Olivia Milburn. Cherishing Antiquity

The kingdom of Wu (585–473 b.c.e.) provided some of the most enduring personalities in the Chinese literary canon: the cultured diplomat Prince Jizha, the famed beauty Xi Shi, and the wise minister Wu Zixu. In this thoroughly researched book, Olivia Milburn explores the cultural construction of this ancient kingdom, and readers learn about both the ancient kingdom itself and the ways that writers in imperial China interpreted Wu. The title, Cherishing Antiquity, is a translation of the Chinese term huaigu, denoting poems on the past inspired by visits to places of historical significance. Milburn applies huaigu broadly to encompass a large variety of writings about Wu, from poems, to local histories, to bronze and stone inscriptions. Wu was an especially interesting subject for later writers because the site of its capital, Suzhou, was located in the heart of Jiangnan, a region known for its cultural florescence in late imperial times. In its own time, however, the state and people of Wu occupied the cultural margins of “China,” or the Zhou confederacy.

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Beauty · Capital (architecture) · China · History of China · Kingdom · Literature · Poetry · State (computer science) · Subject (documents) · Chinese history and philosophy · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies