Cold Mountain Poems: Text Travel and Canon Construction

This book unveils the legendary life and the mystic poems of the iconic Chinese Tang poet Han-shan (known by his pen name "Cold Mountain") and investigates the dissemination and reception of his poems worldwide.

Han-shan and the poems attributed to him are amongst the most legendary literary scenery and cultural memory in the history of world scholarly exchange. The maniac poet recluse hidden in the Cold Mountains, the delicate poetic realms of Confucianism, Buddhism, Zen and Taoism contained in Cold Mountain Poems (CMPs), and the incredible pervasiveness of its text travel and canon construction worldwide, as well as the profound impact of CMPs on world literature, provide the perfect lens to learn about Chinese literature, culture and society. This book is thus intended to investigate CMPs in a coherent global context. Considering the vertical studies of the Chinese literature poly system, it highlights the horizontal influence of CMPs, literarily or non-literarily. Furthermore, it addresses the making and developing of the Han-shan phenomenon and its implications for translation studies, travel writing, canon construction and literary historiography.

This book is for scholars, researchers and students in literary history and East Asian Studies focusing on Chinese literature and culture and those interested in the history of poetry in general.