The title of this book informs the reader that this is a study of the “poetic representation” of mortality in early medieval China. In addition to an introduction and an epilogue, the book is comprised of six chapters. Chapter 1, “Wang Yi on Integrity and Loyalty,” recounts the effort of the Han-dynasty scholar Wang Yi (ca. 89–ca. 158 CE) to rehabilitate Qu Yuan, who had been nearly forgotten at this time because of the criticism directed at his suicide. Chapter 2, “A Young Lady on Yellow Pongee Silk,” tells of the making of an “unusual woman” (Timothy Chan's rendering of the phrase lienü), namely Cao E (130–43), who committed suicide out of grief at her father's death. Chapter 3, “Ruan Ji on Apocalypse,” considers the writings of Ruan Ji (210–63), especially his “Fu on the Great Man” (“Da ren fu”), as religious or quasi-religious “eschatological” literature. Chapter 4, “Tao Qian on His Deathbed,” examines Tao Qian's (365?–427) poems on death—both imaginary and actual death—especially his “In Imitation of Coffin Puller's Songs” (“Ni wan ge ci”) and “A Sacrificial Elegy for Myself” (“Zi ji wen”). Chapter 5, “Xie Lingyun on Awakening,” considers the poetic works of Xie Lingyun (385–433) as metaphorical manifestations of a search for Buddhist enlightenment. Chapter 6, “Composed on the Verge of Unnatural Death,” examines poems written in the face of death (linzhong shi), often death by execution, composed by poets such as Kong Rong (153–208), Ouyang Jian (d. 300), and Xie Lingyun.

Throughout the book, Chan demonstrates his solid grasp of the historical, cultural-intellectual, and religious background as well as the context of the works in question, and he proves his ability to bring this knowledge to bear on his analysis and to offer fresh views on various literary and cultural issues that lie within the scope of his discussion. By situating his study of Wang Yi's editorial project on Qu Yuan and his works within the context of the national politics of the early Han, for instance, he shows that Wang was gravely concerned with what he perceived to be the decline of the Han empire, and that he hence “devoted himself to rescuing the spirit of Qu Yuan as a means of rescuing the empire” (p. 6). Analyzing Ruan Ji's works by means of a “new terminology” of eschatology, Chan claims, “will not only construct a new profile of this highly controversial writer, it will also add a new literary motif to the literary history of China” (p. 68).

Chan's broad approach to the poems in question also enables him to make new, insightful suggestions concerning a number of concrete literary issues. For instance, some Chinese scholars have assumed that Tao Qian wrote his “In Imitation of Coffin Puller's Songs” in preparation for his own death. Chan, however, after comparing them with earlier and concurrent works in the same vein, concludes that “[t]his background supports an earlier dating of Tao Qian's ‘Coffin Puller's Songs’ as Tao's contribution to a popular genre, rather than an orchestration of his own burial” (p. 114). In a similar manner, his careful consideration of linzhong shi in relation to earlier yuefu poems about death yields very helpful observations about the generic characteristics of the subgenre of poems written in the face of death. According to Chan, the three defining features of these poems are “the close relationship with political struggles, the lament for a short life and understanding [sic] its cyclic structure, and regret at not having retreated earlier” (p. 184).

Chan's discussions of cultural and religious issues are knowledgeable, and they rely on thorough research in the pertinent scholarship in the Chinese, English, and Japanese languages. Sometimes, however, these discussions tend to distract the reader's attention from the topic of the book—the “poetic representation” of approaching death, imagined or actual. The entirety of chapter 5, for example, is dedicated to a discussion of the Buddhist dimensions of Xie Lingyun's poetry, but the reader is left wondering how this relates to the topic of the book—especially because Chan points out later in the book that Xie's linzhong shi was “most likely emended by Buddhist monks” (p. 185) to emphasize its Buddhist significance, and that in general there is good reason to suspect that the religious zeal of these monks compromised the integrity of their editorial work. The epilogue to the book, entitled “The Fisherman in Reclusion,” diverges into a treatise on recluse literature. Although Chan argues that this literature is related to poetry on approaching death because poets, especially poets who wrote linzhong shi before being put to death, often lament their failure to withdraw from politics to save their lives, the reader here risks losing track of the interesting topic of this significant book.