New Space and New Writing

The opening up of new space anticipated a new kind of writing that encompassed phenomena of larger world Writing no longer focused on classics, philosophy, and historiography Literati created a more autonomous aesthetic realm paralleling the emergence of new spaces:

These new spaces were:

Taverns and pavilions for pure conversation and poetry gathering Buddhist and Daoist temples Large gardens and villas in new cities and in the hills and mountains Hermits dwellings in wilderness and caves

New writing went beyond classics, philosophy, and historiography

It now expanded to encompass mysteries, legends, life and death, natural and supernatural worlds

Impacts of Buddhism and Daoism were clear in both intellectual discourse and fictional writing:
Intellectual discourse: Dark Studies Fictional writing: Anomaly account or Account of Anomalies

Influence of Early Daoism

Dark Studies (or Mysterious Studies) featured ideas and themes found in early Confucian and Daoist texts:
The Canon of Change (Yi jing) The Canon of Way and Power (Daode jing) The Master Zhuang (Zhuang zi)

Debates over Teaching of names (mingjiao) vs. Nature (ziran) figured most prominently Participants: He Yan, Wang Bi, Guo Xiang, Zhong Hui, Ruan Ji, and Xi (Ji) Kang Contributed to the pure conversation movement

Intellectual discourse focused on the relations between names and forms, nothingness (nonentities) and entities, character and talent. It reflected conflict between Confucian view that stresses the existence of a moral heaven and the early Daoist (Zhuangzis) view of an amoral heaven
Zhuangzis views on inaction (no purposive action, wu wei), nature and spontaneity, and inadequacy of language gained currency Intellectuals used Lao-Zhuang to interpret Confucianism, e.g., Confucius embodied nothingness and stressed the importance of nature, naturalness, and spontaneity.

Terminology used in the Dark Studies

Wunothingness, nonbeing, or negativity
Wang Bi: Wu is the ultimate basis of reality, prior to and above Confucian moral heaven. Wu lies beyond the reach of images or language in the realm of the mysterious or dark

Wu weiaction based on the principle of non-action, i.e., nonpurposive action, particularly when a ruler rules a state

Perfected Man, Great Man---people who refused public, political service and work toward self-perfection by living a life that
appreciates the beauties of nature and of simplicity and spontaneity, enjoys wine and music when going on excursion to the hills and streams

Ziran(self-so)nature means the union or integration of natural world and humankind into a purposeless and amoral state

Anomaly account
Referred to as zhiguai, with the following characteristics:
Biographical, Strange/unusual objects, bizarre and fantastic events:
Daoist fights Demon Buddhist wonder-working return-to-life stories Buddhist magic

portents and auguries

 ghosts, spirits
Sex and marriage with ghost spirit:
Lu Chong weds a deceased woman who gives birth to his son

Necromantic practices:
Communications and interactions with immortals, sprits of dead including female spirits, animal spirits, etc.

Types of Stories
Two most common types
Ghost stories: dead persons manage to cross the boundary between the human world (yang) and the nether (yin) world Return-from-death: living persons at the near death stage manage to negotiate the difficult crossing and return alive from the world of the dead.

The Emergence of New Poetic Writing: New Form and New Content

[]

Chinese Poetic Tradition

Pre-Qin: two traditions
The northern tradition: The Book of Poetry (Odes) The southern tradition: The Chuci (or Chu-tzu)

Han: Fu and Yuefu

Fu (epideictic rhapsody or rhymed-prose)
Zuo Si, Three Capitals Rhapsody Lu Ji Rhapsody on Literature

Yuefu (Music Bureau) ballads

Southeast the Peacock Flies

The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry

Yuefu Ballads

Han and Wei

Five-character shi (shih) poetry became the favorite vehicle for lyric expression Nineteen Old Poems of the Han poets: Cao Cao, Cao Zhi, Seven Masters of Jianan

Jin
Ziye songs, wandering with immortals

Selections from the Book of Songs

Jiang Zhongzi Please Zhongzi Do not climb into our hamlet Do not break our willow tree Its not that I begrudge the willows But I fear my father and mother You, I would embrace But my parents words Those I dread Please Zhongzi Do not leap over our wall Do not break our mulberry trees Its not that I begrudge the mulberries But I fear my brothers You, I would embrace

Song of the Great Wind --Liu Bang (256-195 BC)

A great wind arose, the clouds flew up and away; My majesty now grown to the seas edges I return to my old home. Yet where shall I find brave men to guard the four quarters?

Song of Gaixia (202BC): Farewell, Lady Yu!

My strength plucked up the hills My might shadowed the world But the times were against me And Dapple runs no more When Dapple runs no more, What then can I do? Ah! Yu, my Yu! What will your fate be?

Northern Ballad: Prince Langye Song

I just bought a five-foot sword, From the central pillar I hang it. I stroke it three times a day Better by far than a maid of fifteen.

Southern Ballad: Ziye song

. I held my dress, not tying the sash; I painted my brows and went to the windows. My gauze skirt is easily whirled by the breeze If it opens a bit, just blame the spring wind. .

Ancient Poems

Seven Worthies of Bamboo Grove

Ruan Ji Xi (Ji) Kang

Tao Qian (Yuanming)

The

most widely admired of the early Chinese poet Creator of the Chinese Shangri-lathe Peach Blossom Spring

Characteristics of poems during this time

Sang personal feelings in response to events of ones own life Conveyed personal thoughts about human condition

Reflected on a variety of human sorrow or frailty

Frailty of human body Fleeting life and ineluctable death

Appreciated the beauties of nature and lamented the fading of things and the transience of life Paid attention to the signs of human mortality

Ruan Jis Poem

Hibiscus overgrows the grave mounds, Sparkling in lustrous shades. But when the bright sun sinks in the forest, Its petals fall to the roadside. Crickets chirp by doors and windows,

Cicadas hum amidst the brambles. Mayflies play for only three mornings, Yet they preen themselves, working their wings. For whom do they display their finery, Flying up and down, sprucing themselves up? How short life is, But everything, full or ardor, labors on.

Tao Yuanming
Tao

Yuanming (365-427)

A Confucian scholar and poet who was well-versed in Daoist philosophy Served as a local officials but never held any post very long Quit his post because he couldn't for five pecks of rice bow before a village buffoon. Buffoon was used to ridicule a local inspector, his superior. Regarded as the patriarch of the poets of reclusion

Poems are plain, unadorned but deep and often philosophical; representative of pastoral poetry Many of his poems are tinged with Daoist sentiment

Recurrent Themes of Taos Poetry

Life is fleeting, death is ineluctable

The Three Sovereigns, the great sages of old Where are they today? Pengzu loved longevity, Wanted to stay longer but it couldnt be. Old ad young alike die a single death Wise and foolish are not allotted different fates. (Substance, Shadow, and spirit: spirit expounds)

 Fleeting

life, ineluctable death---

Theyre dead and gone, none of them left! In one generation both court and city change. Mans life is a phantom affair And he returns at last to the empty void.

(Return to My Home, no.4)

As a boy in braids, I held to my own odd ways, Then before I knew it I was over forty. My body must go where the course of change takes it, But the spirit within me will always be at peace.

(we had a fire)

Fleeting life.
why do we value this body of ours? Isnt it because we have just one life? And this one lifetimehow long will it last? It shoots by like a bolt of lightning!

(Drinking Wine, no.3)

Or should I be like gentlemen of our time, hearts filled with hopes that clash like ice and fire, who, their hundred years ended, gone to tall graves, find they have won themselves only empty names?

(poems without category, no.4)

Fleeting life

. Long ago, men in search of fame and honor fought valiantly with each other over this ground but then their hundred years one morning ended, And together they went home to the northern hills. Now people have cut the pine and cypress on their graves; only the tall mounds remain, dipping and rising side by side. The graves wash away, no heirs to tend them; And their wondering ghosts---where have they gone? Wealth and glory---no doubt, worth prizing; At the same time, a cause for sorrow and pain.

(imitating the Old Poems, no. 4)

Returning to My Home in the Country, no. 1 by Tao Qian (365-427) In youth I couldnt sing to the common tune It was my nature to love the mountains and hills. By mistake I got caught in the dusty snare Went away once and stayed thirteen years. The winging bird longs for its old woods; The fish in the pond thinks of the deeps it once knew. I have opened up some waste land by the southern fields Stupid as ever, Ive come home to the country My house and land on a two-acre lot, My house plot measures ten mu or more

Tao Yuanming by Ming Painter Wang Zhongyu

A grass roof covering eight or nine spans Elm and willow shade the back eaves, Peach and damson ranged in front of the hall. Dim dim, a village of distant neighbors; drifting drifting, the smoke from settlements A dog barks in deep lanes, Chickens call from tops of mulberry trees. Around my door and courtyard, no dust and clutter, In my empty rooms, leisure enough to spare. After so long in that cage of mine, Ive come back to things as they are.

Poetry and Language

New generation of poets introduced the new system of tonal prosody

Poetic (prosodic) rules began to include four tones: level (png ), rising (shng ), parting (q ), entering(r ) and eight prohibitions /faults Four tones were classified into two categories later: level (png ), oblique (z )

Interest in tonal patterns reflected the influences of Indian literature and Buddhism

Calligraphy
Calligraphy rose to become the leading visual art. Literati with great calligraphic skill could command respect. The development of calligraphic art resulted in the emergence of new scripts: runninghand and cursive scripts, which simplified many Chinese characters. Calligraphic theory tied the beauty/ugliness to human characters.

Calligraphic art became an important subject in literatis discourse and calligraphic theory.
Questions

raised. Fraud (wi ) and Genuineness (zhn) became criteria for evaluating calligraphic works.

regarding copies and forgeries were

Wang Xizhi (303-361)

Canonized

as the sage of Chinese calligraphy Calligraphic works were characterized in a model of the running mode script.

Wang Xizhis calligraphy

Prose Narrative
Historya boom in historical writing appeared: dynastic histories and local histories Dynastic histories:

Chen Shou, Records of the Three Kingdoms Shen Yue, Book of the Song Dynasty Xiao Zixian, Book of the Southern Qi

Local histories:

Record of the States South of Mt. Hua Biographies of Eminent Monks

Hagiographies:

Temple records Record of the Buddhist Temples of Luoyang Collections of Anecdotes Forest of Conversations New Account of Tales of the World Anomaly account/ Account of Anomalies.

Referred to as zhiguai, with the following characteristics:

Biographical Strange/unusual objects Bizarre and fantastic events:

Daoist fights Demon Buddhist wonder-workingreturn-to-life stories Buddhist magic

Writers fascinated with the anomalous created stories to teach moral lessons, despite their acknowledgement of Confucius advice:

The master never talked of prodigies, feats of abnormal strength, natural disorders, or spirits

Most writers were southerners who used the benefits of space expansion in the south to give free rein to their imagination about a fantastic, boundless nature, cosmos, and myriad creatures

Paintings

Painting: Gu Kaizhi (or Ku Kai-chih, ca.344406)

The

only work extant, Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies, reflects the Confucian content of the painting. Known as specialized in figure painting.

Gu Kaizhis Painting

Goddess of the River Luo