Competing Discourses: Orthodoxy, Authenticity, and Engendered Meanings in Late Imperial Chinese Fiction (Harvard East Asian Monographs) - Hardcover

Epstein, Maram

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674005120 ISBN 13: 9780674005129

Publisher: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001

Synopsis

In the traditional Chinese symbolic vocabulary, the construction of gender was never far from debates about ritual propriety, desire, and even cosmic harmony. Competing Discourses maps the aesthetic and semantic meanings associated with gender in the Ming-Qing vernacular novel through close readings of five long narratives: Marriage Bonds to Awaken the World, Dream of the Red Chamber, A Country Codger's Words of Exposure, Flowers in the Mirror, and A Tale of Heroic Lovers.

Epstein argues that the authors of these novels manipulated gendered terms to achieve structural coherence. These patterns are, however, frequently at odds with other gendered structures in the texts, and authors exploited these conflicts to discuss the problem of orthodox behavior versus the cult of feeling.

About this title

About the Author:

Maram Epstein is Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Oregon.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Asia Center
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0674005120
• ISBN 13: 9780674005129
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 353