Poems Contextualized: Occasional Verse at the Court of the Tang Emperor Zhongzong (r. 705--710)

The five-year reign of Emperor Zhongzong is overshadowed by the earlier reign of his formidable mother, Empress Wuˇ, and the subsequent political and cultural achievements during the rule of his nephew, Emperor Xuanzong. Zhongzong's time on the throne was marked by upheaval at court, where a few strong-willed women built elaborate villas and gardens while carving out their own positions of power in the face of opposition from civil officials. This was also a period of extraordinary state-sanctioned poetic production with over two hundred poems composed by Scholars of the Xiuwen guaˇn (Academy for Lettered Refinement) at over forty court celebrations from 708 to 710. This dissertation explores the relationship between some of this vast corpus and the situational and textual settings in which these poems have appeared through the centuries. The study begins with a textual history of this corpus, from documentary forms employed during the originating social events, to arrangement of these poems into series in later anthologies. Common to all stages of transmission is an attention to the connections between these poems and the social events at which they originated. Focus then shifts to the poets' tendency to reuse linguistic material from other poems composed on the same occasion, a feature highlighted by their arrangement in series. Such recurrent words, phrases, and allusions are evidence of a collaborative dynamic fostered by the social setting in which these poems were first composed. The meaning of such language often underwent surprising shifts during the course of the compositional event. These improvisational turns could in some instances imbue words with new semantic potential. The study closes with an examination of poems written to praise the powerful royal princesses and the villas they built. With no preexisting tradition on which to draw, the Xiuwen guaˇn poets honed some language and allusions into a highly evocative register through repeated use during two years of literary activity.