Enchantment and Disenchantment: Love and Illusion in Chinese Literature - Rilegato

Li, Wai-Yee

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0691056846 ISBN 13: 9780691056845

Casa editrice: Princeton Univ Pr, 1993

Riassunto

In a famous episode of the eighteenth-century masterpiece The Dream of the Red Chamber, the goddess Disenchantment introduces the hero, Pao-yu, to the splendors and dangers of the Illusory Realm of Great Void. The goddess, one of the divine women in Chinese literature who inspire contradictory impulses of attachment and detachment, tells Pao-yu that the purpose of his dream visit is "disenchantment through enchantment," or "enlightenment through love." Examining a range of genres from different periods, Wai-yee Li reveals the persistence of the dialectic embodied by the goddess: while illusion originates in love and desire, it is only through love and desire that illusion can be transcended.
Li begins by defining the context of these issues through the study of an entire poetic tradition, placing special emphasis on the role of language and of the feminine element. Then, focusing on the "dream plays" by Tang Hsien-tsu, she turns to the late Ming, an age which discovers radical subjectivity, and goes on to explore a seventeenth-century collection of classical tales, Records of the Strange from the Liaochai Studio by Pu Sung-ling. The latter half of the book is devoted to a thorough analysis of The Dream of the Red Chamber, the most profound treatment of the dialectic of enchantment and disenchantment, love and enlightenment, illusion and reality.

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Recensione

"[Li] undertakes to examine the dialectical interplay of enchantment and disenchantment engendered by the ambiguous divine woman as ahe appears in a variety of genres in different periods of Chinese literature. . .sparkling with rich suggestions and provacative insights, Li's book will undoubtledly falicitate the study of the role and problematic reprisentation of women in literature"--Eighteenth-Century Film

Contenuti

	Acknowledgments
	Abbreviations
Ch. 1	The Genealogy of Disenchantment	3
	Fu Rhetoric and the Fictional Imagination	10
	Fu Rhetoric and the Feminine Principle	17
	The Topos of the Ambiguous Divine Woman	23
	The Inward Turn of the Topos of the Ambiguous Divine Woman	33
	The Progeny of the Ambiguous Divine Woman	41
Ch. 2	The Late-Ming Moment	47
	Comic Reconciliation in The Peony Pavilion	50
	Detachment through Attachment in The Story of Nan-ko	64
	The Ironic Vision of The Story of Han-tan	69
	The Lyrical Solution in The Palace of Everlasting Life	77
	The Philosophical Solution in Peach Blossom Fan	81
	Enchantment, Disenchantment, and Self-Representation	83
Ch. 3	Desire and Order in Liao-chai chih-i	89
	The Confucian Solution to the Problem of Sensual Love	89
	Pu Sung-ling and the Taming of the Strange	92
	Metamorphosis and Desire	100
	Desire and the Order of Formal Symmetry	105
	Desire and the Logic of Ironic Inversion	114
	The Internal Balance of Desire: Mediation and Complementary Heroines	122
	The Structures of Order	136
Ch. 4	Beginnings: Enchantment and Irony in Hung-lou meng	152
	The Rhetoric of Illusion and the Difficulty of Beginning	159
	Flaw and Supplement	163
	Problems in Literary Communication	175
	The Fate of a Rhetorical Figure	179
	From Myth to History	185
	The Illusory Realm of Great Void	190
Ch. 5	Self-Reflexivity and the Lyrical Ideal in Hung-lou meng	202
	Lust of the Mind	203
	Stone as Narrator	210
	Enlightenment through Love	216
Ch. 6	Disenchantment and Order in Hung-lou meng	231
	The World of the Precious Mirror of Love	232
	The Confusion of the Mythic and the Magical	242
	The Problem of Endings: Order and Return	246
Ch. 7	Epilogue: The Compass of Irony	257
	Works Cited	269
	Index	281

Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: Princeton Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 1993
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0691056846
• ISBN 13: 9780691056845
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 294
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile