In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Chapter One Family Background 11 During Wen Tingyun’s lifetime, the Tang Empire was steadily on the wane, while the aristocratic clans, a mainstay of its rule, were also in decline. Coming to the fore in the political arena were instead some forces in the ascendant: first, the eunuchs, who had in the main usurped state power and sapped it at its core; next, the military satraps, who maintained a semi-independent position , defying the imperial authority in the capital Chang’an; and then the factions with their incessant contention, rendering the decision-making process all the more inefficient. It was against the backdrop of this situation that the Wen clan experienced its own vicissitudes of life. A study of Wen’s family background, therefore, will serve not only to initiate our efforts to uncover hitherto unnoticed events concerning his life, but will also present a particular case for understanding the Late Tang problem of the politically entrenched eunuchs. The texts of “Biographies of Wen Tingyun” in the two Tang Histories1 are too inadequate and misleading to be used to draw a clear picture of Wen’s life. Hence, we will consult various sources, especially his own works, for more reliable information. CLAN ORIGIN AND NATIVE PLACE To begin with, we will study Wen Tingyun’s clan origin and his native place, as a convenient start to unraveling his poetic puzzles and probing into his life. As indicated in Wen’s biography in XTS,WenYanbo (573–636), the greatgrandfather of his grandfather, was a native of Qi County of Taiyuan. This corresponds fairly well with one of Wen’s notes to the fifth rhyme in “Hundred-Rhyme Poem”: My forefathers were dukes and ministers of our state dynasty, and after having helped effect the Heavenly Mandate in Jinyang, they were enfeoffed in the commanderies of Bing and Fen ( ). Jinyang was the locale of the administration of Taiyuan Commandery ( ), where the first emperor of the Tang, Li Yuan ( , 566–625, r. 618–625), rose up in arms against the Sui Dynasty (589–618), and Wen’s forefathers rose to power and position by dint of their meritorious services to the Tang. The Wen clansmen had lived in the Taiyuan area, especially in the so-called Qi County ( ), up to Wen’s lifetime. Qi is an older name for the county called Qingyuan ( ) during the Tang times.2 Since the aristocratic clans still had influence at this time, a Tang literatus would not take the locale of his immediate family as his native place unless the family had lived there since the time of his preeminent ancestors. Instead, he would identify his origins with the place where the family’s famous forefathers lived, however distant they might be. The Song historiographers, when dealing with Tang biographies, followed the same practice. Therefore, we ought to take Taiyuan or Qingyuan as nothing more than the place of Wen’s clan origin. Indeed, an eminent clan with the surname Wen had lived in Qi County since the Han (206 b.c.–220 a.d.).3 During the Tang Dynasty, some of the Wens, including the branch to which Wen Tingyun belonged, had moved to the south, perhaps because of the An-Shi Rebellion. From Wen’s extant works we can infer that Wen was a native of Wu or Yue, the presentday south of the Jiangsu or the Zhejiang province. To pinpoint Wen’s “native place,” we shall have to cite more of his works. In his first of the two “Epistles Presented to Vice Minister Jiang” ( ), Wen mentions Qingyuan in a meaningful manner: “Therefore I left the ‘Qingyuan’ of the mainthreads in the southern country,4 and had a commoner’s audience from the eastern plain” ( ). “Qingyuan,” beside referring to the county under Taiyuan in the north, literally means “pure source” or pure origin (of the family), thus denotes here Wen’s native place in the south, which became Wen’s second homeland after his progenitors emigrated to the south. In “Fifty-Rhyme Poem Inspired by the Bygone, for Pouring My Heart, Presented to Chancellor Li of Huainan” ( , j. 6, WFQ, henceforward “Fifty-Rhyme Poem”), a poem presented to Li Shen ( ),5 Wen writes at the beginning: When Ji Shao was a lad with hair streaming down his forehead, It was the year Shan Tao began his official service.6 Your lute and wine-pot were placed between the seats. I, in silk and brocade, prostrated myself in front of your...

Share