EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Section 3 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 35 Cheng Yuyao (National University of Singapore) Rediscovered and Reformed: Xiao Youxian Poems in Post-Cao Tang Era Key words: Religious literature,Taoist poetry, Youxian poems, Yuefu, Ming poetry, XiaoYouxian poem 小游仙诗 is firstly used to name the quatrains written by the Tang poet Cao Tang 曹唐 . In Song dynasty, few poets wrote poems under this title. However, during the late Yuan, under the influence of Yang Weizheng 杨维桢 , who was a very famous literati as well as a Taoist, Xiao youxian poem regained the interest of literati group in southern China, though it was categorized as Yuefu 乐府 and Cao was totally ignored. The second renaissance began in the late of Ming dynasty, with the publication and distribution of Cao Tang’s collection. This time the Taoist poet Cao Tang was re-discovered and re-recognized. However, poets in Ming who wrote Xiao Youxian poems were no longer Taoist priest like Cao and Yang.Though youxian poems in pre-Tang and Tang dynasty have been fully researched, few scholars pay attention to the follow-up in the late imperial China. This article, focusing on the Xiao youxian poems in post-Tang era, argues that this kind of poem still existed after Cao’s death. Poets in Yuan and Ming dynasty wrote poems under this title, though they had different opinions on poetry and religious backgrounds. Also, the cultural circumstances which stimulated the revival of this kind of poem are not the same. While, In the late Yuan, literati wrote this kind of poem due to the social network they were involved in, in late Ming, we cannot ignore the roles publishing industry played. Besides, this paper also includes the scrutiny on the poems writ- ten by poets in different dynasties. I will also compare their poems with Cao Tang’s ones, to investigate to which extent they followed the tradition Cao’s works created and to which extent they adapted and innovated according to the cultural circumstance they lived in and their personal background. This article also aims to suggest a rethink of “religious literature” and to discuss why and how the Xiao Youxian, firstly as religious poetry, were integrated into common literature as the traits of Taoism became subordinate. Giele Enno (University of Heidelberg) Crow, Dove, Man, Woman: On Birds and Emotions in Early Chinese Sources Key words: avian apparitions, emotions, excavated manuscripts, Odes, symbolism The medieval encyclopedia Yiwen leiju likens the wailing of a lonely woman in her chamber to the cries of a crane. In the Odes, it is the melancholic melody of wild geese that conjurs up the longing of lovers. In the most famous early Chinese ballad a pair of peacocks seems to symbolize the roaming spirits of a would-be-couple who had committed suicide in the face of the odds against them. In an even earlier manuscript ballad, it is two crows nesting upon the roof of a governorʼs house that hints at harmony. In the Odes the bad omen that archetypically destroys this harmony is an owl, hated harbinger of bad luck. During the early empire, doves decorated the staffs of the aged, expressing the filial devotion and love of sons and daughters for their parents. Owls, crows, cranes, magpies, pigeons, chickens, peacocks, geese––in early Chinese sources these and other types of feathered creatures were fraught with symbolisms for the deepest human emotions. The paper introduces to some of these stories, in particular in excavated manuscripts, and tries to find reasons and reasonings for the symbolic power of these avian apparitions. Guo Jue (Barnard College) “Nothing Is More than Being Brothers”: Familial Relations as Seen in theWarring States Chu Legal Cases from Baoshan Tomb 2 Key words: Baoshan, commoners, familial relations, legal cases, violent deaths History rarely writes about unprivileged people. It is not surprising that narratives such as those in Zuozhuan or Guoyu recorded struggles and crises between and among the ruling lineages and ministerial families in abundance, but were almost completely silent about the familial relations of the common house- holds. The highly politicized nature and the didactic function of these narratives also render the elite familial