Lore and Verse

Poems on History in Early Medieval China

Bibliographic Data

ID3618340
AuthorsXiaoshan Yang (0000-0002-6055-7172, University of Notre Dame, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume82
Issue2
Pages249-251
Publication date2023-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Asian Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-9118 • E-ISSN: 1752-0401
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00219118-10290820
OpenAlexW4362640390
LanguageEN
Citations received10

Yue Zhang's informative and cogent study of the subgenre of yongshi shi 詠史詩 (poems on history) in early medieval China (220–589) sheds light on the functions of poetry in transmitting and reshaping history. Zhang's perspective is fruitfully informed by recent memory studies. A major theoretical scaffold of his book is Jan Assmann's distinction between two types of memories of the deceased: retrospective and prospective.1 In retrospective memory, historical figures assume relevance as models and predecessors for contemporary values and ideals. The living may thus justify and even glorify their decisions and actions that may otherwise appear problematic. Prospective memory, on the other hand, celebrates the achievement and fame of the dead and focuses on the ways in which the dead have succeeded in occupying a permanent position in the memory of a culture. Zhang summarizes the usefulness of these two concepts for his own book as follows: “The concept of retrospective memory aids us in examining how historical figures were received in poems, while the concept of prospective memory aids us in understanding how poets fashioned their works to be remembered by later literati” (4).The six chapters in the book are arranged chronologically. The foundational chapter 1 defines the term yongshi shi by examining how the term is critically applicable to the poetry of the specific period of early medieval China. In so doing, Zhang scrutinizes the usage of yong 詠 and shi 史 in extra-poetic as well as poetic materials. We are well served by his reminder that those poems whose titles include the term yongshi are not necessarily specimens of yongshi shi, because, in the age of fluid manuscript culture, poetic titles can be highly mutable, originating with anthologists, editors, and literary critics, as well as poets themselves.The next two chapters focus on the Western Jin (265–316) poet Zuo Si 左思 (ca. 250–ca. 305). Chapter 2 examines Zuo's “[Poems] on History” (“Yongshi” 詠史) series—generally considered a milestone in the development of yongshi shi—from the perspective of retrospective memory. Zhang unravels the complexities of Zuo's appropriation of earlier historical sources and describes how Zuo places himself in the lineage of the exemplary historical figures. Chapter 3 investigates the formation of prospective memory in the critical reception of Zuo's series. In Zhang's exposition, Zuo's poems do not simply preserve and transmit historical details; rather they reshape the understanding of these details in later times, including later poems in which references are made to these details. Zhang examines the literary and cultural factors behind the editorial decision to include Zuo's poems in the “Yongshi” section of the sixth-century anthology Wen xuan 文選 and also offers a fascinating example of how Zuo's poems were used in the discourse of the social elite. The innovative scrutiny of Zuo's series from the angles of both retrospective and prospective memory has wider implications for our understanding of how and why history was disseminated through poetry in early medieval China.Chapter 4 discusses how Tao Yuanming's 陶淵明 (ca. 365–427) yongshi poems articulate a set of values and concepts that are at the core of his ideal of a successful, ethical life. As Zhang shows, some of those values are well established and conventional, while others are more individualistic or even idiosyncratic. Chapter 5 offers a case study of the nexus between politics, power legitimation, and memory. The focus text here is a long poem on the Han general Zhang Liang 張良 (ca. 250–186 bce), composed by Xie Zhan 謝瞻 (385–421) during Liu Yu's 劉裕 (r. 420–22) northern expedition. Zhang lays bare how Liu, through the poems written by his subordinates like Xie, appropriated the memory of the cultural heritage of the Western Han to build up his political capital and to legitimize his imminent seizure of power. Also exposed is Xie's agony as he, for the sake of self-preservation, was compelled to lend the cultural prestige of the Xie family to a military general who harbored the intention of usurpation. Chapter 6 examines the relationship between poems collected in the “Yongshi” section of Wen xuan and their corresponding historical accounts. Zhang demonstrates how poets created new meaning as they selected and combined elements from a variety of textual sources (historical, unofficial, and anecdotal) in yongshi poems and how different poets adopted different approaches to these sources.Zhang's study carefully draws and expands on a broad array of existing scholarship and opens up new venues for exploring the interplay among political, historical, social, and literary forces in the development of a poetic subgenre in early medieval China. It is to be commended for its well-presented arguments, lucid exposition, accurate and literary translations, and utilization of less well-known as well as familiar sources. This welcome contribution should be of great interest to scholars of early medieval Chinese poetic culture and memory studies

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · China · Literature · Period (music) · Perspective (graphical) · Poetry · Relevance (law) · Visual arts · Zhàng · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Law · Philosophy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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