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

by Deblasi, Anthony

• ISBN13: 9780791454367
• ISBN10: 0791454363
• Format: Paperback
• 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	p. vii
Prelude: The Changing World in Eighth-Century China	p. 1
Intellectual Culture in the Mid-Tang Mainstream	p. 2
Defining the Mid-Tang Mainstream	p. 3
Politics and Social Change in the Mid-Tang	p. 7
The Confucian Revival	p. 13
The Plan of This Study	p. 16
The Literary Response to the Mid-Tang Crisis	p. 19
Literary Decline and the Roots of Disorder	p. 24
The Continuing Promise of Literary Pursuits	p. 26
The Nature of the Literary Man	p. 30
Completeness and Balance in Mainstream Thought	p. 34
The Evolution of the Literary Mainstream	p. 39
Conclusion	p. 43
Literary Education in the Mid-Tang Mainstream	p. 45
Educational Assumptions in Medieval China	p. 46
Mid-Tang Literary Learning and the Tradition	p. 49
The Guiding Tradition	p. 54
Learning Broadly in the Mid-Tang	p. 55
Alternative Visions	p. 59
Conclusion	p. 61
Literary Politics in the Mid-Tang	p. 63
The Elements of Mainstream Political Thought	p. 66
Bai Juyi and His Celin	p. 78
Liu Yuxi's Accommodative Political Philosophy	p. 86
Conclusion	p. 91
Moral Choices in the Literary Mainstream	p. 93
Literature and the Self	p. 94
Models for the Moral Man	p. 95
Desire and Morality in Quan Deyu's Thought	p. 102
A Remedy for Desires	p. 109
Conclusion	p. 112
The Guwen Alternative	p. 115
Guwen Literary Theory	p. 117
Guwen Approaches to Learning	p. 129
The Basis of Morality in Guwen Ideology	p. 130
The Politics of Individual Responsibility	p. 137
Conclusion	p. 144
Final Considerations	p. 147
The Vitality of Tang Literary Conservatism	p. 148
The Legacy of the Mainstream	p. 151
Notes	p. 153
Bibliography	p. 195
Index	p. 207
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