Title: Four-syllable verse in medieval China
Description: This dissertation uses four-syllable verse as a window onto the function and meaning of poetry in early medieval China. In the introduction, I outline the parameters of the topic, treating the early history of the four-syllable form, contrasting it with five-syllable poetry--the dominant form of the medieval period--and discussing the variety of genres in which four-syllable verse played a role. My first chapter focuses on a group of 1 st century BCE poems associated with Wei Xuancheng. Through a close reading of these poems, I show that they represent a new literary consciousness accompanying the emergence of the medieval bureaucratic elite. Comparing these poems with contemporary works, I discuss the conditions of literary composition at the dawn of the medieval period. The second chapter is a study of the Jiaoshi yilin , a Han divination text in four-syllable rhymes. Tracing this four-syllable divination tradition back into antiquity, I argue that the Yilin verses are both a continuation of the antique mode and a transformation bearing the marks of the incipient medieval literary culture.

In Chapter Three I examine the shidian (school sacrifice) ceremony by looking at the tradition of four-syllable poetry associated with it. These poems give us insight into the political culture of the age, and their role in the ceremony also provides a basis for considering the meaning and function of "poetry" in medieval China. In my fourth chapter I treat the medieval tradition of "presentation and response" ( zengda ) poetry. I outline the origins and decline of this genre, discuss a series of examples from the often-neglected 4 th century, and again consider the implications of this kind of poetry for our understanding of medieval poetry in general.