EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Premodern Literature 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 44 became a symbol which had to be opposed. And it was not until 30 years later in the Siku Quanshu when the treaty was finally published. The text was added as an appendix (xubian 续编 ) to the main publica- tion entitled Lülü Zhengyi 律吕正義 . In a preface the editors had to explain why such a Western text should be included into the Chinese Encyclopedia. Johann Mattheson published in the year 1713 one of his later most famous works “The newly-opened orchestra”, a very influential writing in western music theory. His writing contained a detailed listing of intervals, chords, dissonances and tones, whereas Pereira and Pedrini merely described the symbols for keys, pitch and rhythm. At least Pedrini, who also composed chamber music, should have been able to explain fundamental principles of western music. Therefore the xubian itself cannot be the complete writing of the Jesuits. The Chinese editors, who also struggled with the western music notation itself, probably censored it and put only the noncritical parts in the encyclopedia. This article tries to explore what could be incorporated into the encyclopedia and what reasons the editors had to deny the article in the first place and alter it afterwards. Why would the editors leave everything out, which would have to be regarded as the major content of the writing and published only basics of the western notation? Svensson EkströmMartin (University of Gothenburg) Ekphrastic Poetics in Early China: A Comparative Reading of Homer, Xunzi and Sima Xiangru Key words: Poetics, Hanfu, literary theory, comparative literature Ekphrasis, in the Western literary and rhetorical tradition, refers to a detailed literary description of a visual work of art. The three texts under scrutiny — the Shield of Achilles episode of the Iliad, Xunzi’s ‘ekphrastic’ analysis of Zhou Dynasty tombs in his “Discourse on Rituality,” and Sima Xiangru’s over- elaborate description of the imperial hunting park in “Shanglin fu”— all employ a similar set of rhetorical strategies but with different emphases. Areading of one in the light of the others will reveal new information about Chinese and Western theories of representation. Ekphrasis, as a representation of a representation, necessarily plays out on two separate but intercon- nected levels: there is the author’s representation of the work of art and the representation of things and events in the work of art itself. I shall first argue that these two representational levels frequently conflict rhetorically, and that Homer’s ekphrasis in this respect bears strong similarities to Xunzi’s but differs markedly from Sima Xiangru’s quasi- ekphrasis. This is not, I hypothesize, coincidental, since there is a radical break between Xunzi’s model of how language works and the comsological and ‘mimological’ model elaborated in the “Shencha minghao” by Sima Xiangru’s contemporary Dong Zhongshu. Secondly, ekphrasis typically involves an intricate shift of perspectives between that of the addresser and that of the addressee. The classicist Andrew Becker has demonstrated that Homer uses this technique to make his audience alternate between belief and disbelief in the fiction presented by the scenes Hephaestus has engraved onAchilles’ shield, and I argue that we find a similar ironical to-and-fro movement in Xunzi’s text, but configured very differently, and with different consequences. Again, and unsurprisingly, we find that Sima Xiangru’s fu lacks this characteristic altogether. Vinogrodskaya Veronika ( Institute of Far Eastern Studies RAS) You Meng Ying: an Interactive Project in Premodern Chinese Literature Key words: interactivity, premodern Chinese literature, aphoristic writings, pingdian, interlinear commentary, microblog, literati You Meng Ying 幽夢影 (Quiet Dream Shadows) is a collection of miscellaneous sayings of the early Qing writer Zhang Chao 張潮 (b. 1650) with the “critical comments” pingdian 評點 from his friends and fellow writers (125 participants). This unique piece of literature at the intersection of two genres, i. e. “notes” biji xiaopin 筆記小品 and “critical comments” pingdian 評點 , is analyzed as an interactive communication