Competing Discourses: Orthodoxy, Authenticity, and Engendered Meanings in Late Imperial Chinese Fiction (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780674005129)

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.

Author: Maram Epstein
ISBN-10: 0674005120
ISBN-13: 9780674005129
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Language: English
Published: 06/01/2001
Pages: 353
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.45lbs
Size: 9.26h x 6.31w x 1.21d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 11/01/2001 pg. 504