Textual fluidity and fixity in early Chinese manuscript culture

Abstract

ABSTRACTInspired by the British bibliographer Donald F. McKenzie’s “sociology of texts,” this article explores the material form of early Chinese manuscripts and its impact on the production, circulation, reading habits, and the relationship between literary and administrative texts in the Warring State, Qin and early Han periods. Because the material format of early Chinese texts was scrolls (“juan”) of bamboo or wooden strips, the basic unit for circulation is often “pian,” a unit smaller than a “book.” The fluidity of early China texts was the consequence of the material media and the ways of transmission (both oral and written copying) in early China. The article also argues that the canonization process in early China tried to control the accuracy of textual production and transmission, such as double checking the copies, the increasing notion of organization of a book, the use of table of contents and preface, and character count at the end of a text. The article finally calls for the integration of the studies on excavated literary manuscripts on one hand, and administrative, personal documents, and technical manuals on the other.