The Virtue of Writing: Issues of Writing in the Literary Mind of Lu Ji's 陸機 (261-303 CE) "Wenfu" 文賦

Abstract

The "Wenfu" 文賦 is a fu-style writing composed by Lu Ji 陸機 (261-303 CE) around 300. Born into a prominent family of the State of Wu during the Three Kingdoms period, Lu Ji experienced the tragic loss of his home country at the age of twenty. After a decade of retreat, Lu Ji moved to the capital of the Western Jin dynasty and, in just a little more than ten years he had before his execution at the age of forty-three, produced numerous literary works, earning a place among the great literary figures of the Six Dynasties. The Wenxuan 文選, an anthology of poetry and prose from the Southern Liang Dynasty, preserves 61 of his works, and among these, the most famous is the "Wenfu," a treatise on literary creation which proclaims the principles of literary art in a highly ornate language. 3 This paper discusses the "Wenfu" in the context of literary criticism in Early Medieval China. After reviewing the biography of Lu Ji and the textual history of the "Wenfu" (Chapter 1), I will the trace the changes in the concepts of "wen" 文 and "writing" in Ancient China from the reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han through the end of the Eastern Han, which culminate in the "Wenfu" (Chapter 2). Specifically, this chapter aims to elucidate the nature of the traditional Chinese literary historical discourse of the "self-consciousness" and the "independence" of literature in the Wei and Jin periods, a view that has been widely accepted since Lu Xun 魯迅. It also aims to identify the shift from "text" to "writing/literature" in Early China around the turn of the first century CE, collating recent scholarship. The purpose of this paper is to place the "Wenfu"—and not Cao Pi's "Lunwen"—as hallmark of the completion of this transition. For this purpose, this paper focuses on the concepts of "yongxin" 用心 and "xuanlan" 玄覧 in Chapter 3, discussing them through comparison with literary theories found in the Han dynasty's Huainanzi 淮南子 and Lunheng 論衡 and the so-called "xuanxue" 玄學 of the time. It will then discuss the issue of intertextuality and anxiety of writers in Early Medieval China (Chapter 4). In conclusion, this paper points out that the Ru-ist virtue is evident in the "Wenfu," and argues that the conventional view that literature became independent from Confucianism (morality) during the Wei and Jin periods requires some reservation (Chapter 5). The rhyme scheme and textual variations of the "Wenfu" are presented at the end (Appendixes).