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Twelve scholars discuss the use of rhetoric in the royal courts of China, Europe, and Japan

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction by David R. Knechtges

Part I. Rhetoric of Persuasion

1. The Rhetoric of Imperial Abdication and Accession in a Third-Century Chinese Court: The Case of Cao Pi's Accession as Emperor of the Wei Dynasty by David R. Knechtges

2. The Court, Politics, and Rhetoric in England, 1310-1330 by Scott L. Waugh

Part II. Rhetoric of Taste

3. Poems for the Emperor: Imperial Tastes in the Early Ninth Century by Pauline Wu

4. Claiming the Past for the Present: Ichijo Kaneyoshi and Tales of Ise by Steven D. Carter

5. The Emperor and the Ink Plum: Tracing a Lost Connection between Literati and Huizong's Court by Ronald Egan

Part III. Rhetoric of Communication

6. Personal Crisis and Communication in the Life of Cao Zhi by Robert Joe Cutter

7. Keeping Secrets in a Dark Age by Paul Edward Dutton

8. The Politics of Classical Chinese in the Early Japanese Court by Robert Borgen

Part IV. Rhetoric of Gender

9. One Sight: The Han shu Biography of Lady Li by Stephen Owen

10. Poetry of Palace Plaint of the Tang: Its Potential and Limitations by Kuo-ying Wang

Part V. Rhetoric of Natural Nobility

11. Dante in God's Court: The Paradise at the End of the Road by Eugene Vance

12. Practicing Nobility in Fifteenth-Century Burgundian Courtly Culture: Ideology and Politics by Arjo Vanderjagt

Index

About the Author

David Knechtges is professor of Chinese literature and Eugene Vance is professor of French and Italian studies, both at the University of Washington. Other contributors are Robert Borgen (University of California, Davis), Steven D. Carter (University of California, Irvine), Robert Joe Cutter (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Paul Dutton (Simon Fraser University), Ronald Egan (University of California, Santa Barbara), Stephen Owen (Harvard University), Arjo Vanderjagt (University of Groningen), Kuo-ying Wang (National Taiwan University), Scott Waugh (University of California, Los Angeles), and Pauline Yu (University of California, Los Angeles).

Reviews

"An excellent volume on an important but understudied topic. The research is original and the prose thoughtful and jargon-free."--Martin Kern, Princeton University "Nothing quite like this has been published before. The essays serve admirably to begin a discussion of 'court culture': What is it? How should it be defined? Who creates it and for whom?"--Paul W. Kroll, University of Colorad