Chinese Studies Literati Culture
by
Stephen Roddy
  • LAST MODIFIED: 15 January 2019
  • DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199920082-0169

Introduction

Although the term literati culture (wenren wenhua) entered the Chinese lexicon only in the late 20th century, the aesthetic, moral, and intellectual pursuits it encompasses can be traced back nearly two millennia to the Wei-Jin era (220–420 CE). In its narrowest sense, it denotes the “four arts” (siyi) associated with cultured, literate males (wenren): music (especially the qin or guqin), the game of go (weiqi), calligraphy, and painting, as well as poetry and lyrical essays (especially xiaopin) associated with them. Literati culture is also usually construed to include connoisseurship of various categories of material objects, including tea and its implements, antique paintings and specimens of calligraphy, celebrated or rare manuscripts and book editions, rubbings taken from steles, ancient bronze vessels, and objets d’art associated with writing, such as ink stones or seals. During the mature phase of literati culture in the late Ming and Qing dynasties, this repertoire of practices further widened to include, inter alia, the collecting of any manner of rare or prized objects (both natural and man-made), garden design and architecture, the connoisseurship of the theater and its actors or other entertainers, and the espousal of philosophical ideals associated with leisure or reclusion. Given this expansive scope, scholarship has tended to treat this array of arts and avocations either through disciplinary lenses such as art history and material culture, or in terms of their associations with the principal intellectual vocations—literature (the so-called wenyuan or Garden of Literature) and textual scholarship (rulin or Forest of Scholarship)—that marked literati status. As the relatively elastic conception of literati culture has gained currency, however, cultural historians have increasingly studied these arts within the continuum of socioeconomic practices that marked membership in the elite, and also in light of the position of these arts in relation to more-demotic (tongsu) cultural forms. The growth of literati avocations and the writings about them after c. 1500 was stimulated by the surfeit of first- and second-tier examination holders, along with opportunities for patronage by wealthy merchants in the Yangzi delta region. Also evident in the late Ming and throughout the Qing is the influence of philological scholarship (kaozheng) on the classification or cataloguing of objects of various kinds. Finally, the statecraft-oriented (jingshi) scholarship and letters that flourished during the last century of Qing rule, and critiques of literati social preeminence relative to other vocations and social categories, stimulated the rethinking of the social and cultural institutions that perpetuated their dominance, which extended to the arts associated with the literati as well.

General Overviews

Due no doubt to the absence of a precise or even a widely agreed-upon definition of literati culture, to date no authoritative survey of its overall history or general contours has been attempted. Nonetheless, the studies of various aspects of literati culture in this section are comprehensive enough to serve as useful guides to the field. For a very readable summary of the long history of the four arts, see Zhou and Gu 2003. Hong 1946 similarly provides a temporally expansive survey of literati lifestyles and their connections with the arts, beginning in the Han dynasty; Ke 2004 closely follows this same format but limits its scope to the millennium or so from the Tang through the Qing dynasties. Takabatake 1998 traces the evolution of literati values in the all-important domain of calligraphy and other visual media. Bu 1992 is especially good for literary renderings of literati pursuits, using works such as Honglou meng to great effect. Gong 2004 also relies heavily on literary sources, including a number from the twilight of traditional literati society in the early 20th century. Song 2004 is a good source on the ramifications for sexuality and gender roles of literati cultural and societal aspirations. Meng 1997 presents a compelling case for understanding correlations between career paths and literati artistic developments, while Elman 2000 remains unsurpassed for its painstakingly thorough description of the examination system itself. Arai 1994 is still the most comprehensive yet compact, lucid account of literati as a cultural and social formation, from the Tang to the Qing dynasties.

  • Arai Ken 荒井健, ed. Chūka bunjin no seikatsu (中華文人の生活). Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1994.

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    This is an accessible introduction to the broad spectrum of literati lifestyles, ranging from the mundane necessities of daily life to the arts, philosophy, and social networks.

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  • Bu Ding 布丁. Wenren qingqu de zhihui (文人情趣的智慧). Hangzhou, China: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1992.

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    Though written in a lively, relaxed style for a nonscholarly audience, this erudite work is a treasure trove of literary references to literati arts and culture from the Han dynasty to the early 1990s.

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  • Elman, Benjamin. A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

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    A magisterial overview of the examination system in its mature phase during the Ming and Qing periods; it provides details on the formal requirements and subjects of essays, the major exegetical and curricular changes that affected essay composition, and also the relative weighting of the different sections of the examinations in determining success and failure. It is arguable that interpreting literati aesthetics should be grounded in a basic understanding of the examinations in the formation of elite sensibilities.

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  • Gong Pengcheng 龚鵬程. Zhongguo wenren jieceng shilun (中国文人阶层史论). Lanzhou, China: Lanzhou daxue chubanshe, 2004.

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    A lengthy but selective history of literati values and lifestyles during the Ming and Qing dynasties, including chapters on talent, literary skill, scholarship, actors, food and drink, prostitution, and everyday life, using sources ranging from fiction, poetry, and biji, to memoirs and historical accounts of late Qing Taipei and Shanghai.

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  • Hong Weifa 洪為法. Tan wenren (談文人). Shanghai: Yongxiang yinshuguan, 1946.

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    This slim but insightful, highly readable volume gives an overview of sixteen eccentric artists and writers from the Han to the Qing Dynasties, anticipating (Ke 2004; see below) in both conception and format.

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  • Ke Ping 柯平. Yinyanglian: Zhongguo chuantong zhishifenzi shengtai kaocha (阴阳脸：中国传统知识份子生态考察). Beijing: Dongfang chubanshe, 2004.

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    Biographical sketches of sixteen eccentric literati figures from the Tang to the late Qing, focusing on their social lives, and especially the literary gatherings (wenhui) through which they wielded influence over their contemporaries.

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  • Meng Guanglin 孟广林. Aotu wenxiin (凸凹文心). Beijing: Gaige chubanshe, 1997.

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    This is a general introduction to the socioeconomic factors influencing literati lifestyles, including the examination system, and the importance of alternative careers for the educated in commerce or artisanal production. It also discusses the role of Neo-Confucian philosophy in setting the parameters of public life, and the uses of dissent.

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  • Song, Geng. The Fragile Scholar: Power and Masculinity in Chinese Culture. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004.

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    Drawing mostly on narrative and dramatic literary sources, and basing his analysis on the conceptually fluid, gender-indeterminate continuum of yin/yang polarity, Song explores both the cultural and the sexual construction of literati masculinity.

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  • Takabatake Tsunenobu 高畑常信. Chūgoku bunjin no shisō to geijutsu (中国文人の思想と芸術). Musashino, Japan: Akiyama shoten, 1998.

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    This work focuses on calligraphy, seal carving, and monochrome ink bamboo painting to demonstrate how these arts reflect and embody the ideals and values of the literati.

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  • Zhou Tieqiang 周铁強 and Gu Hongyi 顾宏义. Wenren siji (文人四技). Guangzhou, China: Guangdong jiaoyu chubanshe, 2003.

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    This is a brief overview of the four literati arts, told mainly through anecdotes about famous practitioners and their ideas, as well as social interactions among such figures. It is an excellent summary both of these arts and also of the relationships between them.

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Reference Works

Reference works on the history of literati painting, calligraphy, printing, and other arts, and of various literary genres that were associated with them, are widely available. I list here only one that encompasses the broad rubric of literati culture.

  • Han Shiming 韩式明 and Wu Guozhong 吴国忠. Zhongguo gudai wenren zhanggu cidian (中国古代文人掌故辞典). Harbin, China: Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe, 1999.

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    This is a chronologically arranged compendium of famous, often-humorous anecdotes about individual literati from the Han to the early 20th century, listed under the shorthand phrases or aphorisms (chengyu) by which they were referred to in conversation or in writing.

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Journals

Journals devoted to the history of the visual arts, literature, theater and music, material culture, or elite culture, broadly defined, abound in China and to varying extents in Japan, Korea, Europe, and North America. However, very few of these take a consistently interdisciplinary approach to elite culture. Of those that do, Rongbaozhai could be described as a journal of literati-oriented material culture; while not specifically focused on literati art per se, both Nanjing bowuyuan jikan and Wenwu regularly publish cross-disciplinary studies in this area as well.

  • Nanjing bowuyuan jikan (南京博物院集刊). 1979–.

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    The Nanjing Museum is home to one of the largest and richest collections of literati art; this annual publication consistently covers topics relevant to literati culture, including social and cultural history, connoisseurship, objets d’art, and other subjects. There is no dedicated website for this magazine, but general information can be accessed here.

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  • Rongbaozhai (荣宝斋). 1999–.

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    Published by the storied fine-art and book dealer of the same name, and located in the Liulichang area of Beijing, both the journal and the enterprise remain a mainstay of the connoisseurship of the literati arts.

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  • Wenwu (文物). 1950–.

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    While this prestigious periodical tends to devote the majority of its space to pre-Han archaeological finds, it has also been a leading medium for scholarship on material objects and culture of more-recent periods, many of which are of direct relevance to the literati arts.

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Primary Sources

Beginning around the mid-16th century, literati in and around the Jiangnan region began to compose writings that catalogued, theorized, or provided guidance or practical techniques for practitioners and aficionados of the literati arts. The selective list of works in this section includes some of these as well as a few others on topics of relevance. Li 1974 is by far the most important single work for understanding literati tastes, in a broad range of pursuits, during the heyday of literati culture. Chen 1977 similarly reflects the flourishing state of collecting and connoisseurship in the last decades of the Ming. Ji 2003 is essential for understanding the aesthetics and theoretical foundation of garden design; the same can be said in the domain of tea consumption for Lu 2009, the quintessential guide for this pursuit. For more-specific descriptions of physical objects, see Tu 2012 and also Wen 2004; the implications of these aesthetic practices on human health can be found in Gao 2014. Liu 2006 provides an overview of the social interactions, in political, ethical, and aesthetic arenas, of men of culture. Wu 1990 can be viewed as the fictional transposition of this early portrait of literati sociality to the late imperial period, when many of these values began to be questioned. And Yu 2011 is the single most important portrait of the literati’s interest in the demimonde of female entertainers and their complementary pursuits in music, poetry, and other arts.

  • Chen Jiru 陳繼儒. Yanqi youshi (巖棲幽事). Taibei: Weiwen tushu chubanshe, 1977.

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    Chen Jiru (b. 1558–d. 1639) was the quintessential late Ming aficionado of sophisticated luxury goods, and though his prolific writings have suffered neglect in the modern period, they remain a key source of information about the ideals of literati connoisseurship at their peak.

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  • Gao Lian 高濂. Zunsheng bajian (遵生八笺). Taiyuan, China: Shanxi kexue jishu chubanshe, 2014.

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    This mid-16th-century work is organized around the theme of nourishing health and ranges from herbal prescriptions to the accouterments of daily life, with considerable information about luxury goods and useful objects. It is widely regarded as having inspired the later outpouring of writings on leisure by Li Yu, Chen Jiru, and others.

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  • Ji Cheng 计成. Yuanye (园冶). Ji’nan, China: Shandong huabao chubanshe, 2003.

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    The classic late Ming work (first published in 1631) on garden design and construction; its impact on Japanese gardens was profound (English translation: The Craft of Gardens, by Alison Hardy [New York: Better Link Press, 2012]).

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  • Li Yu 李漁. Xianqing ouji (閒情偶記). Taibei: Dingwen shuju, 1974.

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    This is one of the most influential, comprehensive accounts of garden architecture, music, cuisine, and other topics by Li (b. 1610–d. 1680), the preeminent philosopher-practitioner of the arts of leisure of the late Ming and early Qing.

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  • Liu Yiqing- 刘义庆. Shishuo xinyu (世说新语). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2006.

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    Translated by Richard Mather as A New Account of Tales of the World (Shih-shuo hsin-yu), 2d ed. (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2002). It would be hard to overstate the formative influence of this collection of anecdotes in defining the ideal of fengliu (au courant, insouciant, casual elegance), making it a kind of sourcebook for literati cultured taste in later eras, particularly during the 17th century. The Mather translation, meticulously researched and beautifully written, remains a major achievement.

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  • Lu Yu 陆羽. Chajing (茶经 [译注]). Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2009.

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    The most famous comprehensive exposition of the philosophical ideals and aesthetics of tea drinking, as well as of the various material preferences that continue to inform the cultural and aesthetic practices surrounding this beverage, dating from the late 8th century.

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  • Tu Long 屠隆. Kaopan yushi (考盤余事). Beijing: Jincheng chubanshe, 2012.

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    This late-16th-century compendium of descriptions of material objects, ranging from stationery to tea and incense, established the precedent for later works such as Zhangwuzhi (see Wen 2004).

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  • Wen Zhenheng 文震亨. Zhangwuzhi (长物志). Ji’nan, China: Shandong huabao chubanshe, 2004.

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    This is one of the richest sources of information about the aesthetics of late Ming gardens and other aspects of literati lifestyles, widely cited by scholars of the time and since, by a great-grandson of the preeminent Suzhou literati painter Wen Zhengming.

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  • Wu Jingzi 吴敬梓. Rulin waishi (儒林外史). Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1990.

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    This novel of the mid-18th century has long been read for its vivid portrait of the crisis of elite values that occurred during an era of increased competition for traditional bureaucratic careers among educated men. English translation: The Scholars, by Yang Hsien-i and Gladys Yang (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1957).

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  • Yu Huai 余怀. Banqiao zaji (板桥杂记). Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2011.

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    This is a much-beloved, lyrical account of the material culture and personalities that made up the urban pleasure quarters of mid-17th-century Jiangnan.

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Scholarship Arranged Chronologically

While the full bloom of what we now call literati culture is generally dated to the mid- to late Ming period, its antecedents can be traced to the 3rd century CE and even earlier. The themes of leisurely reclusion, and a preoccupation with self-cultivation, elegance, and refinement, all were articulated in the Wei-Jin and Northern and Southern dynasties, and the arts and connoisseurship that came to embody such ideals emerged in the Tang, Song, and Yuan periods. Scholarship on the arts of painting and calligraphy, and of the philosophical and other cultural developments that took place during these earlier eras, is thus directly relevant to the understanding of Ming and Qing literati culture.

Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties

An understanding of the forms and themes of literati culture should be grounded in the study of the literary and philosophical works of the period c. 200–600 CE that articulate literati ideals in their nascent stages of growth as they arose amid the political fragmentation and cultural experimentation of these eras. Ning 1996 describes the aesthetic and literary dimensions of these developments, while Sun 2001 explores the political and ideological implications of the literati’s emergence both as a social but also a discursive category that set the stage for their subsequent evolution into self-conscious practitioners of multiple cultural forms. While relying primarily on literary sources, Berkowitz 2000 addresses both the philosophical and the aesthetic richness of this period under the rubric of reclusion. Diény 1993 uses close readings of passages from Shishuo xinyu to illustrate the complexity of literati social and political interaction during times of disorder. Swartz, et al. 2014 provides a remarkably comprehensive compendium both of Chinese and non-Chinese scholarship and resources for the study of this period.

  • Berkowitz, Alan J. Patterns of Disengagement: The Practice and Portrayal of Reclusion in Early Medieval China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000.

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    This work focuses on the emergence of the “topoi” of reclusion in the Wei-Jin and Southern dynasties, which became nearly ubiquitous in literati artistic and literary expression during later dynasties.

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  • Diény, Jean-Pierre. Portrait anecdotique d’un gentilhomme chinois: Xie An, 320–385, d’après le Shishuo xinyu. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1993.

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    A concise, highly readable treatment of the life of Xie An, illustrating through examples drawn from Shishuo xinyu how, more than any other single figure of his time, his words as well as his deeds exemplified qualities such as perspicacity, generosity, laconic wit, and tenacity that were admired by his contemporaries.

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  • Ning Jiayu 宁稼雨. Weijin fengdu: Zhongguo wenren shenghuo xingwei de wenhua yiyun (魏晋风度： 中古文人生活行为的文化意藴). Beijing: Dongfang chubanshe, 1996.

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    Through close readings of historical accounts as well as literary sources, the author elucidates the elusive Wei-Jin-era “style” (fengmao) to which literati of later dynasties looked as a model of elegant taste and comportment.

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  • Sun Ruofeng 孙若风. Gaodao renjian: Liuchao wenren xintai shi (高蹈人間：六朝文人心态史). Shijiazhuang, China: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2001.

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    Explicates the various literary and philosophical trends of the medieval period in terms of the polarity between literati detachment (fangda) from and attachment (zhizhuo) to political and other forms of worldly involvement.

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  • Swartz, Wendy, Robert Ford Campany, Yang Lu, and Jessey J. C. Choo, eds. Early Medieval China: A Sourcebook. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.

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    This is an excellent resource both for students and more-advanced researchers working on virtually any aspect of the culture in this period, ranging from literature to religion, ritual, food, politics, geography, and especially the all-important topic of the supernatural. It includes translations of excerpted texts, critical commentaries, and concise bibliographies of relevant scholarship.

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Tang, Song, and Yuan

Virtually all of the literati arts, including painting, calligraphy, music, or other entertainment, as well as connoisseurship of antiques and other objects, took shape during the period c. 600–1350. Indeed, Ming and Qing practitioners and connoisseurs consistently follow, both stylistically and conceptually, the models set by these forebears. Egan 2006 is a comprehensive guide that maps out the emergence of new ways of articulating beauty, and of the objects in which it was found, from the late Tang through the Northern Song. Shi 1996 emphasizes the cross-fertilization that took place between aesthetic tastes and sociopolitical ideals as each evolved over these eras. Li 2000 highlights dimensions of literati sociality that flourished in the Tang, as well as the entertainers and other social classes whose activities also spurred literary and artistic creation. Hu 2012 undertakes a similar analysis for the Song period. Schafer 1963 widens the scope of aesthetic appreciation to the vast, multifarious range of exotica that flowed into the Tang Empire at its height, while Yao 1993 considers the effects of cosmopolitan cultural and social factors under Yuan Mongol rule that prompted literati to rethink some of the rarefied aesthetic tastes that had come to fruition during the Song period.

  • Egan, Ronald. The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.

    DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1tm7frmSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    An elegant, thoroughly researched survey of literati culture, especially connoisseurship, in the Northern Song, with a focus on Ouyang Xiu’s leading role in widening the scope of what constituted worthy objects of collection or reflection in gardening, epigraphic inscriptions, and other spheres.

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  • Hu Jianjun 胡建君. Wo you jiabin: Xiyuan yaji yu Songdai wenren shenghuo (我有嘉宾:西园雅集与宋代文人生活). Shanghai: Shanghai Jinxiu wenzhang chubanshe, 2012.

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    This slim volume is notable for its beautifully reproduced examples of calligraphy, paintings, and other artifacts attesting to one of the most famous literati gatherings of all time, the Western Garden Party of 1086.

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  • Li Nailong 李乃龍. Yaren shenzhi yu zongjiao qingyuan: Tangdai wenren de shenghuo yangtai (雅人深致與宗教情緣：唐代文人的生活樣態). Taibei: Wenjin chubanshe, 2000.

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    The author discusses the literary and cultural circles in which Daoist priests and nuns, Buddhist monks, prostitutes, and literati all participated, and—often in one another’s company—enjoyed music, tea, and other cultured pursuits.

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  • Schafer, Edward. The Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T’ang Exotics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963.

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    A classic compendium on the material culture of the Tang, which, though not for the most part focused on the objects most central to literati culture (namely, those in some way associated with literary or scholarly pursuits), nonetheless provides a thoroughly documented, often-entertaining account of their wide-ranging provenance, history, and usage.

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  • Shi Shaohua 石紹華. Songdai yongcha shige yanjiu (宋代詠茶詩歌研究). Taibei: Wenjin chubanshe, 1996.

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    This study uses evidence from poetry to show the fusion of tea connoisseurship, literary expression, Chan philosophy, and medicinal thought during the Song dynasty.

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  • Yao Shuyi 么书仪. Yuandai wenren xintai (元代文人心态). Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 1993.

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    This is a nuanced study of the evolution of literati sensibilities under Mongol rule, showing how the varying forms of accommodation, ranging from passive reclusion to active service in government, affected their aesthetics in the arts and other areas.

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Ming to Early Qing (1368–c. 1700)

By many accounts, the approximately 100 years from c. 1550 to 1650 marked the golden age of literati culture, when most of the canonical works cited in the Primary Sources section were written, and when theorists of leisure such as Chen Jiru and Yuan Hongdao confidently proclaimed the inherent value of minor arts that were slighted by Confucian moralists as trivial pursuits “deleterious to moral fortitude” (wanwu sangzhi). Both Clunas 2004, a study of material culture, and also Schäfer 2011 are grounded in conceptual frameworks that invite cross-cultural comparison with other, non-Chinese counterparts. Nie 2007 explicitly traces the impact of Western technology on late Ming material culture. Mao 2000 is attentive to the sociohistorical and philosophical contexts of literati tastes. For in-depth studies of exemplary figures’ writings and practices, see Wang, et al. 2004 for the early Qing celebrated patron of poets and actors, Mao Xiang, Yu 1998 for the sensibilities of that most controversial arbiter of literati tastes, Li Yu (b. 1610–d. c. 1680), and Huang 2004 for Li Yu’s social connections and career. Although primarily a study of literature, Li 2013 extends the author’s earlier work on late Ming and early Qing women’s writing to a broad-ranging consideration of their impact on literati thought of that period. Zhu 2008 sheds light on the professional careers of some of the most important figures in late Ming literati culture; Wang 2011 presents a lucid summary of the various sociopolitical factors behind the articulation of literati aesthetics during its fullest flowering.

  • Clunas, Craig. Superfluous Things, Material Culture, and Social Status in Early Modern China. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004.

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    A study of late Ming connoisseurship of luxury goods, primarily through close readings and analyses of Wen Zhenheng’s Zhangwuzhi and Gao Lian’s Zunsheng baji (see in Primary Sources), and applying concepts of Arjun Appadurai, Jacques Bourdieu, and other sociological theorists.

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  • Huang Guoquan 黃果泉. Yasu zhijian: Li Yu de wenhua renge yu wenxue sixiang yanjiu (雅俗之间：李渔的文化人格与文学思想研究). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2004.

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    This biographical study includes a lucid analysis of Li Yu’s philosophy of leisure, and its relationship to his biography, social circle, literary theory and practice, and social and political ideals.

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  • Li Yushuan 李玉栓. Mingdai wenren jieshekao (明代文人结社考). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2013.

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    A comprehensive list of Ming literati associations along with brief historical accounts of them, arranged chronologically, and also divided by category (e.g., 291 for poetry, 228 for prose, 71 for religious observances).

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  • Mao Wenfang 毛文芳. Wan Ming xianshang meixue (晚明閒賞美學). Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 2000.

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    This is an overview of the aesthetics of the connoisseurship of objects. It discusses the philosophical ideals associated with leisure, the principles of cataloguing and collecting, the relationship of aesthetics to health, and the place both of male and female entertainers in late Ming literati lifestyles.

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  • Nie Fusheng 聂付生. Wanming wenren de wenhua chuanbo yanjiu (晚明文人的文化传播研.究). Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 2007.

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    A study of late Ming literati writings and thought from the perspective of communication studies; includes chapters about the impact that European science and religion exerted on the material culture of that era.

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  • Schäfer, Dagmar. The Crafting of the 10,000 Things: Knowledge and Technology in Seventeenth-Century China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.

    DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226735856.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A study of a work by a late Ming scholar about crafts and technology, Tiangong Kaiwu (c. 1638), that demonstrates how the fascination with material culture so prominent in literati writings of the era extended, at least for some, into artisanal manufacturing processes and various natural phenomena.

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  • Wang Hongtai 王鴻泰. “Ming Qing shiren de shenghuo jingying yu yasu de bianzheng” (明清士人的生活經營與雅俗的辯證). In Richang shenghuo de lunshu yu shijian (日常生活的論述與實踐). Edited by Hu Xiaozhen 胡曉真 and Wang Hongtai, 587–634. Taibei: Yunchen wenhua shiye gufen youxian gongsi, 2011.

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    An excellent overview of the development of connoisseurship in the late Ming, demonstrating how collecting and connoisseurship of physical objects functioned in the contexts of literati social interaction, and in relation to the ideal of purposeful leisure and the discriminating tastes that could be fostered through such lifestyles.

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  • Wang Limin 王利民, Ding Fusheng 丁富生, and Gu Qi 顾启. Mao Pijiang yu Dong Xiaowan (冒辟疆与董小婉). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004.

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    A biography of the owner of the celebrated garden, Shuihuiyuan, located in Rugao (Jiangsu); there and elsewhere, Mao played a pivotal role in the development of ci poetry, theater, and other arts during the early decades of the Qing.

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  • Yu Weimin 俞为民. Li Yu pingzhuan (李渔评传). Nanjing, China: Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 1998.

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    Although more than half of this authoritative biography of Li Yu is devoted to his work on the theater, it contains valuable analyses of his ideas on nutrition, psychological health, and garden aesthetics.

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  • Zhu Lixia 朱丽霞. Ming Qing zhijiao wenren youmu yu wenxue shengtai: Yi Xu Wei, Fang Wen, Zhu Yizun wei gean (明清之交文人游幕与文学生态：以徐渭、方文、朱彞尊为个案). Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2008.

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    This study presents literary and historical evidence from the lives of three exemplary artists and literary figures to demonstrate how their professional activities (as doctors, official secretaries, and painters) came to color their literary and artistic production.

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Mid- to Late Qing (c. 1700–1911)

While the consolidation of Qing rule brought an end to some of the most exuberant features of the late Ming pursuit of aesthetic refinement, literati culture continued to flourish and develop in new directions throughout the remainder of the dynastic era. In the 18th and 19th centuries, connoisseurship achieved new heights of sophistication, and as in much of Qing high culture, the impact of methodologies associated with philological scholarship (kaozheng) profoundly affected the collection and cataloguing of works of art and other collectibles. Roddy 1998 devotes most of its pages to the scholarly and intellectual dimensions of literati self-representation in literature, art, and philosophy. Shang 2003 explores the reconceptualization of literati roles in terms of the all-important category of ritual practice and revivalism. Arthur Waley’s classic study (Waley 1970) remains a useful guide to the broad cultural trends among Jiangnan literati during the zenith of Qing power and wealth, while Li 2009 traces the development of some of these same trends into the 19th century among elite women and reformists. Wei 2008 also focuses on the last period of traditional literati activism in the 1820s to 1840s, before Western conceptions and patterns of elite education, identity, and cultural expression began to make inroads into the intellectual and cultural life of the literati.

  • Li Huiqun 李汇群. Guige yu huafang: Qingdai Jiaqing Daoguang nianjian de Jingnan wenren yu nüxing yanjiu (闺阁与画舫：清代嘉庆道光年间的江南文人与女性研究). Beijing: Zhongguo chuanmei daxue chubanshe, 2009.

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    This is a history of early-19th-century poetic exchanges between well-educated women and literati, and the biji accounts about them, focusing on the cities of Suzhou, Nanjing, and Yangzhou. It juxtaposes literary activities that took place within the family and larger kinship groups with those in the demimonde of urban pleasure quarters.

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  • Roddy, Stephen J. Literati Identity and Its Fictional Representations in Late Imperial China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.

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    This is an analysis of mid-Qing vernacular fiction that reflects or comments directly on literati intellectuality, in the light of the rise of evidential scholarship in the same period.

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  • Shang, Wei. Rulin Waishi and Cultural Transformation in Late Imperial China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.

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    An authoritative account of the literati embrace of ritualist thought during the early to mid-Qing period, relying primarily on the satirical novel Rulin waishi but also various other discursive and literary works.

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  • Waley, Arthur. Yuan Mei, Eighteenth Century Chinese Poet. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1970.

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    A classic and still very readable biography of the bon vivant and prolific poet and memoirist Yuan Mei, who played a leading role in reviving and further developing the late Ming Xingling (expressionist) school and the aesthetics of leisure.

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  • Wei Quan 魏泉. Shilin jiaoyou yu fengqi bianqian: 19 shiji de wenren qunti yanjiu (士林交游与风气变迁：19世纪的文人群体研究). Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2008.

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    A study of the literati gatherings that took place in early- to mid-19th-century Beijing, and how these functioned in promoting activist literary and scholarly ideals.

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Scholarship Arranged by Topic

Given the expansive scope of literati avocations and their multifarious creative activities, most existing scholarship is based in the disciplines of art history, musicology, social history, and cultural or literary history. Hence, the study of literati arts necessarily entails the perusal of more-specialized scholarship such as that listed in this section’s eight subsections.

Painting

The exalted status of literati painting and calligraphy and their intermingling within the artistic canon has understandably inspired an enormous body of art-historical scholarship on these forms, making it something of a challenge to single out any small sample of works that can provide a comprehensive guide to this field. For the philosophical foundations of literati painting in the Tang and Song, Zhang 1988 provides an excellent overview; Shou 2009 surveys the crucial role of Sichuan artists and thinkers such as Su Shi in the evolution of distinctive styles in the Northern Song. Fong 1992 is also useful in summarizing the overall development of literati styles from the Tang through the late Yuan. Chen 1992 dissects the calligraphic dimensions of brushstrokes, while Bickford 1996 is a study of the singular significance of the flowering plum in literati art, culminating in Wang Mian’s paintings of the late 14th century. Cahill 1996 traces the integration of word and image in painting from the Southern Song to 18th-century Kyoto bunjin painting, and Huang and Yan 1993 presents detailed analyses of the works of exemplary literati painters of the early Qing.

  • Bickford, Maggie. Ink Plum: The Making of a Chinese Scholar-Painting Genre. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

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    A study of flowering-plum paintings from the Tang to the Yuan dynasties, showing their relationships to literary, philosophical, and scholarly writings, and their position as the quintessential expression of expressionism (xieyi) by the time of Wang Mian (fl. c. 1360).

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  • Cahill, James. The Lyric Journey: Poetic Painting in China and Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.

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    An elegant study of the intermingling and cross-fertilization of literary and visual elements in selected examples taken from three especially brilliant periods of literati painting (Southern Song, late Ming, and mid-Edo).

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  • Chen Zhidong 陈滯冬. Zhongguo shuhua yu wenren yishi (中国书画与文人意识). Changchun, China: Jilin daxue chubanshe, 1992.

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    This is a meticulous study of the calligraphic brush styles of literati paintings, as applied to landscape, flora, and other subjects, with special emphasis on abstract and individualistic styles.

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  • Fong, Wen C. Beyond Representation: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy 8th–14th Century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992.

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    This monumental tome has good summaries of literati painting in the Song and Yuan; moreover, the quality of the illustrations is superb.

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  • Huang Zhuan 黃专 and Yan Shanchun 严善錞. Wenrenhua de quwei, shitu yu jiazhi (文人画的趣味、试图与价值). Shanghai: Shanghai shuhua chubanshe, 1993.

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    A history of the formation of the canon of literati painters and paintings, which places Dong Qichang’s role in the context of the writings of other figures who helped codify the tradition, such as his contemporary Li Rihua, as well as predecessors in the Song and Yuan.

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  • Mao Wenfang 毛文芳. Tucheng xingle: Ming Qing wenren huaxiang tiyong xilun (圖成行樂：明清文人畫像題詠析論). Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 2008.

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    This is a study of some of the most celebrated paintings that inspired dozens of inscriptions by well-known literati, including Dashan’s Jialing tiancitu (1679) and others by painters such as Chen Hongshou, Xu Gui, and Jin Nong.

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  • Shou Qinze 寿勤泽. Zhongguo wenrenhua sixiang tanyuan: Yi Bei Song Shuxue wei zhongxin (中国文人画思想探源：以北宋蜀学为中心). Beijing: Rongbaozhai chubanshe, 2009.

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    This work explores the first articulation of the aesthetics of literati painting by Su Shi and other Sichuan literati, specifically their ideas of “plainness” (pingdan) and “the sublime” (yipin) in the poetics of the Northern Song, and their subsequent application to painting, seal script, and other media.

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  • Zhang Maorong 張懋鎔. Shuhua yu wenren fengshang (書畫與文人風尚). Taibei: Wenjin chubanshe, 1988.

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    This work is organized by topic and foregrounds the aesthetic and philosophical principles of literati painting, from their first appearance in the Tang to their full development in the Song and Yuan dynasties.

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Calligraphy and Decorative Arts

Harrist and Fong 1999 is a very readable introduction to the history of calligraphy, and Hou 2009 augments this with the story of how antiquarianism and eclecticism emerged in late Qing and early-20th-century calligraphy. Fong 2014 eloquently summarizes both verbally and graphically the intricate relationship between calligraphy and painting that lay at the heart of the literati aesthetic. Hay 2010 expands the study of formal patterns; namely, art as “wen” or pattern (which can also be understood as the essence of the literati aesthetic) into the three-dimensional realms of architecture, ceramics, and other objects.

  • Fong, Wen C. Art as History: Calligraphy and Painting as One. Princeton, NJ: Tang Center for East Asian Art, 2014.

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    This is an elegantly written, beautifully illustrated overview of the intertwined relationship of calligraphy to painting, and of the many ramifications of this symbiosis for the history of pictorial art.

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  • Harrist, Robert, and Wen C. Fong. The Embodied Image: Chinese Calligraphy from the John B. Elliott Collection. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Art Museum, 1999.

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    This tome combines lucid and (to the nonspecialist) very accessible essays on the history of the calligraphic tradition and some of its greatest practitioners, with examples from one of the best collections outside China.

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  • Hay, Jonathan. Sensuous Surfaces: The Decorative Object in Early Modern China. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2010.

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    While not a study of literati art per se, this work analyzes how Ming and Qing luxury objects—and specifically their surface decorations—resonated with the architectural environments in which they were placed, to produce aesthetic and affective responses in their elite owners, whether literati or not.

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  • Hou Kaijia 侯开嘉. Zhongguo shufashi xinlun (中国书法史新论 [增订版]). Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2009.

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    This work focuses on the influence of ancient stele rubbings on the development of new styles of calligraphy from the Qing to the mid-20th century.

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  • McNair, Amy. The Upright Brush: Yan Zhenqing’s Calligraphy and Song Literati Politics. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998.

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    An insightful account that analyzes how moral and aesthetic judgments were reshaped and merged together into a new synthesis through the elevation of Yan Zhenqing’s calligraphy by Song literati, as part of Neo-Confucian elites’ strategies to enhance their political and cultural power in the 11th century.

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Guqin

Singled out as the preferred instrument of educated men by no less than Confucius himself, the guqin is the oldest of the original Four Arts. For the philosophical and literary discourse on the guqin, see Miao 2006; Yip 1994, whose author is both a musicologist and a performer, includes discussions of the history of performance and the players described in the historical record. Van Gulik 1969 remains a good source about various famous exemplary instruments from the Tang or earlier, and also for some of the instruments that survive in Japanese collections.

  • Miao Jianhua 苗建华. Guqin meixue sixiang yanjiu (古琴美学思想研究). Shanghai: Shanghai yinyue chubanshe, 2006.

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    A discussion of the writings about the guqin, from the Six Dynasties to the Qing, with sections on its relationship to self-cultivation, its association with recluses, extant musical scores, and the role of pre-Qin texts in the exaltation of its value and relevance to later ages.

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  • van Gulik, Robert Hans. The Lore of the Chinese Lute: An Essay on the Ideology of the Ch’in. Rutland, VT: Tuttle, 1969.

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    This book, first published in 1940, remains one of the best introductions to the philosophical and literary as well as musical traditions of the guqin. Its illustrations of instruments include some of the oldest in existence, dating from the Tang period and preserved in the Shōsōin in Nara.

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  • Yip Mingmei (Ye Mingmei) 葉明媚. Guqin yishu yu Zhongguo wenhua (古琴藝術與中國文化). Hong Kong: Zhonghua shuju, 1994.

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    This work focuses on the relationship of the guqin to Chan philosophy, literati painting, and literary gatherings and describes the poetry and essays about the instrument by famed writers such as Bai Juyi and Su Shi. It also includes biographies of gifted players from ancient to modern times.

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Theatrical Arts and Courtesans

Relatively few literati learned to play the guqin well; instead of attaining musical virtuosity in the instrument, literati mostly practiced cultivated connoisseurship of music as a whole, which in Ming and Qing times stimulated the development of Kunqu, the history of which is detailed in Liu and Xie 2005. Tan 2010 explores the nearly unprecedented rise of musical and theatrical composition among prominent late Ming literati figures, and the implications of these trends for broader social and cultural trends of that period. Volpp 2011 does something similar for a slightly later period, focusing more on the aesthetics of the theater and the actors who achieved considerable renown. Cheng 2012 demonstrates how these actors—particularly the dan or female role specialists—became the objects of literati adulation, and the history of relationships between these two socially disparate groups. The patronage of such female impersonators followed in the footsteps and in some ways mimicked the traditions of literati-courtesan relations from earlier eras, such as the Tang and Song dynasties. Saitō 2000 provides an excellent overview of the extensive lore on this earlier era, which included both poetic composition (by women as well as men) and musical performance by female entertainers (mostly on the pipa or yueqin rather than the guqin). Li 2014 is especially illuminating on the centrality of talented courtesans such as Liu Rushi in late Ming and Qing literati cultural life. Goldman 2012 offers a comprehensive, beautifully nuanced portrait of operatic entertainment during the last century of Qing rule, when permanent theatrical establishments became fixtures of literati cultural and social life, comparable in many ways to elite opera and various other theatrical forms in early modern Europe.

  • Cheng Yuang 程宇昂. Ming Qing shiren yu nandan (明清士人与男旦). Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2012.

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    This work traces the rise of male actors playing female roles from the mid-Ming to the end of the Qing, with special emphasis on famed literary and cultural figures who figured in this history, such as Chen Weisong and Bi Yuan, as well as the institutionalization of prostitution by theatrical establishments during the Qing.

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  • Goldman, Andrea. Opera and the City: The Politics and Culture of Beijing, 1770–1900. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012.

    DOI: 10.11126/stanford/9780804778312.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A study of opera connoisseurship in mid- to late Qing Beijing, drawing primarily on the flower registers (huapu) published by and for literati patrons of popular stage actors.

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  • Li, Wai-yee. Women and National Trauma in Late Imperial Chinese Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014.

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    An ambitious study that elucidates the heroic inspiration invested in the figure of the courtesan by early Qing literati such as Qian Qianyi, Mao Xiang, and Yu Huai—among many others—to understand “why and how gender tropes become instrumental in dealing with challenging or sometimes calamitous experience.”

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  • Liu Zhen 刘桢 and Xie Yongjun 谢雍君. Kunqu yu wenren wenhua (昆曲与文人文化). Changchun, China: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe, 2005.

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    This study is centered on the transformation of Kunqu drama from the mid-16th to the late 17th centuries, showing how literati involvement as dramatists, patrons of house troupes, and scholars turned it into a literati art par excellence.

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  • Saitō Shigeru 斎藤茂. Gijo to Chūgoku bunjin (妓女と中国文人). Tokyo: Tōhō shoten, 2000.

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    A wide-ranging introduction to the institutions of prostitution as they affected the lives of literati from the Tang to the Qing, with special attention to exemplary figures such as Li Shishi, Chen Yuanyuan, and Liu Rushi. It also discusses the portrayal of prostitutes in Ming and Qing fiction. Chinese translation by Shen Heli: Jinü yu wenren (妓女与文人, 申荷丽译) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2011).

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  • Tan, Tian Yuan. Songs of Contentment and Transgression: Discharged Officials and Literati Communities in Sixteenth-Century North China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.

    DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1dnn8qxSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This study traces the turn to composing operatic qu as well as sanqu by the famed literati writer Li Kaixian and two other former officials following their retirement from public life.

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  • Volpp, Sophie. Worldly Stage: Theatricality in Seventeenth-Century China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2011.

    DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1tm7fcxSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This is a collection of essays about the implications of late Ming and early Qing theatrical performance for literati self-presentation, and the impact on literati society of relationships between actors and literati such as Xu Ziyun and Chen Weisong.

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Games

References to the game of go (qi or weiqi) can be found in some of the oldest strata of Chinese writing, and elite enthusiasm for it is well attested from as early as the Warring States period. Its professionalization seems to have occurred relatively late, in the early or mid-Qing periods. Although other competitive board games such as xiangqi rose in popularity in imperial times, these never rivaled the high prestige and intellectual associations of this game. Zhang 1998 is comprehensive both in its historical account of the rise of go, and the reconstruction of strategies and games on the basis of literary sources going back over two millennia. Song and Miao 2010 is useful in tracing the spread and influence of the game among late-imperial elites. He 2006 provides a concise but thorough account of the bifurcation between elite and non-elite playing styles.

  • He Yunbo 何云波. Yijing: Weiqi yu Zhongguo wenyi jingshen (弈境：围棋与中国文艺精神). Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2006.

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    A concise summary of the mythology surrounding go, topically arranged (such as go and writing, go and philosophy, go and art, and go as entertainment). It also discusses the differences between literati go and the game as played by professionals or non-literati amateurs.

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  • Song Huiqun 宋会群 and Miao Xuelan 苗雪兰. Zhongguo boyi wenhua shi (中国博弈文化史). Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2010.

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    This is a comprehensive history of the origins and development of games and gambling, touching on the influence of and relationships to scientific knowledge, Daoism, Yijing cosmology, and other topics. It contains a short discussion of go, and much more detailed descriptions of xiangqi as well as drinking games that were popular both among the literati and less well-educated groups.

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  • Yang, Lien-sheng. “A Note on the So-Called TLV Mirrors and the Game Liu-po.” In Excursions in Sinology. By Lien-sheng Yang, 138–144. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969.

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    Also see “An Additional Note on the Ancient Game Liu-po” (pp. 145–165). An erudite discussion of early archaeological and textual evidence for several related forms of gambling and games, which, though not directly relevant to go per se, illustrates how these were popular within the upper strata of society from very early times and foreshadowed the elaborate drinking games and word puzzles found in literary sources from the Song and later.

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  • Zhang Ru’an 张如安. Zhongguo weiqi shi (中国围棋史). Beijing: Tuanjie chubanshe, 1998.

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    A very technical discussion of the game of go as it evolved from the Han to the Qing dynasties, with a number of illustrations of strategy and of famous games. It also lists the biographies of important players through history.

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Bibliophilia

The vocation of book collecting and cataloguing can be traced back to the descriptions of imperial collections (known variously as yiwenzhi, jingjizhi, etc.) first written in the Western Han dynasty; these took root as an avocation among the literati following the spread of printing technology in the late Tang and Song periods. Fan 2013 brings together many anecdotes and descriptions of bibliophiles and their collections from the Song through the Qing; Wang 1994 extends this into the Republican era but does so by showing how these 20th-century bibliophiles largely followed the traditions of their predecessors in the Qing or earlier. McDermott 2006 focuses on the burgeoning publishing industry and private collecting of late Ming literati. Xu 2007 is a study of the golden age of bibliophiles in the 19th century, when private collectors undertook herculean efforts to reassemble or replace the collections of the Jiangnan region that had been dispersed during and following the Taiping Rebellion (1847–1863).

  • Fan Fengshu 范凤书. Zhongguo zhuming cangshujia yu canshulou (中国著名藏书家与藏书楼). Zhengzhou, China: Dazhong chubanshe, 2013.

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    A compendium of what the extant historical and literary evidence reveals about the personal libraries of famous writers and scholars from the Tang to the Qing.

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  • McDermott, Joseph P. A Social History of the Chinese Book: Books and Literati Culture in Late Imperial China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006.

    DOI: 10.5790/hongkong/9789622097810.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A study of the economic and social networks that facilitated book production and distribution from the Song to the Qing; much of the book details the burgeoning late Ming book trade and the role of eminent bibliophiles of that era, such as Hu Yinglin, Chen Jiru, Mao Jin, and Xu Bo.

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  • Wang Sanshan 王三山. Wenren shuqu (文人书趣). Wuhan, China: Wuhan daxue chubanshe, 1994.

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    Although this is mainly an account of prominent modern writers’ often-idiosyncratic habits of book collecting, its introduction gives a useful overview of the most-famous bibliophiles from the Song to the Qing.

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  • Xu Zhenji 徐桢基. Cangshujia Lu Xinyuan (藏书家陆心源). Xi’an, China: Shaanxi renmin jiaoyu chubanshe, 2007.

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    This is a biography of one of the most prominent late Qing book collectors, Lu Xinyuan (b. 1838–d. 1894), that includes much material about the interconnections between his book collecting and his philanthropic activities. It also discusses his lasting impact in the 20th century and even into the early 21st century.

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Gardens

Horticultural knowledge was valued as integral to literati self-cultivation, which can be traced back, among other roots, to Confucius’s exhortation that men learn to name the flora around them by reciting the Classic of Poetry. Besides serving as physical locations, literati gardens were integral elements in the lifestyles and the cultural attainments both of owners and temporary guests. Cheng 1993 is a richly illustrated overview of the most-famous gardens of Suzhou and Guangdong. Keswick 2003 provides more detailed textual background to the history of many of these same sites. Zhou 2004 is useful for terminology as well as information on the botanical features of gardens, while Johnston 1991 is especially helpful for understanding the place of the larger urban contexts of gardens across much of central China. Henderson 2013, too, takes this same approach but for a geographically more limited area. Both Tsu 1988 and Wang 2015, though comprehensive, delve more deeply into the literary record, where each traces the long history and development of concepts of literati garden design extending into the pre-Qin past, well before the beginnings of any currently existing gardens. More than any other writer, the author of Huang 1986 explicates the principles of a uniquely literati aesthetics of gardens. And while not a study of gardens per se, Song 2010 provides an excellent summary of flower appreciation in the mid- to late imperial eras.

  • Cheng Liyao 程里尧. Wenren yuanlin jianzhu: Yijing shanshui tingyuan (文人园林建筑: 意境山水庭园院). Beijing: Zhongguo jianzhu gongye chubanshe, 1993.

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    A beautifully illustrated introduction to the most-famous literati gardens of Suzhou, Panyu (in Guangdong), and elsewhere, with high-quality maps of each of the larger gardens, and photographs of the buildings they contain. English translation: Private Gardens: Personal Gardens of Ancient China (New York: CN Times Book, 2015).

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  • Henderson, Ron. The Gardens of Suzhou. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.

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    A slim, highly readable description of the gardens of Suzhou, including good maps, and also comparisons between actual gardens and literary descriptions of imaginary gardens such as that in Dream of the Red Chamber.

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  • Huang Changmei 黃長美. Zhongguo tingyuan yu wenren sixiang (中國庭園與文人思想). Taibei: Wenming shjuju, 1986.

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    This is an excellent overview of the philosophical and practical elements of literati gardens, and of how the latter reflect not only the ideals but also the daily lives and needs of their elite owners, residents, or both.

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  • Johnston, R. Stewart. Scholar Gardens of China: A Study and Analysis of the Spatial Design of the Chinese Private Garden. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

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    In spite of some deficiencies, this work has not yet been fully superseded; it is especially detailed in its descriptions of the garden as an element of the urban landscape and architecture in the major cities of central China.

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  • Keswick, Maggie. The Chinese Garden: History, Art, and Architecture. 3d rev. ed. Revised by Alison Hardie, with contributions and conclusion by Charles Jencks. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.

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    This is a revised edition of Keswick’s pioneering survey, first published in 1978; it remains a highly accessible overview of the subject, well illustrated and written in lucid prose.

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  • Song Lizhong 宋立中. “Xianyin yu yazhi: Mingmo Qingchu Jiangnan shiren xianhua jianshang wenhua tanlun” (闲隱与雅致：明末清初江南士人鲜花鉴赏文化探论). Fudan xuebao: Shehui kexue 2 (2010): 124–129.

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    This is a useful overview of late Ming and early Qing writings that impute anthropomorphic qualities to flowers, such as faithfulness or moral purity.

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  • Tsu, Frances Ya-Sing. Landscape Design in Chinese Gardens. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988.

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    This general overview packs in a great deal of detail on technical matters of design, botany, and historical background; it is particularly good on the topic of rocks.

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  • Wang, Yi. A Cultural History of Classical Chinese Gardens. Translated by Yu Luo Rioux. Shanghai: SCPG, 2015.

    DOI: 10.1142/z005Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This is a brief but very readable survey of the aesthetic principles of gardens, and their close relationships to literature, philosophy, and painting.

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  • Zhang Jiaji 张家骥. Zhongguo zaoyuan lun (中国造园论). Taiyuan, China: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 2003.

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    Reflecting the expertise of a scholar-practitioner of traditional garden design and maintenance, this work is especially useful in demonstrating how abstract concepts such as emptiness or pattern came to be embodied in forms that varied and evolved over time.

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  • Zhou Wuzhong 周武忠. Xinjing de qiyuan: Zhongguo yuanlin wenhua (心境的棲园：中国园林文化). Ji’nan, China: Ji’nan chubanshe, 2004.

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    A concise summary of the main components of garden architecture, including structures as well as plants, and also of the vocabulary associated with garden strolls (youyuan).

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Tea, Alcohol, and Cuisine

The literati aesthetic did not simply include the senses of taste and smell; it privileged them. It is no accident that the various words for “taste” or “tasting” (wei, pin, etc.) carry most of the same cultural connotations in Chinese as analogous words do in other languages. Alcoholic beverages, tea, incense, and the culinary arts all served as vehicles for articulating and cultivating refined tastes, and among these, the connoisseurship of tea generated by far the most voluminous literature. Benn 2015 provides a very comprehensive history of “tea in China” while also touching on its transmission to Japan, a development of great significance since the tea cultures both of Japan and Korea inherited and further ramified literati tea. Graham 1998 is especially relevant in this regard, since the topic of the book is the preservation of literati tea (bunjincha) in mid-Edo-era Japan. Jeong 2011 is an excellent history of the rebirth of literati tea in late-18th- and 19th-century Korea. Zhu, et al. 2002 still serves as an indispensable reference work for the overall field, while Chen 1997 is also comprehensive in its inclusion of literary works as well as botanical data. In addition to including the original texts of over 100 primary works on tea, its summaries of these works make Zhu, et al. 2010 quite useful. For varied perspectives on the classic works of mid-Tang tea, see Kumakura and Cheng 2012. Guan 2001 touches on the practices of tea drinking that extended beyond the literati. Yang and Yang 2011 is useful for its study of Ming-dynasty tea practices; the notes on the imperial collections of tea wares in Liao 2002 illustrate the ways that tea was consumed up until the last decades of the Qing. As for alcoholic beverages and the culinary arts, scholarship devoted specifically to their ties to literati culture writ large is still relatively limited, especially in Western languages. Nevertheless, Lu 2000, on drinking in the Wei-Jin era, remains a pioneering essay on this topic; several chapters in Yue and Tang 2013 offer more-nuanced views of elite habits of and attitudes toward alcohol consumption, specifically. As with much of the scholarship about elite culinary tastes, Chen 2007 draws primarily from poetry; nevertheless, the author’s conclusions have far-reaching implications for the formation of literati aesthetics both in the Song and subsequent eras.

  • Benn, James. Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2015.

    DOI: 10.21313/hawaii/9780824839635.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    An exceptionally comprehensive overview of the religious, literary, ritual, medicinal, and other cultural dimensions of tea production and consumption, mainly in China but also through the migration of some of its practices to medieval Japan. It is particularly insightful on the Buddhist and Taoist ideals that suffused literati writings about tea connoisseurship, and also the complex linkages between such ideals and the more mundane considerations of rank, status, and physical practices.

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  • Chen Suzhen 陳素貞. Bei Song wenren de yinshi shuxie (北宋文人的飲食書寫/上,下). Taibei: Daan chubanshe, 2007.

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    This is an exhaustive survey of poetry both by great masters (Su Shi, Huang Tingjian) and lesser-known figures, demonstrating how culinary tastes and methods reflect the aesthetic values, philosophical ideals, social concerns, and career experiences of Northern Song literati.

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  • Chen Yu 陈瑜. Wenren yu cha (文人与茶). Beijing: Huawen chubanshe, 1997.

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    This is divided into sections devoted to poetry, painting and calligraphy, Buddhist self-cultivation, and utensils, as well as the association of specific tea districts and tea types with individual writers. It also contains a convenient list of the most-famous tea poems and their writers.

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  • Graham, Patricia. Tea of the Sages: The Art of Sencha. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998.

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    A study of the literati tea (also known as sencha) movement that arose in the Kansai region (around Kyoto and Osaka) during the 18th and 19th centuries, whose adherents saw themselves as restoring the formal simplicity and cultured values of Chinese literati tea in reaction to the perceived formalism of chanoyu.

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  • Guan Jianping 关剑平. Cha yu Zhongguo wenhua (茶与中国文化). Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2001.

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    This is a very concise overview of the cultural history of tea from the Southern dynasties to modern times.

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  • Jeong Min 정민 (鄭珉). Joseon ui cha munhwa (조선의 차 문화). Seoul, South Korea: Gimyeongsa, 2011.

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    This is a gorgeously illustrated history of the revival of tea culture among Korean literati in the late Joseon period, focusing on the pivotal role of the famed Confucian scholar Dasan (Jeong Yak’yong, b. 1762–d. 1836).

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  • Kumakura Isao 熊倉功夫 and Cheng Qikun 程啟坤, eds. Riku U “Chakyō” no kenkyū (陸羽の「茶経」の研究). Kyoto: Miyaobi shuppansha, 2012.

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    An edited volume that contains chapters on the history of Lu Yu’s Classic of Tea, its reception in various dynasties, its transmission to Japan, and its influence on the most famous modern work in English about tea, Okakura Tenshin’s The Book of Tea (1906).

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  • Liao Baoxiu 廖寶秀. Ye keyi qingxin: Chaqi, chashi, chahua (也可以清心：茶器、茶事、茶話). Taibei: Gugong bowuyuan, 2002.

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    This is a beautifully printed catalogue of holdings of tea utensils and related items in the Palace Museum in Taipei, with detailed notes in Chinese alongside shorter summaries in English.

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  • Lu Xun 鲁迅. “Wei Jin fengdu ji wenzhang yu yao ji jiu zhi guanxi” (魏晋风度及文章与药及酒之关系). In Wei Jin fengdu ji qita (魏晋风度及其他). By Lu Xun, 185–198. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2000.

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    This multidimensional, pungently witty essay about the countercultural eccentricity of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove and other figures of the Wei-Jin, first published in 1928 but still readable and even relevant in the late 2010s, argues for the centrality both of alcohol and various medicinal concoctions to understanding literati attitudes and behavior in the Wei-Jin era.

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  • Yang Dongfu 杨东甫 and Yang Ji 杨骥. Zhongguo gudai chaxue quanshu (中国古代茶学全书). Nanning, China: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2011.

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    An exhaustive catalogue of literary and other sources related to tea. It is especially good on the Ming period.

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  • Yue, Isaac, and Siufu Tang, eds. Scribes of Gastronomy: Representations of Food and Drink in Imperial Chinese Literature. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013.

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    A number of insightful essays in this volume trace the cultural and political dimensions of alcohol and cuisine, respectively; Nicholas Williams on Wei-Jin drinking, Charles Kwong on alcohol and poetry, and Duncan Campbell on Zhang Dai’s writings about food are especially relevant to literati culinary interests.

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  • Zhu Shiying 朱世英, Wang Zhenheng 王振恆, and Zhan Luojiu 詹罗九. Zhongguo cha wenhua cidian (中国茶文化辞典). Hefei, China: Anhui wenyi chubanshe, 2002.

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    A handy dictionary of terms related to multifarious aspects of tea culture, including implements, cultivars, texts, and literary genres.

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  • Zhu Zizhen 朱自振, Shen Dongmei 沈冬梅, and Zeng Qin 增勤. Zhongguo gudai chashu jicheng (中国古代茶书集成). Shanghai: Shanghai wenhua chubanshe, 2010.

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    An annotated collection of over 100 works on tea from the Tang to the Qing, all conveniently collected into a single volume. It also conveniently lists the sources of these works, and their modern editions, where available.

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