Spatial Imaginaries in Mid-Tang China: Geography, Cartography, and Literature.

• Author: Miao, Xiaojing
• Position: Book review

Spatial Imaginaries in Mid-Tang China: Geography, Cartography, and Literature. By Ao WANG. Amherst, NY: CAMBRIA PRESS, 2018. Pp. xii + 362. $119.99.

In this book, Ao Wang expands and complicates our understanding of mid-Tang (roughly from the 790s to the 820s) literature by exploring the interplay between "geographical advancements" and "spatial imaginaries" (p. 1). This is an unexplored realm in the study of Tang literature. By "geographical advancements," the author means "progressions in the geographical understanding of space," a broad concept that includes "the accumulation of new geographical knowledge," "a heightened geographical awareness," "new spatial perspectives on the world," and "new ways of thinking about human inhabitation" (p. 1); "spatial imaginaries" refers to "the conceptual counterpart of this phenomenon within literature" (p. 2). In this project, the author is not discussing the influence one had on the other, but how geography and literature developed hand in hand in the mid-Tang period.

Of course, there had already been interaction between geography and literature prior to the mid-Tang. The author shows that geographical works, including the "Tribute of Yu" (Yugong [phrase omitted]) in the Book of Documents (Shangshu [phrase omitted]), the Classics of Mountains and Seas (Shanghai jing [phrase omitted]), and the various "records of the earth" (diji [phrase omitted]), are highly literary in nature; they in turn inspired the spatial imaginaries in contemporary and later literature. Nevertheless, Wang claims that the prominent status geography held in the mid-Tang was unprecedented, and he illustrates this in his first chapter, "Geographical Advancements in the Mid-Tang." In the aftermath of the An Lushan Rebellion, when the empire was struggling to restore imperial superiority and regain its control over local areas, "geography emerged as a field of knowledge that was of crucial importance to the empire" (p. 39). As a result, a group of multitalented scholar-officials including Han Yu [phrase omitted] (768-824), Bai Juyi [phrase omitted] (772-846), Yuan Zhen ft, [phrase omitted] (779-831), and Li Deyu [phrase omitted] (787-850)--many of whom held high positions at court--actively engaged in making and studying maps and geography. Among their achievements in geographical exploration, the grand Map of Chinese and Foreign Lands within the Seas (Hainei huayi tu [phrase omitted]) by Jia Dan [phrase omitted] (730-805), the...