"Rethinking the Sinosphere signifies a landmark in the study of cultural interaction in East Asia in two senses. First, it tells the story that literary Sinitic has served as the platform of personal and historical connections in East Asia. Through several case studies, the book affirms that the Chinese characters are the common dominator of the Sinosphere. Secondly, it is a well-knitted tapestry in which the personal, historical, poetic and aesthetic dimensions of cultural interaction in East Asia interweave with one another. This book is a most important source for anyone interested in East Asian studies." —Chun-chieh Huang, Distinguished Chair Professor, National Taiwan University

“Rethinking the Sinosphere is pioneering research. This book is an excellent and inspiring contribution to the understudied topic of East Asian literature and culture in historical perspective, overcoming the positioning of China at the center of the region. Rejecting the anachronistic center-periphery and nation-state division perspectives, the authors provide ample data for their position and offer a view of writings in literary Sinitic as ‘universal markers of civilization not necessarily particular to China.’ Using a variety of approaches and material, the individual chapters examine the travel of texts and ideas and about their transformation across the space of East Asia, including their local identities and regional commonalities. In addition to its obvious appeal to scholars, this book should be well used by students of the different languages and traditions of East Asia in the study of the Sinosphere.” —Olga Lomová, Professor of Sinology, Charles University

"This volume provides an extremely valuable and multifaceted contribution to our understanding of premodern and even early modern China and its neighbors in their shared regional East Asian context. While the primary audiences doubtlessly are scholars and students of East Asian languages and cultural history, I imagine that the literate public might benefit from reading this as well." —Jeffrey L. Richey, Professor and Chair, Department Asian Studies, Berea College

"It is not good enough to simply acknowledge that the Sinitic cultural repertoire was adapted in diverse ways, however useful it is for putting aside dated assumptions and national biases. The urgency is to make sense of how it was used. The essays in this volume generally offer compelling and distinctive examples in this vein. ... they elicit important questions and highlight the potential for further inquiry." —Journal of Asian Humanities

"Erudite and accessible … based on years of careful research and a clear cross-cultural and transnational vision. Reading them together brings out a wonderfully diverse picture of the multidirectional travels of texts and images, and people and ideas, by means of ‘literary Sinitic’ and throughout the ‘Sinosphere.’ … break[s] new ground in the studies of the ‘Sinosphere’ by problematizing the very concept of ‘literary Sinitic’ and the ‘Sinosphere.’ Regardless of how imperfect these concepts may be as carriers and place-holders of a range of complex, dynamic, and divergent interactions and exchanges, the way they were enacted, interrogated, and wrestled with throughout these two volumes convinced this reviewer that the editors and contributors are making a major contribution to activate and decenter the ‘Sinosphere,’ with a forceful emphasis on the power and creativity of local agents in making ‘literary Sinitic’ their own, and on their own terms." —China Review International

Nanxiu Qian is Professor of Chinese Literature at Rice University. She holds a PhD from Yale University and an MA from Nanjing University. Dr. Qian’s previous publications include Politics, Poetics, and Gender in Late Qing China: Xue Shaohui and the Era of Reform, Spirit and Self in Medieval China: The Shih-shuo hsin-yü and Its Legacy, and several edited and coedited volumes. She has published in both English and Chinese journals such as NAN NÜ: Men, Women and Gender in Early and Imperial China, Modern China, the Journal of Asian Studies, and the Wenxue pinglun.

About Richard J. Smith

Richard J. Smith is George and Nancy Rupp Professor of Humanities emeritus, a Baker Institute Scholar, and a Research Professor at the Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University. He holds a PhD from the University of California, Davis, and has published nine single-authored books—the most recent of which is The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture. He has also coedited or coauthored six volumes—the most recent of which (coedited with Nanxiu Qian and Grace Fong) is Different Worlds of Discourse: Transformations of Gender and Genre in Late Qing and Early Republican China.

About Bowei Zhang

Bowei Zhang is Professor of Chinese Literature at Nanjing University. He holds a PhD, an MA, and a BA from Nanjing University. Dr. Zhang’s publications (all in Chinese) include Guidelines to the Study of Literary Sinitic Texts, Reading the Sinosphere as a Methodology for Studying the Sinosphere, Chan Buddhism and Poetics, A Preliminary Study of the Eastward Transmission of Qing Poetic Remarks, A Study of the Methodology of Classical Chinese Literary Criticism, A Study of Classical Chinese Poetics, and numerous others. He has published in a great many East Asian journals and has been the editor-in-chief of the distinguished Chinese journal Study on Literary Sinitic Texts.

About the Contributors

Sonja Arntzen is Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto.

Hong Cao is a Professor of Chinese Literature at Nanjing University.

Matthew Fraleigh is an Associate Professor of East Asian Literature and Culture at Brandeis University.

Lo-fen I is an Associate Professor in the School of Humanities at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Jongmook Lee is a Professor of Korean Language and Literature at Seoul National University.

Michael McCarty is an Assistant Professor of History at Salisbury University.

Peipei Qiu is the Louise Boyd Dale and Alfred Lichtenstein Chair Professor at Vassar College.

Ivo Smits is Professor of Arts and Cultures of Japan at Leiden University.

Keith Weller Taylor is Professor of Sino-Vietnamese Studies in the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University.

John Timothy Wixted is Emeritus Professor of Chinese and Japanese at Arizona State University.

List of Tables

List of Figures

Preface

A Comparative Chronology of the Sinosphere

Introduction (Richard J. Smith)

Part One: Literary Interactions in the Sinosphere

Chapter 1: Establishing Friendships between Competing Civilizations: Exchange of Chinese Poetry in East Asia in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Jongmook Lee)

Chapter 2: “Heaven Revealed Its Hidden Mercy”: Chinese Allusions as Moral Judgment in the Medieval Japanese Narrative Record of Surprising Events (Michael McCarty)

Chapter 3: Chinese Community of the Imagination for the Japanese Zen Monk Ikkyu Sojun (1394–1481) (Sonja Arntzen)

Chapter 4: From Kuang to Fukyo: Eccentric Personas in Chinese and Japanese Poetry (Peipei Qiu)

Chapter 5: Emulation of Tao Yuanming’s (ca. 365–427) Rhapsody “The Return” and Choson Scholars’ Neo-Confucian Imagination (Hong Cao; translated and edited by Nanxiu Qian)

Part Two: Poetics and Aesthetics

Chapter 6: Singing the Informal: Priest Renzen, Mudaishi, and a World outside the Classical Court (Ivo Smits)

Chapter 7: The East Asian Cultural Image: A Study on “Eight Views of Xiao Xiang” (Lo-fen I)

Chapter 8: Taking Stock of a Tradition: Early Efforts to Write the History of Sinitic Poetry Expression in Japan (Matthew Fraleigh)

Chapter 9: Kanshi as “Chinese Language”: The Case of Mori Ogai (1862–1922) (John Timothy Wixted)

Chapter 10: Developing Vernacular: New Forms of Vietnamese Poetry in the Sixteenth to Seventeenth centuries (K. W. Taylor)

Index

About the Contributors

About the Editors