New Perspectives on Han, Wei, Six Dynasties Literature (Proposed for Presentation and Gift Verses)

Author: Mei Jialing
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-11-01
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 that time. The former preserves the trajectory of the progression and transformation of the humanistic world; the latter depicts the individual existential context of the contemporary moment and the multiple relational networks intertwined with it. The various literary characteristics of this period are thus vividly revealed in their formation, development, and mutual influence. This book takes 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 delves deeply into the gift exchange poetry, which has long been neglected.