The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons

The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons is a 5th-century work on Chinese literary aesthetics by Liu Xie, composed in fifty chapters (篇) according to the principles of numerology and divination found in the Book of Changes or I Ching. The work also draws on and argues against the 3rd century author Lu Ji's work the Wen fu 文賦 ("On Literature"). Liu Xie wished to give a complete and internally consistent account of literature. One of his ideas is that affections are the medium of literature, and language merely the product.