ENGLISH

Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China

By Martin W. Huang

Book information

Publisher
Harvard University Asia Center
Year
2001
ISBN
0674005139, 9780674005136
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
22 MB (22544663 bytes)
Series
Harvard East Asian Monographs
Pages
368\183
Time added
2020-11-29 15:28:01

Description

In this study of desire in Late Imperial China, Martin W. Huang argues that the development of traditional Chinese fiction as a narrative genre was closely related to changes in conceptions of the fundamental nature of desire. He further suggests that the rise of vernacular fiction during the late Ming dynasty should be studied in the context of contemporary debates on desire, along with the new and complex views that emerged from those debates. Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China shows that the obsession of authors with individual desire is an essential quality that defines traditional Chinese fiction as a narrative genre. Thus the maturation of the genre can best be appreciated in terms of its increasingly sophisticated exploration of the phenomenon of desire.

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