Poetry and Politics: The Life and Works of Juan Chi, A.D. 210- 263 (Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature and Institutions)

Poetry and Politics is the first full-length study in any language of the life and works of the Chinese poet and thinker, Juan Chi (AD 210-263). This book contains translations of all Juan Chi's important works, in verse and prose, his letters and all the historical accounts of his life. The reader is thus enabled, for the first time in a work of this kind, to see a Chinese writer in the round, in his works and in his setting. Juan Chi's attachment to traditional Confucian values kept him in the centre of political and social life, but eventually his disgust with the disloyalty and self-seeking he saw in Wei society made him turn away. He attempted in Taoism and in the pursuit of Taoist immortality to find the purity and permanence so lacking in the world, but without an ultimate commitment. Juan Chi was accused both in his lifetime and subsequently of being a Confucian hero and a Taoist iconoclast, and in him can be seen the contradictory intellectual and religious forces t hat were slowly bringing in the Chinese Middle Ages. Cover......Page 1 Frontmatter......Page 2 Contents......Page 6 Dedication......Page 7 Preface......Page 8 Chinese Foreword by Jao Tsung-i......Page 10 List of Wei Emperors......Page 12 Introduction......Page 14 1 - The early Wei emperors......Page 20 2 - Tung-p'ing......Page 47 3 - Assassination and retreat......Page 64 4 - Anti-ritualism......Page 86 5 - Confucian essays and a strange understanding of Chuang-tzu......Page 101 6 - Society and solitude......Page 123 7 - The immortal woman......Page 150 8 - The pursuit of immortality......Page 162 9 - Mysticism......Page 180 10 - The Great Man......Page 198 11 - Poetry......Page 240 Conclusion......Page 256 Notes......Page 260 Bibliography......Page 299 Finding list......Page 316 Index......Page 319 Donald Holzman. Foreword In Chinese. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. 286-302