HARVARD EAST ASIAN MONOGRAPHS
Cover: Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China, from Harvard University PressCover: Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China in HARDCOVER

Harvard East Asian Monographs 202

Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China

Product Details

HARDCOVER

$39.50 • £34.95 • €35.95

ISBN 9780674005136

Publication Date: 08/15/2001

Short

368 pages

6 x 9 inches

Harvard University Asia Center > Harvard East Asian Monographs

World, subsidiary rights restricted

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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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