Competing Discourses: Orthodoxy, Authenticity, and Engendered Meanings in Late Imperial Chinese Fiction

• DOI: 10.2307/4126592
• Publication Date: 2008-02-07T20:28:48Z
• Authors: Tina Lu; Maram Epstein
• Keywords: 06 humanities and the arts; 0603 philosophy, ethics and religion

In the traditional Chinese symbolic vocabulary, construction of gender was never far from debates about ritual propriety, desire, and even cosmic harmony. Competing Discourses maps aesthetic semantic meanings associated with in Ming-Qing vernacular novel through close readings five long narratives: Marriage Bonds to Awaken World, Dream Red Chamber, A Country Codger's Words Exposure, Flowers Mirror, Tale Heroic Lovers. Epstein argues that authors these novels manipulated gendered terms achieve structural coherence. These patterns are, however, frequently at odds other structures texts, exploited conflicts discuss problem orthodox behavior versus cult feeling.