Accidental Incest, Filial Cannibalism, & Other Peculiar Encounters in Late Imperial Chinese Literature

Lu, Tina

ISBN 10: 0674031563 / ISBN 13: 9780674031562

Published by Harvard University Asia Center, 2009

About this Item

Unread book in perfect condition.

Seller Inventory # 5623746

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Accidental Incest, Filial Cannibalism, & Other Peculiar Encounters in Late Imperial Chinese Literature
• Publisher: Harvard University Asia Center
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674031563
• ISBN 13: 9780674031562
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: As New

About this title

Synopsis

Described as “all under Heaven,” the Chinese empire might have extended infinitely, covering all worlds and cultures. That ideology might have been convenient for the state, but what did late imperial people really think about the scope and limits of the human community?

Writers of late imperial fiction and drama were, the author argues, deeply engaged with questions about the nature of the Chinese empire and of the human community. Fiction and drama repeatedly pose questions concerning relations both among people and between people and their possessions: What ties individuals together, whether permanently or temporarily? When can ownership be transferred, and when does an object define its owner? What transforms individual families or couples into a society?

Tina Lu traces how these political questions were addressed in fiction through extreme situations: husbands and wives torn apart in periods of political upheaval, families so disrupted that incestuous encounters become inevitable, times so desperate that people have to sell themselves to be eaten.

About the Author

Tina Lu is Professor of Chinese Literature at Yale University.