Chinese Antiquity and Court Spectacle in Early Kanshi

Abstract

This essay argues for closer attention to Japan's active appropriation of Chinese culture and an acknowledgment of the independence of kanshibun from Chinese literature. Obliged to give historical depth to an emerging literature, the compilers of the first kanshi anthologies adopted charismatic moments from Chinese literary history. Poets sympathized especially with courtly settings of Chinese antiquity: they evoked the Zhou court and its vassals at banquets for Korean envoys, performed phrases of the Analects at the Rites for Confucius, or replayed Han rhapsody recitation. The article contributes to studies of the creative use of the Chinese textual canon in Japan.