Reflections On Dream Of The Red Chamber

Uniform title in Chinese characters not available.

A masterpiece of world literature, Honglou Meng (Dream of the Red Chamber) by Cao Xueqin (1715-1763) is widely considered China's greatest novel and serves as a compendium of traditional Chinese life and culture during the Qing Dynasty. This guide offers a comprehensive introduction and overview to Honglou Meng, providing more than 200 alphabetical entries describing characters, key events and a wide range of topics, with discussion of important themes and narrative techniques. A brief biography of Cao is included, along with a history of Chinese and English critical receptions, an extensive bibliography and recommended reading.

The Qing dynasty (1636–1912)—a crucial bridge between “traditional” and “modern” China—was remarkable for its expansiveness and cultural sophistication. This engaging and insightful history of Qing political, social, and cultural life traces the complex interaction between the Inner Asian traditions of the Manchus, who conquered China in 1644, and indigenous Chinese cultural traditions. Noted historian Richard J. Smith argues that the pragmatic Qing emperors presented a “Chinese” face to their subjects who lived south of the Great Wall and other ethnic faces (particularly Manchu, Mongolian, Central Asian, and Tibetan) to subjects in other parts of their vast multicultural empire. They were attracted by many aspects of Chinese culture, but far from being completely “sinicized” as many scholars argue, they were also proud of their own cultural traditions and interested in other cultures as well. Setting Qing dynasty culture in historical and global perspective, Smith shows how the Chinese of the era viewed the world; how their outlook was expressed in their institutions, material culture, and customs; and how China’s preoccupation with order, unity, and harmony contributed to the civilization’s remarkable cohesiveness and continuity. Nuanced and wide-ranging, his authoritative book provides an essential introduction to late imperial Chinese culture and society.

Liu Zaifu 劉再復 is a name that has already been ingrained within contemporary Chinese literary history. This landmark volume presents Anglophone readers with Liu’s profound reflections on Chinese literature and culture at different times. These critical essays deal with cultural criticism and literary theory, literary history, and individual modern and contemporary Chinese writers.

Christianity and Confucianism: Culture, Faith and Politics, sets comparative textual analysis against the backcloth of 2000 years of cultural, political, and religious interaction between China and the West. As the world responds to China's rise and China positions herself for global engagement, this major new study reawakens and revises an ancient conversation. As a generous introduction to biblical Christianity and the Confucian Classics, Christianity and Confucianism tells a remarkable story of mutual formation and cultural indebtedness. East and West are shown to have shaped the mind, heart, culture, philosophy and politics of the other - and far more, perhaps, than either knows or would want to admit. Christopher Hancock has provided a rich and stimulating resource for scholars and students, diplomats and social scientists, devotees of culture and those who pursue wisdom and peace today.

Eileen Chang (1920–1995) is arguably the most perceptive writer in modern Chinese literature. She was one of the most popular writers in 1940s Shanghai, but her insistence on writing about individual human relationships and mundane matters rather than revolutionary and political movements meant that in mainland China, she was neglected until very recently. Outside the mainland, her life and writings never ceased to fascinate Chinese readers. There are hundreds of works about her in the Chinese language but very few in other languages. This is the first work in English to explore her earliest short stories as well as novels that were published posthumously. It discusses the translation of her stories for film and stage presentation, as well as nonliterary aspects of her life that are essential for a more comprehensive understanding of her writings, including her intense concern for privacy and enduring sensitivity to her public image. The thirteen essays examine the fidelity and betrayals that dominate her alter ego's relationships with parents and lovers, informed by theories and methodologies from a range of disciplines including literary, historical, gender, and film studies. These relationships are frequently dramatized in plays and filmic translations of her work.

This edited volume contains an excellent collection of contributions and presents various informative topics under the central theme: literary and translation approaches to China’s greatest classical novel Hongloumeng. Acclaimed as one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, Hongloumeng (known in English as The Dream of the Red Chamber or The Story of the Stone) epitomizes 18th century Chinese social and cultural life. Owing to its kaleidoscopic description of Chinese life and culture, the novel has also exerted a significant impact on world literature. Its various translations, either full-length or abridged, have been widely read by an international audience. The contributors to this volume provide a renewed perspective into Hongloumeng studies by bringing together scholarship in the fields of literary and translation studies. Specifically, the use of corpora in the framework of digital humanities in a number of chapters helps re-address many issues of the novel and its translations, from an innovative angle. The book is an insightful resource for both scholars of Chinese literature and for linguists with a focus on translation studies.