East Meets West: East Asia and Its Periphery from 200 BCE to 1600 CE – serie

This historical anthology of Korean poetry, Ancient, Medieval, and Premodern Korean Songs and Poems highlights the evolution of poetic composition in the vernacular. The book is a manifesto of the uniquely Korean poetic tradition, which flourished quite separately along with the literary tradition retained by the men of letters devoted to the scholarship in classical Chinese. The beauty of the Korean language and the tradition of verse-making in it are sumptuously demonstrated by this book, which contains both the original texts in the unique Korean orthography of phonograms and the translator’s English version that runs in parallel with the original poems.

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. Though no English term even approximates it, “rhapsody” at least suggests the energy and recitative origins of the fu, which is a poetic form of tireless ambition that has been used for exhaustive descriptions of cities and palaces, as well as private reflections and lamentations, but also for carefully modulated political protest and esoteric ruminations on philosophical subtleties. 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.

The fu genre (or “rhapsody” in English) is one of the major genres of Chinese poetry throughout imperial history. This volume presents close readings of representative works in the genre, spanning over a millennium of its history. Each chapter contains a complete translation of major fu poems, accompanied by an essay presenting the work or works in historical context and also examining their significance in contemporary culture.Ranging in style and topic from the exuberant accumulation of detail in Yang Xiong’s “Shu Capital,” translated by David R. Knechtges, to the luscious lyricism of Wang Bo’s “Spring Longings,” translated by Timothy W. K. Chan, the poems present a panorama of how the genre has been used for both personal and social expression. While the individual essays examine their respective subjects in depth and detail, collectively the essays also offer a sweeping survey of the fu genre from the Han (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.) through the Song (960–1279 C.E.) dynasty.

This book explores the dissemination of ideas and information on the early silk roads between Europe and China, through the first detailed study of the Sinicization of foreign objects in Chinese poetic writing of the third century CE.Third-century literary developments and the prevailing literary works from that era leave us with an impressive amount of information concerning exotic objects, such as plants, animals, and crafts, and record the cultural exchange between distant peoples whose goods, ideas, and technologies entered China.These hitherto-forgotten rhapsodies express the profound interest and excitement of learned men for foreign objects. They bear witness to the cultural exchanges between China and other civilizations and provide a more nuanced insight of early medieval China as an integrated society rather than an isolated one.

Upon the fall of the Han empire, the warlord Cao Cao (155–220) established a new political domain. The Cao court became known for its accomplished writers, including the warlord himself and two of his sons, Cao Pi (187–226) and Cao Zhi (192–232). Afflicted by sibling rivalry and an epidemic, these poets distinguished themselves by writing about frustration, sorrow, and death.Yet, as observed in Poetry of Loss, the poets drew on experiences of loss to reinvent the court, its collective memory, and its ways of remembering. While addressing melancholy and nostalgia, they also meditated on such themes as aging, widowhood, and parental loss. In this book, Hsiang-Lin Shih reconstructs a network of courtly texts and uncovers new inter-and-intra textual elements of the works. She shows how writers at the Cao court employed their poetic art to establish, develop, and sustain a community in each difficult moment of their intertwined lives.

Upon the fall of the Han empire, the warlord Cao Cao (155–220) established a new political domain. The Cao court became known for its accomplished writers, including the warlord himself and two of his sons, Cao Pi (187–226) and Cao Zhi (192–232). Afflicted by sibling rivalry and an epidemic, these poets distinguished themselves by writing about frustration, sorrow, and death.Yet, as observed in Poetry of Loss, the poets drew on experiences of loss to reinvent the court, its collective memory, and its ways of remembering. While addressing melancholy and nostalgia, they also meditated on such themes as aging, widowhood, and parental loss. In this book, Hsiang-Lin Shih reconstructs a network of courtly texts and uncovers new inter-and-intra textual elements of the works. She shows how writers at the Cao court employed their poetic art to establish, develop, and sustain a community in each difficult moment of their intertwined lives.