Old Recluse List

Recluses on the march. Er, I mean NOT on the march, very much so.

I started cleaning out the expanding divider that I carry around in my backpack, for it has gotten large and unwieldy. I came across some material on recluses that I don't think I had typed up, though I wrote an entryon Tao Qian that seems to have been influenced by these sources.

Li Chi 李. “The Changing Concept of the Recluse in Chinese Literature.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 24 (1962): 234–247.

This is really nice short introduction to the recluse figure as one that changes quite a bit over time; this is illustrated with a series of brief portraits of representative recluses. I especially like Li's opening image of the recluse portrait: "tiny human figures, almost imperceptible among the rocks and pines;" this reminds me of the notes I've taken on a large-format book about Chinese paintings, and the lecture I gave on Chinese portraits.

Berkowitz, Alan. Patterns of Disengagement: The Practice and Portrayal of Reclusion in Early Medieval China. Stanford Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000. I didn't actually get through this, though I made a few notes on the back of the Li Chi's paper, which I printed out in full.