The Halberd at Red Cliff
豆瓣
Jian’an and the Three Kingdoms
Xiaofei Tian
简介
The turn of the third century CE—known as the Jian’an era or Three Kingdoms period—holds double significance for the Chinese cultural tradition. Its writings laid the foundation of classical poetry and literary criticism. Its historical personages and events have also inspired works of poetry, fiction, drama, film, and art throughout Chinese history, including Internet fantasy literature today. There is a vast body of secondary literature on these two subjects individually, but very little on their interface.
The image of the Jian’an era, with its feasting, drinking, heroism, and literary panache, as well as intense male friendship, was to return time and again in the romanticized narrative of the Three Kingdoms. How did Jian’an bifurcate into two distinct nostalgias, one of which was the first paradigmatic embodiment of wen (literary graces, cultural patterning), and the other of wu (heroic martial virtue)? How did these largely segregated nostalgias negotiate with one another? And how is the predominantly male world of the Three Kingdoms appropriated by young women in contemporary China? The Halberd at Red Cliff investigates how these associations were closely related in their complex origins and then came to be divergent in their later metamorphoses.
contents
Part I. The plague: Chapter 1. Plague and poetry: rethinking Jian'an --
Introduction: looking back --
"Dead poets society" --
Gathering at Ye --
The poems --
The Jian'an that is unlike "Jian'an" --
Conclusion --
Chapter 2. Circling the tree thrice: lord, vassal, community --
Introduction: Wang Can's jade pendant --
Food and feast: The ideal feast --
Perspectives on food --
A man of taste --
Gifts, letters, exchange: Give and take --
Ownership and competition --
A dark exchange --
Conclusion --
Part II. The bronze bird: Chapter 3. The southern perspective: "fan writing" --
Introduction: the southern perspective --
The fan --
An account of Luoyang --
Bronze bird --
"Fan writing" --
The poetics of unified empire --
Conclusion --
Chapter 4. Terrace and tile: imagining a lost city --
Introduction: views of Ye --
Ascending the terrace: early writings --
Changed view from the terrace --
Irony and criticism: later variations --
Fragmentation: the bronze bird inkstone --
Conclusion --
Part III. The Red Cliff: Chapter 5. Restoring the broken halberd --
Introduction: the broken halberd --
Going local, getting personal --
The southern turn in the ninth century --
Owning Red Cliff --
Dongpo's Chibi --
A storyteller's vision --
The reel Red Cliff --
Conclusion --
Epilogue. The return of the repressed --
Appendix A. Cao Coa's "short song" --
Appendix B. Red Cliff poems --
Appendix C. A duel of wits across the river between the two army counselors.
