The Halberd at Red Cliff: Jian’an and the Three Kingdoms by Xiaofei Tian (review)

The Halberd at Red Cliff is a cultural study of the construction of the imaginary of Jian’an (196–220) and the Three Kingdoms (220–280). The book is divided into three major parts: “The Plague,” “The Bronze Bird,” and “The Red Cliff.” The introduction discusses the structure of the book, introduces key terms such as Jian’an and the Three Kingdoms, and states the book’s purpose:

This book is an attempt to tell that story in Chinese cultural history, a story that is as important to its literary tradition as it is dear to the heart of all those who know it. It is concerned with both the writings of the period and the writings about the period. It shows that the imagination about the period influenced the preservation of its writings, which were edited and anthologized in such a way as to instantiate the cultural image.

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Chapter 1, “Plague and Poetry: Rethinking Jian’an,” focuses on the historical and legendary images of Jian’an.¹ Historically speaking, the Jian’an period lasted less than three decades, and yet these legendary decades have been considered a crucial era in the development of Chinese poetry. This chapter discusses three episodes which demonstrate the link between the major plague of 217 with the cultural construction and formation of the so-called Seven Masters of Jian’an (Jian’an qizi 建安七子). The first was Cao Pi’s 曹丕 (187– 226) commemoration of five of the seven masters who died during the plague and compilation of their literary writings. Cao Pi wrote “Letter to Wu Zhi” (Yu Wu Zhi shu 與吳質書) and “Discourse on Literature” (Lunwen 論文) to discuss Jian’an qizi and his emotions over the loss of his friends. The second was Xie Lingyun’s 謝靈運 (385–433) imitation of Cao Pi, “In Imitation of the Wei Crown Prince’s Gathering at Ye” (“Ni Wei taizi Ye zhong ji” 擬魏太子鄴中集). Tian argues that “the poems are a carefully structured, complex set, strategically evoking writings by the historical poets to realize Xie Lingyun’s vision of the literary Jian’an (57–58).” Through imitation poems Xie further promoted the literary community of Jian’an qizi, which in turn influenced the third moment of cultural construction: the selection of their poems into the Wen xuan 文選(Selections of Refined Literature). Xiao Tong and other editors of the Wen xuan included writings by Jian’an writers and Xie Lingyun’s imitation poems. The Liang dynasty (502–557) literati, such as Xiao Tong 蕭統 (501–531), Liu Xiaochuo 劉孝綽 (481–539), and Xiao Gang 蕭綱 (503–551), also composed poems to express their nostalgia and melancholy for the Jian’an qizi. The cultural construction of Jian’an qizi was therefore established in the early medieval period (220–589).

Chapter 2, “Circling the Tree Thrice: Lord, Vassal Community,” is the longest chapter in this book.² It goes into greater detail about the poetry, rhapsodies, and letters exchanged among Jian’an writers and scholars and explores the community of lord and vassals. Poems and rhapsodies were often composed on social occasions and were therefore public texts. Letters, by way of contrast, cross the public-private division because they might be written to an individual but could also be preserved in a public document, such as a historical account, a piece in an anthology, or a collection of a writer’s corpus. Through writing in these different genres, the writers developed a literati community, where they sought and found their own cultural identity and the recognition of elites. The lord-vassal community was often placed on display during feasts, as the “feast is a powerful social institution that brings people together, forms a community, and reinforces the values of fellowship and civility” (89). Feasts bonded and strengthened the lord-vassal, ruler-subject, or host-retainer relationship and allowed the community to work through various difficulties. The Jian’an writers contemplated food and eating from the philosophical perspective...