I doubt that any serious sinologist would question either of the following statements: first, matters related to geography (especially place-names and their associations) occupy a ubiquitous presence in traditional literary texts; and second, highly descriptive, literary language is present in many premodern geographical works. And yet, while some contemporary scholars writing in Chinese have studied the link between literature and geography in the traditional period, an area of inquiry now called “literary-geography” (wenxue dili), only a few China specialists writing in English have given it serious consideration. This neglect is surprising when one considers that the texts China scholars routinely consult and draw upon were, for the most part, produced by literati who spent the bulk of their careers migrating from one official post to the next, usually in the provinces. Much of their lives and careers, then, was characterized by movement, through space, to and from specific places. As a result, the sites and places encountered during their travels almost always had a significant impact on how literati wrote about their concerns, and especially on how they understood (or imagined) the physical world around them. Ao Wang's new monograph, as indicated by its title, Spatial Imaginaries in Mid-Tang China, addresses the relationship between geography, cartography, and literature (both poetry and prose) in the mid-Tang period, which he defines as roughly from the 790s to the 820s. No one has ever written on this topic before in any language.

Two general premises form the foundation of Spatial Imaginaries. First, the period of imperial reconstruction following the chaos of the An Lushan Rebellion (755–763) inspired geographical advancements and innovative ways of thinking about “spatial perspectives” in a “new contextual space” (p. 2). Second, accompanying this new knowledge and worldview is a phenomenon Wang calls “spatial imaginaries” (p. 8), referring to the ways some Tang writers described “inhabited and uninhabited spaces on different scales” (p. 2). Wang's primary aim is to identify “intersections and juxtapositions” and “affinity and interplay” of geographical-knowledge production, spatial representation (real or imagined), and literary practice and imagination, during what he calls “a crucial transitional period in premodern China” (p. 2).

The book is organized into five chapters. The first serves as an introduction, providing background information on geography and literature before the mid-Tang, the enhanced awareness of geography in Tang intellectual culture, maps and map production, map-guides (tujing), and Li Jifu's (758–814) monumental administrative geography Yuanhe Junxian tuzhi (Maps and treaties of the prefects and counties of the Yuanhe reign).

Chapter 2, “The Big Picture,” addresses the link between literature and maps, which Wang says led to “some spectacular images of the world in the mid-Tang” (p. 71). This connection is disclosed through a close reading of selected literary examples from mid-Tang authors. Wang contends that these representative works reveal the sorts of geographical details one usually finds on maps, often revealing “large-scale spatial imagination” (p. 72). For example, in the case of Liu Zongyuan's (772–819) well-known landscape essay “You Huangxi ji” (Record of an excursion to Huang Creek), it is argued that Liu is engaging in “creative negotiation with the imperial space” from a “cartographic perspective” (pp. 98, 94).

In chapter 3, Wang considers how local knowledge, drawn mainly from map-guides, inspired new ways in which Tang literati wrote about local places and sightseeing destinations. He calls this approach “cross-field intertextualizing” (p. 129), a process in which authors draw upon the contents of tujing and other sources of geographical knowledge and integrate it into their literary works, which then produce new “spatial imaginaries.” Several texts by Yan Zhenqing (709–784 or 785), Liu Zongyuan, Liu Yuxi (772–842), Bai Juyi (772–846), and Yuan Zhen (779–831), among others, are mined to serve as case studies, the aim of which is to reveal the “underlying geographic layer” in which local writing is “enmeshed” (p. 133).

Chapter 4, “Into the Deep South,” surveys the “empire's uncharted landscape in the south” (p. 195), primarily through familiar landscape essays penned by Yuan Jie (719?–772), Liu Zongyuan, and others, most of whom were political exiles. Wang considers works such as Liu Zongyuan's famous Yongzhou prose travel accounts in a new historical context: large-scale Chinese migration south following the An Lushan Rebellion. This exodus, Wang contends, helped to reshape mid-Tang authors’ view and understanding of the empire. I am not sure, however, that the “spatial imaginaries” created by Liu Zongyuan and other political exiles in the backwaters of the south were intended, as Wang suggests, to serve as some sort of real or imagined “homebuilding or reshaping effort” (p. 245). In Liu's case, at least, on more than one occasion he describes himself as a “prisoner” (qiu 囚) living in a malaria-infested land inhabited by “barbarians” (yi 夷). But Wang is correct when he says that appreciation of the wild but attractive Hunan landscape by Yuan Jie, Liu Zongyuan, and others did, on occasion, provide some “sensory pleasure” (p. 197). Such admiration might even be seen as a survival strategy to cope with the shame and embarrassment of political exile.

The fifth and final chapter explores connections between mid-Tang literary production and contemporary advancements in geography, as seen in literary gems penned by two premier authors of the mid-Tang: Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen. The premise here is that the popularity of their poetry is traceable to a dynamic geographical dimension found in their exchange poems, especially those dating from the early ninth century. Yuan Zhen was an expert cartographer, while Bai Juyi was a veteran traveler. Thus, the knowledge they had about, and interactions they had with, literature (mainly poetry) and geography were quite different. And yet, their exchange poems, memories, experiences, dreams, and even imagined journeys seem to almost magically coalesce, bringing them into illusory “reunions.” This affinity, Wang concludes, best exemplifies the kinship that characterizes literature and geography in the mid-Tang.

Every student of premodern China should read this groundbreaking study. Wang's translations are faithful to the original Chinese texts and read beautifully in English, his literary analysis is meticulous and erudite, and his arguments are innovative and provocative. In Spatial Imaginaries in Mid-Tang China, Wang has proposed a new, critical lens through which students of traditional China can better recognize and understand the undeniable connection between literary production and geographical-cartographic reference and knowledge, and by doing so he has made a major contribution to the field.