Jin Ping Mei English Translations

Author: Lintao Qi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351060813
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 229

Book Description
This book investigates the English translations and adaptations of the sixteenth century classic Chinese novel Jin Ping Mei. Acclaimed the ‘No.1 Marvellous Book’ of the Ming dynasty, Jin Ping Mei was banned soon after its appearance, due to the inclusion of graphically explicit sexual descriptions. So far there have been more than a dozen English adaptations and translations of the novel. Working within the framework of descriptive translation studies, this book provides a translational history of the English versions of Jin Ping Mei, supported by various paratexts, including book covers, reviews, and archival materials. It also conducts textual comparisons to uncover the translation norms at work in the only two complete renditions, namely The Golden Lotus by Clement Egerton and The Plum in the Golden Vase by David Roy, respectively. The notions of agency, habitus and capital are introduced for the examination of the transference of linguistic, literary and cultural aspects of the two translations. The book represents the first systematic research effort on the English Translations of Jin Ping Mei. Given its pioneering status and interdisciplinary nature, the data, structure and findings of this book will potentially enrich the fields of Translation Studies, Comparative Literature, Chinese Studies, Cultural Studies and Book History.

Golden Lotus Volume 2

Author: Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 1462906311
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 976

Book Description
"The greatest novel of physical love which China has produced." --Pearl S. Buck A saga of ruthless ambition, murder, and, famously, Chinese erotica, The Golden Lotus (also known as The Plum in the Golden Vase) has been called the fifth Great Classical Novel in Chinese Literature and one of the Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel. Admired in its own time for its literary qualities and biting indictment of the immorality and cruelty of its age, this Chinese classic has also been denigrated for its sexual frankness. It centers on Ximen Qing, a young, dissolute, and politically connected merchant, and his marriage to a fifth wife, Pan Jinlian, literally "Golden Lotus." In her desire to influence her husband and, through him, control the other wives, concubines, and entire household, she uses sex as her primary weapon. The Golden Lotus lays bare the rivalries within this wealthy family while chronicling its rise and fall. This great work of classic Chinese literature, from an author whose pseudonym means "Scoffing Scholar of Lanling," is a virtuoso collection of voices and vices, mixing in poetry and song. It samples different social registers from popular ballads to the language of bureaucrats to recreate and comment mordantly on the society of the time. Little-known in the west but utterly iconic amongst the Chinese classics in worldly circles, reading The Golden Lotus promises both an astute reflection on human tendencies and a sumptuous, intoxicating take on Chinese erotica. This new edition: Features a superb new introduction by Robert Hegel of Washington University, who explains its importance as the first single-authored novel in the Chinese tradition Contains the complete, unexpurgated text as translated by Clement Egerton with the assistance of Shu Qingchun (later known as Lao She, one of the most prominent Chinese writers of the twentieth century) Ensures translation has been pinyinized and corrected for this new edition

Chinese Theories of Fiction

Author: Ming Dong Gu
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 0791481484
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
In this innovative work, Ming Dong Gu examines Chinese literature and traditional Chinese criticism to construct a distinctly Chinese theory of fiction and places it within the context of international fiction theory. He argues that because Chinese fiction, or xiaoshuo, was produced in a tradition very different from that of the West, it has formed a system of fiction theory that cannot be adequately accounted for by Western fiction theory grounded in mimesis and realism. Through an inquiry into the macrocosm of Chinese fiction, the art of formative works, and theoretical data in fiction commentaries and intellectual thought, Gu explores the conceptual and historical conditions of Chinese fiction in relation to European and world fiction. In the process, Gu critiques and challenges some accepted views of Chinese fiction and provides a theoretical basis for fresh approaches to fiction study in general and Chinese fiction in particular. Such masterpieces as the Jin Ping Mei (The Plum in the Golden Vase) and the Hongloumeng (The Story of the Stone) are discussed at length to advance his notion of fiction and fiction theory.

Obscene Things

Author: Naifei Ding
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822383446
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 367

Book Description
In Obscene Things Naifei Ding intervenes in conventional readings of Jin Ping Mei, an early scandalous Chinese novel of sexuality and sexual culture. After first appearing around 1590, Jin Ping Mei was circulated among some of China’s best known writers of the time and subsequently was published in three major recensions. A 1695 version by Zhang Zhupo became the most widely read and it is this text in particular on which Ding focuses. Challenging the preconceptions of earlier scholarship, she highlights the fundamental misogyny inherent in Jin Ping Mei and demonstrates how traditional biases—particularly masculine biases—continue to inform the concerns of modern criticism and sexual politics. The story of a seductive bondmaid-concubine, sexual opportunism, domestic intrigue, adultery and death, Jin Ping Mei has often been critiqued based on the coherence of the text itself. Concentrating instead on the processes of reading and on the social meaning of this novel, Ding looks at the various ways the tale has been received since its first dissemination, particularly by critiquing the interpretations offered by seventeenth-century Ming literati and by twentieth-century scholars. Confronting the gender politics of this “pornographic” text, she troubles the boundaries between premodern and modern readings by engaging residual and emergent Chinese gender and hierarchic ideologies.

The Plum in the Golden Vase Or, Chin P'Ing Mei

Author: Xiaoxiaosheng
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691126197
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 724

Book Description
A five-volume translation of the classic sixteenth-century Chinese novel on the domestic life of a corrupt merchant.

A Dictionary of Chinese Literature

Author: Taiping Chang
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191836183
Category : Authors, Chinese
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
From the Shi jing (Classic of Songs) of the eleventh century BC, to the to the wanglu wenxue (Internet literature) of the twenty-first century, this authoritative dictionary covers key terms relative to the study of Chinese literature, from antiquity to the present day. A-Z entries on key literary figures, trends, schools, movements, and literary collections are included, as well as detailed descriptions of traditional literary works, plays, dramas, stories, novels, and other main literary texts

The Book of Swindles

Author: Yingyu Zhang
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780231178631
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Book Description
The Book of Swindles, a seventeenth-century story collection, offers a panoramic guide to the art of deception. Ostensibly a manual for self-protection, it presents a tableau of criminal ingenuity in late Ming China. Each story comes with commentary by the author, who expounds a moral lesson while also speaking as a connoisseur of the swindle.

The Valley of Amazement

Author: Amy Tan
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 006210733X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 422

Book Description
Amy Tan’s The Valley of Amazement is a sweeping, evocative epic of two women’s intertwined fates and their search for identity, that moves from the lavish parlors of Shanghai courtesans to the fog-shrouded mountains of a remote Chinese village. Spanning more than forty years and two continents, The Valley of Amazement resurrects pivotal episodes in history: from the collapse of China’s last imperial dynasty, to the rise of the Republic, the explosive growth of lucrative foreign trade and anti-foreign sentiment, to the inner workings of courtesan houses and the lives of the foreign “Shanghailanders” living in the International Settlement, both erased by World War II. A deeply evocative narrative about the profound connections between mothers and daughters, The Valley of Amazement returns readers to the compelling territory of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. With her characteristic insight and humor, she conjures a story of inherited trauma, desire and deception, and the power and stubbornness of love.

Novel Medicine

Author: Andrew Schonebaum
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 029580632X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
By examining the dynamic interplay between discourses of fiction and medicine, Novel Medicine demonstrates how fiction incorporated, created, and disseminated medical knowledge in China, beginning in the sixteenth century. Critical readings of fictional and medical texts provide a counterpoint to prevailing narratives that focus only on the “literati” aspects of the novel, showing that these texts were not merely read, but were used by a wide variety of readers for a range of purposes. The intersection of knowledge—fictional and real, elite and vernacular—illuminates the history of reading and daily life and challenges us to rethink the nature of Chinese literature.

Erotic Literature in Adaptation and Translation

Author: Johannes D Kaminski
Publisher: Legenda
ISBN: 9781781885222
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Book Description
Transgressive by nature, erotic literature engages the reader in a dialogue informed by the social and aesthetic conventions that it playfully disregards or happily reproduces. But once this intimate, arousing and, often, disturbing dialogue transitions into another language, culture or medium, it must reposition itself within new conventions. How does this happen in practice? Examining erotic literature from multiple angles, this volume starts off with an ethical evaluation of the most recent rendering of Marquis de Sade into English. Other inquiries into European letters include the works of Goethe, Georges Bataille, Pierre Guyotat and E. L. James, and the films of Michael Haneke and Patrice Chéreau. Studies of Chinese and Japanese erotic traditions complement the picture by addressing the different functions of the erotic in discrete cultural settings. Johannes D. Kaminski is Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at University of Vienna.