The Shishuo xinyu 世說新語 (A New Account of Tales of the World) is a collection of anecdotes concern... more The Shishuo xinyu 世說新語 (A New Account of Tales of the World) is a collection of anecdotes concerning extraordinary historical figures active in the second through fourth centuries. This article highlights and explores the importance of the Shishuo xinyu as cultural memory. In the collection, the public display and use of personal memory of the cultural past are taken as means to preserve cultural legacy, construct cultural identity, and establish cultural authority in the elite literati community. Cultural memory gained much significance after the migration of the Western Jin 西晉 (265-316) royal house and aristocratic families to the south after its fall. On one hand, shared memory and the sharing of memory of the past created an unbroken chain of cultural legacy and secured the elite literati's cultural identities in a "continuous" tradition; on the other hand, personal memory and the monopoly of memory were crucial tools to claim cultural privilege in the highly competitive community of elite literati. The peculiar nature of the anecdote as a cross between private and public matters, as well as between local and universal knowledge, lends itself perfectly to carrying out the various social functions of cultural memory. The attention to cultural memory in the Shishuo xinyu was not an accidental or isolated phenomenon. Its sentimental and personal approach to the past reflects the prevailing cultural nostalgia in writings by elite literati of the fourth and fifth centuries.
This article examines the fascination of émigré elite literati with southern local songs known ... more This article examines the fascination of émigré elite literati with southern local songs known as the “Wu songs” in the early Southern dynasties. I argue that, through their cultivation of these songs, the émigré elite in the Eastern Jin and Liu-Song dynasties created an image of a “cultural other” and attempted to domesticate this other, experienced as southern, local, and feminine. A gender discourse—the ascription of femininity to the local—was employed as a crucial approach in this domestication. I also explore the unexpected outcome of this cultural encounter in the subsequent centuries, i.e., the merging of the northern elite and southern local music and cultural traditions.
The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to World Literature, 2020
York, USA "Southeast Fly the Peacocks," alternatively titled "Old Poem Written for Jiao Zhongqing... more York, USA "Southeast Fly the Peacocks," alternatively titled "Old Poem Written for Jiao Zhongqing's Wife," is an anonymous poem selected in the sixth-century Chinese anthology of poetry New Songs from the Jade Terrace (Yutai xinyong). It is known as the earliest long narrative poem in Chinese. It has over 1700 characters in 353 pentasyllabic lines, a remarkable length among traditional shi poems, many of which are less than 8 lines and 56 characters. It is also distinctive for its narrative nature in a poetic tradition that values expression of feelings over description of events. The Classic of Poetry, the earliest collection of Chinese poetry compiled around 600 , de nes the genre as "where what is intently on the mind goes" (zhi zhi suozhi). "Expressing what is intently on one's mind" (yan zhi) came to be held in highest esteem in poetry and other functions including narration were generally marginalized. Poems written by literati tend to be in the form of personal monologue, relating what the speaker, who may or may not be the same as the author, feels at a speci c moment. In contrast, narrative poetry was often considered a vulgar form of literature and many belonged to the oral storytelling or performance tradition. Scholars have noted an absence of the epic tradition in ancient China in contrast to other cultures such as Greece and India. In fact, "Southeast Fly the Peacocks" attracted little attention from readers and literary critics for the next thousand years, probably because of this prejudice against long narrative poetry. It was not until the Ming and Qing dynasties that scholars started to notice this masterpiece of narrative poetry. Wang Shizhen (1526-1590) praised it to be "a sage piece of long poetry." Hu Yinglin (1551-1602) believed that it "saw no successors in A Companion to World Literature. Edited by Ken Seigneurie.
It is widely accepted that Jian’an-period writing is best understood in tandem with society and p... more It is widely accepted that Jian’an-period writing is best understood in tandem with society and political events. Past studies have explored the nature and function of writing, especially under the Cao-Wei regime, and future ones will do so as well. A strong focus should be cast on writing’s relationship with the military. This paper argues that Jian’an writings made while following military campaigns created a discourse of cultural conquest that claimed political legitimacy and provided moral justification for military actions. More importantly, they directly participated in the struggle for and the building of a new political power; thus they were effective acts of conquest themselves. Through a close examination of Jian’an views on the significance of writing vis-à-vis political and moral accomplishments, this paper sees a new identity that literati created for themselves, one that showed their commitment to political and military goals. Literary talent — the writing brush — became a weapon that marked these writers’ place in a world primarily defined by politics and war.
The pursuit of divine women or women with divine beauty is a common theme in the earliest works o... more The pursuit of divine women or women with divine beauty is a common theme in the earliest works of Chinese literature. Many fu (rhapsodies) composed at the Western Han courts feature the speaker's failed pursuit of a beautiful woman. Yet during the Jian'an period, the image of a seductive yet inaccessible woman lost its prominence in the literary imagination and was replaced by a lonely beauty yearning for a worthy match and lamenting the swift passage of time. This transformation had much to do with the social and cultural transitions of this particular historical moment. This article places Jian'an representations of women in the context of group composition and literary communication at the Cao courts, and discusses the literary and political implications of these representations in comparison with previous court writing about women. The article argues that under a new environment of court writing, Jian'an literati transformed the image of beautiful women from the embodiment of imperial power and privilege into the symbol of their ideal personality and shared values. Writing about women became a crucial means to forming a literary and political community, and defining that community's values and principles in a troubled time.
This article examines the fascination of émigré elite literati with southern local songs known as... more This article examines the fascination of émigré elite literati with southern local songs known as the "Wu songs" in the early Southern dynasties. I argue that, through their cultivation of these songs, the émigré elite in the Eastern Jin and Liu-Song dynasties created an image of a "cultural other" and attempted to domesticate this other, experienced as southern, local, and feminine. A gender discourse-the ascription of femininity to the local-was employed as a crucial approach in this domestication. I also explore the unexpected outcome of this cultural encounter in the subsequent centuries, i.e., the merging of the northern elite and southern local music and cultural traditions.
Abstract
This article examines the indeterminacy of gender and poetic roles of early five-syllabl... more Abstract This article examines the indeterminacy of gender and poetic roles of early five-syllable poems (wu yan shi 五言詩). The indeterminacy pervasive in early poetry came to be perceived as a problem beginning in the late third century. A comparison between some early five-syllable poems and their later variations, imitations, and interpretations suggests conscious clarifications of ambiguity and fluidity made by early medieval writers and literary scholars. By the fifth and sixth centuries, relatively indeterminate gender and poetic roles were gradually forced into a neat “map” of more determinate ones in poetic expressions. Certain sentiments and expressions came to be associated with a specific gender or particular identity. This map became an important part of poetic conventions for later writers and it also had a profound influence on our understanding of early poetry. This article explores reasons for changes in the view of gender and poetic roles in greater cultural and literary contexts of the early medieval period, which includes a changing notion of authorship, a different view of the nature and function of five-syllable poetry, and a growing interest in constructing the literary past for this poetic genre. Keywords: five-syllable poetry, gender, poetic roles, imitation, performativity, authorship
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
This book studies the formation of the male-constructed conventional voice of women in Chinese li... more This book studies the formation of the male-constructed conventional voice of women in Chinese literature from the 3rd to 6th century.
It highlights specific moments during which the feminine voice became recognized, accepted, and stabilized, including the shift of focus from the performative to the textual in female representations; the formation of a male literary community; the popularity of romanticized historical narratives; and the emerging sense of literary history.
This study emphasizes the historicity of the feminine voice and strives to question and challenge established notions about textual stability, authorship, the literary canon, and literary history.
The Shishuo xinyu 世說新語 (A New Account of Tales of the World) is a collection of anecdotes concern... more The Shishuo xinyu 世說新語 (A New Account of Tales of the World) is a collection of anecdotes concerning extraordinary historical figures active in the second through fourth centuries. This article highlights and explores the importance of the Shishuo xinyu as cultural memory. In the collection, the public display and use of personal memory of the cultural past are taken as means to preserve cultural legacy, construct cultural identity, and establish cultural authority in the elite literati community. Cultural memory gained much significance after the migration of the Western Jin 西晉 (265-316) royal house and aristocratic families to the south after its fall. On one hand, shared memory and the sharing of memory of the past created an unbroken chain of cultural legacy and secured the elite literati's cultural identities in a "continuous" tradition; on the other hand, personal memory and the monopoly of memory were crucial tools to claim cultural privilege in the highly competitive community of elite literati. The peculiar nature of the anecdote as a cross between private and public matters, as well as between local and universal knowledge, lends itself perfectly to carrying out the various social functions of cultural memory. The attention to cultural memory in the Shishuo xinyu was not an accidental or isolated phenomenon. Its sentimental and personal approach to the past reflects the prevailing cultural nostalgia in writings by elite literati of the fourth and fifth centuries.
This article examines the fascination of émigré elite literati with southern local songs known ... more This article examines the fascination of émigré elite literati with southern local songs known as the “Wu songs” in the early Southern dynasties. I argue that, through their cultivation of these songs, the émigré elite in the Eastern Jin and Liu-Song dynasties created an image of a “cultural other” and attempted to domesticate this other, experienced as southern, local, and feminine. A gender discourse—the ascription of femininity to the local—was employed as a crucial approach in this domestication. I also explore the unexpected outcome of this cultural encounter in the subsequent centuries, i.e., the merging of the northern elite and southern local music and cultural traditions.
The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to World Literature, 2020
York, USA "Southeast Fly the Peacocks," alternatively titled "Old Poem Written for Jiao Zhongqing... more York, USA "Southeast Fly the Peacocks," alternatively titled "Old Poem Written for Jiao Zhongqing's Wife," is an anonymous poem selected in the sixth-century Chinese anthology of poetry New Songs from the Jade Terrace (Yutai xinyong). It is known as the earliest long narrative poem in Chinese. It has over 1700 characters in 353 pentasyllabic lines, a remarkable length among traditional shi poems, many of which are less than 8 lines and 56 characters. It is also distinctive for its narrative nature in a poetic tradition that values expression of feelings over description of events. The Classic of Poetry, the earliest collection of Chinese poetry compiled around 600 , de nes the genre as "where what is intently on the mind goes" (zhi zhi suozhi). "Expressing what is intently on one's mind" (yan zhi) came to be held in highest esteem in poetry and other functions including narration were generally marginalized. Poems written by literati tend to be in the form of personal monologue, relating what the speaker, who may or may not be the same as the author, feels at a speci c moment. In contrast, narrative poetry was often considered a vulgar form of literature and many belonged to the oral storytelling or performance tradition. Scholars have noted an absence of the epic tradition in ancient China in contrast to other cultures such as Greece and India. In fact, "Southeast Fly the Peacocks" attracted little attention from readers and literary critics for the next thousand years, probably because of this prejudice against long narrative poetry. It was not until the Ming and Qing dynasties that scholars started to notice this masterpiece of narrative poetry. Wang Shizhen (1526-1590) praised it to be "a sage piece of long poetry." Hu Yinglin (1551-1602) believed that it "saw no successors in A Companion to World Literature. Edited by Ken Seigneurie.
It is widely accepted that Jian’an-period writing is best understood in tandem with society and p... more It is widely accepted that Jian’an-period writing is best understood in tandem with society and political events. Past studies have explored the nature and function of writing, especially under the Cao-Wei regime, and future ones will do so as well. A strong focus should be cast on writing’s relationship with the military. This paper argues that Jian’an writings made while following military campaigns created a discourse of cultural conquest that claimed political legitimacy and provided moral justification for military actions. More importantly, they directly participated in the struggle for and the building of a new political power; thus they were effective acts of conquest themselves. Through a close examination of Jian’an views on the significance of writing vis-à-vis political and moral accomplishments, this paper sees a new identity that literati created for themselves, one that showed their commitment to political and military goals. Literary talent — the writing brush — became a weapon that marked these writers’ place in a world primarily defined by politics and war.
The pursuit of divine women or women with divine beauty is a common theme in the earliest works o... more The pursuit of divine women or women with divine beauty is a common theme in the earliest works of Chinese literature. Many fu (rhapsodies) composed at the Western Han courts feature the speaker's failed pursuit of a beautiful woman. Yet during the Jian'an period, the image of a seductive yet inaccessible woman lost its prominence in the literary imagination and was replaced by a lonely beauty yearning for a worthy match and lamenting the swift passage of time. This transformation had much to do with the social and cultural transitions of this particular historical moment. This article places Jian'an representations of women in the context of group composition and literary communication at the Cao courts, and discusses the literary and political implications of these representations in comparison with previous court writing about women. The article argues that under a new environment of court writing, Jian'an literati transformed the image of beautiful women from the embodiment of imperial power and privilege into the symbol of their ideal personality and shared values. Writing about women became a crucial means to forming a literary and political community, and defining that community's values and principles in a troubled time.
This article examines the fascination of émigré elite literati with southern local songs known as... more This article examines the fascination of émigré elite literati with southern local songs known as the "Wu songs" in the early Southern dynasties. I argue that, through their cultivation of these songs, the émigré elite in the Eastern Jin and Liu-Song dynasties created an image of a "cultural other" and attempted to domesticate this other, experienced as southern, local, and feminine. A gender discourse-the ascription of femininity to the local-was employed as a crucial approach in this domestication. I also explore the unexpected outcome of this cultural encounter in the subsequent centuries, i.e., the merging of the northern elite and southern local music and cultural traditions.
Abstract
This article examines the indeterminacy of gender and poetic roles of early five-syllabl... more Abstract This article examines the indeterminacy of gender and poetic roles of early five-syllable poems (wu yan shi 五言詩). The indeterminacy pervasive in early poetry came to be perceived as a problem beginning in the late third century. A comparison between some early five-syllable poems and their later variations, imitations, and interpretations suggests conscious clarifications of ambiguity and fluidity made by early medieval writers and literary scholars. By the fifth and sixth centuries, relatively indeterminate gender and poetic roles were gradually forced into a neat “map” of more determinate ones in poetic expressions. Certain sentiments and expressions came to be associated with a specific gender or particular identity. This map became an important part of poetic conventions for later writers and it also had a profound influence on our understanding of early poetry. This article explores reasons for changes in the view of gender and poetic roles in greater cultural and literary contexts of the early medieval period, which includes a changing notion of authorship, a different view of the nature and function of five-syllable poetry, and a growing interest in constructing the literary past for this poetic genre. Keywords: five-syllable poetry, gender, poetic roles, imitation, performativity, authorship
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
This book studies the formation of the male-constructed conventional voice of women in Chinese li... more This book studies the formation of the male-constructed conventional voice of women in Chinese literature from the 3rd to 6th century.
It highlights specific moments during which the feminine voice became recognized, accepted, and stabilized, including the shift of focus from the performative to the textual in female representations; the formation of a male literary community; the popularity of romanticized historical narratives; and the emerging sense of literary history.
This study emphasizes the historicity of the feminine voice and strives to question and challenge established notions about textual stability, authorship, the literary canon, and literary history.
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Papers by Qiulei Hu
This article examines the indeterminacy of gender and poetic roles of early five-syllable poems (wu yan shi 五言詩). The indeterminacy pervasive in early poetry came to be perceived as a problem beginning in the late third century. A comparison between some early five-syllable poems and their later variations, imitations, and interpretations suggests conscious clarifications of ambiguity and fluidity made by early medieval writers and literary scholars. By the fifth and sixth centuries, relatively indeterminate gender and poetic roles were gradually forced into a neat “map” of more determinate ones in poetic expressions. Certain sentiments and expressions came to be associated with a specific gender or particular identity. This map became an important part of poetic conventions for later writers and it also had a profound influence on our understanding of early poetry. This article explores reasons for changes in the view of gender and poetic roles in greater cultural and literary contexts of the early medieval period, which includes a changing notion of authorship, a different view of the nature and function of five-syllable poetry, and a growing interest in constructing the literary past for this poetic genre.
Keywords: five-syllable poetry, gender, poetic roles, imitation, performativity, authorship
Reviews by Qiulei Hu
Book by Qiulei Hu
It highlights specific moments during which the feminine voice became recognized, accepted, and stabilized, including the shift of focus from the performative to the textual in female representations; the formation of a male literary community; the popularity of romanticized historical narratives; and the emerging sense of literary history.
This study emphasizes the historicity of the feminine voice and strives to question and challenge established notions about textual stability, authorship, the literary canon, and literary history.
This article examines the indeterminacy of gender and poetic roles of early five-syllable poems (wu yan shi 五言詩). The indeterminacy pervasive in early poetry came to be perceived as a problem beginning in the late third century. A comparison between some early five-syllable poems and their later variations, imitations, and interpretations suggests conscious clarifications of ambiguity and fluidity made by early medieval writers and literary scholars. By the fifth and sixth centuries, relatively indeterminate gender and poetic roles were gradually forced into a neat “map” of more determinate ones in poetic expressions. Certain sentiments and expressions came to be associated with a specific gender or particular identity. This map became an important part of poetic conventions for later writers and it also had a profound influence on our understanding of early poetry. This article explores reasons for changes in the view of gender and poetic roles in greater cultural and literary contexts of the early medieval period, which includes a changing notion of authorship, a different view of the nature and function of five-syllable poetry, and a growing interest in constructing the literary past for this poetic genre.
Keywords: five-syllable poetry, gender, poetic roles, imitation, performativity, authorship
It highlights specific moments during which the feminine voice became recognized, accepted, and stabilized, including the shift of focus from the performative to the textual in female representations; the formation of a male literary community; the popularity of romanticized historical narratives; and the emerging sense of literary history.
This study emphasizes the historicity of the feminine voice and strives to question and challenge established notions about textual stability, authorship, the literary canon, and literary history.