Through close examination of a set of educational works discovered among the Dunhuang manuscripts, this book presents new insights into the literary training undertaken by the elite of medieval China. In their contents and structures, these works tell us what parts of the literary and cultural inheritance the elite were expected to learn and how they learned them.
The material aspects of these manuscriptsincluding handwriting, copying errors, and paratextual additionsshow how students in Dunhuang used and reproduced them. What emerges is a picture of a literary education that is more diverse in its sources, and also more haphazard, than previously imagined.
Arvustused
An insightful and highly original study, which makes a major contribution to our knowledge of Dunhuang and medieval Chinese literary culture in general. Based on a close analysis of a group of Dunhuang manuscripts, it addresses the difficult question of how literary training happened in daily practice. A refreshing read, both enjoyable and informative.
Imre Galambos Qiushi Professor of Chinese at the School of Literature, Zhejiang University, and Professor Emeritus of Chinese at the University of Cambridge
Textual Practices of Literary Training in Medieval China is a ground-breaking study of the history of manuscript culture, elite education, and the production of knowledge in medieval China. Through close analysis of the literary and codicological features of Dunhuang primers that have been little examined to date, Nugent illuminates the many ways that medieval people learned to read, write, and think with the cultural tradition. It sets a new high-water mark for scholarship on Dunhuang manuscripts and literary knowledge in premodern China.
Anna M. Shields Gordon Wu '58 Professor of Chinese Studies, Princeton University
Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Tables and Figures
Manuscripts Cited
Introduction
1The Dunhuang Context
2Literary Training and the Literate Elite
3Managing Literary Information
4Overview of Shapters
5Some Conventions
1 Kaimeng yaoxun: A Foundation for Literary Training
1Introduction
2Documents
3Content: What Kaimeng yaoxun Teaches
4Structure: What Makes Kaimeng yaoxun Easy to Understand and Hard to
Forget?
5Using Kaimeng yaoxun: Evidence from Textual Variation
6Case Study: P.2578
7Managing Information: Kaimeng yaoxun as Literary Training
2 Qianzi wen as Mnemonic Scaffold
1Introduction to Qianzi wen
2Qianzi wen
3Medieval Annotations to Qianzi wen
4Liuzi qianwen
3 Yudui: Parallel Sayings as Tool and Method
1Introduction
2Documents and Formats
3Structure and Content
4Variation, Production, and Use
5Yudui as Information Management
4 Zachao: A Complex Miscellany
1Introduction
2The Documents
3Organizational Structure
4Categories of Content
5Managing Information
6Textual Variation
7Layout, Format, and Use
8Parallels
5 Tuyuan cefu: A Primer for Exams and Officialdom
1Introduction
2The Bibliographic Record
3Dunhuang Documents
4Du Sixians Preface
5Content and Structure: Deliberating the Feng and Shan Sacrifices
6Using Tuyuan cefu
7Tuyuan cefu In (and Out) of Context
Conclusion
1Implications
Bibliography
Index
Christopher M. B. Nugent, Ph.D. (2004), Harvard University, is the John W. Chandler Professor of Chinese at Williams College. He has written on the production and circulation of poetry, textual memory, education, and manuscript culture in medieval China.
