This book presents the foundations of classical Chinese aesthetic discourse - roughly from the Bronze Age to the early Middle Ages - and considers the reasons why music, poetry, calligraphy and painting were the arts that garnered the most theoretical attention during this period.

Paul R. Goldin is Professor of East Asian Languages & Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Rituals of the Way: The Philosophy of Xunzi (1999); The Culture of Sex in Ancient China (2002); After Confucius: Studies in Early Chinese Philosophy (2005); Confucianism (2011); and The Art of Chinese Philosophy: Eight Classical Texts and How to Read Them (2020). In addition, he edited the revised edition of R.H. van Gulik's classic study, Sexual Life in Ancient China (2003), and has edited or co-edited six other books on Chinese culture and political philosophy.

1. Stirrings of the Heart 2. Stirrings of the Cosmos 3. The Spread of Virtue 4. The Fallacy of Authenticity 5. The Immortal Spirit 6. Against Verisimilitude 7. The Unity of the Arts 8. Metacriticism, Meta-Writing, and Beyond