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Editor’s Note Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2023-09-14 Xiaofei Tian
Published in Early Medieval China (Vol. 2023, No. 29, 2023)
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Diverging Conceptions of Apotheosis in Fourth-Century CE Upper Purity Daoism Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2023-09-14 J. E. E. Pettit
This article examines evidence from hagiographies that emerged from the Upper Purity (Shangqing) Daoist lineage in the late fourth century CE to investigate the attitudes of early medieval writers towards human beings gaining status as gods and goddesses. Whereas previous scholars tend to treat these texts as part of a single movement, this article demonstrates that there are complex and conflicting
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Bringing Scholarship on The Early Medieval Period to a Broader Audience Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2023-09-14 Patricia Buckley Ebrey
Published in Early Medieval China (Vol. 2023, No. 29, 2023)
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Anecdote, Network, Gossip, Performance: Essays on the Shishuo xinyu Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2023-09-14 Graham Sanders
Published in Early Medieval China (Vol. 2023, No. 29, 2023)
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Audible Empire: Musical Orthodoxy and Spectacle in the Sui Dynasty Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2022-09-21 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
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Poems on Painting from the High Tang to Later Tang Periods Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2021-11-08 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”
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Southbound: Fantasies of the Plebeian in the Southern Dynasties Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2021-11-08 Stephen Owen
The short, often anonymous yuefu of the South, from the fourth to sixth century CE, mediated by the interests of the male members of the Northern émigré elite, are taken to represent the voice of Southern commoners, particularly of young women. If the Northern elite defined itself in terms of names, history, and high culture, the voices of these yuefu were seen as timeless expressions of the “natural”
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Gesture and the Movements of Literary Creativity: Lu Ji’s “Rhapsody on Literature” Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2021-11-08 Wendy 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
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“Autumn Thoughts”: Shared Images, Shifting Phrases, and Promiscuous Poetics Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2021-11-08 Stephen H. West
The famous short sanqu lyric known as “Autumn Thoughts” to the tune “Tianjing sha” has been attributed to Ma Zhiyuan since the late sixteenth century. Despite the skepticism of a long list of important qu scholars from the fourteenth to the twentieth century, this attribution is still repeated in textbooks from grade school to doctoral programs. A careful examination of extant versions from 1309 onward
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Literary Responses to Religious Debates at the Northern Zhou Court Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2020-01-01 Yiyi Luo
In the fifth and sixth centuries, the status of the Buddhist and Daoist teachings underwent constant change. The tension between the two religious groups over state sponsorship heightened during the Northern Zhou dynasty, especially under the reign of Emperor Wu 北周武帝 (r. 560–578). While records about these events abound in historical and religious texts, very few literary pieces have survived and thus
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Fashion and Historical Imagination: The Case of Sun Shou’s “Bewitching and Strange Appearances” Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2020-01-01 Rebecca Doran
Sun Shou (d. 159), the vilified and powerful wife of notorious regent to the throne Liang Ji (d. 159), is famous for her invention of novel fashions, including new styles of eyebrow, makeup, and hair, and even new ways of walking and smiling. In Hou Hanshu and elsewhere, Sun Shou’s invention of these styles plays an important role in constructing a condemnatory historical judgment of her character
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Albert E. Dien: A Short Biography of a Scholarly Explorer Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2019-01-01 Jonathan Karam Skaff
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Albert Dien’s Contribution to Study of the Northern Dynasties Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2019-01-01 Scott Pearce
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The Three Scourges and Zhou Chu Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Sujane Wu
Most scholars consider Zhou Chu's story of eliminating the three scourges—killing a flood-dragon and a man-eating tiger, as well as reforming himself—to be well-nigh impossible. In particular, the story of his moral transformation and his learning from someone over two decades his junior still remains a point at debate. It is not my intent in this study to argue for its truthfulness. What I argue is
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Sanguo Zhi Fascicle 42: The Biography of Qiao Zhou Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2017-01-01 J. Michael Farmer
The following is a translation of the biography of Qiao Zhou, a noted scholar-intellectual and court official of the Three States period state of Shu-Han, as contained in fascicle 42 of Chen Shou's Sanguo zhi (Records of the Three States). Though the full chapter contains accounts of nine other Shu-Han intellectuals, the biography of Qiao Zhou focuses primarily on his political activity, only hinting
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An Annotated Translation of Fu on Pomegranate in Yiwen Leiju Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Xurong Kong
Focusing on translating nine pieces of fu on pomegranate contained in Yiwen leiju, as well as the etymological examination of the fruit names, this paper aims to reveal the impacts of the cultural exchanges between the west and east upon literary writing.
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The Creation of the Bronze Bird Terrace-Scape in the Northern and Southern Dynasties Period Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Joanne Tsao
The Bronze Bird Terrace of Ye was a site where poets of the Cao family celebrated Cao Cao's 曹操 (155–220) accomplishments. This mode of celebration changed after Cao Cao's death, as poets of the succeeding dynasties altered the significance of the site from one of celebration to a real or imagined space in which one could ruminate on the rise and fall of greatness, the brevity of human life, and the
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Rhapsodies on Midiexiang: Jian'an Period Reflections on an Exotic Plant from Rome Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2016-01-01 Olivia Milburn
At the end of the Han dynasty, a group of five rhapsodies were produced by some of the most important poets of the day, celebrating the presence of plants from the Roman Empire in the gardens of Cao Pi, the future first emperor of the Wei dynasty. Previously when these poems have been studied, it has been in the context of straightforward appreciation of their subject's scent and beauty. However, this
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Fan Ye's Biography in the Song Shu: Form, Content, and Impact Early Medieval China Pub Date : 2016-01-01 Sebastian Eicher
In the centuries after Fan Ye's death many literati praised his Hou Han shu, but at the same time a surprising number of them also criticized the historian's character. This paper argues that Fan Ye's biography in the Song shu, which depicts the historian as a weak and despicable man, was the primary source for many of the accusations made by his critics. The biography's influence can be explained