Liu Tsung-y}}an and Intellectual Change in T'ang China, 773}}}819 [Paperback]

This study offers an interpretation of the origins of the T'ang-Sung intellectual tradition.This book is a comprehensive study of Liu Tsang-y?an (773819), a major literary and intellectual figure in Chinese history. The major aspects of Liu's life and work are explored: the social and cultural background of his family, his relationship with the ku-wen prose reforms and new canonical scholarship in the mid-T'ang, his social and political criticism, his views on Confucian doctrine, and his sentiments and reflections regarding the private realm of human life.This book is a comprehensive study of Liu Tsang-y?an (773819), a major literary and intellectual figure in Chinese history. The major aspects of Liu's life and work are explored: the social and cultural background of his family, his relationship with the ku-wen prose reforms and new canonical scholarship in the mid-T'ang, his social and political criticism, his views on Confucian doctrine, and his sentiments and reflections regarding the private realm of human life.This is the first comprehensive study in a Western language of Liu Tsung-yÜan, one of the finest prose stylists China has ever produced. Liu was not only a leading writer of T'ang China (618-906) but also an important thinker of his time. Examining every major aspect of his life and thought, the book also discusses the relationship of his thought to mid-T'ang intellectual changes and offers a new interpretation of the origins of a key intellectual watershed, the rise of Neo-Confucianism in the eleventh century.Acknowledgments; Maps; Chronology; Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Literati and thought in the early and middle T'ang; 2. Liu Tsung-y?an and the circumstances of Ch'ang-an; 3. 805: the abortive reform; 4. Declaration of principles: Tao and antiquity; 5. Heaven, the supernatural, and Tao; 6. Literary theory, canonical studies and beyond; 7. Sources of Liu's Confucian thought; 8, The private sphere; Conclusion; Glossary; Bibliography; IndelÓ,