Nicholas Morrow Williams

Elegies of Chu (in Chinese, Chuci), one of the two surviving collections of ancient Chinese poetry, is a key source for the whole tradition of Chinese poetry. Because the elegies contain passionate expressions of political protest as well as shamanistic themes of magic spells and wandering spirits, they present an alternative face of early Chinese culture; one that does not align with orthodox Confucianism. This translation employs literary English devices in order to emphasise the original structure of these Chinese poems. It also examines the extraordinarily vivid diction of the source texts, including of onomatopoeia, ornate descriptions, exotic flowers, dramatic landscapes, metaphors and startling similes. This translation will be based on the original anthology compiled in the Han dynasty by Wang Yi (2nd century CE), and contains a selection of poems that were collected from the 3rd century BCE through the Han dynasty. The anthology provides readers with an understanding of Chinese literature and its evolution from free-spirited, mythico-religious songs to the more formal, polished style of the Han court.

Elegies of Chu

Ping Wang

From ancient times, China's remote and exotic South—a shifting and expanding region beyond the Yangtze River—has been an enduring theme in Chinese literature. For poets and scholar-officials in medieval China, the South was a barbaric frontier region of alienation and disease. But it was also a place of richness and fascination, and for some a site of cultural triumph over exile. The eight essays in this collection explore how tensions between pride in southern culture and anxiety over the alien qualities of the southern frontier were behind many of the distinctive features of medieval Chinese literature. They examine how prominent writers from this period depicted themselves and the South in poetic form through attitudes that included patriotic attachment and bitter exile. By the Tang dynasty, poetic symbols and clichés about the exotic South had become well established, though many writers were still able to use these in innovative ways. Southern Identity and Southern Estrangement in Medieval Chinese Poetry is the first work in English to examine the cultural south in classical Chinese poetry. The book incorporates original research on key poets, such as Lu Ji, Jiang Yan, Wang Bo, and Li Bai. It also offers a broad survey of cultural and historical trends during the medieval period, as depicted in poetry. The book will be of interest to students of Chinese literature and cultural history. Ping Wang is assistant professor of Chinese at University of Washington, Seattle. Nicholas Morrow Williams is research assistant professor at the Mr. Simon Suen and Mrs. Mary Suen Sino-Humanitas Institute, Hong Kong Baptist University. "A long-overdue appreciation of the South as a center for the production of medieval Chinese literature as well as a focal point of Chinese cultural and intellectual reflection and identity, this collection of essays by a stellar roster of leading scholars offers an immensely rich contribution to the study of classical Chinese poetry." — Martin Kern, Greg (’84) and Joanna (P13) Zeluck Professor in Asian Studies, Princeton University "This book presents a systematic study of how the symbol of the 'southland' was reinvented in medieval Chinese literature, taking readers on a cultural and geographic journey to survey the continuous rewriting of the South and its identity." — Yu Yu Cheng, Distinguished Professor of Chinese Literature, National Taiwan University

Southern Identity and Southern Estrangement in Medieval Chinese Poetry

Preliminary Material -- Introduction--The Double Voice -- 1 A Brocade of Words: Theories of Poetic Imitation -- 2 The Reciprocal Origins of Pentasyllabic Verse and of Imitation Poetry -- 3 Impersonation and the Art of Authorship -- 4 Echoing through the Rafters: The Afterlife of Jian'an -- 5 Self-Portrait as Sea Anemone, and Other Impersonations of Jiang Yan -- 6 Jiang Yan's Allusive and Illusive Journeys -- 7 Pathways in Obscurity: Jiang Yan and Ruan Ji -- Appendix: Jiang Yan's Poems in Diverse Forms -- Works Cited -- Index.

Jiang Yan and Chinese Poetics

Imitations of the Self

In Imitations of the Self Nicholas M. Williams reevaluates the poetry of Jiang Yan (444–505) as a summation of Six Dynasties poetics and as a model of multifarious self-representation in Chinese poetry.

Imitations of the Self: Jiang Yan and Chinese Poetics

This is the first book in English to examine the fu, one of China's oldest and culturally central literary forms, from its origins up to the late imperial era. Fu poems are highly revealing sources for understanding the culture, society, and politics of their periods, and in this volume eleven essays by prominent scholars treat the fu from four major perspectives: its original use in court recitation; as a poetic genre with distinctive formal features; as a vehicle of philosophical inquiry; and as a major mode of political expression.

Nicholas Morrow Williams

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