“Xi Shuai” 蟋蟀 (“Cricket”) and Its Consequences
Issues in Early Chinese Poetry and Textual Studies
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20380271 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Martin Kern (Princeton University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 42 |
| Pages | 39-74 |
| Publication date | 2019-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Early China (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0362-5028 • E-ISSN: 2325-2324 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/eac.2019.1 |
| OpenAlex | W2921891997 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 32 |
The present article explores questions about the composition, performance, circulation, and transmission of early Chinese poetry by examining a small number of poems from the received Mao shi and their counterparts in recently discovered manuscripts. Starting from a close examination of the poem “Xi shuai” (“Cricket”), the essay briefly discusses the problems we face in dealing with looted manuscripts before advancing toward rethinking the patterns of early Chinese poetic composition and transmission. Instead of taking individual poems as discrete, reified objects in the form we encounter them in the Mao shi , it is suggested to read them as particular instantiations of circumscribed repertoires where the individual poetic text is but one of many realizations of a shared body of ideas and expressions. This analysis is informed by the examination of both manuscript texts and the received literature, but also by comparative perspectives gained from both medieval Chinese literature and other ancient and medieval literary traditions. In emphasizing the formation of poetry as a continuous process, it leaves behind notions of “the original text,” authorship, and the moment of “original composition”—notions that held no prominence in the early Chinese literary tradition before the empire
Ancient history · Art · Classical Chinese poetry · Composition (language) · Cricket · Empire · Literature · Poetry · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Japanese History and Culture · Philosophy
A Re-examination of the Controversy over the Oral and Written Nature of the Classic of Poetry's Early Transmission, Based on the Anhui University Manuscript
A Tentative Discussion of Some Phenomena Concerning Early Texts of the Shi jing
A First Reading of the Anhui University Bamboo-Slip Shi Jing
Cross-Readings of the Book of Odes ( Shijing )
The idea of shan 善 (goodness)
Didactic Narrative and the Art of Self-Strengthening
Cultural Memory and the Epic in Early Chinese Literature
On the textual source of the Tsinghua bamboo manuscript of Qi Ye · Xishuai
Before words were written
Establishing the text of theOdes
History of Classical Scholarship
How Societies Remember
Speaking of Poetry
Heng Xian and the Problem of Studying Looted Artifacts
Cultural Memory and Early Civilization
Before Confucius
Unearthed Documents and the Question of the Oral versus Written Nature of the Classic of Poetry
The Stele Inscriptions of Ch'in Shih-huang
Textual Strategies
Introduction to the Peking University Han Bamboo Strips
Issues in Western Zhou Studies
After Confucius
Xunzi
Manifest in Words, Written on Paper
Early Chinese Religion, Part One
Text and Ritual in Early China
The Making of Early Chinese Classical Poetry
Studies in the Historical Phonology of Asian Languages
The “Masters” in the Shiji
On the Transmission of Kuan-Tzu
Metrical "Irregularity" in The Shih ching
Loot, legitimacy and ownership
Methodological Reflections on the Analysis of Textual Variants and the Modes of Manuscript Production in Early China
From Ritual to Allegory
Culture, Thought, and Social Action
| Unique citing works | 10 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |