Written at Imperial Command: Panegyric Poetry in Early Medieval China (Chinese Philosophy and Culture) (SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture) - Softcover

Wu, Fusheng

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0791473708 ISBN 13: 9780791473702

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 2009

Synopsis

Explores both the literary features and historical context of poetry written for imperial rulers during China's early medieval period.

This is the first book-length study of panegyric poetry-yingzhao shi or poetry presented to imperial rulers-in the Chinese tradition. Examining poems presented during the Wei-Jin Nanbeichao, or early medieval period (220–619), Fusheng Wu provides a thorough exploration of the sociopolitical background against which these poems were written and a close analysis of the formal conventions of the poems.

By reconstructing the human drama behind the composition of these poems, Wu shows that writing under imperial command could be a matter of grave consequence. The poets' work could determine the rise and fall of careers, or even cost lives. While panegyric poetry has been largely dismissed as perfunctory and insincere, such poems reveal much about the relations between monarchs and the intellectuals they patronized and also compels us to reexamine the canonical Chinese notion of poetic production as personal, spontaneous expression.

About this title

About the Author

Fusheng Wu is Associate Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at the University of Utah and the author of The Poetics of Decadence: Chinese Poetry of the Southern Dynasties and the Late Tang Periods, also published by SUNY Press.

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0791473708
• ISBN 13: 9780791473702
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 300