by Maram Epstein
Harvard University Press, 2001
Cloth: 978-0-674-00512-9
Library of Congress Classification PL2436.E67 2001
Dewey Decimal Classification 895.134609

ABOUT THIS BOOK | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK

In the traditional Chinese symbolic vocabulary, the construction of gender was never far from debates about ritual propriety, desire, and even cosmic harmony. Competing Discourses maps the aesthetic and semantic meanings associated with gender in the Ming-Qing vernacular novel through close readings of five long narratives: Marriage Bonds to Awaken the World, Dream of the Red Chamber, A Country Codger's Words of Exposure, Flowers in the Mirror, and A Tale of Heroic Lovers.

Epstein argues that the authors of these novels manipulated gendered terms to achieve structural coherence. These patterns are, however, frequently at odds with other gendered structures in the texts, and authors exploited these conflicts to discuss the problem of orthodox behavior versus the cult of feeling.