Pub Date : 2022-09-21DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2022.2101766
M. Goh
The late Eastern Han (roughly the Jian’an era, 196–220) through the Three Kingdoms (220–265) period witnessed a historic turn at which war, deception, and writing coincided in more intricate ways than ever before. By closely examining three cases of fabricated letters, I untangle the complex phenomenon of “writing in deception” from the lens of war tactic and mode of writing. My basic question is how and why writing created or facilitated new possibilities for deceit in war during this period. More broadly, how was a voice created in deception different from one that was “genuine”? What does “writing in deception” reveal about the nature and perception of literature or wenzhang 文章? My inquiries shed light on a fiercely pragmatic approach to writing, while exposing the line between “deceptive” and “non-deceptive” writings to be extremely fine and tenuous. Ultimately, these cases of fabricated letters challenge us to think about authorship and other properties of a literary work, such as authenticity, legitimacy, genuineness, and sincerity, as the results—that is, the effect and affect—of writing, and not the other way around.
{"title":"Genuine Words: Deception as a War Tactic and a Mode of Writing in Third-Century China","authors":"M. Goh","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2022.2101766","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2022.2101766","url":null,"abstract":"The late Eastern Han (roughly the Jian’an era, 196–220) through the Three Kingdoms (220–265) period witnessed a historic turn at which war, deception, and writing coincided in more intricate ways than ever before. By closely examining three cases of fabricated letters, I untangle the complex phenomenon of “writing in deception” from the lens of war tactic and mode of writing. My basic question is how and why writing created or facilitated new possibilities for deceit in war during this period. More broadly, how was a voice created in deception different from one that was “genuine”? What does “writing in deception” reveal about the nature and perception of literature or wenzhang 文章? My inquiries shed light on a fiercely pragmatic approach to writing, while exposing the line between “deceptive” and “non-deceptive” writings to be extremely fine and tenuous. Ultimately, these cases of fabricated letters challenge us to think about authorship and other properties of a literary work, such as authenticity, legitimacy, genuineness, and sincerity, as the results—that is, the effect and affect—of writing, and not the other way around.","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2022 1","pages":"3 - 26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45952713","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-21DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2022.2101768
Qiaomei Tang
The tumultuous political environment of early medieval China gave rise to a social phenomenon known as liangdi 兩嫡, a situation in which a man kept two principal wives. This anomaly caused a great deal of confusion not only in terms of inheritance of title, rank, and property for the sons born of the two wives, but more importantly, in mourning observances by the sons for their mothers. To provide guidance for those involved in such situations, many discussions and debates around liangdi cases took place, both publicly among officials in courts and privately between colleagues and friends. This article, through analyzing four recorded discussions and debates on liangdi cases from the Jin dynasty (265–420), examines how a private issue of having two wives, resulting from the geopolitical conditions of civil war and segregation following the disintegration of the Han empire, became a public matter that had a profound ritual and political significance. At the heart of the politicization of ritual matters was the question of the political legitimacy of a newly unified empire.
{"title":"Politicization of Ritual Matters: Debates on “Two Principal Wives” (Liangdi) in Early Medieval China","authors":"Qiaomei Tang","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2022.2101768","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2022.2101768","url":null,"abstract":"The tumultuous political environment of early medieval China gave rise to a social phenomenon known as liangdi 兩嫡, a situation in which a man kept two principal wives. This anomaly caused a great deal of confusion not only in terms of inheritance of title, rank, and property for the sons born of the two wives, but more importantly, in mourning observances by the sons for their mothers. To provide guidance for those involved in such situations, many discussions and debates around liangdi cases took place, both publicly among officials in courts and privately between colleagues and friends. This article, through analyzing four recorded discussions and debates on liangdi cases from the Jin dynasty (265–420), examines how a private issue of having two wives, resulting from the geopolitical conditions of civil war and segregation following the disintegration of the Han empire, became a public matter that had a profound ritual and political significance. At the heart of the politicization of ritual matters was the question of the political legitimacy of a newly unified empire.","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2022 1","pages":"52 - 72"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43621678","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-21DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2022.2101771
Dominic Steavu
In early and medieval China, thinkers waxed poetic about the blurriness of the line that set apart dreams from reality. The famed “ butterfly dream ” from the Zhuangzi is the locus classicus for this view. If the boundary between dreams and reality is so porous, how much more is the demarcation between dreams and visions, two states of alternate consciousness that are strikingly similar in their basic grammar and core features. Indeed, both were understood as spontaneous forms of insight con-sisting of an encounter with beings who were inaccessible under normal waking cir-cumstances. A passage from the “ Explanation of Dreams ” ( Mengshuo 夢 說 ), a succinct fourteenth-century Daoist work, strikingly illustrates how dreams and visions —“ the marvels of the spirit ’ s excursions ”— could be two sides of the same coin:
{"title":"Visions and Dreams in Early and Medieval China: A Few Thoughts on Neutrality and Authorial Voice","authors":"Dominic Steavu","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2022.2101771","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2022.2101771","url":null,"abstract":"In early and medieval China, thinkers waxed poetic about the blurriness of the line that set apart dreams from reality. The famed “ butterfly dream ” from the Zhuangzi is the locus classicus for this view. If the boundary between dreams and reality is so porous, how much more is the demarcation between dreams and visions, two states of alternate consciousness that are strikingly similar in their basic grammar and core features. Indeed, both were understood as spontaneous forms of insight con-sisting of an encounter with beings who were inaccessible under normal waking cir-cumstances. A passage from the “ Explanation of Dreams ” ( Mengshuo 夢 說 ), a succinct fourteenth-century Daoist work, strikingly illustrates how dreams and visions —“ the marvels of the spirit ’ s excursions ”— could be two sides of the same coin:","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2022 1","pages":"97 - 105"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46927318","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-21DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2022.2101767
Charles Holcombe
This study explores group identity perception in early medieval China at a time of peak ethno-cultural complexity, as north China was falling under the control of multiple ostensibly “non-Chinese” peoples in the early fourth century. The subject is approached through an examination of the careers of two especially significant northern frontier officials, Liu Kun (271–318) and Wang Jun (252–314), and their interactions with neighboring Xianbei peoples, as well as with the Jin dynasty imperial court. We conclude that, although there were ethno-cultural differences and multiple distinct, separately named, population groups, the crucial factor for identity formation—at least as portrayed in the surviving textual sources—was the dynastic state. Also important to identity formation was the embodiment of civilizational norms. Jin dynasty people were distinguished from non-Jin “others,” yet some of the non-Jin others behaved more like true participants in the ideals of Chinese civilization than some of the native-born Jin people.
{"title":"Lords of the Marches: Imperial Identity on the Margins in Early Fourth-Century China","authors":"Charles Holcombe","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2022.2101767","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2022.2101767","url":null,"abstract":"This study explores group identity perception in early medieval China at a time of peak ethno-cultural complexity, as north China was falling under the control of multiple ostensibly “non-Chinese” peoples in the early fourth century. The subject is approached through an examination of the careers of two especially significant northern frontier officials, Liu Kun (271–318) and Wang Jun (252–314), and their interactions with neighboring Xianbei peoples, as well as with the Jin dynasty imperial court. We conclude that, although there were ethno-cultural differences and multiple distinct, separately named, population groups, the crucial factor for identity formation—at least as portrayed in the surviving textual sources—was the dynastic state. Also important to identity formation was the embodiment of civilizational norms. Jin dynasty people were distinguished from non-Jin “others,” yet some of the non-Jin others behaved more like true participants in the ideals of Chinese civilization than some of the native-born Jin people.","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2022 1","pages":"27 - 51"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46090123","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-21DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2022.2101773
Alexis Lycas
Although the geographical knowledge of the second millennium of the empire is well studied, D. Jonathan Felt’s monograph marks, following the remarkable work of Jörg Hüsemann, the revival of studies on the history of early medieval geographical knowledge. As far as the formal aspects of the book are concerned, the quality of the editorial work done on the manuscript is laudable—I did not find any glaring mistakes or typos. Felt’s text is clear, informative, and without jargon, even if he sometimes tends to repeat sentences from one page to the next to emphasize certain points. The author must be commended for choosing to include short lines of translations of primary sources in the body of his demonstration instead of adding numerous independent translation blocks. The reader can thus clearly follow his reasoning, and the text gains in fluidity. The excellent schematic maps produced with GIS are particularly relevant and allow one to visualize Felt’s hypotheses or conclusions. The bibliography is thorough, and the index useful. The only problem concerns the notes, which are inexplicably placed at the end of the volume. This may have been an editorial decision not attributable to the author, but the otherwise pleasant and informative reading of the book suffers from such unnecessary hindrance. The book is organized around four thematic chapters, whose titles function through conceptual or spatial oppositions that Felt takes on in his analysis, often with great nuance. The main body of the text is flanked at one end by an introduction and an indispensable first chapter presenting the genres of geographical writing, and at the other end by a conclusion that takes up the themes addressed in the main chapters to assess their late medieval and post-medieval fortune. The four themes of the study touch on the notions of regionalism, borders, natural geography, and competing world orders. They also follow a relatively chronological order which culminates in the last two chapters, more specifically focused on Li Daoyuan’s 酈道元 (d. 527) Shuijing zhu 水經注. Felt’s objective is to present four ways of seeing the world. He does so according to historical or historiographical oppositions, which enrich his arguments. The introduction and the first chapter are particularly useful to gain an overview and a precise history of the evolution of ancient and especially medieval geographical knowledge. In line with the works of Andrew Chittick and Liu Weiyi 劉緯毅,
{"title":"Structures of the Earth: Metageographies of Early Medieval China","authors":"Alexis Lycas","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2022.2101773","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2022.2101773","url":null,"abstract":"Although the geographical knowledge of the second millennium of the empire is well studied, D. Jonathan Felt’s monograph marks, following the remarkable work of Jörg Hüsemann, the revival of studies on the history of early medieval geographical knowledge. As far as the formal aspects of the book are concerned, the quality of the editorial work done on the manuscript is laudable—I did not find any glaring mistakes or typos. Felt’s text is clear, informative, and without jargon, even if he sometimes tends to repeat sentences from one page to the next to emphasize certain points. The author must be commended for choosing to include short lines of translations of primary sources in the body of his demonstration instead of adding numerous independent translation blocks. The reader can thus clearly follow his reasoning, and the text gains in fluidity. The excellent schematic maps produced with GIS are particularly relevant and allow one to visualize Felt’s hypotheses or conclusions. The bibliography is thorough, and the index useful. The only problem concerns the notes, which are inexplicably placed at the end of the volume. This may have been an editorial decision not attributable to the author, but the otherwise pleasant and informative reading of the book suffers from such unnecessary hindrance. The book is organized around four thematic chapters, whose titles function through conceptual or spatial oppositions that Felt takes on in his analysis, often with great nuance. The main body of the text is flanked at one end by an introduction and an indispensable first chapter presenting the genres of geographical writing, and at the other end by a conclusion that takes up the themes addressed in the main chapters to assess their late medieval and post-medieval fortune. The four themes of the study touch on the notions of regionalism, borders, natural geography, and competing world orders. They also follow a relatively chronological order which culminates in the last two chapters, more specifically focused on Li Daoyuan’s 酈道元 (d. 527) Shuijing zhu 水經注. Felt’s objective is to present four ways of seeing the world. He does so according to historical or historiographical oppositions, which enrich his arguments. The introduction and the first chapter are particularly useful to gain an overview and a precise history of the evolution of ancient and especially medieval geographical knowledge. In line with the works of Andrew Chittick and Liu Weiyi 劉緯毅,","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2022 1","pages":"106 - 109"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44453961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-21DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2022.2101770
Lu Kou
After conquering the Chen in 589, the Sui became a powerful empire that ruled over both the northern and southern regions, a vast territory that featured distinct regional cultures and customs. To foster an impression of political unity, the Sui court initiated a series of projects aimed at implementing central control over remote areas and reconciling interests of different cultural groups. This ideology of concordia discors found no better avenue of expression than music, which included musical performance, lyric composition, and standardization of pitches and musical scales. This article investigates the politics of music and the creation of an “audible empire” in the first decade of the Sui. Specifically, it examines how imperial subjects at the time perceived and articulated the Sui court ritual music, including both its history and its public display. Based on court memorials, historical records, and poems, I argue that the Sui’s musical lineage—how the music of orthodoxy was transmitted and inherited by the Sui—was carefully constructed and often contested in the empire’s early years and that poems that describe viewers’ experience of observing the Sui music performance reveal courtiers’ ambivalent attitudes towards music as an imperial tool of persuasion.
{"title":"Audible Empire: Musical Orthodoxy and Spectacle in the Sui Dynasty","authors":"Lu Kou","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2022.2101770","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2022.2101770","url":null,"abstract":"After conquering the Chen in 589, the Sui became a powerful empire that ruled over both the northern and southern regions, a vast territory that featured distinct regional cultures and customs. To foster an impression of political unity, the Sui court initiated a series of projects aimed at implementing central control over remote areas and reconciling interests of different cultural groups. This ideology of concordia discors found no better avenue of expression than music, which included musical performance, lyric composition, and standardization of pitches and musical scales. This article investigates the politics of music and the creation of an “audible empire” in the first decade of the Sui. Specifically, it examines how imperial subjects at the time perceived and articulated the Sui court ritual music, including both its history and its public display. Based on court memorials, historical records, and poems, I argue that the Sui’s musical lineage—how the music of orthodoxy was transmitted and inherited by the Sui—was carefully constructed and often contested in the empire’s early years and that poems that describe viewers’ experience of observing the Sui music performance reveal courtiers’ ambivalent attitudes towards music as an imperial tool of persuasion.","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2022 1","pages":"73 - 96"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42278549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2021.1974738
W. Swartz
“That ’tis as great a fault to judge ill, as to write ill, and a more dangerous one to the public . . .” —Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism” (1711) In his work of meta-literature, “Rhapsody on Literature,” Lu Ji (261–303) expounds his theories on the creative act. The rhapsody lays out the entire writing process, from reading, assimilation, and imagination or mnemonic recall to writing and its host of challenges, raising thorny questions about originality and tradition, and conception and representation. His discourse points to an overarching concern with the workings of literary creativity. The notion of gesture is key to understanding his theory of creativity, for it outlines the fitful movements and signifying potentiality of incipient ideas in the changeable current of mental cogitations and the flow and flux of language. This essay explores the figuration of gesture in Lu Ji’s theory of literary creativity.
{"title":"Gesture and the Movements of Literary Creativity: Lu Ji’s “Rhapsody on Literature”","authors":"W. Swartz","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2021.1974738","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2021.1974738","url":null,"abstract":"“That ’tis as great a fault to judge ill, as to write ill, and a more dangerous one to the public . . .” —Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism” (1711) In his work of meta-literature, “Rhapsody on Literature,” Lu Ji (261–303) expounds his theories on the creative act. The rhapsody lays out the entire writing process, from reading, assimilation, and imagination or mnemonic recall to writing and its host of challenges, raising thorny questions about originality and tradition, and conception and representation. His discourse points to an overarching concern with the workings of literary creativity. The notion of gesture is key to understanding his theory of creativity, for it outlines the fitful movements and signifying potentiality of incipient ideas in the changeable current of mental cogitations and the flow and flux of language. This essay explores the figuration of gesture in Lu Ji’s theory of literary creativity.","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2021 1","pages":"90 - 100"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43264114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2021.1974744
Lu Kou
{"title":"Rome, China, and the Barbarians: Ethnographic Traditions and the Transformation of Empires","authors":"Lu Kou","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2021.1974744","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2021.1974744","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2021 1","pages":"124 - 126"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49565490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2021.1974732
Ronald Egan
That the practice of inscribing poems on paintings was brought to new prominence during the High Tang period is a well-known aspect of literary history. That poets’ ways of treating paintings in poems changed again in the late eighth and ninth centuries is a less well-known development. This article looks at that change and analyzes several of its manifestations, including new treatments of the “illusion” of painting, the relationship of the painter to his art, and the relationship of painting to poetry. Also briefly discussed is the new closeness between the poets of the later period and the painters they wrote about. Several of these changes anticipate the emergence of “literati painting” in the Northern Song period and allow us to see the later Tang period as an important transitional bridge between poetic treatments of painting before and after it.
{"title":"Poems on Painting from the High Tang to Later Tang Periods","authors":"Ronald Egan","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2021.1974732","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2021.1974732","url":null,"abstract":"That the practice of inscribing poems on paintings was brought to new prominence during the High Tang period is a well-known aspect of literary history. That poets’ ways of treating paintings in poems changed again in the late eighth and ninth centuries is a less well-known development. This article looks at that change and analyzes several of its manifestations, including new treatments of the “illusion” of painting, the relationship of the painter to his art, and the relationship of painting to poetry. Also briefly discussed is the new closeness between the poets of the later period and the painters they wrote about. Several of these changes anticipate the emergence of “literati painting” in the Northern Song period and allow us to see the later Tang period as an important transitional bridge between poetic treatments of painting before and after it.","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2021 1","pages":"19 - 44"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47104915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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