The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons is a highly-influential work on Chinese literary
aesthetics. Dating from the 5th century, its author,
Liu Xie, composed the work 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. Among his contributions is his remarkable notion that affections are literally the medium of literature, and language merely the product.