Remembered today primarily as a poet, calligrapher, and critic,
the protean Su Shi was an outspoken player in the contentious
politics and intellectual debates of the Northern Song dynasty. In
this comprehensive study, Egan analyzes Su's literary and artistic
work against the background of eleventhcentury developments within
Buddhist and Confucian thought and Su's dogged disagreement with
the New Policies of Wang Anshi.
Egan explicates Su's views on governance, the classics, and
Buddhism; and he describes Su's social-welfare initiatives, arrest
for disloyalty, and exiles. Finding a key to the richness of Su's
artistic activities in his vacillation on the significance of
aesthetic pursuits, Egan explores Su's shi and ci poetry and Su's
promotion of painting and calligraphy, looking specially at the
problem of subjectivity. In a concluding chapter, he reconsiders
Su's role as a founder of the wenren ("literati") and challenges
the conventional understanding of both Su and the Northern Song
wenren generally.
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