Zhong Hui

Conversation as Social Competition

The Aesthetics of Composure

Xie An: Calling Back the Recluse

Xie An Keeps His Cool

Conclusion: Wang Dun Goes to the Bathroom

6. On Ritual and Mourning

Mourning and Sincerity in the Li ji

The Sincerity of Mourning

Friendship and Mourning

A Coda

Conclusion: The View from across the River

[Dissertation] When the South Matters: Imagination of Chu and Canonization of Chuci (Verses of Chu)

Author:
Fu, Su 付蘇

Issue Date:
2019

School:
Princeton University

Abstract:

This dissertation investigates the construction of Chuci (a collection of poems purportedly written by the legendary figure Qu Yuan and his followers) as a southern anthology and literary tradition from Han (202 BCE- 220 CE) to Song (960-1279). It demonstrates that, rather than inherent in the text per se, the traits conventionally recognized as marks of the anthology’s southernness were cultural and political constructs with an agenda to articulate a southern identity for both state and literati. To that end, the dissertations examines the anthologizing practices, together with a close reading of commentaries, prefaces, letters, and imitations. The dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapter One examines the Han compilation and valorization of Chuci in relation with Qu Yuan’s Chu identity. The trajectory of conception of Chuci through Six Dynasties (222-589) and Tang (618-907) are arranged thematically in three chapters. Each chapter probes one of the literary images of Chu—a symbol for displacement, a culture of lewd rites, and a fallen state—and its impact on the Chuci exegesis and assessment. The entire narrative ends in Chapter Five at the Song when previous proliferation of meaning and debates on the anthology’s value were transformed into a new country-wide recognition of its canonical status, with Southern Song literati identification of Chu as a tragic predecessor. In particular, by defining Chuci as a style exclusively bound to the southland, Southern Song literati claimed their exclusive ownership of the cultural heritage of the anthology and further implicitly claimed for the Song court’s cultural authority in the face of military threat from the northern nomads.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter One. Rise of Chu Anthology and Paragon in the Han Empire
Chapter Two. The Chu Sojourner and Chuci as a Voice of Plaint
Chapter Three. Elixir and Lust: Chuci as A Language of Desire
Chapter Four. A Perished State and A “Southern” Literary Style
Chapter Five. The Song Reappraisal and Regionalization: Chuci as a Heritage of the South

[Dissertation] The Fallible Body in Early Medieval China

Author: 
Li, Xiaoxuan

Degree date: 
2020

School:
Harvard University

Abstract:
This dissertation examines one of the most important assumptions inherited by early medieval China: that the physical body functions as a valid and readable source of knowledge about individuals and the world they inhabit. It considers the continuity and evolution of this assumption during the period of the Six Dynasties (3rd - 6th centuries CE), and argues that it is contested across various genres of textual representation. I identify the emergence of a “fallible” body in three clusters of texts. First, I discuss how the late third century idea of “knowing others” (zhiren 知人) diverges from an earlier physiognomic tradition, and I interpret several rhapsodies (fu 賦) in the context of this zhiren paradigm. I explain their choice of rhetorical strategies, most centrally the conceit of a ventriloquized body part, as rooted in a challenge against the regime of interpreting one’s physical appearance for ability and status. Second, I examine the relationship between representations of the female body and knowledge of interior subjectivity in the rhapsody tradition from the Han (206 BCE-220 CE) through the Liang (502-557 CE), and locate in the shi (詩) poetry of the fifth and sixth centuries a new interest in the disjunction between the inherited literary discourse of this relationship and its basis in economic and social realities. Lastly, I discuss the motif of the anomalous body in zhiguai (志怪) collections, and through a comparison between Buddhist apologetic sources with more heterogenous compilations, show how certain tales question the status of bodily markings as evidence for both narrative and moral resolution.

Early Medieval China 26 《中國中古研究》第 26 期 (2020)

Table of Contents:

Editors’ Note
J. Michael Farmer 1

Thinking Regionally in Early Medieval Studies: A Manifesto
Andrew Chittick 3

Fashion and Historical Imagination: The Case of Sun Shou’s “Bewitching and Strange Appearances”
Rebecca Doran 19

A Taste of Honey: Early Medieval Chinese Writings about Sweeteners
Olivia Milburn 43

Literary Responses to Religious Debates at the Northern Zhou Court
Yiyi Luo 67

A Selective Bibliography of Mainland Chinese Books (2011–2019) on Early Medieval Chinese Literature
Yue Zhang 88

Book Reviews

Joy Lidu Yi, Yungang: Art, History, Archaeology, Liturgy
Scott Pearce 110

Andrew Chittick, The Jiankang Empire in Chinese and World History
Scott Pearce 114

(via Mike Farmer)

Reading Du Fu: Nine Views (九家讀杜)

Editor:
Xiaofei Tian

Publisher:
Hong Kong University Press

Publication date:
July 2020

Abstract:
This is the first collection of essays in English, contributed by well-known experts of Chinese literature as well as scholars of a younger generation, dedicated to the poetry of Du Fu, commonly regarded as the greatest Chinese poet. These essays are engaged in historically nuanced close reading of Du Fu’s poems, both canonical and less known, from new angles and in various contexts, and discuss a series of critical issues, including the local and the imperial; the body politic and the individual body; poetry and geography; perspectives on the complicated relation of religion and literature; materiality and contemporary reception of Du Fu; poetry and visual art; and tradition and modernity.

Many of the poems discussed in this book were written in the backwater town of Kuizhou, far from Du Fu’s earlier residence in the capital city Chang’an, at a time when the Tang dynasty was going through devastating social and political disturbances. The authors contend that Du Fu’s isolation from the elite literary establishments allowed him to become a pioneer who introduced a new order to the Chinese poetic discourse. However, his attention to details in everyday reality, his preoccupation with domestic life and the larger issues embroiled in it, his humor, and his ability to surprise tend to be obscured by the clichéd image of the “poet sage” and “poet historian”—an image this collection of essays successfully complicates.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Xiaofei Tian

Section I: Home, Locale, Empire
1. Foundings of Home: On Du Fu and Poetic Success
Jack W. Chen

2. Thinking through Poetry: Du Fu’s “Getting Rid of the Blues” (Jie men)
Stephen Owen

3. History Channels: Commemoration and Communication in Du Fu’s Kuizhou Poems
Gregory Patterson

4. Ironic Empires
Lucas Rambo Bender

Section II: Poetry and Buddhism
5. Refuges and Refugees: How Du Fu Writes Buddhism
Paul Rouzer
6. Feeding the Phoenix: Du Fu’s Qinzhou-Tonggu Series
Xiaofei Tian

Section III: Reception and Re-creation
7. Sources of Difficulty: Reading and Understanding Du Fu
Christopher M. B. Nugent

8. Ming-Qing Paintings Inscribed with Du Fu’s Poetic Lines
Ronald Egan

9. Six Modernist Poets in Search of Du Fu
David Der-wei Wang

Anthology of Tang and Song Tales: The Tang Song chuanqi ji of Lu Xun

Editors:
Victor Mair & Zhenjun Zhang

Publication date:
April 2020

Publisher: 
World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd

Abstract:
This volume is the first complete English rendition of the 45 famous tales in the monumental anthology masterfully selected and edited by Lu Xun (1881–1936). It is the most distinctive, authoritative, and influential chuanqi collection thus far, and many of the pieces are rendered for the first time. This is an important contribution to the field of Chinese studies in the English-speaking world.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Preface and Selection Rules
Chinese Dynasty Chronology

Chapter 1:
The Record of the Ancient Mirror
A Supplement to Jiang Zong's 'Biography of the White Ape'
An Account of the Detached Soul
The World Inside a Pillow
The Tale of Miss Ren

Chapter 2:
Zheng Qinyue Deciphers an Ancient Inscription of the Datong Reign Period
The Tale of Miss Liu
Tale of the Transcendent Marriage of Dongting Lake
The Story of Li Zhangwu
The Tale of Huo Xiaoyu

Chapter 3:
The Ancient Classic of Peaks and Waterways
An Account of the Governor of the Southern Branch
The Story of Lady Feng of Lujiang
An Account of Xie Xiao'e
The Courtesan Li Wa
An Account of Three Dreams
The Account of the Song of Lasting Regret
The Elder of the Eastern Wall
The Origin of the Peaceful Kaiyuan Reign Era

Chapter 4:
The Story of Yingying
A Chronicle of My Journey through Zhou and Qin
Lament from the Xiang River: A Prose with a Preface
Registering a Strange Dream
A Record of a Dream of Qin
The Tale of Wushuang the Peerless
An Account of the Maid Shangqing
The Account of Courtesan Yang
The Tale of Feiyan
The Tale of the Curly-Bearded Guest

Chapter 5:
Music from the Netherworld
A Record of Nocturnal Spirits near Dongyang
An Account of Lingying

Chapter 6:
Leftover Record of the Sui Dynasty (A)
Leftover Record of the Sui Dynasty (B)
Record of the Oceans and Mountains of Emperor Yang of the Sui (A)
Record of the Oceans and Mountains of Emperor Yang of the Sui (B)
The Mansion of Enchantment
Records of Constructing the Grand Canal

Chapter 7:
The Tale of Green Pearl
Unofficial Biography of Yang the Grand Verity (A)
Unofficial Biography of Yang the Grand Verity (B)

Chapter 8:
The Record of the Drifting Red Leaf
Separate Traditions of Empress Zhao 'the Flying Swallow'
The Tale of Tan Yige
The Record of Wang Youyu
Wang Xie
The Tale of Concubine Plum
An Unofficial Biography of Li Shishi

Keywords in Chinese Culture

Editor:
Wai-yee Li and Yuri Pines

Publication date:
October 2019

Publisher:
The Chinese University Press

Abstract:
Like every major culture, Chinese has its set of keywords: pivotal terms of political, ethical, literary, and philosophical discourse. Tracing the origins, development, polysemy, and usages of keywords is one of the best ways to chart cultural and historical changes. This volume analyzes some of these keywords from different disciplinary and temporal perspectives, offering a new integrative study of their semantic richness, development trajectory, and distinct usages in Chinese culture.

The authors of the volume explore different keywords and focus on different periods and genres, ranging from philosophical and historical texts of the Warring States period (453–221 BCE) to late imperial (ca. 16th–18th centuries CE) literature and philosophy. They are guided by a similar set of questions: What elevates a mere word to the status of keyword? What sort of resonance and reverberations do we expect a keyword to have? How much does the semantic range of a keyword explain its significance? What kinds of arguments does it generate? What are the stories told to illustrate its meanings? What are political and intellectual implications of the keyword’s reevaluation? What does it mean to translate a keyword and map its meaning against other languages?

Throughout Chinese history, new ideas and new approaches often mean reinterpreting important words; rupture, continuities, and inflection points are inseparable from the linguistic history of specific terms. The premise of this book is that taking the long view and encompassing different disciplines yield new insights and unexpected connections. The authors, who come from the fields of history, philosophy, and literature, explore keywords in different genres and illuminate their multiple dimensions in various contexts. Moreover, despite their different temporal focus, they take into consideration the development of selected keywords from the Warring States to the late imperial period, sometimes adding excurses that extend to contemporary usage.

Table of Contents:

The Making of Keywords

1 How to Name or Not to Name: That Is the Question in Early Chinese Philosophy /
Carine Defoort

2 Chinese he 和 in Many Keys, Harmonized in Europe /
Joachim Gentz

3 From “Scribe” to “History”: The Keyword shi 史 /Stephen Durrant

Socio-political Keywords

4 What’s in a Slogan? The Political Rationale and the Economic Debates behind “Enrich the State” (fuguo 富國) in Early China /
Romain Graziani

5 “To Die for the Sanctity of the Name”: Name (ming 名) as Prime Mover of Political Action in Early China /
Yuri Pines

Virtue Keywords

6 Embodied Virtue: How Was Loyalty Edited and Performed in Late Imperial China? /
Chiung-yun Evelyn Liu

7 Filial Piety as an Emotion in Late Imperial China /
Maram Epstein

Keywords of the Self

8 Before the Emergence of Desire /
Andrew Plaks

9 Looking for the True Self /
Wai-yee Li

Afterword
Philological Reflections on Chinese Conceptual History: Introducing Thesaurus Linguae Sericae /
Christoph Harbsmeier
em

六朝書翰文の研究

Author:
福井佳夫  (Yoshio Fukui)

Publication date:
202003

Publisher:
汲古書院

Table of Contents:

第一章　作家の簡潔な注釈たりうるか─書翰文の概観─
　書翰のジャンル
　殷周の書翰文／秦漢の書翰文
　六朝の書翰文
　簡潔な注釈たりうるか
　標題の命名
　
第二章　友と清宴をたのしもう─曹丕「与呉質書」を中心に─
　「与呉質書」の内容
　「与呉質書」の四特徴
　文雅な曹丕像
　曹丕と蕭兄弟
　曹丕と蕭兄弟書翰
　陳後主「与詹事江総書」の内容

第三章　書翰の名手はわしじゃ─応璩の書翰文─
　日常性
　ユーモア
　誇張
　美文的彫琢
　応璩書翰の意義

第四章　二流の書翰で失敬─王羲之の書翰と尺牘─
　尺牘の三段構成／尺牘解釈の困難
　公私と雅俗の比例
　尺牘の価値
　書翰と尺牘の連続性
　「与会稽王牋」の文章
　桓温「薦譙元彦表」との比較
　天は二物を与えず

第五章 書翰は文学であります─鮑照「登大雷岸与妹書」を中心に─
　鮑照「登大雷岸与妹書」の文章
　呉均「与朱元思書」の文章
　庾信「為梁上黄侯世子与婦書」の文章
　劉孝標「重答劉秣陵沼書」の文章
　鑑賞用書翰文の価値

第六章　裏をよまねばならぬぞ─劉孝儀の「北使還与永豊侯書」─
　南北の交流使節／「北使還与永豊侯書」の内容
　蔑視感情／陳腐な先入観
　優等生の感想文
　ホッとしたわい

第七章　皇太子がお便りします─蕭統蕭綱兄弟の書翰文─
　早熟な十五歳（兄）
　文学と賢才（兄）
　哀悼の情（兄）
　大仰な表現（弟）
　攻撃性（弟）
　繊細な感覚（弟）
　兄弟の文学的資質

第八章　構成は三段できめよう─美文書翰の書式─
　書儀と月儀
　三段構成
　二流文人の文例集
　書儀としての信憑性
　「十二月啓」の価値

第九章　これが書翰のお手本じゃ─「十二月啓」訳注─
　太簇正月
　夾鍾二月
　姑洗三月
　中呂四月
　蕤賓五月
　林鍾六月
　夷則七月
　南呂八月
　無射九月
　応鍾十月
　黄鍾十一月
　大呂十二月

第十章　書翰は気どってかこう─王褒「与周弘譲書」を中心に─
　千里の面目
　望郷の書翰文
　類型的な叙しかた
　隠逸書翰の食言
　恋情書翰の虚構
　装飾と美文

第十一章　母さまにお会いしたい─宇文護母子の書翰文
　無名氏「為閻姫与子宇文護書」
　宇文護「報母閻姫書」
　口語化と美文化
　率直な感情吐露
　健全な儒教精神
　いちずな訴え

第十二章　臣にならぬか─招隠書翰─
　楊暕の「与逸人王貞書」
　招隠の風
　魏の招隠書翰
　沈約「為武帝与謝朏勅」
　梁武帝期の招隠書翰
　清節と寛仁
　江淹「為宋建平王聘逸士教」
　平和な世の産物
　読後感よき文学

The Chinese Lyric Sequence: Poems, Paintings, Anthologies

Author:
Joseph R. Allen

Publication date:
March 25, 2020

Publisher:
Cambria Press

Abstract:
Classical Chinese poetry is the dominating lyric form of world literature. Mainstream shi (lyric poetry) is a genre spanning more than two millennia, with poems numbering in the hundreds of thousands—extant shi from the medieval Tang dynasty alone consists of 48,000 poems by 2,200 authors. In these thousands of poems are some of the world’s more enduring examples of the short occasional poem, inspiring readers and writers across the globe with its vivid language of perspicuity. And embedded within that great lyric tradition, from its very beginnings to contemporary times, is the subtle but unsung form of the sequence of poems. Along with its related meta-forms of the literary anthology and album of paintings, this forms the Chinese lyric sequence.

The Chinese lyric sequence was never named or even noticed, by the poets, painters, or anthologists who worked in the genre over the millennia. It was an invisible but powerful form; in fact, Professor Joseph Allen argues that its power was lies in its invisible hold on the artists. Although the works discussed are some of the most canonical in the tradition, this is the first time that close attention and detailed analysis has been brought to the Chinese lyric sequence, both in its specific manifestations and as a shared aesthetic form. In doing so, Allen provides a focused introduction to Chinese literature and art for the general reader, while offering new insights for the specialist.

The works discussed include liturgical hymns, risqué folk songs, religious poems cast in dramatic forms, sensuous songs of the seasons, dense ponderings of personal travail, intimate landscape and figural paintings, and important collections that give them form. Despite the diversity of these works, Allen offers an abiding rationale for understanding all of them in the rubric of the Chinese lyric sequence, providing an original protocol for reading. This interpretation derives from deep Chinese cultural norms, such as parallel structures, significant numbers, and the interweaving of modes of understanding, but each example offers its special manifestation of those norms.

Allen places the genre in a comparative perspective with both Japanese and Western models, using theoretical language derived from the Chinese lyric tradition itself. All poems are provided in original and translation, with extensive contextual notes and detailed readings. Examples of paintings are provided, including one complete album.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Chapter 1: The Chinese Lyric Sequence in a Comparative Perspective
Chapter 2: Decades in The Book of Songs
Chapter 3: Nines in The Elegies of Chu
Chapter 4: Selections and Collections in the Six Dynasties
Chapter 5: The Four Seasons and the Twelve Months
Chapter 6: Du Fu’s Metapoem
Chapter 7: Eight Views
Epilogue: In Significant Numbers

[Dissertation] The Third Day of the Third Month in Early Medieval Chinese Texts: Literary Composition as Ritualized Practice

Author:
Kay Duffy

School:
Princeton University

Defended:
2019

Abstract:
During the tumultuous period between the breakdown of the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) and the establishment of the Tang (618 – 907), the spring festival of purification celebrated on the third day of the third lunar month became closely associated with ritualized performances of poetic composition. This dissertation investigates the transformation of this riverside festival into a prominent court celebration. I show that the invocation of springtime splendor and shared cultural touchstones in poems composed for these occasions facilitated the constitution of communal bonds among elites during this era of fraught uncertainty. Moreover, the circulation of these poems and the prefaces that accompanied them testified to the existence of mutual bonds of support between ruler and courtier at a time when imperial legitimacy was contested and unstable. In focusing my analysis on the festival of the third day of the third month, I cut across genres, settings, and contexts to examine the production of meaning in early medieval China.

Chapter One surveys sources of early medieval literary texts on the festival, demonstrating the key role of Tang editors in shaping the corpus of writing through which the festival is understood today. Chapter Two highlights the suspension of hierarchical boundaries and the production of horizontal relationships in depictions of the festival in fu. The third chapter investigates the relocation of spring lustration festivities from the banks of the river to the enclosed spaces of the imperial park, as reflected in third century court poems. The fourth chapter explores the paratextual functions of literary prefaces, revealing their role in constructing the meaning of literary gatherings. Finally, the fifth chapter compares the production of literary texts on the festival across genres at the courts of the Qi and the Liang, highlighting the role of the emperor and imperial princes as patrons, composers, and critics of literary writing. My dissertation not only elucidates the importance of this festival in early medieval China, it highlights the ritual dimensions of literary gatherings and contributes to a broader conversation about the role of ritual in courts and the role of courts in promoting cultural ideals.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Construction of the Third Day Festival in Medieval Collectanea

Chapter 2: Dissolving Hierarchies in Fu on Capitals, Lustration, and the Primal Si

Chapter 3: The Lord’s Feast at the Winding Stream: The Third Day Festival at the
Court of the Western Jin

Chapter 4: Imagining Communities in Prefaces and Poems

Chapter 5: Commemorating the Third Day in the Courts of the Qi and the Liang

[Dissertation] Yu Xin (513-581 CE) and the Sixth-century Literary World

Author:
Luo, Yiyi

School:
Princeton University

Defended:
2019

Abstract:
This dissertation offers new perspectives to explore the writings of Yu Xin 庾信 (513-581 CE), one of the most prominent and representative writers in sixth-century China. Through a combination of close reading with a knowledge of current theory of persona criticism and particular attention to the historical and intellectual contexts of the sixth century, it examines the diversity of ideation and thematic patterns in the writings of Yu Xin. This dissertation centers on two sets of questions: 1. how did the dominant poetic image of Yu Xin as a nostalgic poet come into being? Did his contemporaries see him this way? How is this image constructed in his writings, and in what way did later readers and commentators help maintain and shape this image? 2. Apart from the traditional reading strategy that links his tragic experience with his writings, what are the other lenses through which we can understand the rich poetic corpus of Yu Xin? The two parts of this dissertation are respectively informed by these two sets of questions.

Part I, comprised of chapters 1 and 2, traces the historical reception of Yu Xin from the Northern Zhou to the early Five Dynasties by focusing on key historical moments that were significant in shaping historical context and providing interpretative framework to understand the poet. It shows that the mid-eighth century witnessed a shifting attention from the text of Yu Xin to his authorial image, with Du Fu being a major figure in this shift. Part II, comprised of chapters 3, 4, and 5, seeks to reorient our perspective on the poetic collection of Yu Xin and to uncover its polyvocality achieved by shifting language registers, voices, themes, and perspectives. Exploring the theme of state and wars, reclusion, and the religious realm respectively, the three chapters aim to unfold the literary craft of Yu Xin by exploring the complex relation between him and the textual traditions of classics, literature, and Buddhism as Daoism. Yu Xin was not only one of the best writers of the sixth century, but the most avid reader of the Classics, the literary texts, as well as religious scriptures, folklores, and ritual practices. This readerliness of Yu Xin’s corpus is represented by the extensive incorporation, transformation, and recreation of these earlier literary and religious canons into his writings.

The main purpose of this dissertation is two-fold: 1) to explore how and when the conventional authorial image of Yu Xin came into being, and 2) to discover alternative lenses to reexamine his poetic corpus. In so doing this dissertation seeks to gain a fuller view of the diversity and inventiveness of the poet. By placing him in the social and intellectual context of the sixth century, this dissertation aims for a clearer understanding of the reading and writing practice in this period.

The Cambridge History of China Volume 2: The Six Dynasties, 220–589

Editors:
Albert E. Dien & Keith N. Knapp

Publisher:

Cambridge University Press

Publication date:

2019

Abstract:

The Six Dynasties Period (220–589 CE) is one of the most complex in Chinese history. Written by leading scholars from across the globe, the essays in this volume cover nearly every aspect of the period, including politics, foreign relations, warfare, agriculture, gender, art, philosophy, material culture, local society, and music. While acknowledging the era's political chaos, these essays indicate that this was a transformative period when Chinese culture was significantly changed and enriched by foreign peoples and ideas. It was also a time when history and literature became recognized as independent subjects and religion was transformed by the domestication of Buddhism and the formation of organized Daoism. Many of the trends that shaped the rest of imperial China's history have their origins in this era, such as the commercial vibrancy of southern China, the separation of history and literature from classical studies, and the growing importance of women in politics and religion.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Part I. History:
1. Wei   Rafe de Crespigny
2. Wu   Rafe de Crespigny
3. Shu-Han   J. Michael Farmer
4. Western Jin   Damien Chaussende
5. Eastern Jin   Charles Holcombe
6. The Sixteen Kingdoms   Charles Holcombe
7. Cheng-Han State   Terry F. Kleeman
8. Northern Wei   Scott Pearce
9. Eastern Wei-Northern Qi   Albert E. Dien
10. Western Wei-Northern Zhou   Albert E. Dien
11. The Southern dynasties   Andrew Chittick

Part II. Society and Realia:
12. The art of war  David A. Graff
13. Foreign relations  Charles Holcombe
14. The Northern economy  Victor Cunrui Xiong
15. The Southern economy  Liu Shufen 劉淑芬
16. Agriculture  Francesca Bray
17. The history of Sogdians in China  Rong Xinjiang 榮新江
18. Northern material culture  Shing Müller
19. Southern material culture   Annette Kieser
20. Women, families, and gendered society  Jen-der Lee 李貞德
21. Local society Hou Xudong 侯旭東

Part III. Culture, Religion and Art:
22. Confucian learning and influence   Keith N. Knapp
23. Qingtan and Xuanxue   Y. K. Lo
24. Buddhism   John Kieschnick
25. Daoism   Stephen R. Bokenkamp
26. Popular religion   Robert Ford Campany
27. The world of prose literature   Antje Richter
28. The world of poetry   Cynthia Chennault
29. Art and visual culture   Wu Hung 巫鴻
30. Music   Bo Lawergren

[Dissertation] The Literary Formation of Cultural Communities in Mid-Third- Through Early Fifth-Century China

Author:
Graham Chamness

Defended:
2018

School:
Harvard University

Abstract:

“The Literary Formation of Cultural Communities in Mid-Third- through Early Fifth-Century China,” explores elite social gatherings and the literature produced at those gatherings at the beginning of the period of division between north and south. This largely coincides with the Eastern Jin dynasty (317-420), the first southern dynasty, whose court was founded south of the Yangzi River with the help of a small group of aristocratic families after the territorial loss of the north to invading tribes. Previous scholarship tends to characterize this period as a moment in history when the cultural elite turned inwardly toward an esoteric metaphysical discourse concerned with self-discovery. While not entirely false, this view is misleading at least in the sense that it overlooks the degree to which emigre elites of the Eastern Jin turned toward each other, through their shared interest in the discourse of the "arcane" (xuan), here referring to the mystical Way that was at once spoken of by the Taoist philosophical texts preserved from antiquity and by the Buddhist sutras being translated in China from India and Central Asia, and sought to rebuild a sense of community together in the absence of their ancestral heartland. I argue that the elite social gatherings we read about in works like the Shishuo xinyu (New Account of Tales of the World) and literary writings produced at those gatherings, such as the poems composed by various participants at the famous gathering at Lanting in 353, and other social writings preserved in Buddhist anthologies and personal literary collections reveal a common trope during this period of being joined together as a community through individual absorption in a shared mystical understanding of the ineffable Way, of the great men of the past, and of the teachings of the Buddha. Being defined in some sense by not belonging to the court, the elites from this brief slice of time configure themselves into cultural communities that are markedly different from the cultural worlds of the periods that come immediately before and after, when literary output was primarily centered around the court.

[Dissertation] The Author's Two Bodies: Paratext in Early Chinese Textual Culture

Author:
Du Heng

Defended Year: 
2018

School:
Harvard University

Abstract:
This dissertation addresses the contentious issue of early authorship by proposing a new set of methodologies developed out of an engagement with both unearthed and transmitted sources. It brings into a dialogue methodological discussions from fields such as Early China, Book History, Classics, and Biblical Studies. To tackle the questions of what constitutes a text and what constitutes an author in pre-imperial China (before 211 BCE), I adapt and expand the concept of “paratext,” namely the materials enveloping the main text such as titles, book covers, author names, and prefaces. In addition to demonstrating the role of paratext in demarcating textual boundaries, this dissertation develops a system of criteria for identifying hitherto unrecognized forms of paratexts in early sources, such as the reiterations of zi yue 子曰 (the Master said), branching catalogues, and author anecdotes. Reading these features as paratextual language helps uncover new evidence concerning how early textual producers sought to circumscribe words as textual units. While many scholars dismiss early author attributions as apocryphal, I argue that the representations of author figures, real or putative, perform an instrumental role in defining and delimiting both a text and a corpus. The body chapters of this dissertation closely examine case studies straddling the transition into the imperial period, from aphorism and anecdotes preserved in bamboo manuscripts (c. 300 BCE) to excavated and received compilations such as the Yinqueshan Sunzi bingfa 銀雀山孫子兵法, Zhuangzi 莊子, Hanfeizi 韓非子, and the Chuci zhangju 楚辭章句. Its final chapter, in summing up the interactive dynamics between text-making and author-making, retraces an intriguing motif revolving around a zero-sum game between the author’s physical body and literary corpus.

Mouse vs. Cat in Chinese Literature Tales and Commentary

Translator:
Wilt L. Idema

Publisher:
University of Washington Press

Publication date:
Feb 28, 2019

Abstract:

In literatures worldwide, animal fables have been analyzed for their revealingly anthropomorphic views, but until now little attention has been given to the animal tales of China. The complex, competitive relationship between rodents (vilified as thieves of grain) and the felines with whom they are perennially at war is explored in this presentation of Chinese tales about cats and mice. Master translator Wilt Idema situates them in an overview of animal tales in world literature, in the Chinese literary tradition as a whole, and within Chinese imaginative depictions of animals.

The tales demonstrate the animals’ symbolism and their unusually prominent—and verbal—role in the stories. These readings depict cats and mice in conflict, in marital bonds, and in litigation—most centrally in a legal case of a mouse against a cat in the underworld court of King Yama. Many of the stories adopt the perspective of the mice as animals merely trying to survive, while also recognizing that cats are natural hunters.

This entertaining volume will appeal to readers interested in Chinese literature and society, comparative literature, and posthumanist consideration of human-animal relations.

Table of Contents:

Introduction p. 3
Chapter 1 Thieving Rats and Pampered Cats p. 22
    Rapacious Rats p. 23
    Deserving Mice p. 27
    Performing Mice p. 28
    Revered Rats p. 31
    Wildcats and Pussycats p. 34
    Buddhist Cats p. 38
    Good Mousers and Lazy Pets p. 41
    Demonic Cats p. 48
    Cat Lovers and Cat Lore p. 53

Chapter 2 The White Mouse and the Five Rats p. 56
    The White Mouse p. 57
    The Five Rats p. 65
    The Execution of the Five Rats p. 70

Chapter 3 A Wedding and a Court Case p. 82
    The Marriage of the Mouse p. 82
    The Court Case p. 90
    Other Genres p. 102
    The Mutual Accusations of the Cat and the Mouse p. 103
    The Scroll of the Accusation of the Mouse against the Cat p. 108

Chapter 4 A Tale without Shape or Shadow p. 114
    Expanding the Court Case p. 114
    Prequels: Creation and Pride p. 118
    Prequels: The Crashed Wedding p. 123
    Prequels: The War of the Mice against the Cat p. 127
    A Tale without Shape or Shadow p. 131

Chapter 5 Peace Negotiations and Dystopias p. 154
    Actualized Versions of the Court Case p. 156
    Modern and Contemporary Authors on Cats and Rats p. 163

Epilogue: Cats and Mice in Love and War from East to West

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

Workshop on Migration and Border-crossing in Early Medieval China

Co-organizers: 

Wen-Yi Huang & Xiaofei Tian

Date:

May 23, 2019

Location: 

The Common Room, 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA

Harvard University

Program

9:30-9:40         Opening Remarks

Panel I. Going South

9:40-10:40

Evan Nicoll-Johnson (University of Alberta), “Guo Pu (276-324) the Wanderer: Magic and Migration in the Jin Dynasty”

Lu Kou (Williams College), “Detainees and Letters to Request Release in Early Medieval China”

Panel II. The Mobility of Texts and Images

10:40-11:40

Keith N. Knapp (The Citadel), “Cultural Baggage: The Transmission and Spread of Accounts of Filial Offspring during the Northern and Southern Dynasties”

Fan Zhang (NYU-Shanghai), “Between Hexi and Pingcheng: Migration of Image, Style, and People”

11:40-1:00        Lunch [Workshop Participants Only]

Panel III. Looking Back and Around

1:00-2:00

Jack W. Chen (University of Virginia), “Looking Back across the River: Nostalgia as Migrancy in the Shishuo xinyu”

Xiaofei Tian (Harvard University), “The Worlds on the Edge between Darkness and Light: Fifth-century ‘Supernatural’ Stories of a Migrant Community”

Panel IV. Rootedness, Relocation, and Identity

2:00-3:00

Andrew Chittick (Eckerd College), “Borderlands and Migration to North and South: A Study of the Qing-Qi Region in the Fifth Century CE”

Wen-Yi Huang (Harvard University), “How to Name People on the Move: A Case Study of the Northern Wei”

3:00-3:15         Coffee Break

Panel V. Moving Monks and Merchants

3:15-4:15

James Robson (Harvard University), “Monks, Movement, and Migration: A Preliminary Assessment of the Large-Scale Movement of Buddhist Monks in Early Medieval China”

Jin Xu (Vassar College), “Following in the Footsteps of Siddhartha: Shi Jun Sarcophagus and the Picturing of an Allegorical Biography”

4:15-4:45         General Discussion and Concluding Remarks

6:30                 Dinner for Workshop Participants

＊For more details, please visit our website:

https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/2019emcmigration/home-0