Chinese Novels

Term Paper # 99238

Asian Studies > East Asian Cultures
Literature

Chinese Novels

This paper analyzes novels from the Chinese Ming and Qing eras.

1,982 words () | 6 sources | MLA | 2007 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper introduces several Chinese novels in English translation, noting what they tell of culture and society in the late Ming and Qing periods. The paper discusses how the reader finds dark themes to do with women but also satirical approaches to the hated Manchu dynasty and people who do not quite live up to what is expected of them.

Introduction:
Jin Ping Mei... 'The Plum in the Golden Vase' or 'The Gold Lotus'
The Scholars (1751)
Six Records of a Floating Life (1810
Flowers in the Mirror (1827)
Dream of the Red Chamber (c. 1791)
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"Attributed to Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng, this work appeared in block-printed form about 1610. Some scholars have considered if one of the 'four major novels of wonder' after Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1330), Water Margin or Outlaws of the Marsh (1573), and Journey to the West (1590), belonging to the late Ming and early Qing era. More often one sees a list of 'four great classical novels' that lists the first three followed by Dream of the Red Chamber (1792) in the place of Jin Ping Mei. As for Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng, he may have been a Taoist priest, for his emphasis on what he saw as a decadent, corrupt and declining social order. Some believe that Jin Ping Mei was written by a woman, due to the focus on women, as if the author was trying to relate typical struggles inside a wealthy household."

Sample of Sources Used:

Cavendish, Richard. "Empress Tzu-Hsi's Coup." History Today. 48. 1998, pp. 39-42.
Ding, Nafei. Obscene Things - Sexual Politics in Jin Ping Mei. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2002.
Li, Ju-Chen. Flowers in the Mirror. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965.
Pratt, Leonard and Chiang Su-Hui. Trans. Shen Fu - Six Records of a Floating Life. London: Penguin 1983.
Wang, Chi-chen. Trans. Dream of the Red Chamber. New York: Anchor, 1989.