Tang Studies最新文献

{"title":"Vitality and Cohesiveness in the Poetry of Shangguan Wan'er (664–710)","authors":"Jie Wu","doi":"10.1080/07375034.2016.1234993","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07375034.2016.1234993","url":null,"abstract":"This essay examines two major characteristics of Shangguan Wan'er's poetry by placing them in the context of the development of poetry and poetics from the Southern Dynasties through the early Tang. Shangguan responded to the challenge of poetry writing in the early Tang with vitality and cohesiveness, which several poets had advocated since the 670′s. She also paid equal attention to literary embellishment and craft that she inherited from earlier traditions. The synthesis of traditions and new aesthetics shown in her poetry is part of an important literary current at the turn of the eighth century when the styles of poetry transitioned to those later known as the High Tang. Shangguan's strong influence on Emperor Zhongzong's court literary salon helped promote her taste and directed the literary currents of her time. This essay also presents a textual history of Shangguan's collected works and discusses some authorship issues related to poems that have been attributed to her since the Song dynasty.","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"71 1 1","pages":"40 - 72"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90709541","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}

{"title":"What's in a Surname? Central Asian Participation in the Culture of Naming of Medieval China","authors":"Xin Wen","doi":"10.1080/07375034.2016.1234994","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07375034.2016.1234994","url":null,"abstract":"Medieval China, and particularly the Tang dynasty, witnessed unprecedented cultural interactions among Chinese and non-Chinese peoples. One well-researched aspect of these interactions is the changing practice of naming. By reading documents in Central Asian languages, in particular Khotanese, in conjunction with transmitted Chinese records, this article highlights the distinctive Central Asian tradition in the use of Chinese surname. I argue that, unlike the better-studied North Asian tradition, in which surnames were derived from usually multisyllabic tribal names, surnames for Central Asian peoples were largely invented and not traceable in Central Asian languages. In particular, these surnames were usually monosyllabic and hence formally much closer to typical Chinese surnames. The Central Asian participation in the practice of surnaming did not introduce a large number of new surnames, but it did profoundly influence what a surname could mean in medieval China.","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"8 1","pages":"73 - 98"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75240141","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}

{"title":"“On Muzhiming”: Inaugural Workshop of New Frontiers in the Study of Medieval China. Rutgers University, May 15–16, 2015","authors":"Jessey J. C. Choo, A. Ditter","doi":"10.1179/0737503415Z.00000000018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/0737503415Z.00000000018","url":null,"abstract":"The New Frontiers in the Study of Medieval China series held its inaugural workshop onMay 15–16, 2015, at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. The workshop was organized by Jessey Choo (Rutgers University), Alexei Ditter (Reed College), and LU Yang (Peking University) and funded by the Tang Research Foundation, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, the Office of the Deans of the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Center for Chinese Studies at Rutgers University. This inaugural workshop session focused on one of the most important and influential new sources in the study of medieval China, muzhiming 墓誌銘—stone slabs interred within a tomb and typically inscribed with a biography, an account of the burial, and a rhymed elegy. Excavated by the thousands in recent decades, muzhiming are a unique cultural form of commemorative epigraphy through which contemporary scholars can explore a diverse range of artistic, literary, religious, and economic practices. The workshop brought together fourteen leading U.S. and international scholars studying medieval China and muzhiming from different disciplinary perspectives: Jessey Choo (Rutgers University), Timothy Davis (Brigham Young University), Alexei Ditter (Reed College), Tineke D’Haeseleer (Princeton University), Paul Kroll (University of Colorado-Boulder), JIA Jinhua (University of Macau and IAS, Princeton), LU Yang (Peking University), LUOXin (Peking University and IAS, Princeton), DavidMcMullen (University of Cambridge), SHI Jie (University of Chicago), SHI Rui (Peking University), Anna Shields (University of Maryland-Baltimore County), YAO Ping (California State University-Los Angeles), and ZHU Yuqi (Peking University). Beginning with work on translations and close readings of specific muzhiming, the participants then moved on to the broader questions and challenges these texts raised. There was also a useful discussion of methodologies and resources for researching a crucial aspect of medieval China with which Western scholarship is only beginning to come to terms. Each day of the workshop began with a keynote speech by one of the two participating Chinese scholars with extensive experience working with medieval muzhiming. These were followed by five presentations divided between morning and afternoon sessions. Each day concluded with a roundtable that summed up and Tang Studies, 33. 129–134, 2015","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"31 1","pages":"129 - 134"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2015-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81564936","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}

{"title":"NEVER TAKING A SHORTCUT: EXAMINATION POETRY OF THE TANG DYNASTY","authors":"Nathan Vedal","doi":"10.1179/0737503415Z.00000000014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/0737503415Z.00000000014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The jinshi examination in the Tang dynasty required poetry composition from the late seventh century onward. This examination poetry was a distinct genre, and extant poems illuminate what skills were in fact being tested in the civil service examinations. Due to the official context of the examinations, this poetry can also shed light on Tang conceptions of poetic standards. This study analyzes a number of poems from the Tang exams, as well as other Tang poems explicitly written in the examination style. I argue that the primary goal of these poems was a display of competence and familiarity with the literary tradition, rather than a demonstration of poetic brilliance. In addition, the apparent acceptability of prosodic freedom on the exams suggests that regulation in Tang verse was conceived even less strictly than commonly imagined.","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"30 1","pages":"38 - 61"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2015-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75572270","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}

{"title":"STORIES AND STORYTELLERS IN A CHANGING WORLD: MANLING LUO'S LITERATI STORYTELLING IN LATE MEDIEVAL CHINA","authors":"Sarah M. Allen","doi":"10.1179/0737503415Z.00000000017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/0737503415Z.00000000017","url":null,"abstract":"The heterogeneity of the anecdotes and stories that remain to us from late medieval China is both a blessing and a curse for the modern reader. The diversity of information and viewpoints encompassed within this body of material makes it a rich resource for understanding how people of the time (especially elite men) envisioned recent events, other members of their community, and social, literary, religious, and broader cultural practices. But this very diversity also makes the corpus unwieldy, comprised as it is of thousands of individual accounts written for different purposes and from different perspectives. Although some items are artfully wrought, these narratives were not recorded primarily as belletristic literature; nor can we assume them to be reliable accounts of historical events, though they contain valuable historical information. Rather, through these accounts a multiplicity of voices speaks to us from over a millennium ago, some more purposefully than others, by turns amusing, shocking, or moving us—and at times almost certainly perplexing us as we strive to makes sense of the cast of characters arrayed before us, the relationships among them, and the significance of their actions. To distill from this cacophony what individual voices are trying to say to us, or what in aggregate it tells us about their era, is no easy task. Manling Luo’s recent book Literati Storytelling in Late Medieval China is important because it seeks to do precisely this. Luo uses an array of narrative works by elite male writers (and one non-elite work) dating from the mid-eighth to the midtenth centuries to examine how scholar-officials of the era envisioned their place in a world in which routes to professional success and the composition of the elite were changing in the decades after the An Lushan rebellion. She situates her exploration of individual works within a broader framework in which the stories themselves were both a response to and an agent of ongoing social transformations. This framework has three parts. First, Luo identifies these changes in elite male life as the very raison-d’être for the stories, writing, “The central argument of this book is that stories flourished after the rebellion because of the radical changes experienced by contemporary scholar-officials going through the watershed reconfiguration of the Chinese elite” (5). Second, Luo argues that such accounts not only reflect literati Tang Studies, 33. 111–128, 2015","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"46 6 1","pages":"111 - 128"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2015-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76721643","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}

{"title":"A “GOLDEN AGE” JUST FOR THE LIVING? SILVER VESSELS IN TANG DYNASTY TOMBS","authors":"Annette Kieser","doi":"10.1179/0737503415Z.00000000015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/0737503415Z.00000000015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper analyzes gold and silver vessels as burial goods during the Tang dynasty. It is based on a data collection of vessels found in tombs from the provinces of Shaanxi and Henan. An unexpected result is that although known from hoard and other findings, no golden vessels have been retrieved from Tang tombs, only silver, gilt, or partly gilt ones. Analyzing the typology, grouping, and placement in tombs of these vessels sheds light on their possible functions in burial cult, as well as on the social status of the respective tomb owners. The juxtaposition of historical facts and tomb furnishings shows that usage of silver vessels as grave goods also mirrors shifting political, social and regional centres during the Tang.","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"76 1","pages":"62 - 90"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2015-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88021434","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}

{"title":"Review of Paul Copp, The Body Incantatory: Spells and the Ritual Imagination in Medieval Chinese Buddhism","authors":"Michael Radich","doi":"10.1179/0737503415Z.00000000016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/0737503415Z.00000000016","url":null,"abstract":"In The Body Incantatory, Paul Copp studies a set of rich materials. On the one hand, he closely analyzes two bodies of archeological evidence for practices related to two popular dhāraṇıs̄ in the Tang through the early Song: (1) twenty-three amulets bearing the suiqiu 隨求 (mahāpratisarā) dhāraṇı ̄ (listed in Appendix 1, 233–37); and (2) various dhāraṇı ̄ pillars 幢 bearing the Usṇ̣ıs̄ạvijaya-dhāraṇı.̄ On the other hand, Copp works closely with Chinese versions of two normative scriptures relating to the same dhāraṇıs̄: (1) theMahāpratisarā; and (2) the Usṇ̣ıs̄ạvijaya-dhāraṇı.̄ Chapters 2 and 3, comprising the heart of the book, treat the Mahāpratisarā and Usṇ̣ıs̄ạvijaya materials respectively. The book is full of fascinating information for a reader like myself, who was unfamiliar with these materials. The book is ambitious. I was particularly excited by the book’s potential contributions to scholarship in three main areas: method; large conceptual issues, particularly the transformation of Buddhism in China and the place of the body in Buddhist practice and ideas; and a rich crop of more particular claims.","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"56 1","pages":"110 - 91"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2015-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85945561","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}

{"title":"SHALL WE PROFANE THE SERVICE OF THE DEAD? BURIAL DIVINATIONS, UNTIMELY BURIALS, AND REMEMBRANCE IN TANG MUZHIMING","authors":"Jessey J. C. Choo","doi":"10.1179/0737503415Z.00000000013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/0737503415Z.00000000013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Though various divinatory practices were central to all burial arrangements in Tang China, scholars have paid scant attention to these practices and their social context and effects. This article reconstructs burial divination practices, discusses their ritual and social functions, and examines the social attitudes that influenced and were in turn influenced by them. Focus is on the following questions: why and how did families perform burial divinations? How were the divinatory oracles interpreted, and by whom? Why and to what extent did families subject themselves to these oracles? And what does the practice of burial divinations tell us about the culture of remembrance in Tang China? The article proposes answers to these questions through reading muzhiming (entombed epitaphs) against other transmitted and excavated sources and examining one common, but rarely studied, effect of divination practices on burials: their being rushed or much-delayed. Finally, the article examines a case involving both expedited and postponed burials and reconstructs Tang interpretations and responses to negative oracles in efforts to (re-)create memory.","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"7 1","pages":"1 - 37"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2015-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91065002","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}

{"title":"THE COMMERCE OF COMMEMORATION: COMMISSIONED MUZHIMING IN THE MID- TO LATE TANG","authors":"A. Ditter","doi":"10.1179/0737503414Z.00000000012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/0737503414Z.00000000012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines muzhiming, primarily excavated, written between 760 and 846 that were composed on commission, i.e., at the explicit behest of another party. I argue that in commissioning muzhiming, clients wished to do more than merely create a record of the deceased or identify the tomb occupant in perpetuity; they sought in addition to titivate the posthumous reputation of the deceased as well as enhance the reputations of family and friends among the broader audience for these texts. Moreover, because commissioned texts were often regarded with skepticism, writers of commissioned muzhiming employed a variety of rhetorical tactics within their compositions—quoted speech, final words, and the careful framing of the circumstances under which they were commissioned—in attempting to convince audiences of the reliability of their accounts. Finally, I explore why, other than for compensation, writers may have been willing to compose muzhiming on commission. My contention is that writers used these texts to enhance their own reputations as writers, or, less commonly, to make broader arguments illustrated or exemplified by their account of the life of the deceased.","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"298 1","pages":"21 - 46"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2014-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79654071","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}

{"title":"MEETING THROUGH POETRY: DU FU’S 杜甫 (712–770) “WRITTEN IN ACCORD WITH PREFECT YUAN’S ‘BALLAD OF CHONGLING’”","authors":"D. Hsieh","doi":"10.1179/0737503414Z.00000000010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1179/0737503414Z.00000000010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In 764 Yuan Jie (719–772) composed two poems, “Ballad of Chongling” and “After the Raiders Have Withdrawn: To Clerks and Officials,” which portray his attempts to alleviate the sufferings of the people in his district. They inspired Du Fu (712–770) to respond with his own, “Written in Accord with Prefect Yuan’s ‘Ballad of Chongling.’” Du Fu’s poem is a remarkable work with its deep and detailed appreciation of Yuan Jie’s poetry and person. In addition, the example of Yuan Jie caused Du Fu to reflect on his own actions and career so that “Written in Accord” becomes as much an apology for his life as it is a memorial to Yuan Jie. In his poem Du Fu acknowledges his own failures, but also reviews the nature of poetry and finally affirms his place as a poet. This study closely examines one poet’s response to the work of another with a focus on how Du Fu’s concerns are reflected in the structure of his work, be it the framing device with which Du Fu directly contrasts himself to Yuan Jie or the use of ambiguity which enables Du Fu to convey the complexities of what it means to be a poet.","PeriodicalId":41166,"journal":{"name":"Tang Studies","volume":"32 1","pages":"1 - 20"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2014-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87145059","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}