The Chinese Virago PDF Download

Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download The Chinese Virago PDF full book. Access full book title The Chinese Virago.

The Chinese Virago

The Chinese Virago
Author: Yenna Wu
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2020-10-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1684170206

Download The Chinese Virago Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

Drawing from a broad array of literary, historical, dramatic and anecdotal sources, Yenna Wu makes a rich exploration of an unusually prominent theme in premodern Chinese prose fiction and drama: that of jealous and belligerent wives, or viragos, who dominate their husbands and abuse other women. Focusing on Chinese literary works from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, she presents many colorful perspectives on this type of aggression, reviewing early literary and historical examples of the phenomenon. Wu argues that although the various portraits of the virago often reveal the writers' insecurities about strong-willed women in general, the authors also satirize the kind of man whose behavioral patterns have been catalysts for female aggression. She also shows that, while the women in these works are to some extent male constructs designed to affirm the patriarchal system, various elements of these portraits constitute a subversive form of parody that casts a revealing light on the patriarchal hierarchy of premodern China.


Poetry and Painting in Song China

Poetry and Painting in Song China
Author: Alfreda Murck
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2020-10-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1684170338

Download Poetry and Painting in Song China Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

Throughout the history of imperial China, the educated elite used various means to criticize government policies and actions. During the Song dynasty (960-1278), some members of this elite found an elegant and subtle means of dissent: landscape painting. By examining literary archetypes, the titles of paintings, contemporary inscriptions, and the historical context, Alfreda Murck shows that certain paintings expressed strong political opinions--some transparent, others deliberately concealed. She argues that the coding of messages in seemingly innocuous paintings was an important factor in the growing respect for painting among the educated elite and that the capacity of painting’s systems of reference to allow scholars to express dissent with impunity contributed to the art’s vitality and longevity.


Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century China

Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century China
Author: Paul J. Bailey
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2012-08-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1137029684

Download Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century China Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

Paul J. Bailey provides the first analytical study in English of Chinese women's experiences during China's turbulent twentieth century. Incorporating the very latest specialized research, and drawing upon Chinese cinema and autobiographical memoirs, this fascinating narrative account: - Explores the impact of political, social and cultural change on women's lives, and how Chinese women responded to such developments - Charts the evolution of gender discourses during this period - Illuminates both change and continuity in gender discourse and practice Approachable and authoritative, this is an essential overview for students, teachers and scholars of gender history, and anyone with an interest in modern Chinese history.


Materials for an Anatomy of Personality in Late Imperial China

Materials for an Anatomy of Personality in Late Imperial China
Author: Paolo Santangelo
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 540
Release: 2010-01-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9047430972

Download Materials for an Anatomy of Personality in Late Imperial China Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

How was the concept of 'personality' perceived in (late-imperial) China? Re-constructing the main features describing the individual, this volume, firmly based in textual sources, is a reflection on personality and its attributes in China. It discusses terms that express the propensity, inclinations, predispositions, and temperament of subjects, departing from the descriptions that represent one’s and the other’s self, as well as terms that describe or label a person's main qualities or defects. As judgments contribute to formulate the image of ourselves and others, when talking of personality not only individual characters (biological traits, cultural basis, innate and acquired traits and habits) are looked into, but also social values and collective mentality, as well as individual and group subjectivity.


Chinese History

Chinese History
Author: Endymion Porter Wilkinson
Publisher: Harvard Univ Asia Center
Total Pages: 1220
Release: 2000
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780674002494

Download Chinese History Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

Endymion Wilkinson's bestselling manual of Chinese history has long been an indispensable guide to all those interested in the civilization and history of China. In this latest edition, now in a bigger format, its scope has been dramatically enlarged by the addition of one million words of new text. Twelve years in the making, the new manual introduces students to different types of transmitted, excavated, and artifactual sources from prehistory to the twentieth century. It also examines the context in which the sources were produced, preserved, and received, the problems of research and interpretation associated with them, and the best, most up-to-date secondary works. Because the writing of history has always played a central role in Chinese politics and culture, special attention is devoted to the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese historiography.


Untamed Shrews

Untamed Shrews
Author: Shu Yang
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2023-07-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1501770624

Download Untamed Shrews Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

Untamed Shrews traces the evolution of unruly women in Chinese literature, from the reviled "shrew" to the celebrated "new woman." Notorious for her violence, jealousy, and promiscuity, the character of the shrew personified the threat of unruly femininity to the Confucian social order and served as a justification for punishing any woman exhibiting these qualities. In this book, Shu Yang connects these shrewish qualities to symbols of female empowerment in modern China. Rather than meeting her demise, the shrew persisted, and her negative qualities became the basis for many forms of the new woman, ranging from the early Republican suffragettes and Chinese Noras, to the Communist and socialist radicals. Criticism of the shrew endured, but her vicious, sexualized, and transgressive nature became a source of pride, placing her among the ranks of liberated female models. Untamed Shrews shows that whether male writers and the state hate, fear, or love them, there will always be a place for the vitality of unruly women. Unlike in imperial times, the shrew in modern China stayed untamed as an inspiration for the new woman.


A Chinese Bestiary

A Chinese Bestiary
Author: Richard E. Strassberg
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2023-11-03
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0520922786

Download A Chinese Bestiary Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

A Chinese Bestiary presents a fascinating pageant of mythical creatures from a unique and enduring cosmography written in ancient China. The Guideways through Mountains and Seas, compiled between the fourth and first centuries b.c.e., contains descriptions of hundreds of fantastic denizens of mountains, rivers, islands, and seas, along with minerals, flora, and medicine. The text also represents a wide range of beliefs held by the ancient Chinese. Richard Strassberg brings the Guideways to life for modern readers by weaving together translations from the work itself with information from other texts and recent archaeological finds to create a lavishly illustrated guide to the imaginative world of early China. Unlike the bestiaries of the late medieval period in Europe, the Guideways was not interpreted allegorically; the strange creatures described in it were regarded as actual entities found throughout the landscape. The work was originally used as a sacred geography, as a guidebook for travelers, and as a book of omens. Today, it is regarded as the richest repository of ancient Chinese mythology and shamanistic wisdom. The Guideways may have been illustrated from the start, but the earliest surviving illustrations are woodblock engravings from a rare 1597 edition. Seventy-six of those plates are reproduced here for the first time, and they provide a fine example of the Chinese engraver's art during the late Ming dynasty. This beautiful volume, compiled by a well-known specialist in the field, provides a fascinating window on the thoughts and beliefs of an ancient people, and will delight specialists and general readers alike.


China’s Cosmopolitan Empire

China’s Cosmopolitan Empire
Author: Mark Edward Lewis
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2009-10-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674265416

Download China’s Cosmopolitan Empire Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

The Tang dynasty is often called China’s “golden age,” a period of commercial, religious, and cultural connections from Korea and Japan to the Persian Gulf, and a time of unsurpassed literary creativity. Mark Lewis captures a dynamic era in which the empire reached its greatest geographical extent under Chinese rule, painting and ceramic arts flourished, women played a major role both as rulers and in the economy, and China produced its finest lyric poets in Wang Wei, Li Bo, and Du Fu. The Chinese engaged in extensive trade on sea and land. Merchants from Inner Asia settled in the capital, while Chinese entrepreneurs set off for the wider world, the beginning of a global diaspora. The emergence of an economically and culturally dominant south that was controlled from a northern capital set a pattern for the rest of Chinese imperial history. Poems celebrated the glories of the capital, meditated on individual loneliness in its midst, and described heroic young men and beautiful women who filled city streets and bars. Despite the romantic aura attached to the Tang, it was not a time of unending peace. In 756, General An Lushan led a revolt that shook the country to its core, weakening the government to such a degree that by the early tenth century, regional warlordism gripped many areas, heralding the decline of the Great Tang.


The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature: From 1375

The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature: From 1375
Author: Kang-i Sun Chang
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 830
Release: 2010
Genre: Chinese literature
ISBN: 9780521855594

Download The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature: From 1375 Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

Stephen Owen is James Bryant Conant Professor of Chinese at Harvard University. --Book Jacket.


Masculinities in Chinese History

Masculinities in Chinese History
Author: Bret Hinsch
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2013-08-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1442222352

Download Masculinities in Chinese History Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle

Masculinities in Chinese History is the first historical survey of the many ways men have acted, thought, and behaved throughout China’s long past. Bret Hinsch introduces readers to the basic characteristics of historical Chinese masculinity while highlighting the dynamic changes in male identity over the centuries. He covers the full span of Chinese history, from the Zhou dynasty in distant antiquity up to the current era of disorienting rapid change. Each chapter, focused on a specific theme and period, is organized to introduce key topics, such as differences between the sexes and the mutual influence of ideas regarding manhood and womanhood, masculine honor, how masculine ideals change, the use of high culture to bolster masculine reputation among the elite, and male role models from the margins of society. The author concludes by exploring how capitalism, imperialism, modernization, revolution, and reform have rapidly transformed ideas about what it means to be a man in contemporary China.