1. New Space and New Writing
The opening up of new space anticipated a new kind of writing that encompassed phenomena of larger world
Writing no longer focused on classics, philosophy, and historiography
Literati created a more autonomous “aesthetic” realm paralleling the emergence of new spaces:

2. These new spaces were:
Taverns and pavilions for “pure conversation” and poetry gathering
Buddhist and Daoist temples
Large gardens and villas in new cities and in the hills and mountains
Hermits’ dwellings in wilderness and caves

3. New writing went beyond classics, philosophy, and historiography
It now expanded to encompass mysteries, legends, life and death, natural and supernatural worlds…
Impacts of Buddhism and Daoism were clear in both intellectual discourse and fictional writing:
Intellectual discourse: “Dark Studies”
Fictional writing: “Anomaly account” or “Account of Anomalies”

4. Influence of Early Daoism
“Dark Studies” (or “Mysterious Studies) featured ideas and themes found in early Confucian and Daoist texts:
The Canon of Change (Yi jing)
The Canon of Way and Power (Daode jing)
The Master Zhuang (Zhuang zi)
Debates over “Teaching of names” (mingjiao) vs. “Nature” (ziran) figured most prominently
Participants: He Yan, Wang Bi, Guo Xiang, Zhong Hui, Ruan Ji, and Xi (Ji) Kang
Contributed to the “pure conversation” movement

5. Intellectual discourse focused on the relations between “names and forms”, “nothingness (nonentities) and entities”, “character and talent.”
It reflected conflict between Confucian view that stresses the existence of a moral heaven and the early Daoist (Zhuangzi’s) view of an amoral heaven
Zhuangzi’s views on “inaction” (no purposive action, wu wei), “nature and spontaneity”, and “inadequacy of language” gained currency
Intellectuals used Lao-Zhuang to interpret Confucianism, e.g., Confucius “embodied” nothingness and stressed the importance of “nature”, “naturalness,” and “spontaneity”.

6. Terminology used in the “Dark Studies”
“Wu”—nothingness, nonbeing, or negativity
Wang Bi: “Wu” is the ultimate basis of reality, prior to and above Confucian moral heaven.
“Wu” lies beyond the reach of images or language in the realm of the “mysterious” or “dark”
“Wu wei”—action based on the principle of non-action, i.e., nonpurposive action, particularly when a ruler rules a state

7. “Perfected Man,” “Great Man”---people who refused public, political service and work toward self-perfection by living a life that
appreciates the beauties of nature and of simplicity and spontaneity,
enjoys wine and music when going on excursion to the hills and streams
“Ziran”(self-so)—”nature” means the union or integration of natural world and humankind into a purposeless and amoral state

8. Anomaly account
Referred to as zhiguai, with the following characteristics:
Biographical,
Strange/unusual objects,
bizarre and fantastic events:
Daoist fights Demon
Buddhist wonder-working
return-to-life” stories
Buddhist magic
portents and auguries

9. Types of Stories ghosts, spirits Necromantic practices:
Sex and marriage with ghost spirit:
Lu Chong weds a deceased woman who gives birth to his son
Necromantic practices:
Communications and interactions with immortals, sprits of dead including female spirits, animal spirits, etc.
Types of Stories
Two most common types
Ghost stories: dead persons manage to cross the boundary between the human world (yang) and the nether (yin) world
Return-from-death: living persons at the near death stage manage to negotiate the difficult crossing and return alive from the world of the dead.

10. The Emergence of New Poetic Writing: New Form and New Content
[明]馬軾：《歸去來兮圖》

11. Chinese Poetic Tradition
Pre-Qin: two traditions
The northern tradition: The Book of Poetry (Odes)
The southern tradition: The Chuci (or Ch’u-tz’u)
Han: Fu and Yuefu
Fu (epideictic rhapsody or rhymed-prose)
Zuo Si, “Three Capitals Rhapsody”
Lu Ji “Rhapsody on Literature”
Yuefu (Music Bureau) ballads
“Southeast the Peacock Flies”
The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry

12. Yuefu Ballads Han and Wei Jin
Five-character shi (shih) poetry became the favorite vehicle for lyric expression
“Nineteen Old Poems of the Han”
poets: Cao Cao, Cao Zhi, Seven Masters of Jian’an
Jin
“Ziye” songs,
“wandering with immortals”

13. Selections from the Book of Songs
將仲子
將仲子兮，無踰我里
無折我樹杞，豈敢愛之
畏我父母，仲可懷也
父母之言，亦可畏也
將仲子兮，無踰我牆
無折我樹桑，豈敢愛之
畏我諸兄，仲可懷也
諸兄之言，亦可畏也
將仲子兮，無踰我園
無折我樹檀，豈敢愛之
人之多言，仲可懷也
人之多言，亦可畏也 鄭風
Jiang Zhongzi
Please Zhongzi
Do not climb into our hamlet
Do not break our willow tree
It’s not that I begrudge the willows
But I fear my father and mother
You, I would embrace
But my parents’ words—
Those I dread
Do not leap over our wall
Do not break our mulberry trees
It’s not that I begrudge the mulberries
But I fear my brothers
You, I would embrace…

14. Song of the Great Wind --Liu Bang (256-195 BC)
A great wind arose,
the clouds flew up and away;
My majesty now grown to the sea’s edges
I return to my old home.
Yet where shall I find brave men to guard
the four quarters?

15. Song of Gaixia (202BC): Farewell, Lady Yu!
My strength plucked up the hills
My might shadowed the world
But the times were against me
And Dapple runs no more
When Dapple runs no more,
What then can I do?
Ah! Yu, my Yu!
What will your fate be?

16. Northern Ballad: “Prince Langye Song”
I just bought a five-foot sword,
From the central pillar I hang it.
I stroke it three times a day—
Better by far than a maid of fifteen.
新買五尺刀，
懸著中梁柱。
一日三摩娑，
劇於十五女。

17. Southern Ballad: Ziye song….
攬裙未結帶，
約眉出前窗。
羅裳易飄颺，
小開罵春風。 … ….
I held my dress, not tying the sash;
I painted my brows and went to the windows.
My gauze skirt is easily whirled by the breeze—
If it opens a bit, just blame the spring wind.

18. Ancient Poems Seven Worthies of Bamboo Grove Tao Qian (Yuanming)
Ruan Ji
Xi (Ji) Kang
Tao Qian (Yuanming)
The most widely admired of the early Chinese poet
Creator of the Chinese Shangri-la—the Peach Blossom Spring
Characteristics of poems during this time
Sang personal feelings in response to events of one’s own life
Conveyed personal thoughts about human condition

19. Reflected on a variety of human sorrow or frailty
Frailty of human body
Fleeting life and ineluctable death
Appreciated the beauties of nature and lamented the fading of things and the transience of life
Paid attention to the signs of human mortality

20. Ruan Ji’s Poem 木槿榮丘墓， Hibiscus overgrows the grave mounds, 煌煌有光色。
白日頹林中，
翩翩零路側。
蟋蟀吟戶牖，
蟪蛄鳴荊棘。
Hibiscus overgrows the grave mounds,
Sparkling in lustrous shades.
But when the bright sun sinks in the forest,
Its petals fall to the roadside.
Crickets chirp by doors and windows,
Cicadas hum amidst the brambles.
Number 71 in a series of 82 poems titled “述懷” (writing on my mood and sentiment)

21. 蜉蝣玩三朝，
採採修羽翼。
衣裳為誰施，
俛仰自收拭？
生命幾何時，
慷慨各努力。
Mayflies play for only three mornings,
Yet they preen themselves, working their wings.
For whom do they display their finery,
Flying up and down, sprucing themselves up?
How short life is,
But everything, full or ardor, labors on.

22. Tao Yuanming Tao Yuanming (365-427)
A Confucian scholar and poet who was well-versed in Daoist philosophy
Served as a local officials but never held any post very long
Quit his post because he couldn't “for five pecks of rice bow before a village buffoon.” “Buffoon” was used to ridicule a local inspector, his superior.
Regarded as the “patriarch of the poets of reclusion”

23. Poems are plain, unadorned but deep and often philosophical; representative of “pastoral poetry”
Many of his poems are tinged with Daoist sentiment

24. Recurrent Themes of Tao’s Poetry
Life is fleeting, death is ineluctable
“The Three Sovereigns, the great sages of old
Where are they today?
Pengzu loved longevity,
Wanted to stay longer but it couldn’t be.
Old and young alike die a single death
Wise and foolish are not allotted different fates.”
(“Substance, Shadow, and spirit: spirit expounds”)
三皇大圣人，今复在何处？彭祖爱永年，欲留不得住。老少同一死，贤愚无复数。

25. Fleeting life, ineluctable death---
“They’re dead and gone, none of them left!
In one generation both court and city change. …
Man’s life is a phantom affair
And he returns at last to the empty void.”
(“Return to My Home, no.4”)
“As a boy in braids, I held to my own odd ways,
Then before I knew it I was over forty.
My body must go where the course of change takes it,
But the spirit within me will always be at peace.”
(“…we had a fire”)
The second line may be wrong.

26. Fleeting life…. “why do we value this body of ours?
Isn’t it because we have just one life?
And this one lifetime—how long will it last?
It shoots by like a bolt of lightning!”
(“Drinking Wine, no.3”)
“Or should I be like gentlemen of our time,
hearts filled with hopes that clash like ice and fire,
who, their hundred years ended, gone to tall graves,
find they have won themselves only empty names?”
(“poems without category, no.4”)

27. Fleeting life …. Long ago, men in search of fame and honor
fought valiantly with each other over this ground
but then their “hundred years” one morning ended,
And together they went home to the northern hills.
Now people have cut the pine and cypress on their graves;
only the tall mounds remain, dipping and rising side by side.
The graves wash away, no heirs to tend them;
And their wondering ghosts---where have they gone?
Wealth and glory---no doubt, worth prizing;
At the same time, a cause for sorrow and pain.
(“imitating the Old Poems, no. 4”)

28. by Ming Painter Wang Zhongyu
“Returning to My Home in the Country, no. 1” by Tao Qian ( )
In youth I couldn’t sing to the common tune
It was my nature to love the mountains and hills.
By mistake I got caught in the dusty snare
Went away once and stayed thirteen years.
The winging bird longs for its old woods;
The fish in the pond thinks of the deeps it once knew.
I have opened up some waste land by the southern fields
Stupid as ever, I’ve come home to the country
My house plot measures ten mu or more
First of six
Tao Yuanming
by Ming Painter Wang Zhongyu

29. A grass roof covering eight or nine spans
Elm and willow shade the back eaves,
Peach and damson ranged in front of the hall.
Dim dim, a village of distant neighbors;
drifting drifting, the smoke from settlements.
A dog barks in deep lanes,
Chickens call from tops of mulberry trees.
Around my door and courtyard, no dust and clutter,
In my empty rooms, leisure enough to spare.
After so long in that cage of mine,
I’ve come back to “things as they are.”

30. Poetry and Language
New generation of poets introduced the new system of tonal prosody
Poetic (prosodic) rules began to include “four tones”: level (píng 平), rising (shàng 上), parting (qù 去), entering(rù 入) and “eight prohibitions /faults”
Four tones were classified into two categories later: level (píng 平), oblique (zè 仄)
Interest in tonal patterns reflected the influences of Indian literature and Buddhism

31. Calligraphy Calligraphy rose to become the leading visual art.
Literati with great calligraphic skill could command respect.
The development of calligraphic art resulted in the emergence of new scripts: running-hand and cursive scripts, which simplified many Chinese characters.
Calligraphic theory tied the beauty/ugliness to human characters.

32. Calligraphic art became an important subject in literati’s discourse and calligraphic theory.
Questions regarding copies and forgeries were raised.
Fraud (wèi ) and Genuineness (zhēn) became criteria for evaluating calligraphic works.
Wang Xizhi ( )
Canonized as the “sage” of Chinese calligraphy
Calligraphic works were characterized in a model of the “running mode” script.

33. Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy

37. Prose Narrative
History—a boom in historical writing appeared: dynastic histories and local histories
Dynastic histories:
Chen Shou, Records of the Three Kingdoms
Shen Yue, Book of the Song Dynasty
Xiao Zixian, Book of the Southern Qi
Local histories:
Record of the States South of Mt. Hua
Hagiographies:
Biographies of Eminent Monks

38. Record of the Buddhist Temples of Luoyang Collections of Anecdotes
Temple records
Record of the Buddhist Temples of Luoyang
Collections of Anecdotes
Forest of Conversations
New Account of Tales of the World
“Anomaly account”/ “Account of Anomalies”.
Referred to as zhiguai, with the following characteristics:
Biographical
Strange/unusual objects
Bizarre and fantastic events:
Daoist fights Demon
Buddhist wonder-working—”return-to-life” stories
Buddhist magic

39. Writers fascinated with the anomalous created stories to teach moral lessons, despite their acknowledgement of Confucius’ advice:
“The master never talked of prodigies, feats of abnormal strength, natural disorders, or spirits”
Most writers were southerners who used the benefits of space expansion in the south to give free rein to their imagination about a fantastic, boundless nature, cosmos, and myriad creatures

40. Paintings Painting: Gu Kaizhi (or Ku K’ai-chih, ca.344-406)
The only work extant, “Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies,” reflects the Confucian content of the painting.
Known as specialized in “figure painting”.

41. Gu Kaizhi, “the rejection scene” 7 of London Admonishing scroll—”Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies”

42. Gu Kaizhi, “the toilette scene” 4 of London Admonishing scroll—”Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies”

43. Supporting the Confucian tradition and indigenous Chinese religion including Daoism
Allowing the construction of Buddhist temples and the spread of Buddhism
A Lady reflects on her duty. Scene 8 of the London Admonitions Scrolls

44. Gu Kaizhi’s Painting
《斫琴图》

45. Goddess of the River Luo
洛神赋图
Goddess of the River Luo