Reform in the Balance : The Defense of Literary Culture in Mid-Tang China

by Deblasi, Anthony

• ISBN13: 9780791454350
• ISBN10: 0791454355
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-10-01
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

Anthony DeBlasi offers a remapping of China's intellectual landscape during the late-eighth and early-ninth centuries. Recreating a world of intense philosophical debate, influenced by political uncertainty and social disorder, he reveals the logic behind the period's most popular philosophical positions.

Reform in the Balance casts aside traditional evaluations of the predominance of the Ancient Style Movement (guwen) during this era. Building on recent scholarship and his own reading of Tang sources, the author argues that the period's dominant intellectual position advocated moderately conservative cultural reform designed to defend literary pursuits and the broader cultural tradition from more strident critics.

Author Biography

Anthony DeBlasi is Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Prelude: The Changing World in Eighth-Century China	1	(1)
Intellectual Culture in the Mid-Tang Mainstream	2	(1)
Defining the Mid-Tang Mainstream	3	(4)
Politics and Social Change in the Mid-Tang	7	(6)
The Confucian Revival	13	(3)
The Plan of This Study	16	(3)
The Literary Response to the Mid-Tang Crisis	19	(26)
Literary Decline and the Roots of Disorder	24	(2)
The Continuing Promise of Literary Pursuits	26	(4)
The Nature of the Literary Man	30	(4)
Completeness and Balance in Mainstream Thought	34	(5)
The Evolution of the Literary Mainstream	39	(4)
Conclusion	43	(2)
Literary Education in the Mid-Tang Mainstream	45	(18)
Educational Assumptions in Medieval China	46	(3)
Mid-Tang Literary Learning and the Tradition	49	(5)
The Guiding Tradition	54	(1)
Learning Broadly in the Mid-Tang	55	(4)
Alternative Visions	59	(2)
Conclusion	61	(2)
Literary Politics in the Mid-Tang	63	(30)
The Elements of Mainstream Political Thought	66	(12)
Bai Juyi and His Celin	78	(8)
Liu Yuxi's Accommodative Political Philosophy	86	(5)
Conclusion	91	(2)
Moral Choices in the Literary Mainstream	93	(22)
Literature and the Self	94	(1)
Models for the Moral Man	95	(7)
Desire and Morality in Quan Deyu's Thought	102	(7)
A Remedy for Desires	109	(3)
Conclusion	112	(3)
The Guwen Alternative	115	(32)
Guwen Literary Theory	117	(12)
Guwen Approaches to Learning	129	(1)
The Basis of Morality in Guwen Ideology	130	(7)
The Politics of Individual Responsibility	137	(7)
Conclusion	144	(3)
Final Considerations	147	(6)
The Vitality of Tang Literary Conservatism	148	(3)
The Legacy of the Mainstream	151	(2)
Notes	153	(42)
Bibliography	195	(12)
Index	207