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This study investigates the Yantielun 鹽鐵論, a text that recreates the 81 BCE court debate during which government officials clashed with "literary scholars" (wenxue 文學) and "worthy and good persons" (xianliang 賢良) over multiple policy issues. I show that a careful look at the Yantielun allows us to distinguish between the voices of the two subgroups of critics, who hitherto have been viewed almost ubiquitously as a uniform camp. The "worthy and good persons" appear as a "third voice" attempting to bridge the gap between the polar standpoints of the officials and the literary scholars. I argue that this hidden diversity is proof of the reliability of the Yantielun as an account of the debate and a testimony to the complexity of the intellectual and political environment of the mid- to late Former Han. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The translation of the "Great Preface" by Stephen Owen makes flexible use of inventive techniques of translation and interprets Chinese literary thoughts from the point of view of the other. The Confucian literary thoughts and Confucian culture in the earlier Han dynasty are neglected in Stephen Owen's version without analyzing the historical background and cultural features of the "Great Preface". Actually, Maos' Preface purposefully lays more stress on the instructional function of poetry rather than on opinions on poetry to beautify the customs and consolidate the political rule. In such a historical context, the Great Preface echoes the peal of history and tradition while extending the vein of literary view on the classics. By taking Confucian cultural model as ordinate, the neglected or distorted cultural context in Stephen Owen's version of the Great Preface just highlights the characteristics of Confucian poetics. The reason why cultural distortion in Stephen Owen's version of the Great Preface is he deviates from the historical and cultural context of the text in essence. In this paper, it is found that the neglected cultural context in Stephen Owen's version also highlights the differences between American and Chinese literary thoughts and culture. Perhaps this cross- linguistic communication and comparison will open our macro view on Chinese history and ancient literary theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article questions the traditional beliefs that the seven 'inner chapters' constitute the earliest stratum of the Zhuangzi, that they already formed a coherent unit in the Warring States, and that they came from a single hand. After reviewing what is known about the early history of the Zhuangzi text, various arguments that have been made in support of early, coherent inner chapters, are examined. Taking the Shiji portrait of the Zhuangzi as the starting point, it is shown that Sima Qian's description and use of the Zhuangzi already gives us reason to question the importance, or even existence, of the inner chapters in the Western Han. It is then shown that pre-Han and Han references to Zhuang Zhou, and parallels with the Zhuangzi text, do not necessarily even require (or support) the existence of most inner chapters, and certainly give no evidence that they were coherent and had any kind of canonical status. Though this does not constitute proof, it does give us reason to rethink the traditional beliefs about the authorship and structure of the early Zhuangzi text. In closing, the possibility of a Huainan Zhuangzi, and the role Liu An and his court might have played in the compilation of the inner chapters, is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a set of four tetrasyllabic poems from the first century BCE, situating them between the ancient poetry of the Shijing and the medieval poetry that would appear two centuries later. The author outlines the emergence of a learned elite in the latter half of the Western Han and shows how the intellectual and socio-political background of this group is instantiated in the poems. As statements of a classicist mentality ascendant in the late Western Han, the poems stand firmly in their age, but as products of this newly emerging group they bear definite connection to the literati poetry of medieval China. Thus, the poems offer a viewpoint onto both the scholarly culture of the first century BCE and the poetic culture of early medieval China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Chronological research on the therapeutic history of Parkinson's disease (PD) has been conducted by Chinese medical treatises from ancient to modern times. It outlines the division by the early, middle, and modern periods. The precise records for the clinical symptoms of PD and its preliminary treatment prescriptions could date back to the Eastern Han Dynasty (206 –220 ). Thereafter (220 –1911), due to an increase in the understanding of PD in Chinese medical science, prescriptions for treatment also sprang up. Methods: Frequency statistics and cluster analysis have been carried out to elucidate the medication rules and commonly used Chinese medicinal materials (CMM) for prevention and treatment of PD during the middle period. Conclusions: In modern times, the dozens of prescriptions or bioactive ingredients of CMM used for the symptomatic treatment of PD have been shown to be effective in clinical trials. However, an analysis of contemporary Chinese clinical literature on PD has suggested the need for more rigorous research methodology before CMM could be adopted by evidence-based medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Toward the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, Emperor Xian considered the Hanshu too voluminous and ordered Xun Yue to copy and edit it. Xun Yue summarized Hanshu's contents in the annalistic structure. He started his writing in the third year of Jian'an (198) and finished it in the fifth year of Jian'an (200). Since Xun Yue adapted the Hanshu for his Hanji, which is the first book to set up the intact compilation system of dynastic history presented in a chronological form, attempts have been made to probe the relationship between the Hanshu and the Hanji. Hanji initiated the new annalistic form of chronological Chinese historical classics. Nevertheless, very few scholars have devoted the effort to the study of the relationship among the Shiji, the Hanshu and the Hanji. The present paper aims at examining the above relationship with a view to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the Hanji and to analyse the reference sources of the Hanji through the parallel readings of the Shiji and the Hanji. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the interrelated topics of classical Chinese poetics and theories of language in terms of the relationship between some early texts dealing with aural and optical illusions. It comments on the poetic imagery in the Confucian scholar Mao Heng's exegesis of the "Book of Poems." It discusses historical background to early Han Dynasty poetics, the impact of correlative cosmology on early Chinese poetics, and metaphor and illusion in third-century China.

Chinese fu sprang from Ch'ü Yüan's "Li Sao," which became the standard for poetry that depicted escapes to mystical fairylands by their authors. Poets after the Han Dynasty inherited a tradition of fu and tsu, which included three main types of fu: literati, historical, and philosophical. This article focuses on a few poems of each genre: for literati, "Yuan You" and Ssu-Ma Hsiang-ju's "Ta Jen Fu"; for historical, Pan Ku's "Hsi Tu Fu" and "Chung Nan Shan Fu"; and for philosophical, Yang Hsiung's "T'ai Hsüan Fu" and Hsüan T'an's "Hsien Fu." This article also investigates how people with different backgrounds incorporated fairylands into their poetry and the style and characteristics thereof. In particular, how did the grand fairylands in these masterpieces reflect the true dreams and desires of the authors? Also, did the authors exhibit the same spirit as Ch'ü Yüan? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This six-section article discusses one of the types of rhapsodic literature: yung-wu fu, the poetic description of a particular object. It will cover this type of poetry's prismatic modes of description, the appropriate approach to comprehending it, and its burdensome tradition of preaching morals. In this context, four selected works will be interpreted to reveal either their place in the development of yung-wu fit or the brilliance they exhibit on their own. A table of extant Han Dynasty yung-wu fu is appended at the end of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]