The Making of a Hero and a Villain: Southern Song Literati’s Changing Perceptions of the Memoirs of Li Gang and Wang Boyan

Abstract

This article discusses how Southern Song literati’s changing perceptions of the three memoirs of Li Gang 李綱 (1083–1140) and Wang Boyan 汪伯彥 (1069–1141) shaped their posthumous reputations. Both men served as chief councilor in the early Southern Song. Literati in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries became increasingly skeptical of Wang Boyan’s memoir, a work that had been considered as authentic decades earlier. Partly driven by their irredentist passion and their disappointment with autocratic councilors, literati identified with the hawkish Li and supported the printing of his works. After Li’s formerly lesser-known personal memoir had a wider circulation in the thirteenth century, daoxue 道學 historians deliberately adopted his overt criticism of Wang to form a new narrative that praised Li and vilified Wang. The posthumous reputations of the two men went into two extremes as a result—Wang was nefarious while Li was an illustrious minister.