Ideal and Actual in the Story of the StoneColumbia University Press, 1999 - 213 頁 The Story of the Stone(also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber), completed in the mid-eighteenth century by Cao Xuegin, is considered China's greatest novel--but its length and narrative complexity have proven daunting to many modern readers. Now, esteemed scholar of Asian literature Dore J. Levy introduces this timeless work to first-time readers, while also presenting a new method of comparative interpretation for advanced students and scholars. Drawing from literary theory, sociology, religion, and medicine, Levy explores how the classic novel confronts the chasm between social, emotional, and spiritual ideals and their translation into day-to-day reality. This illuminating work unpacks The Story of the Stone based on the interpretation of four major themes: the inversion of traditional family dynamics, which constitutes the novel's social framework; the function of illness and medicine in a society where Buddhist notions of karma and retribution exist alongside pragmatic notions of the human body that make up traditional Chinese medicine; the role of poetry in the social structure of dynastic Chinese society; and the use of poetry as a vehicle for spiritual liberation |
內容
CONTENTS | |
Columbia University Press | |
7 | |
FAMILY TOGETHERNESS | |
27 | |
PREEXISTING CONDITIONS | |
67 | |
103 | |
Poetry as a Vehicle to Enlightenment | |
NOTES | |
Publishers Since 1893 | |
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Adamantina attachment authority awakening Bao-chai Bao-yu beauty Beijing Buddhist Caltrop Cao Xueqin chapter characters Chinese Narrative Chinese Poetry Chinese Society Confucian cousin Crimson Pearl Flower Dai-yu death debt of tears destiny Disenchantment disorder Dream emotional enlightenment experience FAMILY TOGETHERNESS family's father fiction fulfillment girls Grandmother Jia Honglou meng IDEAL AND ACTUAL ideal patterns illness insight jade Jia Bao-yu Jia family Jia household Jia Lian Jia Rui Jia Zheng Lady Wang Land of Illusion Late Imperial China literary lyrical maid marriage Medicine mirror monk mundane world Ning-guo novel passion Plaks poems poetic poetry PREEXISTING CONDITIONS Princeton Qin Ke-qing's Qing Qing dynasty reader REAL AND NOT-REAL realm Red Chamber romantic sense sexual Shanghai Shi jing Shitou Shuowen jiezi Song spiritual Stone Story Taipei Tan-chun Taoist tion traditional Chinese transcendence understand University Press vanity women Xi-feng Xiang-yun yuan Zhang Zhen Shi-yin Zhiyan