The Embodied Text (original) (raw)
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Even more than other recent archaeological fi nds from East Asia, ancient Chinese manuscripts have ignited strong academic excitement. While much attention is focused on the philosophical interpretation of these texts, we are only beginning to explore their social circumstances and modes of production, to relate them to other tomb artifacts alongside which they were buried, and to explain their very physical appearance. According to a not uncommon view, texts with a reception history-e.g., the classics, but also a broad range of recently discovered technical writings that were handed down across generations-represent lineages of writings, with each manuscript being a copy of an earlier one. Yet on closer examination, graphic idiosyncrasies suggest the mutual independence of various written versions of the same text and thus a local, individual mode of textual production where scribes enjoyed considerable freedom in choos ing particular characters to write the intended words. In their written form, texts with a transmission history-among them works of canonical status-do thus not seem fundamentally different from occasional writings without such a history. Compared to administrative writings, for which certain written blueprints existed, they were indeed less, not more, defi ned in their graphic form. This is not surprising if we consider that texts to be transmitted were also texts to be committed to memory; their modes of storage and com mu ni ca tion of knowledge did not entirely depend on the writing system. One necessary step towards the discussion of such manuscripts, and ultimately to their function and nature, is the systematic linguistic analysis of their textual variants. The present paper outlines the methodological preliminaries towards such an analysis and suggests which scenarios of early Chinese manuscript production are plausible according to our present evidence, and which others are not.
Matthias Richter Embodied Text review
In 2000, Matthias Richter completed a doctoral dissertation entitled "Guan ren: Texte der altchinesischen Literatur zur Charakterkunde und Beamtenrekrutierung" (Guan ren: Texts of ancient Chinese literature concerning the art of character and the recruiting of officials), in which he studied an early Chinese essay variously entitled "Wen wang Guan ren" (Officials of King Wen) or simply "Guan ren"
The one text in the many: separate and composite readings of an Early Chinese historical manuscript
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2019
The manuscript carrying the title Zhuangwang ji Cheng 莊王既成, from the Shanghai Museum corpus of bamboo slips, bears two related anecdotes concerning the early Chinese monarch King Zhuang of Chu. In this article, we translate both stories and offer interpretations of them both as individual texts and as a composite narrative, situating both readings in a context of intertextual references based on shared cultural memory. Approaching the anecdotes together, we argue, generates an additional layer of meaning, yielding both a deep sense of dramatic irony and a critique of the value of foreknowledge – and, by extension, of the explanatory value of historiography. In detailing how this layer of meaning is generated, we explore the range of reading experiences and approaches to understanding the past enabled by combining separate but related textual units, a prevalent mode of composition and consumption in the manuscript culture of Warring States China.
Bamboo & Silk, 2019
Volume 6 of Qinghua daxue cang Zhanguo zhujian, published in 2016, includes two copies of a text entitled by the editors *Zheng Wen Gong wen Tai Bo 鄭文公問太伯 (Duke Wen of Zheng Asks Tai Bo). The two copies of this single text are extremely similar, both in terms of content and in terms of calligraphy, but also display certain occasional differences and one systematic difference in the positioning of the "city" (yi 邑) signific (bushou 部首) within characters. This leads the editors to argue that they "were copied by a single scribe on the basis of two separate source texts." This is the first time we have seen such evidence of scribal practice, and it is crucial for the question of manuscript production in early China. In the present study, I first present a codicological description of these two manuscript versions of *Zheng Wen Gong wen Tai Bo, followed by a full translation of their text. Then I consider their implications for the question of manuscript production in ancient China.
T'oung Pao, 2018
The material features of the Shanghai Museum *Yong yue 用曰 and Zhangjiashan Yinshu 引書 manuscripts structure their texts in ways different from each other, inviting questions on production methods and the influence of form on the reception of content. I provide an overview of developments in manuscript formatting, noting a gradual development towards increased visual formatting in manuscripts over time. The article examines what the use of codicological features such as manuscript materiality, layout, and punctuation reveal about manuscript production and how these translate to the reception and understanding of text. It analyzes how such features in the two manuscripts contribute to a sense of textual unity, order their respective contents, and facilitate different modes of reading such as vocalization, memorization, browsing, and linear reading. I propose that developments in manuscript formatting increasingly facilitated visually clearer, context-independent, and text-centered modes of reading, allowing for a dynamic involvement of readers with the modes of engagement structurally favored by the manuscripts. This, in turn, possibly reveals broader shifts towards the formation of readership in Early China. 上海博物館所藏的《用曰》寫本以及張家山漢簡中的《引書》寫本在物質屬性層 面上對其各自文本的結構安排互不相同，從而引發了與其生產方式以及形式如何 影響內容的接收所相關的問題。在本文中，作者提供一個有關寫本格式發展的綜 覽，并指出其中逐漸出現的對寫本的視覺格式安排的愈發重視。同時，本文考察 寫本的“形制和形態” (codicological) 特征，即寫本的物質性、格式佈局、以及 標識符號能為我們揭示出什麼樣的有關其生產的信息，以及這些信息如何轉化成 讀者對其文本內容的接收和理解。本文逐一分析上述兩個寫本的該類特征如何有 效地促成了一種文本的一致性，如何安排各自的文本內容，并使得不同的閱讀模 式更為便利，比如發聲閱讀 (vocalization) ，記憶性閱讀 (memorization) ，瀏覽 性閱讀 (browsing) 以及線性 (linear) 閱讀。本文認為寫本的格式發展促進了視覺 上更為清晰，語境獨立，且以文本為中心的閱讀模式，從而也使得讀者與寫本之 間不同的交互模式 (modes of engagement) 成為可能。寫本這種物質性的發展或 許也凸顯出早期中國閱讀習慣的轉變。 Full paper: http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/15685322-10412p02
The essays in this conference volume analyze various ways in which knowledge was transmitted, transformed, and even effaced after print became a popular tool for transmitting knowledge in China. The editors have divided the essays into four parts. In part 1, "Change," Ronald Egan discusses changing perceptions of books and learning in the Song dynasty, and Joseph McDermott describes book collecting and its goals in Jiangxi. Part 2 deals with "Quantification," and has chapters by Joseph Dennis on local gazetteers, by Shih-shan Susan Huang on early Buddhist illustrated prints from Hangzhou, and by Lucille Chia on the uses of print in early Quanzhen Daoism (and hence, refreshingly, on printing in northern China). Part 3, "Choice," contains a chapter by TJ Hinrichs on governmental medical texts, and one by Hilde De Weerdt on various possible readings of a Song historical atlas. In the fourth and last part, "Control," Charles Hartman documents a shift in three thirteenth-century political works from an annalistic documentary format (biannian) to a pedagogical, and partisan, commentary format (gangmu), and Anne McLaren investigates the vicissitudes of historical writings on the Three Kingdoms (what Hartman calls "pedagogical commentary," McLaren names "motivated history," a marvelous term that warrants wider adoption). Each of the chapters is valuable in its own right, but they acquire even greater value by their juxtaposition, as pointed out in the extremely valuable introduction by Lucille Chia and Hilde De Weerdt, which places the papers in an overall context. The book ends with an equally valuable afterword by Ann Blair, in which this historian of Europe uses the Chinese cases presented in the book to rethink Western printing, pointing largely to commonalities. As for the chronological range of this book, Chia and De Weerdt point out that the tenth century was the first golden age of Chinese printing, but that this flowering occurred only some two and a half centuries after all preconditions for print had been in place. These chapters make significant contributions in fleshing out the details of this first blossoming, even if precise quantification of the changes remains difficult. In this review, rather than rephrasing the content of the individual chapters, I would like to touch upon some general issues that emerge from them. First, many authors stress the continuing importance of manuscripts alongside print. This point, not too long ago forcefully introduced by McDermott, risks becoming a platitude. To advance the issue, one should also ask to what extent the place of manuscripts changed after print became dominant. Could a work achieve authoritative status if it remained in manuscript only? In this context, Dennis's observation that the printing of gazetteers was normative by the Southern Song, even though in terms of sheer numbers more gazetteers may have survived in manuscript than in print, is very suggestive. A second theme is the question of how to deal with the loss of works. The essays treat this matter mainly as a loss of "titles," thereby creating an unwarranted bias toward the loss of books with definite titles, while possibly neglecting
The Journal of Asian Studies, 2012
The essays in this conference volume analyze various ways in which knowledge was transmitted, transformed, and even effaced after print became a popular tool for transmitting knowledge in China. The editors have divided the essays into four parts. In part 1, "Change," Ronald Egan discusses changing perceptions of books and learning in the Song dynasty, and Joseph McDermott describes book collecting and its goals in Jiangxi. Part 2 deals with "Quantification," and has chapters by Joseph Dennis on local gazetteers, by Shih-shan Susan Huang on early Buddhist illustrated prints from Hangzhou, and by Lucille Chia on the uses of print in early Quanzhen Daoism (and hence, refreshingly, on printing in northern China). Part 3, "Choice," contains a chapter by TJ Hinrichs on governmental medical texts, and one by Hilde De Weerdt on various possible readings of a Song historical atlas. In the fourth and last part, "Control," Charles Hartman documents a shift in three thirteenth-century political works from an annalistic documentary format (biannian) to a pedagogical, and partisan, commentary format (gangmu), and Anne McLaren investigates the vicissitudes of historical writings on the Three Kingdoms (what Hartman calls "pedagogical commentary," McLaren names "motivated history," a marvelous term that warrants wider adoption). Each of the chapters is valuable in its own right, but they acquire even greater value by their juxtaposition, as pointed out in the extremely valuable introduction by Lucille Chia and Hilde De Weerdt, which places the papers in an overall context. The book ends with an equally valuable afterword by Ann Blair, in which this historian of Europe uses the Chinese cases presented in the book to rethink Western printing, pointing largely to commonalities. As for the chronological range of this book, Chia and De Weerdt point out that the tenth century was the first golden age of Chinese printing, but that this flowering occurred only some two and a half centuries after all preconditions for print had been in place. These chapters make significant contributions in fleshing out the details of this first blossoming, even if precise quantification of the changes remains difficult. In this review, rather than rephrasing the content of the individual chapters, I would like to touch upon some general issues that emerge from them. First, many authors stress the continuing importance of manuscripts alongside print. This point, not too long ago forcefully introduced by McDermott, risks becoming a platitude. To advance the issue, one should also ask to what extent the place of manuscripts changed after print became dominant. Could a work achieve authoritative status if it remained in manuscript only? In this context, Dennis's observation that the printing of gazetteers was normative by the Southern Song, even though in terms of sheer numbers more gazetteers may have survived in manuscript than in print, is very suggestive. A second theme is the question of how to deal with the loss of works. The essays treat this matter mainly as a loss of "titles," thereby creating an unwarranted bias toward the loss of books with definite titles, while possibly neglecting