New Songs From A Jade Terrace

This rich collection of writings--many translated especially for this volume and some available in English for the first time--provides a journey through the history of Chinese culture, tracing the Chinese understanding of women as elucidated in writings spanning more than two thousand years. From the earliest oracle bone inscriptions of the Pre-Qin period through the poems and stories of the Song Dynasty, these works shed light on Chinese images of women and their roles in society in terms of such topics as human nature, cosmology, gender, and virtue.

This book, first published in 1982, was the first translation of the Chinese classic Yü-t-‘ai hsin-yung – the unique anthology of love poems, compiled in AD 545. This traces the development of love poetry from the second century BC to its full flowering in the fifth and sixth centuries AD. Dr Birrell’s incisive introductory essay provides a concise survey of the historical and literary setting to the poems and explains the conventions governing courtly love poetry. In particular, the reader’s attention is drawn to the many and varied artistic uses of imagery in the poems. Major poets are noted for their artistic achievement and for their contribution to the development of the genre. Dr Birrell also supplies a valuable section of notes on the poems to guide the reader through unfamiliar historical events, legends, anecdotes and famous places and people, and there is a similar section of notes on the poets offering biographical details.

Escaping his ghosts, AIDS widower David Masiello accepts a one-year position at a Western medical clinic in Beijing. Lonely but excited, he sets out to explore the city—both its bustling street life and its clandestine gay subculture. David chronicles his adventures in China as he wrestles with cultural dislocation, loneliness, and sexual and spiritual longing. After a series of both comic and poignant encounters with gay Chinese men, he meets Bosheng, a handsome young artist. Though the attraction is strong, a difficult courtship ensues, during which Bosheng returns to his ancestral village to marry the girl his parents have chosen for him. Eventually, and quite unexpectedly, David and Bosheng reconnect and share an idyllic spring together. As the year ends, David must decide whether to say goodbye or face the uncertainties of a long-distance relationship. Gambone’s novel is peopled with a host of wonderfully memorable characters: Owen, David’s forthright best friend back home; Auntie Chen, the clinic’s office mom, who wants to fix David up with a girlfriend; Stewart, David’s Beijing roommate, a graduate student doing research on Peking opera; Jiantao and Guoyang, two lovers who lecture David on the fleeting quality of American romance; and Tyson, the Australian doctor with a Chinese girlfriend, who hopes to teach David that love doesn’t need any explanations or justifications.

This book focuses on how women and love are portrayed in chuanqi fiction, a genre of Chinese literature of the Tang dynasty. It argues that the emergence of "love" as a theme in Chinese literature is closely related to the historical background of the Tang dynasty.

A reconsideration of Chinese decadent (tuifei) poetry which argues that this poetry is not a marginal trend but rather a vital part of the Chinese literary tradition.