Chinese Dynasties and Various Rulers -- Introduction -- The Transformation of the Shih -- Scholarship and Literary Composition at the Early T'ang Court -- The Crisis of Culture After 755 -- Civil Policy and Literary Culture: The Beginnings of Sung Intellectual Culture -- Thinkers and Then Writers: Intellectual Trends in the Mid-Eleventh Century -- For Perfect Order: Wang An-shih and Ssu-ma Kuang -- Su Shih's Tao: Unity with Individuality -- Ch'eng I and the New Culture of Tao-hsueh -- Appendix: The Ch'ao Family of the Northern and Southern Sung
Summary
This book traces the shared culture of the Chinese elite from the seventh to the twelfth centuries. The early T'ang definition of 'This Culture of Ours' combined literary and scholarly traditions from the previous five centuries. The late Sung Neo-Confucian movement challenged that definition. The author argues that the Tang-Sung transition is best understood as a transition from a literary view of culture - in which literary accomplishment and mastery of traditional forms were regarded as essential - to the ethical orientation of Neo-Confucianism, in which the cultivation of one's innate moral ability was regarded as the goal of learning. The author shows that this transformation paralleled the collapse of the T'ang order and the restoration of a centralized empire under the Sung, underscoring the connection between elite formation and political institutions
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 449-481) and index
