by Chen Jack W
The Poetics of Sovereignty
Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series 71
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THE POETICS OF SOVEREIGNTY
On Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty
Jack W. Chen
Published by the Harvard University Asia Center
for the Harvard-Yenching Institute
Distributed by Harvard University Press
Cambridge (Massachusetts) and London 2010
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© 2010 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
Printed in the United States of America
The Harvard-Yenching Institute, founded in 1928 and headquartered at Harvard University, is a foundation dedicated to the advancement of higher education in the humanities and social sciences in East and Southeast Asia. The Institute supports advanced research at Harvard by faculty members of certain Asian universities and doctoral studies at Harvard and other universities by junior faculty at the same universities. It also supports East Asian studies at Harvard through contributions to the Harvard-Yenching Library and publication of the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies and books on premodern East Asian history and literature.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chen, Jack Wei.
The poetics of sovereignty : on Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty / Jack W. Chen.
p. cm. -- (Harvard-Yenching Institute monograph series ; 71)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-674-05608-4
1. Tang Taizong, Emperor of China, 597-649--Criticism and interpretation. 2. Chinese poetry--
Tang dynasty, 618-907.--History and criticism. 3. Sovereignty in literature. I. Title.
PL2677.T39Z55 2010
895.1'13--dc22
2010029504
Index by the author
Printed on acid-free paper
Last number below indicates year of this printing
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10
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this book is dedicated to my family
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Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Conventions xiv
Dynasties and Periods
xvi
Introduction
1
1 Reading the Reign of Tang Taizong (r. 626–649)
13
Li Shimin’s Early Years / 14
The Taiyuan Uprising and the Founding of the Tang / 16
The Xuanwu Gate Incident / 21
Problems of Historiography during Taizong’s Reign / 26
The “Good Government of the Zhenguan Reign” / 32
Taizong’s Victory over the Turks / 38
The End of Taizong’s Reign / 42
2 On Sovereignty and Representation
48
The True King and the Tyrant / 51
The Problem of Foundational Violence / 55
The Zhou Ideal and the Anxiety of Empire / 59
Qin Shihuang: Empire and Body / 63
Denying the Imperial Body / 72
“The Golden Mirror” / 81
“Model for the Emperor” / 91
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viii
Contents
3 The Reception of Literature in Tang Taizong’s Court
106
Defining Poetry in Early China / 107
The Mao “Great Preface” / 110
Cao Pi’s “Discourse on Literature” / 115
Pei Ziye’s Critique of Poetry / 118
Li E’s Petition on Rectifying Literature / 124
Taizong’s Academy of Literature / 131
The
Sui shu Preface to the “Biographies of Literary Men” / 134
Two Anecdotes about Taizong and Literature / 144
The
Jin shu and Its Literary Preface / 148
Taizong’s Essay on Lu Ji / 153
4 The Writing of Imperial Poetry in Medieval China
161
Han Gaozu (r. 206–195 bc) / 162
Han Wudi (r. 141–87 bc) / 165
Cao Pi or Wei Wendi (r. 220–26) / 170
Three Poet-Emperors of the South / 174
Zhou Mingdi (r. 557–60) / 179
Sui Yangdi (r. 604–17) / 182
Tang Taizong and the Northern Style / 190
A Hunting Poem / 198
Two Visits to Qingshan Palace / 201
5 The Significance of Court Poetry
210
Yongwu
Poetry, or “Poems on Things” / 214
A Poetic Genealogy of Snow / 218
Taizong
and
Yongwu Poetry / 228
Taizong on Snow / 233
The
Hanlin xueshi ji / 237
“Traveling Past the Battlefield Where I Crushed Xue Ju” / 241
Matching Poems by Zhangsun Wuji, Yang Shidao, Chu Suiliang,
and Xu Jingzong / 247
Shangguan Yi’s Matching Poem / 258
6 Palatial Form and the Rhapsodic Imagination
267
Sima Xiangru and the Poetry of Imperial Representation / 268
An Anecdote about Taizong and Rhapsodies / 273
The Early Discourse on Palaces / 275
Palaces and Tyranny / 280
Qin Shihuang and Palatial Ideology / 284
The Question of the Palace during the Han / 287
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Contents
ix
Taizong and Palatial Ideology / 292
The Rhapsody on Daming Palace / 296
7 On “The Imperial Capital Poems”: Ritual Sovereignty and
311
Imperial Askēsis
Ritual and Territorialization / 313
Sui Yangdi’s Pleasure Excursions / 318
The Feng and Shan Sacrifices during Taizong’s Reign / 328
The Final Refusal of the Feng and Shan / 343
“The Imperial Capital Poems” / 352
Conclusion
377
Reference Matter
Bibliography
387
Index
425
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Acknowledgments
I would first like to acknowledge my doctoral adviser Stephen Owen, who
taught me many things in my time at Harvard, not least of which was how
to read Chinese poetry. I am grateful for having had the
chance to study
with him and for his continuing generosity and guidance. I also owe much
to my other advisers, Marc Shell and Michael Puett, whose insights and
comments helped shape my thinking on the topic of sovereignty. Special
thanks are due to Wilt Idema and Xiaofei Tian, who have served as unof-
ficial mentors both during graduate school and afterwards.
In
2002–2003, I spent a fruitful year at the University of California,
Berkeley, where I began to rethink the project and to convert it from the
dissertation that it had been. I thank Liu Xin, who was director of the
Center for Chinese Studies at the time, for his invitation to spend a year
there as a postdoctoral fellow and for allowing me to present an early ver-
sion of the fourth chapter in the Center’s lecture series. Prof. Liu also
kindly invited me to participate in a conference entitled “The Question of
Violence,” where I presented on material that has found its way into the
first chapter. Robert Ashmore, Michael Nylan, and Stephen West were
kind and generous hosts.
Portions of the book were written while I was teaching at Wellesley
College from 2003 to 2006. Encouragement was warmly and unstintingly
provided by Ann Huss, Jens Kruse, Kathryn Lynch, Larry Rosenwald, Liu
Heping, Andrew Shennan, and Eve Zimmerman. I would also like to
thank the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures.
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xii
Acknowledgments
My friends and colleagues in the Department of Asian Languages and
Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles, were unfailingly
supportive as the book neared completion, offering advice both on intel-
lectual matters and on institutional ones. I owe special debts to John
Duncan and David Schaberg. I would also like to acknowledge William
Bodiford, Robert Buswell, Torquil Duthie, Ted Huters, Michael Marra,
Gregory Schopen, Shu-mei Shih, and Tim Tangherlini for their friend-
ship and advice.
David Knechtges and Paul Kroll, who read and commented on the
manuscript for the Harvard University Asia Center, have been extraordi-
narily generous to me, taking time that could have been spent more pro-
ductively on their own scholarship. I hope that the resulting book reflects
their high standards.
Atsuko Sakaki invited me to give a talk at the University of Toronto,
where I presented material on imperial bodies that would become part of
the second chapter. Wendy Swartz organized an Association of Asian
Studies panel at which I presented portions of the sixth chapter; she also
provided an annual forum at Columbia University for the discussion of
medieval China, where I presented part of the fifth chapter. Cheng Yu-yu
and the Department of Chinese Literature at National Taiwan Univer-
sity hosted me for a pleasant week, in which I presented a synopsis of the
last chapter. Robert Ashmore and Paula Varsano served as discussants at
various points, providing much valuable insight and correction. Christo-
pher Dakin and Meow Hui Goh gave me valuable advice on poetic rhyme
categories and rhyme transcription conventions. Robert Harrist, Jr. kind-
ly shared with me his work on Taizong and calligraphy. Sarah Allen, Ste-
ven Carter, David Graff, Christoph Harbsmeier, Robert Hymes, Indra
Levy, Mark Edward Lewis, Li Wai-yee, Lu Yang, Michael Nylan, Chris-
topher Nugent, and Stephen Platt have all made helpful comments on
chapters and portions of the manuscript. My graduate students at UCLA
have provided support and help, particularly in the last stages of the proj-
ect. I would like to single out Matthew Cochran and Nathaniel Isaacson
for special thanks.
Without family, none of this would have been possible. I would like to
thank my parents, Sze-chin and Jai-Hwen Chen, and my grandparents for
their constant love and support, as well as my brother Thomas and sister-
in-law Lesley. My parents-in-law, Lynn and Bobette, have been unfail-
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Acknowledgments
xiii
ingly thoughtful and loving. Finally, I cannot express how important my
wife Natasha and my son Damien have been to me—they have been the
ground that has anchored me throughout the prolonged abstractions of
reading and writing. While they know that they have my love, they have
not always had my time. I hope they will forgive my preoccupations, ne-
glect, and absent-mindedness over the last several years. This book is dedi-
cated to them.
Of course, no thanks are owed to our cats, Mieke and Jasper, who have
tried to impede progress at all stages of the project.
J. W. C.
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Conventions
For biographical dates, I have generally relied on those given in Zheng
Tianting 鄭天挺 and Tan Qixiang 譚其驤, gen. eds., Zhongguo lishi da-
cidian 中 國 歷 史 大 辭 典 , (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe,
1983–2000). For dynastic dates and for the dates of the completion of dy-
nastic histories, I follow Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A Man-
ual, rev. ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000).
Western Zhou reign dates follow those given in Edward L. Shaughnessy,
Sources of Western Zhou History (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1992).
For official titles, I have used (with some modifications) Charles O.
Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1985). For information on Han and pre-Han
texts, including their textual histories and attributions, I have consulted
Michael Loewe, ed., Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide (Berkeley:
The Society for the Study of Early China, University of California, Berkeley,
1993).
For phonetic transcriptions of medieval Chinese, I employ a simplified
version of the system proposed in David Prager Branner, “A Neutral Tran-
scription System for Teaching Medieval Chinese,” T’ang Studies 17 (1999):
1–111; and utilized in “Yīntōng: Chinese Phonological Database”音通:聲
韻學數據庫, online at http://yintong.americanorientalsociety.org/public.
Unless indicated otherwise, I discuss rhyme-categories in terms of
the Song dynasty Guangyun 廣韻 ( Extensive [Articulation of] Rhymes), relying on the modern editions prepared by Zhou Zumo 周祖謨, ed.,
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Conventions
xv
Guangyun jiaoben: fu jiaokanji 廣韻校本：附校勘記, (Beijing: Zhong-
hua shuju, 1960); and Yu Naiyong 余迺永, ed. and annot., Xinjiao huzhu
Songben Guangyun 新校互註宋本廣韻 (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chu-
banshe, 2000).
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Dynasties and Periods
Shang
ca. 1600–1045 bc
Zhou
1045–256
Western
Zhou
1045–771
Eastern
Zhou
770–256
Spring and Autumn
770–476
Warring
States
475–221
Qin
221–206
Han
202 bc–ad 220
Western
Han
202 bc–ad 23
Xin
ad 9–23
Eastern
Han
25–220
Wei
220–265
Jin
265–420
Western
Jin
265–316
Eastern
Jin
317–420
Southern Dynasties
420–589
Liu Song
420–579
Qi
479–502
Liang
502–557
Chen
557–589
Northern Dynasties