literary gatherings; elite social gatherings; cultural communities; interaction rituals; Eastern Jin; Lanting; Zhi Dun; Tao Yuanming; Mount Lu; Tao Qian; Huiyuan; early medieval China
摘要
“The Literary Formation of Cultural Communities in Mid-Third- through Early Fifth-Century China,” explores elite social gatherings and the literature produced at those gatherings at the beginning of the period of division between north and south. This largely coincides with the Eastern Jin dynasty (317-420), the first southern dynasty, whose court was founded south of the Yangzi River with the help of a small group of aristocratic families after the territorial loss of the north to invading tribes. Previous scholarship tends to characterize this period as a moment in history when the cultural elite turned inwardly toward an esoteric metaphysical discourse concerned with self-discovery. While not entirely false, this view is misleading at least in the sense that it overlooks the degree to which emigre elites of the Eastern Jin turned toward each other, through their shared interest in the discourse of the "arcane" (xuan), here referring to the mystical Way that was at once spoken of by the Taoist philosophical texts preserved from antiquity and by the Buddhist sutras being translated in China from India and Central Asia, and sought to rebuild a sense of community together in the absence of their ancestral heartland. I argue that the elite social gatherings we read about in works like the Shishuo xinyu (New Account of Tales of the World) and literary writings produced at those gatherings, such as the poems composed by various participants at the famous gathering at Lanting in 353, and other social writings preserved in Buddhist anthologies and personal literary collections reveal a common trope during this period of being joined together as a community through individual absorption in a shared mystical understanding of the ineffable Way, of the great men of the past, and of the teachings of the Buddha. Being defined in some sense by not belonging to the court, the elites from this brief slice of time configure themselves into cultural communities that are markedly different from the cultural worlds of the periods that come immediately before and after, when literary output was primarily centered around the court.
目次
Acknowledgments viii Conventions xii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Reimagining the Group Identity of the “Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove” Introduction 13 In Search of the Bamboo Grove 17 Insider Connections 23 The Source of Appearances 27 (a) Ruan Ji and Xi Kang 28 (b) Ruan Ji and Wang Rong 29 (c) Xi Kang and Wang Rong 31 (d) Wang Rong, The Latecomer 33 (e) Shan Tao, The Profound Enigma 35 Dubious Fellows 40 Conclusion 47
Chapter 2: The Poetic Formation of a Lasting Group Identity at the Gathering at Lanting Introduction 49 Prelude 56 Natural Refrains 60 Zhuangzian Mind 67 Confucius at the Rain Altar 75 Roaming with the Past 87 The End (A Conclusion) 97 Chapter 2 Appendix: Translation of the Lanting Poems 99
Chapter 3: Representations of Self and Community in Zhi Dun’s Poems on the Eight Precepts Fasting Ceremony Introduction 115 Merging into the Unseen 120 Consolation and Emptiness 126 The Ultimate Undoing 138 Conclusion 151 Chapter 3 Appendix: Translation of Zhi Dun’s Poetic Writings 154 Interlude: The Cultural Landscape of Mount Lu before Huiyuan 172 Kuang Su (or Lu Su?) 173 Dong Feng’s Apricot Grove 174 Gongting Temple Spirit and the Spirit of Mount Lu 175 Wu Meng 177
Chapter 4: Retracing Connections around Late Third- and Early Fifth-Century Xunyang Introduction 181 Votive Society around Mount Lu 184 Karmic Connections 190 Around Stone Gate 195 Naming a Peak of One’s Own 204 Poems Ascending in Harmony 210 Neighbors in Mind 220 Conclusion 229
