Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Dialogues in the Dark: Interpreting "Heavenly Questions" Across Two Millennia

Dialogues in the Dark: Interpreting "Heavenly Questions" Across Two Millennia

Williams, Nicholas Morrow

Hardcover

Series: Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph

Literary CriticismPoetry CriticismGeneral Poetry

ISBN10: 067429999X
ISBN13: 9780674299993
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: Aug 26 2025
Pages: 376
Weight: 1.44
Height: 1.11 Width: 6.38 Depth: 9.30
Language: English
Dialogues in the Dark traces how Chinese readers and scholars since the Han dynasty have variously interpreted the ancient poem Heavenly Questions (Tianwen), an enigmatic work attributed to Qu Yuan (fl. ca. 300 BCE). The poem, composed entirely in the form of questions, is an extended inquiry into early Chinese cosmology and history. Over centuries, readers of the poem came to radically different understandings, each providing a unique perspective on its meaning. The poem's reception history comprises three main stages: first, the commentary compiled by Han scholar Wang Yi (ca. 89-ca. 158); second, the response by Tang poet Liu Zongyuan (773-819); and third, the interpretations developed subsequently by late imperial and modern scholars. Nicholas Morrow Williams analyzes how the poem's meaning evolved in different time periods and provides three new translations of Heavenly Questions to represent the three stages, respectively. The ultimate thesis of this study, inspired by the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer, is that this poem is best understood in light of the different interpretations supplied by readers over time in lively dialogues that continue even now.

Also in

Poetry Criticism

View All