Reform in the Balance

229 pages. Temps de lecture estimé 2h52min.
Presents the intellectual milieu of mid-Tang China, particularly the conservative defense of literary pursuits and cultural tradition in the face of political and social uncertainty.Presents the intellectual milieu of mid-Tang China, particularly the conservative defense of literary pursuits and cultural tradition in the face of political and social uncertainty.Anthony DeBlasi offers a remapping of China's intellectual landscape during the late eighth and early ninth centuries. Recreating a world of intense philosophical debate, influenced by political uncertainty and social disorder, he reveals the logic behind the period's most popular philosophical positions.Reform in the Balance casts aside traditional evaluations of the predominance of the Ancient Style Movement (guwen) during this era. Building on recent scholarship and his own reading of Tang sources, the author argues that the period's dominant intellectual position advocated moderately conservative cultural reform designed to defend literary pursuits and the broader cultural tradition from more strident critics.Acknowledgments Prelude: The Changing World in Eighty-Century China Intellectual Culture in the Mid-Tang Mainstream Defining the Mid-Tang Mainstream Politics and Social Change in the Mid-Tang The Confucian Revival The Plan of This Study 1. The Literary Response to the Mid-Tang Crisis Literary Decline and the Roots of Disorder The Continuing Promise of Literary Pursuits The Nature of the Literary Man Completeness and Balance in Mainstream Thought The Evolution of the Literary Mainstream Conclusion 2. Literary Education in the Mid-Tang Mainstream Educational Assumptions in Medieval China Mid-Tang Literary Learning and the Tradition The Guiding Tradition Learning Broadly in the Mid-Tang Alternative Visions Conclusion 3. Literary Politics in the Mid-Tang The Elements of Mainstream Political Thought Bai Juyi and His Celin Liu Yuxi's Accomodative Political Philosophy Conclusion 4. Moral Choices in the Literary Mainstream Literature and the Self Models for the Moral Man Desire and Morality in Quan Deyu's Thought A Remedy for Desires Conclusion 5. The Guwen Alternative Guwen Literary Theory Guwen Approaches to Learning The Basis of Morality in Guwen Ideology The Politics of Individual Responsibility Conclusion Final Considerations The Vitality of Tang Literary Conservatism The Legacy of the Mainstream Notes Bibliography Index