by Chen Jack W
musical overtones as well ( tong, “to pipe”), but may, in this context, sim-
ply denote the penetrating power of the sage.17
Finally, at this point, the “Da xu” returns to poetry. It argues that po-
etry possesses far-reaching powers of historical, cosmological, and spiritual
influence, and then asserts that it is for this reason that kings have used it
to regulate the marriages of their subjects, instill kinship virtues, strength-
en human relationships, and so on. Whereas the aesthetic work had been
discussed in terms of hermeneutics—how one could “read” the work to
discover the zhi or historical circumstances—now it is given powers of its
own. Building upon the harmonizing model of music, poetry is conceived
of as the supreme art of the empire. Moreover, one may also say that the
poem signifies sovereignty itself, as its circulation through the empire
brings Heaven and Earth into the sovereign’s moral order. In this way, the
poem becomes an authentic exemplification of the emperor and is able to
transform the empire’s morality, as its final referent is always the emperor
himself. The emperor guarantees the poem, just as the poem guarantees
the empire.
This model of poetry would remain the normative model throughout
the classical tradition. Poetic discourse was the discourse of significance
because of the promises made by the Mao interpretation of the Classic of
Poetry. That is, poetry was supposed to mean something more than the
mere words it inhabited, and this resulted in a predilection for plain
speech and simple form, without the distractions of rhetorical beauty. In
this way, the content of the poem—what was intently on the mind of the
poet, the historical truth of the poetic speaker—could be more readily
grasped by the reader or listener. The best-known inheritors of this posi-
tion were the Song Neo-Confucians, who took strong positions against
literary ornamentation. As Zhou Dunyi 周敦頤 (1017–73), a founding
figure in the Daoxue 道學 movement, said, “Literature is a vehicle for the
dao. If the wheels and shafts are ornamented but no one uses them, then
—————
17. See DeWoskin, A Song for One or Two, pp. 32–33.
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The Reception of Literature in Tang Taizong’s Court
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they have been ornamented in vain. How much more [of a waste] if the
vehicle is empty!” 文所以載道也，輪轅飾而人弗庸，徒飾也。況
虛車乎！18 However, the period following the Han allowed a broader
conception of literary writing than the later Neo-Confucian formulation.
Theories of poetry in the post-Han period built on the “Great Preface”
would construct even grander statements about the cosmic sources and
consequences of literary writing (identifying the “patterning” of the hu-
man with the “patterning” of Heaven).19
Cao Pi’s “Discourse on Literature”
In terms of the developing relationship between poetry and sovereignty, it
is a seemingly minor piece, the “Discourse on Literature” 論文 by Cao Pi,
son of the great warlord Cao Cao, that would mark the next important
step. At the time of the composition of the “Discourse on Literature,”
Cao Pi was crown prince of Wei 魏; a few years later, he would become
Emperor Wen of the Wei dynasty 魏文帝 (r. 220–26). His essay on lit-
erature was part of a larger collection of essays, the Dian lun 典論 ( Ca-
nonical Discourses), now mostly lost.
The discourse begins with the problem of evaluation within a world of
literary competition and amid a plethora of literary styles and genres.20 In
all of this complexity and confusion, it is only the “superior man” ( junzi
君子) who has the power to discern and appreciate the abilities and tal-
ents of the writers of the age.21 There is no question that Cao Pi conceives
the position of the junzi as analogous to that of the sovereign, whose re-
sponsibility it is to recognize the talents and abilities of his subjects, and
—————
18. See Tongshu, in Zhou Lianxi ji, in Congshu jicheng chubian, vol. 1891, 6.117.
19. See the translations and discussions of Lu Ji), “Rhapsody on Literature” 文賦, and Liu Xie 劉勰 (ca. 465–522), Wenxin diaolong 文心雕龍 ( Literary Mind and Carving of Dragons) in Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought, pp. 73–298.
20. For a reading of the entire essay, see Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought, pp.
57–72. Also see Bing Chen, “Cao Pi de wenxue lilun,” Wenxue yichan xuanji 3, pp. 128–34; Miao, “Literary Criticism at the End of the Eastern Han,” pp. 1013–24; and Holzman,
“Literary Criticism in China in the Early Third Century A.D.,” pp. 111–49.
21. There are striking thematic similarities between this essay and the contemporaneous Renwu zhi 人物志 by Liu Shao 劉邵 (fl. 3rd century), as they both examine the idea of character. For a recent critical edition, see Renwu zhi jiaojian, ed. and annot. Li Chongzhi.
For a complete English translation, see Shryock, ed. and trans., Study of Human Abilities.
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The Reception of Literature in Tang Taizong’s Court
to appoint them to the correct offices of government. For Cao Pi, the sov-
ereign is the supreme literary critic, for it is only the sovereign who pos-
sesses the right to pass judgment on the literary talents of the age. The
central significance of literature for Cao Pi’s conception of sovereignty
becomes clear at the climax of the piece:
I say that literary writing is the great achievement of governing the state, a flourishing thing that does not decay. One’s life has a time when it will end; glory and
delight will stop with one’s body. These two things, which must culminate in
their normal terms, cannot compare to the inexhaustibility of literature. There-
fore writers in antiquity entrusted their persons to brush and ink, and made man-
ifest their thoughts in compositions and volumes. They neither relied on the
words of faithful historians, nor on the momentum of being sped along [by the
eminent and powerful]; they themselves transmitted their reputations to later
generations. Therefore, when the Earl of the West [King Wen of Zhou] was im-
prisoned, he amplified the Changes; though the Duke of Zhou was preeminent,
he authorized the Rites [ of Zhou].22 The one did not refuse to toil on account of hardship and suffering; the other did not turn his thoughts [to other matters] on
account of his ease and enjoyments. This being the case, then the ancients
thought little of foot-long jade disks, but valued each inch of sunlight, fearing the passage of time.
蓋文章經國之大業，不朽之盛事。年壽有時而盡，榮樂止乎其身。二
者必至之常期，未若文章之無窮。是以古之作者，寄身於翰墨，見意
於篇籍，不假良史之辭，不託飛馳之勢，而聲名自傳於後。故西伯幽
而演《易》，周旦顯而制《禮》，不以隱約而弗務，不以康樂而加
思。夫然，則古人賤�
�璧而重寸陰，懼乎時之過已。23
Here is the famous and surprising claim that “literary writing is the great
achievement of governing the state.” In the course of the passage, Cao Pi
cites the examples of King Wen and the Duke of Zhou, both of whose
celebrated reigns were made even more glorious by the authorships of
great canonical works. Yet Cao Pi is not simply making the standard
claim of the civilizing force of literature ( wen). That is, this is not an ar-
—————
22. King Wen was traditionally credited with the development of the hexagrams when he was imprisoned by the last Shang ruler. See Shi ji, 4.119. The Duke of Zhou is credited with the authorship of the Rites of Zhou. The earliest attribution is found in the commentary by Zheng Xuan; see Zhou li zhushu, 1.1a, in Shisanjing zhushu, p. 639.
23. Wen xuan, 52.2270–72. A somewhat different version, one that includes other fragments, can be found in Quan Sanguo wen, 8.10a–11b, in Yan Kejun 嚴可均 (1762–1843), comp., Quan Shanggu Sandai Qin Han Sanguo Liuchao wen, pp. 1097b–98a.
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The Reception of Literature in Tang Taizong’s Court
117
gument about the moral force of the sovereign; neither is it about the in-
terrelationships between the “patterns” ( wen) of Heaven and those of
Earth. Instead Cao Pi is writing about literature from the point of view of
commemoration and the ephemerality of life. He asserts that all things
must pass, but only literature is “a flourishing thing that does not decay.”
Not even the “words of faithful historians” can guarantee the preservation
of one’s name—a significant prefiguring of Taizong’s own concerns—and
therefore, it is to literature that the sovereign must entrust himself if he
desires to be remembered.
Literature stands at the limits of the body, as corporeal supplement
and poetic sublation. Thus, Cao Pi writes that “glory and delight” ( rongle
榮樂) go no further than the mortal body, and that they may only be per-
petuated through literature, where they become immortal. Furthermore,
neither historiography nor political connections have the power to do this.
In both cases, the act of remembering would be entrusted to another per-
son (the historian or the patron), and the one who would seek to be un-
derstood by later generations would have no say in his representation.
Only poetry is a faithful medium, as poetry provides direct access to the
situation and feelings of the writer. Cao Pi extends this promise that has
been articulated from the “Yao dian” to the “Da xu” to wenzhang 文章,
to literature in general, claiming for literary writing the task with trans-
mitting the thoughts and intentions of a person. Such an argument would
diminish the role of mere political power in matters of remembrance and
legitimacy, and instead raise up literature as the true guarantor of histori-
cal and political judgments. In the end, it is only literature that will render
immortal the sovereign’s deeds and acts.
Yet, for all of Cao Pi’s rhetoric regarding the sovereign significance of
literature, one might argue that Cao Pi viewed literary writing not as part
of the political sphere, but as something that transcended the political.
This complicates a sovereign poetics insofar as the public nature of sover-
eignty becomes confused with Cao Pi’s private concerns for self-
commemoration and sublated immortality. Cao Pi’s “Discourse on Lit-
erature” anticipates a central shift in the poetics that would take shape
during the Southern Dynasties, one that would assert the priority of the
private sphere over the duties of the public. The thematization of the pri-
vate marks the beginning of a trend that would become more pronounced
in the period following the fall of the Western Jin capital of Luoyang to
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The Reception of Literature in Tang Taizong’s Court
Xiongnu tribes in 311, and the subsequent establishment of a series of eth-
nic Han dynasties south of the Yangtze River. Having lost the political le-
gitimacy conferred by the Zhou and Han capitals, royal ancestral tombs,
and other sites of historical significance, the Southern Dynasties would
claim the lands south of the Yangtze—Jiangnan 江南, the Southland—as
the legitimate site of Chinese cultural memory and literary production.
As the eminent scholar Naitō Konan 內藤湖南 (1866–1934) has argued,
if the aristocratic refugees of the Jin could no longer lay claim to military
and political significance, they would refashion the terms of significance
to emphasize what they still commanded: the power and prestige of liter-
ary culture.24 Naitō’s conception of the early medieval period as a sover-
eignty of—and through—literary culture is partially confirmed by the rise
of the literary salon (especially in the Qi and Liang dynasties) as the cen-
ter of literary composition and sociopolitical alliance-making.25
Pei Ziye’s Critique of Poetry
The poetry of the Southern Dynasties is now often viewed metaleptically
through the literary achievement of the Liang dynasty, when the innova-
tive style of poetry known as “palace-style poetry” ( gongti shi 宮體詩) was
first introduced into the world. Certainly, the historians and scholars of
the early Tang viewed the promulgation of palace-style poetry as indica-
tive of—if not as actively contributing to—the decline of political for-
tunes in the Southern Dynasties. The image that we now have of the
Southern Dynasties was largely created by the early Tang scholars who
compiled the dynastic histories of the period and wrote the literary histo-
ries that continue to influence modern understandings of the period.
Criticism of the literary trends in the Southern Dynasties, however,
was not new to the Tang. One of the most trenchant and influential ar-
guments condemning the southern poetic style would come from the
—————
24. In 1922, Naitō Konan characterized the Southern Dynasties as “aristocratic government” ( kizoku seiji 貴族政治) because their power derived not from the state or the military, but from cultural hegemony. See Naitō, “Gaikatsuteki Tō Sō jidai kan,” in Naitō Konan zenshū, vol. 8, pp. 111–19.
25. Tanigawa Michio makes a parallel argument to the model of the salon that I am proposing with his notion of the kyōdōtai 共同体 (“community”). See his Medieval Chinese Society and the Local “Community. ”
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The Reception of Literature in Tang Taizong’s Court
119
conservative Liang scholar and writer Pei Ziye 裴子野 (469–530).26 Pei’s
views on literature are preserved in a fragment now known as the “Dis-
course on Carving Insects” 雕蟲論.27 This piece most likely originated as
a part of Pei Ziye’s now-lost Song lüe 宋略 ( Concise Account of the Song).28
The Song lüe was
a critical condensation and reworking of the Song shu 宋
書 ( History of the Song Dynasty), which was written privately by the emi-
nent literary figure Shen Yue 沈約 (441–513). As a testament to Pei’s his-
torical abilities, Shen Yue is recorded as sighing, “I cannot match this” 吾
弗逮也, after he read the Song lüe.29
The title by which Pei Ziye’s discussion of literature is known alludes
to the Han intellectual Yang Xiong 揚雄 (53 bc–ad 18), who contemptu-
ously referred to his youthful love of composing rhapsodies as mere diao-
chong zhuanke 彫蟲篆刻, or “carving of insect-characters and seal-script
cuttings.”30 Pei Ziye’s comments begin by stating what he considers the
authentic origins of poetry, which he finds in the “Great Preface”:
—————
26. For his biography, see Liang shu, 30.441–44.
27. The “Discourse on Carving Insects” is preserved in Tongdian, 16.389–90; Wenyuan yinghua, 742.3873b–74a; and Quan Liang wen 全梁文, 53.15b–16b, in Quan Shanggu Sandai Qin Han Sanguo Liuchao wen, p. 3262a–62b. There are several textual differences between the Wenyuan yinghua and the Tongdian versions. Yan Kejun follows the Wenyuan yinghua version and incorrectly states that the Tongdian version lacks the preface. For a modern critical text, see Zeng and Ko, eds., Liang Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao wenxue piping ziliao huibian, vol. 1, pp. 276–77. For other discussions and translations, see Wang Ping,
“Culture and Literature in an Early Medieval Chinese Court,” pp. 59–67; Jansen, Höfische Öffentlichkeit im frühmittelalterlichen China, pp. 137–48; and Tian, Beacon Fire and Shooting Star, pp. 139–41.
28. On issues related to the dating and composition of the essay, see Hayashida, “Pei Ziye
‘Diaochong lun’ kaozheng.” This article reprints material translated from Hayashida, Chūgoku chūsei bungaku hyōronshi.
29. See Liang shu, 30.442–43. For a recent study of the Song lüe, see Ma Yanhui, “Pei Ziye Song lüe shilun de jiazhi.” Ma lists the sources for the remaining fragments of Pei’s work and provides a useful critical evaluation and overview of earlier scholarship.
30. Yang Xiong, Fa yan yishu, 3.2.45. It should be noted that the title was not given by Pei Ziye. Du You had provided a prefatory remark to the Pei Ziye quotation, which ended
with the following statement: “Then everyone in the realm directed themselves towards this fashion, applying ornament to their words, and the art of insect carving was ascendant in the age” 於是天下向風，人自藻飾，雕蟲之藝，盛於時矣. In Tongdian, 16.4.389.
