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  2. Kenneth G. Lieberthal and Richard H. Rogel Center for Chinese Studies
  3. The Matrix of Lyric Transformation: Poetic Modes and Self-Presentation in Early Chinese Pentasyllabic Poetry

The Matrix of Lyric Transformation: Poetic Modes and Self-Presentation in Early Chinese Pentasyllabic Poetry

Cai Zong-qi
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  • Overview

  • Contents

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Pentasyllabic poetry has been a focus of critical study since the appearance of the earliest works of Chinese literary criticism in the Six Dynasties period. Throughout the subsequent dynasties, traditional Chinese critics continued to examine pentasyllabic poetry as a leading poetic type and to compile various comprehensive anthologies of it.

The Matrix of Lyric Transformation enriches this tradition, using modern analytical methods to explore issues of self-expression and to trace the early formal, thematic, and generic developments of this poetic form. Beginning with a discussion of the Yüeh-fu and ku-shih genres of the Han period, Cai Zong-qi introdues the analytical framework of modes from Western literary criticism to show how the pentasyllabic poetry changed over time. He argues that changing practices of poetic composition effected a shift from a dramatic mode typical of folk compositions to a narrative mode and finally to lyric and symbolic modes developed in literati circles.

  • Cover
  • Title Page
  • Copyright
  • Dedication
  • Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • List of Abbreviations
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1 An Overview: Pentasyllabic Poetry from the First to the Third Century
  • Chapter 2 Han Yüeh-fu: Dramatic and Narrative Modes
  • Chapter 3 Han Ku-shih: The Emergence of the Lyrical Mode
  • Chapter 4 Ts’ao Chih: The Development of the Lyrical Mode
  • Chapter 5 Juan Chi: The Formation of the Symbolic Mode
  • Chapter 6 Synthesis: Poetic Modes and Changing Forms of Self-Presentation
  • Notes
  • Glossary
  • Bibliography
  • Index
Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program
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Published: 1997
Publisher: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license
ISBN(s)
  • 978-0-89264-111-6 (hardcover)
  • 978-0-472-90144-9 (open access)
  • 978-0-472-03805-3 (paper)
Series
  • Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies
Subject
  • Literary Studies:Poetry and Poetry Criticism
  • Asian Studies:China
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