In pursuit of the great peace : Han Dynasty classicism and the making of early medieval literati culture / Zhao Lu.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Zhao, Lu, 1985- author.

Contributor:

Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.

Series:

SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Classicism.

History.

China--Intellectual life--221 B.C.-960 A.D.

China.

Intellectual life.

Classicism--China--History.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xxi, 328 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, [2019]

Summary:

"Through an examination of the Great Peace (taiping), one of the first utopian visions in Chinese history, Zhao Lu describes the transformation of literati culture that occurred during the Han Dynasty. Driven by anxiety over losing the mandate of Heaven, the imperial court encouraged classicism in order to establish the Great Peace and follow Heaven's will. But instead of treating the literati as puppets of competing and imagined lineages, Zhao uses sociological methods to reconstruct their daily lives and to show how they created their own thought by adopting, modifying, and opposing the work of their contemporaries and predecessors. The literati who served as bureaucrats in the first century BCE gradually became classicists who depended on social networking as they traveled to study the classics. By the second century CE, classicism had dissolved in this traveling culture and the literari began to expand the corpus of knowledge beyond the accepted canon. Thus, far from being static, classicism in Han China was full of innovation, and ultimately gave birth to both literary writing and religious Daoism"-- Provided by publisher.

Notes:

Revision of author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Pennsylvania, 2013.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.

ISBN:

9781438474915

1438474911

OCLC:

1078730038