The circulation of poetry in Tang dynasty China

This study exams the concrete practices involved in the composition and circulation of shi poetry during the Tang dynasty (619--907). Prior to printing, poetry was circulated either orally or by means of hand-copied manuscripts. Looking closely at a wide range of primary sources, I describe how what came to be known as "Tang poetry" circulated during the Tang itself and argue that Tang writers and their audiences had a more fluid notion of the poetic text than did later dynasties.; The first chapter demonstrates that orality continued to play an important role in poetic production and dissemination in the Tang and that claims of orality carried with them certain connotations of a direct and often moral response to given situations. In terms of circulation, the claim of orality implied speed, breadth, and popularity. I also briefly examine the role that memory and memorization played in Tang literary culture. The second chapter details the varied aspects of the written mode of Tang poetic composition and circulation. The use of writing implied its own set of values and an examination of copying practices shows a wide range of views on the flexibility of texts and the importance of fidelity to original sources. I also argue that the written aspects of Tang poetry remained closely entwined with oral practices throughout the Tang.; The third and fourth chapters dealt with the compilation of individual poetry collections during the Tang. Through examining Tang prefaces to these collections, with a focus on Bai Juyi's collections in the fourth chapter, I demonstrate that the evidence points not to a single practice, but to many.; The final chapter examines a few examples of the only remaining material links to the flourishing Tang manuscript culture, namely poetic texts from the caves at Dunhuang. By comparing a number of different manuscript copies of Wei Zhuang's narrative poem "Qinfu yin" and a few selected pieces by Gao Shi, I demonstrate that the wide range of variants one would expect to find given the practices detailed in the previous four chapters do indeed exist in actual Tang manuscripts.