Self-Representation in Early Medieval Chinese Poetry: The Literary Selves of Ruan Ji, Tao Yuanming, Xie Lingyun, and Bao Zhao

Abstract

Self-Representation in Early Medieval Chinese Poetry describes the emergence of personalized poetic speakers in classical Chinese poetry. The dissertation shows how Ruan Ji 阮籍 (210¬–263), Tao Yuanming 陶淵明 (c. 365–427), Xie Lingyun 謝靈運 (385–433), and Bao Zhao 鮑照 (c. 414–466) crafted literary selves in their poems by considering the specific means each writer uses to manifest particular, though sometimes varying, conceptions of selfhood. These means include the representation of thoughts, actions, behaviors, characteristics and emotions, the representation of past experiences, often in the form of a life narrative, the representation of work and career, and the representation of important relationships and places. This project further considers the ways in which these writers developed distinctive authorial styles that constitute other, indirect, means of self-representation. Contextualizing these strategies in relation to the emerging culture of poetic authorship, the shifting of genre boundaries and purposes, and the development of new styles, modes, and forms of poetry, this dissertation argues that the self-representational dimension of early medieval Chinese poetry was an innovation that constituted a significant departure from previous poetic practice and established patterns that would be of great consequence for later classical poetry.