Word, image, and deed in the life of Su Shi

Download or read book Word, image, and deed in the life of Su Shi written by Ronald Egan and published by Harvard Univ Asia Center. This book was released on 1994 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Remembered today primarily as a poet, calligrapher, and critic, the protean Su Shi was an outspoken player in the contentious politics and intellectual debates of the Northern Song dynasty. In this comprehensive study, Egan analyzes Su's literary and artistic work against the background of eleventhcentury developments within Buddhist and Confucian thought and Su's dogged disagreement with the New Policies of Wang Anshi. Egan explicates Su's views on governance, the classics, and Buddhism; and he describes Su's social-welfare initiatives, arrest for disloyalty, and exiles. Finding a key to the richness of Su's artistic activities in his vacillation on the significance of aesthetic pursuits, Egan explores Su's shi and ci poetry and Su's promotion of painting and calligraphy, looking specially at the problem of subjectivity. In a concluding chapter, he reconsiders Su's role as a founder of the wenren ("literati") and challenges the conventional understanding of both Su and the Northern Song wenren generally.