Putting His Materials to Use: Experiencing a Li Bai Yuefu in Manuscript and Early Print Documents

• Published in: East Asian publishing and society 2015-01, Vol.5 (1), p.32-73
• Main Author: Nugent, Christopher M. B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2210-6278; 2210-6278
• DOI: 10.1163/22106286-12341270

This essay discusses Li Bai’s yuefu poem “Qiangjin jiu” 將進酒 as it appears in three different manuscripts from Dunhuang and a Northern Song printed edition. By analyzing the work on the levels of document, text, and meaning, I argue that its varied instantiations result in meaningfully different experiences of the poem for readers and listeners. Not only do these documents differ physically, the texts of the work they contain vary considerably as well (including that of best known line in the poem). Finally, I argue that although the poetic corpus found at Dunhuang may not accurately represent the content of the full poetic output of the Tang period, it provides a much more accurate sense of the material forms poetry took in the Tang than do Song and later printed editions and thus merits more attention than it typically receives from scholars.