Reform in the Balance: The Defense of Literary Culture in Mid-Tang China.

• Author: Chen, Jo-shui
• Position: Book Review

Reform in the Balance: The Defense of Literary Culture in Mid-Tang China. By ANTHONY DEBLASI SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Albany: STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS, 2002. Pp. 214. $57.50 (cloth); $18.95 (paper).

This book poses the important question of what was the intellectual mainstream in mid-Tang China, particularly around the turn of the ninth century. It is highly likely that the historically notable ideas put forward by Han Yu (768-824), Liu Zongyuan (773-819) and their comrades constituted only a minority trend in their times. These people were often critical of tradition and the contemporary ethos. An inquiry into the larger intellectual landscape, thus, can help elucidate both the full spectrum of mid-Tang literati thought and the historical position of the guwen camp. This is a task few scholars have attempted, and DeBlasi tries to give it a systematic treatment.

In the "Prelude," DeBlasi outlines the aim of his work, hoping that the uncovering of conventional positions can lead to "a better appreciation of the fault lines in mid-Tang culture" (p. 17). This segment also touches upon the sociopolitical background of intellectual life after the An Lushan rebellion and challenges the concept of Confucian revival in the scholarship on mid-Tang intellectual history. In chapter 1 the author contends that after the disastrous An rebellion there emerged a consensus about literary culture that had roots in the early years of the dynasty and responded to the mid-Tang crisis. The mainstream thinkers of the late eighth and early ninth centuries were inheritors of this shared vision. The central feature of this mainstream was its ideal of "completeness." This position considered wen to be connected with various facets of human life. A literatus should strive to appreciate and embody divergent values and be able to cope with the ever-changing conditions of the world. Completeness, accommodation, and balance are the best words to describe this worldview.

DeBlasi asserts that mid-Tang mainstream thought was not just a vague inclination. Rather, it was systematic in nature and contrasted sharply on various issues with the guwen alternative. In chapters 2 to 4 DeBlasi attempts to illustrate the comprehensive character of the mid-Tang intellectual mainstream. These chapters deal with, respectively, the mainstream approaches to learning, government, and personal morality. Again, DeBlasi finds that members of this persuasion were...