From Ritual to Allegory

This book collects seven essays on classical Chinese poetry Professor C. H. Wang authored in the 1970s. The primary subjects under consideration are Shih Ching and Ch'u tz'u, the earliest Chinese literary expressions which lay the foundation for a great poetic tradition. Approached through a comparatist point of view and according to a meticulous philological discipline, the poetry of ancient China is brought to light in an urbane and faithful manner. Compositions of both northern and southern origins emerge powerfully in these essays to assert not only a weight of profound classicism but also a compelling, modern immediacy. Wang organizes the archaic verses into ritualistic cycles, investigates the origins of drama in the ceremonies, defines a cultural heroism, reconstructs an epic, the Weniad, and offers a creative interpretation of a major group of hymns in terms of the Confucian concept of civilization vis-?-vis barbarism. The book ends with two comparative essays on Ch'? Y?an and his masterpiece, Li sao.