The End of the Chinese 'Middle Ages': Essays in Mid-Tang Literary Culture

This book explores, through a series of essays, a set of interrelated elements that define the literary culture of China in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. This period, known as the Mid-Tang, broke with many of the intellectual habits of the “middle period” of Chinese culture and adumbrated many of the characteristics of China in the Song and later periods.

The first essay examines “singularity,” representations of identity as an assertion of superiority over others and as an ali...