Title: Rewriting the Southern Tang (937--975)
Description: My dissertation deals with the highly mediated perception of Southern Tang culture by scholars of subsequent periods, and with the selective appropriation and coloration of that past culture for the purposes of the present. It deals with selected episodes, spanning from the late tenth century to the seventeenth century. In 907 the Tang Empire disintegrated into a dozen dynasties and states. The Southern Tang (937-975), one of the most powerful and populated southern states, enjoyed relative peace and prosperity, remaining one of the cultural centers of the period between 907 and conquest of the Southern Tang by the Song Empire in 975, in the course of its reunification of China. Almost all the extant texts from the Southern Tang underwent changes made by Song dynasty scholars as they edited, commented upon, emended and reconstructed the texts during the three centuries following the conquest. One must rely on the Song sources on the Southern Tang, on mediated rather than direct knowledge. Therefore, my approach to the Southern Tang is to examine the Song--to examine their reconstruction of the Southern Tang, studying the selective and slanted versions and legends they produced, and the processes of imagination, projection, and appropriation that produced them.

Chapter One investigates the underlying ambivalence inherent in the Song historiography of the Southern Tang. Chapter two explores a legend-making process in the reception of Southern Tang literature, by examining frame stories and autobiographical interpretations that contextualize the lyrics of the last ruler Li Yu. By exploring the Northern Song scholars' artistic pursuits in light of the cherished Southern Tang fine stationery, I wish to show in Chapter Three the influence of Southern Tang culture in nurturing the eleventh century scholars' love for arts and their active engagement in aesthetic undertakings. The last chapter aims to trace the trajectory of images and ideas about the Southern Tang during the late imperial period, focusing on the Ming Qing transition, when reflection on contemporary political conditions aroused a second burst of interest in the Southern Tang.