Tang History Research Articles

A Comparative Analysis of Foreign Perspectives on Tang Dynasty Narratives: Examining History of Imperial China and A History of China

History of Imperial China, published by Harvard University Press in the United States, and A History of China, published by Kodansha in Japan, are significant works on Chinese general history abroad. Due to differing perspectives and temporal and spatial contexts, these works exhibit distinct narrative styles and characteristics for the same historical period. This article compares the narrative variances between the Tang History Volume of History of Imperial China and A History of China, aiming to elucidate the underlying reasons for such disparities. Analysis reveals that the primary distinction between these two historical works lies in their overarching focus: while History of Imperial China adopts a global perspective, examining the evolution of China's imperial system, the volume China's Cosmopolitan Empire: The Tang Dynasty (History of Imperial China, Vol. III) delves into the shifts and adaptations of the Chinese imperial system during the Tang Dynasty. Conversely, each volume of A History of China boasts unique attributes, with Brilliant World Empires: The Sui and Tang Dynasties (A History of China, Vol. VI) adopting an East Asian perspective to scrutinize the Tang Dynasty's impact as a global empire. This article posits that the disparities in overall structure and specific content between the two works stem from several factors, including publishing objectives and target audiences, the scholarly traditions of Chinese history research in the United States and Japan, the historical relationship between respective countries and China during the Tang Dynasty, as well as the research fields and propositions of the authors.

The Niu–Li Factional Strife: The Origins of a Historiographical Fiction

Abstract The “Niu–Li Factional Strife,” named after Niu Sengru (779–847) and Li Deyu (787–850), is an enduring theme in Tang history. Based on accounts of personal animosity, a narrative evolved in which Niu and Li have become the ringleaders of two factions that drew in almost all high-profile literati of the ninth century. This article revises traditional and modern narratives of the Strife by first showing that the scattered and contradictory evidence in the earliest sources does not bear out the model of a decades-long struggle between two factions. Second, it demonstrates how “Niu and Li” first arose as an emblem of Tang weakness and a rallying cry for unity within the bureaucracy under the Northern Song two centuries later. Finally, it shows how modern historians picked up the loose ends and remoulded them into a struggle between different classes against the backdrop of factious politics in Republican China.

Did Men of Song Belt Out "Tang Ci"? An Explanation of the Poem "I Only Fear the Spring Breeze Will Chop Me Apart"

This essay was originally published in Chinese in the 1990s by the polymathic Hong Kong scholar Jao Tsung-i 饒宗頤 (1917–2018), and exemplifies a larger debate about the Tang origins and identity of the ci genre that unfolded between Jao and Ren Bantang 任半塘 (1897–1991) in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Jao emphasizes the continuity between the term ci 詞 and its referent, which may be either "lyrics" to a tune, generally speaking, or a specific ci-genre of poetry. He argues, moreover, that Tang ci, and in particular the poems of the Yunyao ji 雲謠集 (Cloud ballad collection) discovered in Dunhuang manuscripts, are an integral part of ci-genre history; poems made to tunes and called ci in the Tang are inseparable from the genre that flourished as a literati form in the Song, and ci poetics is thus rooted firmly in Tang history. Placing the vernacular Tang ci on equal footing with literati Song ci is corollary to a larger historiographic shift that wrests authority from transmitted texts (official histories, critical anthologies, elite textual traditions) as the sole legitimate historical sources, and empowers manuscript sources to rewrite history.

孫甫의 『唐史論斷』과 그 史論 : ‘治亂’의 권계

孫甫의 『唐史論斷』과 그 史論 : ‘治亂’의 권계

Golden Tablet of Wu Zetian (624–705)

One of the few items directly related to Empress Wu Zetian (Wu-hou; 624–705), “The Golden Tablet of Wu Zetian” (Wu Zetian jin jian; 武則天金簡) is extremely important for the study of this period in Chinese history for several reasons. Firstly, Wu Zetian was the only woman in the history of China to establish a new dynasty (Zhou; 周, 690–705) and obtain the male Emperor title Huangdi (皇帝). Naturally, this did not meet with approval among Confucian historians who authored the dynastic chronicles Jiu Tang shu (The Old Tang History; 舊唐書) and Xin Tang Shu (The New Tang History, 新唐書) – these being the main narrative sources for this period of Chinese history, informing our perceptions of it as a whole. The study of epigraphic data, and specifically The Golden Tablet, is therefore of particular interest to historians.

A Comparison of Narratives in the Old Tang History (舊唐書) and the New Tang History (新唐書) — Focusing on Narratives about Wu Zetian (武則天)

A Comparison of Narratives in the Old Tang History (舊唐書) and the New Tang History (新唐書) — Focusing on Narratives about Wu Zetian (武則天)

Emperor Wu Zhao and Her Pantheon of Devis, Divinities, and Dynastic Mothers by N. Harry Rothschild

Rothschild, N. Harry. Emperor Wu Zhao and Her Pantheon of Devis, Divinities, and Dynastic Mothers. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. Harry N. Rothschild's Emperor Wu Zhao and Her Pantheon of Devis, Divinities, and Dynastic Mothers provides useful sources for readers who are interested in Chinese History, Chinese Philosophy, Women's Studies, or Feminist Studies. With his specialization in Tang history and the study of Women and Gender in China, the author is well qualified to write in the field of Women's Studies during the Tang dynasty. His previous book Wu Zhao, China's Only Female Emperor demonstrates that he is an outstanding expert of the study of Emperor Wu Zhao. In his new book, the author uncovers a sacred connection between Wu Zhao and the culturally revered female ancestors, goddesses, and paragons from different religious traditions. He finds that this sacred connection strongly bolsters Wu Zhao's authority and leadership in the spiritual and political realms. From this book, readers who are interested in the history and development of Chinese thought will see how Wu Zhao broke the barrier of different religions in the Chinese tradition, deftly put Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism together, and created her discourse power and female worship by seeking agency from those female exemplars in various religious traditions. Readers who are interested in Women and Religion can find from this book how Wu Zhao glorified women's creativity, reproductive power, motherhood, leadership, and sovereignty through worshiping her female deities. Wu Zhao's relationship with her female deities, however, is not passive. It is strategic. In a historian's perspective, the author finds that Wu Zhao decided who could be placed in her pantheon and how long the female divinity could stay. The relationship of Wu Zhao and her female deities actually changes at the different stages in her career. Driven by political purposes, Wu Zhao's worship of particular goddesses always serves her needs. For instance, in the early period of her political career, Wu Zhao performed rituals for worshiping the First Sericulturist Leizu for four times. The author not only narrates the process of the ritual vividly, but also interprets Wu Zhao's motivation and purpose of performing the ritual in depth. Because the First Sericulturist Leizu symbolized the womanly vocation of silk weaving, Wu Zhao's worship of the silk goddess right after her tenure as empress helped her establish herself as a women's exemplar that reinforced women's traditional gender roles. …

In Memoriam: Elling O. Eide

IN MEMORIAM: ELLING O. EIDE It is with great sadness that we report the loss of a Life Member of the Society, Elling O. Eide, born August 22, 1935, who passed away during the night of January 2, 2012, after a long illness. With Elling’s death we have in reality lost many persons, for Elling’s life and work do not fit easily into a single category. He was first and foremost a fine scholar. The best example of his mature work is certainly the seminal article, ‘‘On Li Po,’’ published in 1973 in the symposium volume, Perspectives on the T’ang. The profound philological care evident in this article, including close attention to the poems’ aural effects, is matched by Elling’s own obvious and personal delight as a reader of Li Po. Both of these traits have been an inspiration for many members of this Society. His lovely book of translations, Poems by Li Po, printed elegantly to his exact specifications in a limited edition by the Anvil Press of Lexington, Kentucky in 1984, is at once a sumptuous example of printers’ art and a testament to his meticulous translation practice. This collects a small number of superb renderings that rank among the best translations of Tang poetry ever put into English. His contributions to the Tang Studies journal, including his genial excursuses on ‘‘The Great Heavenly Treasure Scandal’’ (TS 1 and 3) and his incomparable translation of Han Yu’s ‘‘Mao Ying zhuan’’ (TS 8–9), will forever display his unique gifts. It is a great tragedy that his later scholarly projects did not come to fruition, largely thwarted by legal and political issues of a local nature, and eventually physical problems as well, that came to plague him to a distressing degree. Elling was an indefatigable supporter of our Society. In our early years it was his abiding generosity that assured our continued existence and fostered our growth. His beneficence allowed us, most importantly, to publish and distribute our journal. It also permitted us to enjoy a lavish reception at our annual meetings. With regard to the latter, he was insistent that the event be ‘‘elegant’’ — that is, that it should reflect the sophistication and conviviality that he associated with gatherings of Tang literati. Although he himself was often unable to attend, he wanted to make sure that members and guests experienced a memorable gathering that would, he hoped, serve as homage to the Great Tang. He was an inquisitive and voracious researcher who enjoyed discussing all manner of topics with his friends. He was a philanthropist whose love of the study of languages and linguistics led him to endow a chair in Southeast US Native American languages at the University of Florida. He was a fancier of fine plants (especially citruses) and noble canines (especially foundlings). He was an engaging conversationalist and a good friend. Some of us will retain lasting memories of the long-distance midnight telephone calls he was wont to make from his home in Tang Studies, 30. 2–8, 2012 # T’ang Studies Society 2012 DOI: 10.1179/0737503412Z.0000000006 Sarasota, Florida, brimming with highly animated questions, pronouncements, anecdotes, and enthusiasm that often stretched into the early morning hours. We will all miss Elling. He was an extraordinary and unforgettable person, a true original. For those of us lucky enough to have known him, we feel the loss of an immensely generous and intellectually engaged friend. For all of us in the Society, we mourn his passing but also celebrate a life characterized by the love of learning and of the finer things to be found in both the present and the past. Michael R. Drompp Paul W. Kroll Victor H. Mair REMEMBERING ELLING EIDE There are a great many things that come to mind when remembering Elling Eide: his important scholarly contributions, his eloquently expressive translations, his unending intellectual curiosity and wide-ranging span of interests, his love for his dogs and rare plants, his late-night phone conversations on topics that had piqued his curiosity, his determination to affirm Inner Asia’s connections with Tang history and culture, his rapier-sharp sense of humor and sly grin, his...

Defining the Sovereign Body

REVIEW ARTICLE DEFINING THE SOVEREIGN BODY MICHAEL A. FULLER University of California, Irvine, USA JACK W. CHEN, The Poetics of Sovereignty: On Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty. Harvard-Yenching Monograph Series 71. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2010. xvii z 445 pp. Jack W. Chen’s Poetics of Sovereignty is an ambitious study of Tang Taizong’s corpus of texts and its roles in the political and cultural transformations of the Zhenguan era. Chen is ambitious on three levels. First, he makes strong claims for the role Taizong’s writings played in shaping his rule. Secondly, Chen examines texts that have been explored by major scholars of Tang history and literature writing in English and offers new interpretations within a distinctive analytic framework. Finally, he seeks to broaden this framework to include hermeneutic perspectives that make it accessible to scholars of European traditions. While Chen does not fully succeed in all aspects of this ambitious program, his accomplishments remain significant and are an important contribution to our thinking about the role of literary practice in middle-period Chinese culture and society. OVERVIEW Because the Poetics of Sovereignty is long and carefully argued, it perhaps is best first to present an overview of the book as a whole — with my comments along the way — and then turn briefly in conclusion to discuss a key issue — the sovereign body — that runs throughout the study. The structure of the monograph is essentially concentric rings that build layer upon layer of context before reaching Taizong’s ‘‘Imperial Palace Poems’’ in the final chapter. Each chapter in turn follows the same pattern: for each type of writing that is the focus of the chapter — whether it is Taizong’s prose discussions of the art of rulership in Chapter 2 or his fu on the Daming Palace in Chapter 6 — Chen presents an historic overview of discursive precedents and approaches within which to explore the significance of Taizong’s own work in the genre. Chen lays the conceptual groundwork in the introduction, where he sets out the book’s central thesis about the substantive role of cultural production in Taizong’s strategy for rule: It is my broad contention that for Taizong — and for the concept of sovereignty in general — the political sphere was inextricable from the sphere Tang Studies, 30. 70–85, 2012 # T’ang Studies Society 2012 DOI: 10.1179/0737503412Z.0000000004 of cultural production. To this end, I will argue that cultural production is not subordinate to the political, that it is not simply part of the ideological superstructure that serves to legitimate the true operations of power. (3) Chen is most interested not in culture generally but in the literary in particular: My focus here, however, will be on Taizong’s literary writings, specifically those that speak directly to the relationship between cultural form and sovereign power, as well as on the question of how the Tang negotiated dynastic identity through literary stylistics. For Taizong, literature was central to the establishment and consolidation of empire because it was in the space of literature that both the empire and the emperor could be imagined — that is, articulated and represented as images. (4) As noted above, these are strong claims for the role of the literary, and the burden of the study is to validate these claims. The first chapter discusses Taizong’s effort to shape the historiography of his reign. Raising this issue at the very beginning of the study allows Chen to present the basic historical facts as we know them concerning Taizong’s contributions to the founding of the Tang, the ‘‘Xuanwu Gate Incident,’’ and Taizong’s consolidation of rule during the Zhenguan reign period. He also discusses the revisionist trends in historiography that have restored Li Yuan’s role in the Taiyuan uprising and the founding of the dynasty. Chen draws in part upon Howard Wechsler’s chapter on the founding of the Tang in the Cambridge History of China and his account in Mirror to the Son of Heaven that describes Taizong’s efforts to interfere with his court historians’ work. In Chapter Two, ‘‘On Sovereignty and Representation,’’ Chen continues to explore Taizong’s efforts to control his...

The Screed of a Humbled Empire: TheXinTangshu's Prolegomena on the Türks

The Xin Tangshu (“New Tang [Dynasty] History”), a work compiled in large part by the Chinese Song dynasty (A.D. 960-1279) Neo-Confucian literatus Ouyang Xiu (1007-1072), contains some material on the Türks (called Tujue by the Chinese). In his prolegomena to this material, Ouyang Xiu launches into a shrill anti-nomad tirade that betrays his emotional excess and ideological prejudices against the Türks, Xiongnu, and other nomadic peoples who historically inhabited the steppe regions north of China. In addition, Ouyang's style of historical writing valued conveyance of moral principles over dispassionate description. The Xin Tangshu's historical coverage of the Türks is therefore quite suspect and should be used with caution. Other Chinese-language works on Tang history and the Türks (among them the Jiu Tangshu, or “Old Tang History” and others) are more reliable and detailed. But since the Xin Tangshu contains some information not found in other texts, it would be a mistake for Turkologists to neglect it altogether. Informed caution, not uninformed avoidance, is the correct approach to using the Xin Tangshu.

Letter from Professor Shi Nianhai, Vice-President, Tang History Society of China

Letter from Professor Shi Nianhai, Vice-President, Tang History Society of China

A List of Articles on Tang History Published in Periodicals in the People’s Republic of China during 1980 from (Tangshi yanjiu hui huikan 唐史析究會會刊 1[November 1980

A List of Articles on Tang History Published in Periodicals in the People’s Republic of China during 1980 from (Tangshi yanjiu hui huikan 唐史析究會會刊 1[November 1980

A List of Participants and Papers Read at the Inaugural Meeting of the Tang History Society (from Tangshi yanjiu hui huikan 唐史析究會會刊 1 [November 1980

A List of Participants and Papers Read at the Inaugural Meeting of the Tang History Society (from Tangshi yanjiu hui huikan 唐史析究會會刊 1 [November 1980

A List of Participants and Papers Read at the Inaugural Meeting of the Tang History Society (FromTangshi yanjiu hui huikan1[November 1980

A List of Participants and Papers Read at the Inaugural Meeting of the Tang History Society (From<i>Tangshi yanjiu hui huikan</i>1[November 1980

A List of Articles on Tang History Published in Periodicals in the People's Republic of China during 1980 from (Tangshi yanjiu hui huikan1[November 1980

A List of Articles on Tang History Published in Periodicals in the People's Republic of China during 1980 from (<i>Tangshi yanjiu hui huikan</i>1[November 1980

Letter from Professor Shi Nianhai, Vice-President, Tang History Society of China

Letter from Professor Shi Nianhai, Vice-President, Tang History Society of China