Tang StudiesPub Date : 2022-12-07DOI: 10.1353/tan.2022.0003
J. Tsung-i, David J. Lebovitz
{"title":"Did Men of Song Belt Out \"Tang Ci\"? An Explanation of the Poem \"I Only Fear the Spring Breeze Will Chop Me Apart\"","authors":"J. Tsung-i, David J. Lebovitz","doi":"10.1353/tan.2022.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tan.2022.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay was originally published in Chinese in the 1990s by the polymathic Hong Kong scholar Jao Tsung-i 饒宗頤 (1917–2018), and exemplifies a larger debate about the Tang origins and identity of the ci genre that unfolded between Jao and Ren Bantang 任半塘 (1897–1991) in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Jao emphasizes the continuity between the term ci 詞 and its referent, which may be either \"lyrics\" to a tune, generally speaking, or a specific ci-genre of poetry. He argues, moreover, that Tang ci, and in particular the poems of the Yunyao ji 雲謠集 (Cloud ballad collection) discovered in Dunhuang manuscripts, are an integral part of ci-genre history; poems made to tunes and called ci in the Tang are inseparable from the genre that flourished as a literati form in the Song, and ci poetics is thus rooted firmly in Tang history. Placing the vernacular Tang ci on equal footing with literati Song ci is corollary to a larger historiographic shift that wrests authority from transmitted texts (official histories, critical anthologies, elite textual traditions) as the sole legitimate historical sources, and empowers manuscript sources to rewrite history.","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"70 1","pages":"121 - 153"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74354303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tang StudiesPub Date : 2022-12-07DOI: 10.1353/tan.2022.0002
Ng Pak-sheung
{"title":"How Officials Rose to Success and Migrated to the Center: Considering the Tombs of Meritorious Officials at Zhaoling","authors":"Ng Pak-sheung","doi":"10.1353/tan.2022.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tan.2022.0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The evidence of tomb inscriptions at the Tang's largest mausoleum, as well as from the standard histories, indicates that families of the dynasty's meritorious officials sought to perpetuate their prestige and prosperity by three primary means: migration towards the metropolitan areas (center-oriented migration), bureaucratic alignment, and marital ties to the imperial family. Another issue under examination is how descendants of meritorious officials of foreign origin viewed the trend towards center-oriented migration. By using primary sources, particularly tomb inscriptions, and academic research, this article aims to conduct a comprehensive study of the findings achieved in this domain.","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"3 1","pages":"120 - 83"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82271280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tang StudiesPub Date : 2022-12-07DOI: 10.1353/tan.2022.0000
T. Chan
{"title":"Amorous Adventure in the Capital: Lu Zhaolin and Luo Binwang Writing in the \"Style of the Time\"","authors":"T. Chan","doi":"10.1353/tan.2022.0000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tan.2022.0000","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Lu Zhaolin 盧照鄰 (634?–686?) and Luo Binwang 駱賓王 (627?–684?) are the two earliest poets to write in \"the style of the time\" (dangshi ti 當時體), a notion first discussed by Du Fu 杜甫 (772–770). The uncertainty about how and when this \"style\" debuted inspires us to probe some important issues, such as what motivated Yang Jiong 楊炯 (b. 650) to call Lu Zhaolin a \"talented elite in the human realm\" and what role Li Rong 李榮 (fl. 660) and Xue Yuanchao 薛元超 (622–683) played in the political, intellectual, and poetical picture in the early 660s.Lu Zhaolin's poem \"Chang'an, in Ancient Style\" 長安古意 is one main source of the \"style of the time.\" This poem rejuvenated the yuefu tradition of writing amorous themes but from an autobiographic perspective, in heptasyllabic verse, and at a greater length. Luo Binwang's interaction with Lu Zhaolin and Li Rong resulted in his two poems in the same style, written on behalf of two jilted ladies to their respective lovers, Lu and Li, entitled \"Amorous Feelings, on Behalf of Ms. Guo Presented to Lu Zhaolin\" 豔情代郭氏贈盧照鄰 and \"Presented to Daoist Adept Li Rong, written on Behalf of Daoist Priestess Wang Lingfei\" 代女道士王靈妃贈道士李榮 respectively. The findings of this essay form a strong base for the reconstruction of the advent of this new style in the early 660s, marking the first zenith of Tang poetry.","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"76 1","pages":"1 - 54"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81115225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tang StudiesPub Date : 2022-12-07DOI: 10.1353/tan.2022.0004
J. Skaff
{"title":"Norman Harry Rothschild: An Appreciation of the Man and Scholar","authors":"J. Skaff","doi":"10.1353/tan.2022.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tan.2022.0004","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"154 1","pages":"155 - 171"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76853068","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tang StudiesPub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1353/tan.2021.0001
Yi Ding
{"title":"Ornamenting Liturgies—Scripts for a Zhai Feast and Their Liturgical Context (6th–10th Centuries)","authors":"Yi Ding","doi":"10.1353/tan.2021.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tan.2021.0001","url":null,"abstract":"Shortly after Buddhism entered China, the character zhai 齋—an indigenous term originally referring to a purificatory ritual performed before a sacrificial rite in early Chinese religion—began to be used to denote several interrelated concepts in Chinese translations of Indian texts. In Buddhist scriptures translated into Chinese before the Tang, the term zhai is mostly used to refer to the lay practice of the “Eightfold Observance” (Skt. a.s.tā . nga-samanvāgatôpavāsa; baguanzhai 八關齋) or the related feast hosted on a po.sadha day (i.e., the eighth, fourteenth, fifteenth, twenty-third, twenty-ninth, or thirtieth of every lunar month).1 As Chinese Buddhism rapidly took form, the meanings of the zhai in Chinese Buddhism evolved alongside developments in doctrine and practice. From the fourth to the sixth century, zhai was also employed to refer to a Chinese liturgy termed zhaichan 齋懺 (or sometimes just zhai) that combines aspects of the “Eightfold Observance” (i.e., the lay po.sadha), the monastic po.sadha, and Mahāyāna repentance practices into one ritual form.2 Aside from these various zhai rituals, zhai has continued, from the early medieval period on, to refer to a Buddhist feast sponsored by a patron.3 As historical","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"40 1","pages":"41 - 67"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78817703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tang StudiesPub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1353/tan.2021.0003
Jue Chen
{"title":"The Formation and Reception of a Literary-Pictorial Persona of Li Bai: Reconsidering the So-Called Li Bai Chanting a Poem on a Stroll 李白行吟圖","authors":"Jue Chen","doi":"10.1353/tan.2021.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tan.2021.0003","url":null,"abstract":"The so-called Li Bai Chanting a Poem on a Stroll (Fig. 1. 81.1×30.5 cm; Japanese: 李白吟行図; Chinese: 李白行吟圖) by the Southern Song 南宋 (1127–1279) painter, Liang Kai 梁楷 (fl. 12th c.–13th c.), is often reprinted as the illustration for literary or scholarly works about Li Bai 李白 (701–762).1 Indeed, consciously or not, we usually feel comfortable taking the painted figure as Li Bai and accept “chanting a poem on a stroll” as an accurate way to describe the activity represented in the painting. Yet no archival evidence shows that Liang Kai intended to paint Li Bai. This is to say, the Li Bai identity—no matter how widely it is accepted—belongs more to our reception of Li Bai and the painting than to historical fact. This means that the Li Bai identity of the painted figure is subject to debate, and more importantly, raises the question of why the Li Bai identity has been accepted for so long. Moreover, in what ways can this figure’s widely accepted, but actually debatable, identification as Li Bai inspire us to reflect on the reception of Li Bai and his poetry? To date, most studies of the reception of Li Bai and his poetry have focused on how, throughout history, generations of critics have responded to Li Bai’s poetry in writing.2 Art history can inspire us to take another perspective on the","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"193 1","pages":"101 - 129"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73679409","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tang StudiesPub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1353/tan.2021.0000
N. H. Rothschild
{"title":"Chrysanthemum Cakravartin: How the Convergence of the Double Ninth Festival and a Buddhist Prophecy of a Female Warrior King Helped Wu Zhao Inaugurate the Zhou Dynasty and Fashion a New Paradigm of Political Authority","authors":"N. H. Rothschild","doi":"10.1353/tan.2021.0000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tan.2021.0000","url":null,"abstract":"Why did China’s first and only female emperor, Wu Zhao 武曌1 (624–705), keenly preoccupied as she was with time and timeliness, inaugurate her Zhou 周 (690–705) dynasty on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month in 690? And why, during the first half of her reign as emperor, did she so often use that same date to inaugurate new reign eras, announce ever-grander Buddhist titles, and celebrate personal triumphs? What was the significance of this date, and why did it become her special day, her holiday, her holy day? In my 2008 biography of Wu Zhao, I drew a connection between the inauguration of her Zhou dynasty and Chongyangjie 重陽節, the Double Ninth Festival: “On October 16th, 690, the ninth day of the ninth lunar month—an autumnal holiday when the elderly, feeling their youthful vigor restored by the crisp fall air, climbed mountains and sought longevity, a day when the male yang essence, having crested, gave way to rising female yin—66-year-old Wu Zhao ascended the dragon throne to become China’s first and only female emperor.”2 While this","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":"1 - 39"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75775266","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tang StudiesPub Date : 2021-12-23DOI: 10.1353/tan.2021.0002
D. Mcmullen
{"title":"Fine Flowers from an Evil Tree: Du Fu's Last Friendship and Its Sequel","authors":"D. Mcmullen","doi":"10.1353/tan.2021.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tan.2021.0002","url":null,"abstract":"Du Fu has been praised for many qualities: his command of the medieval literary heritage; his technical skill as a verse writer and compulsion to innovate; his social conscience; his knowledge of the contemporary political and military situation. Another characteristic, which critics have found almost endearing, is that he “preferred to speak well of people” (le dao ren shan 樂道人善).1 This article concerns his enthusiasm for Su Huan 蘇渙 (d. 775), probably the last new friend he made in his life, a man whose verse he praised in excited terms. Su Huan, however, only three years after Du Fu’s death, proved to be a traitor to the Tang dynasty: he was party to a rebellion in the far south of China that took years to subdue and cost several thousand lives. Soon after this, Li Mian 李勉 (717–788), whom Du Fu had known for some years, discussed the question of whether an evil man like Su could write good verse and whether his verse should be preserved.","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"73 1","pages":"100 - 69"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84294100","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tang StudiesPub Date : 2021-04-16DOI: 10.1353/tan.1997.0005
S. Masaru, John Lee
{"title":"Sui-T’ang Studies in Japan in 1996","authors":"S. Masaru, John Lee","doi":"10.1353/tan.1997.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tan.1997.0005","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"201 1","pages":"183 - 196"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74627241","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tang StudiesPub Date : 2021-04-16DOI: 10.1353/tan.1997.0006
Watanabe Takashi, John Lee
{"title":"Sui-T’ang Studies in Japan in 1997","authors":"Watanabe Takashi, John Lee","doi":"10.1353/tan.1997.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tan.1997.0006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"8 1","pages":"197 - 219"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81968360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}