Historian of the Strange - Pu Songling and the Chinese Classical Tale.

[Songling, Pu], Zeitlin, Judith.

ISBN 10: 0804729689 / ISBN 13: 9780804729680

Published by Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1993

About this Item

14 cm x 21.5 cm. 332 pages. Softcover. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. The first study in English of the 17th Century Chinese Classic by Liaozhai in a cultural and intercultural context. Selected tales are analyzed in relation to themes such as obsession, gender disclocation and dream. Chapters include: The First Wave: Legitimizing the Strange / Seeing the Self as Other / A Brief History of Satire / Addiction and Satire / The Female Body Transformed / The Grotesque Woman / The Shrew / Pu Songling's Dream / A Fox Dream / Crossing Boundaries / etc. Includes translations of the following tales: 'The Ethereal Rock' / 'Miss Yan' / 'A Fox Dream' / 'The Painted Wall'.

Seller Inventory # 200120AB

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Historian of the Strange - Pu Songling and the Chinese Classical Tale.
• Publisher: Stanford, California, Stanford University Press
• Publication Date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0804729689
• ISBN 13: 9780804729680
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Sehr gut
• Seller catalogs:
  • Varia

About this title

Synopsis

This is the first book in English on the seventeenth-century Chinese masterpiece Liaozhai's Records of the Strange (Liaozhai zhiyi) by Pu Songling, a collection of nearly five hundred fantastic tales and anecdotes written in Classical Chinese.

From the Back Cover

“It is good to see a whole book devoted to the Liaozhai in English, that gives it as serious a study as it deserves: an informative and fascinating account of the background and world that produced it.”—Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

“Zeitlin’s book may be described as a study of the Liaozhai tales in their cultural and intercultural context. She analyzes selected tales in relation to three topics or themes—obsession, gender dislocation, and dream. . . . The central theme of each chapter is enhanced by the inclusion of a network of related topics to cover a wide range of ramifications, such that the narration forms a richly patterned discourse. The book provides both learned description of these selected cultural contexts and an extremely subtle and brilliant reading of some of the most intriguing classical tales ever written in Chinese, all couched in Zeitlin’s graceful and poised prose. . . . Her extraordinary sensibility, her in-depth engagement with the texts, indeed may serve as a model for the reading of Chinese texts in general.”—Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies