Literary History Research Series -- New Perspectives on Han and Wei, Six Dynasties Literature -- On Posing and Gift-Giving Pieces

Author: Mei Jialing
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: "Imitation" refers to poetic and prose works completed through the methods of "imitation" or "proxy representation"; "Gift Exchange" (or "Gift Exchange Poetry") refers to poems used by scholars to communicate and interact with each other. Since the Han and Wei dynasties, these two types of literature have been the major creative works of scholars at the time. The former commemorates the trajectory of the humanistic world inheriting and transforming; the latter depicts the individual existence context of the contemporary moment and the multiple relational networks intertwined with it. The various literary features of this period are thus vividly revealed in their formation, development, and mutual influence. This book uses the "imitation" and "gift exchange" of the Han, Wei, and Six Dynasties as its basic material and attempts to propose several new concepts. It not only repositions the misunderstood phenomenon of imitation and proxy representation in literary history but also conducts an in-depth exploration of the gift exchange poetry, which has long been overlooked.