This dissertation aims to show how the author functioned as the key to classifying, preserving, and interpreting a body of ancient knowledge; the author not only served as a foundation upon which different elements of knowledge were brought together, but also as furnished cues to the interpretation of composite texts and thus created a notional coherence in texts. On a deeper level, the inquiry of early Chinese authorship also sheds light on the ritual, religious, and sociopolitical contexts influencing authorial attributions and on how such attributions are associated with early Chinese intellectual history in general.

I argue in Chapter One that the figure of the Yellow Emperor was forged out of the Eastern Zhou ritual and religious thought that bears the mark of the ancestral veneration of high antiquity while at the same time reflecting the concerns of the changing social realities of the time.

I argue in Chapter Two that the written materials later incorporated into the Lunyu originally served different purposes and were interpreted differently in different contexts. The compilation of the Lunyu in the early Western Han was concomitant with the trend of elevating and mythicizing Confucius as the creator of the Han governmental ideology because he filled the need for a tangible, quotable authority.

Chapter Three argues that the "Yaolüe," the last chapter of the extant Huainanzi, was composed after Liu An's death as the means to impart a cohesive unity to the writings left from Liu An's Huainan court. It further explores the relationship between the patron-author and the actual writers or compilers.

In Chapter Four I argue that neither of the two documents is autobiographical account written by Sima Qian. Instead, the voice of frustration conveyed in these two sources should be understood as the collective voice of the Han intellectuals.

In Chapter Five I suggest that in the study of early Chinese translations of Buddhist texts we cannot view early catalogues of Buddhist translations as historical records; instead, we need to explore why and under what circumstances those catalogues were compiled. The intention to differentiate "true," "authentic" translations from apocryphal sutras was one of the most important factors motivating the cataloguing of early translated Buddhist scriptures.

This dissertation explores the sacred landscapes known as grotto-heavens (dongtian 洞天) in Song dynasty (960–1279) literary representations. Coined in roughly the fourth century by religious Daoism, the concept of grotto-heavens initially referred to a utopia constituted by a nexus of interconnected caves hidden in the divine mountains. During the Song dynasty, this Daoist space developed into a quintessential symbol that prevailed in all walks of secular Song scholar-officials’ cultural lives. By probing the understudied literati writings and Daoist textual materials that focus on grotto-heaven landscapes, this study discusses the overlooked spatial understanding and bodily implications of sacred mountains. It argues that the Song literati used their literary devices to reframe the once forbidden and illusory grotto-heavens as accessible places in actual landscapes. The reified grotto-heaven landscape also reshaped the literati aesthetic of ideal space: it not only became an enchanted vessel for literati to cache Daoism-related memories and explore the knowledge of antiquity, but also catalyzed their intellectual and physical cultivation with nature, the traces of sage kings, and eventually the transcendental order.The main body of this dissertation is divided into four chapters. Chapter One provides a general survey of the origin of the grotto-heaven concept in the Daoist tradition and its reception in literature before the Song dynasty. The overview shows that grotto-heavens were perceived as forbidden and illusory spaces in secular literature before the tenth century. Chapter Two concentrates on the case of Grand Cleanse (Dadi 大滌) Grotto-heaven and demonstrates its transformation from an inaccessible space into a visitable place in the secular Song literati’s literary representations. Chapter Three looks into the incentives that drove Confucian literati to depict the Daoist realm as an accessible place. Although still evoking traditional tropes, the literati visitors absorbed the Daoist teaching of physical cultivation and made their bodies an important factor when writing about their wandering in the sacred mountains. Chapter Four builds on the notion of corporeal landscape and elaborates on how the Song literati represented their self-cultivation of inner alchemy in the grotto-heaven landscape to embody the sage king Yu.

My dissertation examines the distinctive role that the qin played in Chinese literati culture in the Song dynasty (960-1279) through its representations in literary texts. As one of the earliest stringed musical instruments in China, the qin has occupied a unique status in Chinese cultural history. It has been played since ancient times, and has traditionally been favored by Chinese scholars and literati as an instrument of great subtlety and refinement. This dissertation focuses on the period of the Song because it was during this period that the literati developed as a class and started to indulge themselves in various cultural and artistic pursuits, and record their experiences in literary compositions as part of their self-fashioning. Among these cultural pursuits, the qin playing was an important one. Although there have been several academic works on the qin, most of them focus on the musical aspects of the instrument. My project aims to reorient the perspective on the qin by revealing its close relationship and interaction with the literati class from a series of historical and literary approaches. During the Song, the qin was mentioned in a multiplicity of literary texts, and associated with a plethora of renowned literary figures. This dissertation argues that in the Song dynasty, the configuration of aesthetic sensitivities, poetic appeal and philosophical implications that literati imparted to the qin reached its mature form, which set a paradigm for later periods. The qin not only served as an object of literary representation, but also a primary medium through which literati’s full-fledged image as a person with comprehensive talents was formed.

My dissertation explores fictional medical narratives in late imperial China by focusing on representations of sickness, with particular attention to the patient. I argue that these fictional medical narratives produced a unique representation of sickness in terms of the patient’s subjective experience of an identity crisis. Through various patients’ individual experiences in fictional medical narratives, it can be seen that “sickness” indicates not only an unhealthy state, but also a process that uncovers disorders of family, ethics, and power structures, and can lead to the remaking of social identities and interpersonal relationships. As the rise of vernacular fiction as a narrative genre during the late Ming was closely related to the contemporary obsession with individual desire, the study of fictional medical narrative will help us understand and contextualize the new emphasis on the value of the individual. This dissertation takes fictional representations of sickness as a lens through which the tension between patients’ subjectivity and socially normative models is made manifest. I define the medical narrative in Ming-Qing vernacular fiction as a story that focuses on a character’s experience of illness and on the way illness influences the character’s social life and interpersonal relationships. In other words, it is the existence and the experience of the patient that constitutes the central feature of fictional medical narratives. Around the existence and the experience of the patient, the other characters have various responses and perform various roles, thereby contributing to the construction of the patient as a distinct type of character. We can conclude that these vernacular stories reflect the humanization of medicine, transforming the typology of patients in non-fictional medical narrative into various descriptions of patients as “whole persons in contexts and relations.” Fictional medical narratives reflect a more complex understanding of the cause, progress, and result of the sickness, revealing how patients’ experiences of suffering go beyond physical symptoms, diagnoses, and treatment. Therefore, fictional medical narratives formulate and convey contemporary understandings of the social meanings of illness in a way not found in other kinds of texts.

In the mid-ninth century, works of calligraphy and texts about calligraphy were exceptionally scattered at court, in its proximity, and in private homes in Tang China. This dissertation examines how Zhang Yanyuan compiled specific texts on calligraphy that embedded his views on the precarious state of preserving model works of calligraphy and how to properly evaluate them. While Zhang directly expresses his views on painting and painting criticism, his views on calligraphy and the underlying goals with which he selects and arranges pertinent texts are only implied.Chapter One addresses the views Zhang explicitly discusses about the relationship between calligraphy and painting, and their shared relationship to the past and image making. Through careful reading of specific points in his essays and secondary sources, I find Zhang’s designation as the first historian of painting counterbalanced with his concerns for detailed records that both rely on and transcend historical time. Chapter Two analyzes the numerous records that provide textual support for specific works once held in the Zhang family collection. These records rally around anonymous notes, one of which highlights how the court was no longer an honorable and safe place for the works to gather and be preserved. Another guiding principle for the texts depends on named authors who also confirm a lineage of calligraphers. Finally, specific records describing the works of the Two Wangs, in their sheer coverage of specific details, textually substantiate the importance of the works. Chapter Three examines the specific developments in evaluating calligraphy that Zhang Huaiguan articulated, and that Zhang Yanyuan selected and supplemented with his collection of texts in the Fashu yaolu. Echoes of these specific evaluation methods can be found in Zhang’s views on painting, both implicitly and explicitly, further connecting his two books. Through structural and textual analysis, I determine how a seemingly comprehensive reference book of complete texts put forward a paradigmatic agenda that had even more to say in its design and details, in addition to its widely accepted underlying concepts.