Mid-Tang Poetry and Stories

I read The End of the Chinese Middle Ages: Essays in Mid-Tang Literary Culture by Stephen Owen this weekend. I didn't realize that it was going to be more literary review than history but I really enjoyed it nonetheless. He looked at the years 791-825, and the different literary trends that were going on. There seemed to be some interesting themes that he raised, the issue of individualism in poetry, writing to upset people, taking the idea of a good poet never being appreciated in his time to a whole new level. He did a lot of poetry analysis, and thankfully, always included the Chinese versions of the poems. He definitely managed to give a good flavour for what, he admitted, some of the people were thinking about at the time. It was interesting as the later Tang from what I have read so far was a time of increasing commerce and the acceptance of merchants into society. In the poetry shown there was a much greater idea of ownership and need to possess than was shown in earlier works, particularly over nature.

He also did an analysis of two short stories that were popular at the time. Giving a full English translation of the stories in the appendices. The analysis of the stories were my favorite part of the book. I'd heard both stories before but never thought of them in the terms he described before which were very interesting. Both were romantic tales that ended poorly. The first was about a man who choose a beautiful woman companion and then abandoned her despite promises of eternal love, and then after agreeing to spend 8 years with her. She cursed him at her death, and he ended up turning into a hateful jealous man who killed many of his future wives and lovers as he suspected them of being untrue. The other story as Owen stated "unique" in Tang stories has such a strong reverberation to it that most people think it must be true. It's the story of a man who is teased by his friends for not participating in their orgies. So he goes and has a love affair with a distant maternal cousin, someone he could have married, however he doesn't marry her, they are separated, he ends up marrying someone else as does she. It's a simple outline and yet the story is far more complex. Both think they are in the right. Both try to get the audience, and the public, to be sympathetic to their cause. Both act like real people, being fickle, changing their minds, and at the same time being very sincere and passionate. It's easy to see why it has survived for so long.

A very nice little book. Different to what I was expecting. But literature studies are definitely a large part of understanding Chinese history so I'm very glad I read it. The more background the better!