Liu Xie

Liu Xie (c. 465–520), courtesy name Yanhe, was a literary theorist and critic of the Liang dynasty in the Southern Dynasties. His ancestral home was Ju County in Shandong, and he was born in Jingkou. Orphaned young and poor, he was nonetheless devoted to learning and long stayed with the monk Sengyou at Dinglin Temple, where he took part in collating Buddhist scriptures. From about the age of thirty-two, Liu Xie spent five years completing The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (Wenxin Diaolong), a work of broad scope and deep thought that examines genres, creative conception, style and rhetoric, and literary criticism. It is the most systematic treatise on literary theory in ancient China. Chapters such as “Preface and Motives,” “History and Biography,” “Cutting and Tailoring,” “General Technique,” and “Prayers and Oaths” discuss aims in writing, the genre of history and biography, organization and arrangement, principles of composition, and the forms of prayers and oaths, showing his concern with the origins of genres and the practice of writing. In his later years he became a monk and changed his name to Huidi. Public information about the details of his life is limited, but The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons has had a profound influence on later literary appreciation, Eastern philosophy, and cultural studies.