Chinese Literary Forms in Heian Japan: Poetics and Practice

Description

Written Chinese served as a prestigious, cosmopolitan script across medieval East Asia, from as far west as the Tarim Basin to the eastern kingdom of Heian period Japan (794 1185). In this book, Brian Steininger revisits the mid-Heian court of the Tale of Genji and the Pillow Book, where literary Chinese was not only the basis of official administration, but also a medium for political protest, sermons of mourning, and poems of celebration. Chinese Literary Forms in Heian Japan reconstructs the lived practice of Chinese poetic and prose genres among Heian officials, analyzing the material exchanges by which documents were commissioned, the local reinterpretations of Tang aesthetic principles, and the ritual venues in which literary Chinese texts were performed in Japanese vocalization. Even as state ideology and educational institutions proclaimed the Chinese script s embodiment of timeless cosmological patterns, everyday practice in this far-flung periphery subjected classical models to a string of improvised exceptions. Through careful comparison of literary and documentary sources, this book provides a vivid case study of one society s negotiation of literature s position both within a hierarchy of authority and between the incommensurable realms of script and speech. " Chinese Literary Forms in Heian Japan: Poetics and Practice Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Conventions Introduction 1. Gifts and Governors: Heian Capital Society in Utsuho monogatari 2. Honcho monzui and the Social Dynamics of Literary Culture 3. Couplet Collections and Aesthetic Strategy 4. Glosses and Primers: Heian Education and Literacy 5. Reading Out Loud: Literary Writing and Oral Performance Conclusion: The Changing Purview of Literary Sinitic Appendix A: Selections from Sakumon daitai Appendix B: Preface to Wamyō ruijushō Bibliography Index Harvard East Asian Monographs