On the evening of September 11, 2024, the Department of Chinese Language and Literature of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau, hosted an academic lecture titled “Poet-Monks: The Invention of Buddhist Poetry in the Late Tang and Five Dynasties,” featuring Professor Thomas Mazanec from the University of California, Santa Barbara. The lecture was moderated by Professor Zhang Yue from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature. Many faculty members and postgraduate students attended the lecture either in-person or online, creating a lively atmosphere.
Professor Mazanec’s research focuses on classical Chinese literature and comparative literature. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles on topics such as medieval Chinese poetry, religion, translation, and digital humanities. His representative work includes Poet-Monks: The Invention of Buddhist Poetry in Late Medieval China. He also co-edited a special issue of Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture (5.2) titled “Digital Methods and Traditional Chinese Literary Studies.” Currently, Professor Mazanec is translating several collections of Tang poetry into English, including a new annotated and critically introduced version of Three Hundred Tang Poems for The Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature series, to be published by Oxford University Press.
This lecture showcases Professor Mazanec’s new book, Poet-Monks, which focuses on the literary and religious practices of Buddhist poet-monks in Tang Dynasty China. The book presents an alternative historical trajectory for medieval Chinese poetry. It combines large-scale quantitative analysis with close readings of significant literary texts, illustrating how Buddhist poet-monks, emerging in the latter half of the Tang dynasty, advocated for bold new ideas in poetry, blending classical Chinese poetry with Buddhist practices such as repetition, mantra chanting, and meditation. The book traces the historical development of poet-monks as a distinctive group within the Chinese literary world and argues that religious practices played a crucial role in reconnecting the fragmented traditions they inherited. Through this process, they established an elite style of Buddhist poetry. Poet-Monks demonstrates that during the Tang-Song transition, Buddhist monks were at the forefront of poetic innovation. At the end of the lecture, Professor Mazanec patiently and thoroughly answered questions from the audience. The lecture was warmly received and concluded in an atmosphere of friendly academic exchange.
