Book to Burn and a Book to Keep (Hidden) - Selected Writings

Li Zhi's interpretations of history, religion, literature, and social relations synthesized Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist ethics and incorporated the Neo-Confucian idealism of such thinkers as Wang Yangming. The result was a series of heretical writings that caught fire among Li Zhi's contemporaries. Translated for the first time into English, Li Zhi's bold challenge to established doctrines will captivate anyone curious about the origins of such subtly transgressive works as the sixteenth-century play The Peony Pavilion or the eighteenth-century novel Dream of the Red Chamber. Fond of vivid sentiment and sharp expression, Li Zhi refused to support sanctioned ideas about morality and wrote stinging critiques. In this sophisticated translation, English-speaking readers encounter the best of this intellectual's contribution to Chinese thought.

About the author

Haun Saussy, born in 1960, is University Professor at the University of Chicago, where his courses range among classical Chinese literature, comparative poetics, translation, and the history of knowledge. His books include The Problem of a Chinese Aesthetic (1993), Great Walls of Discourse (2001), The Ethnography of Rhythm (2016), and Translation as Citation (2018) for which he received the American Comparative Literature Association's Wellek Prize in 2018.

Summary

Li Zhi's interpretations of history, religion, literature, and social relations synthesized Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist ethics and incorporated the Neo-Confucian idealism of such thinkers as Wang Yangming. The result was a series of heretical writings that caught fire among Li Zhi's contemporaries. Translated for the first time into English, Li Zhi's bold challenge to established doctrines will captivate anyone curious about the origins of such subtly transgressive works as the sixteenth-century play The Peony Pavilion or the eighteenth-century novel Dream of the Red Chamber. Fond of vivid sentiment and sharp expression, Li Zhi refused to support sanctioned ideas about morality and wrote stinging critiques. In this sophisticated translation, English-speaking readers encounter the best of this intellectual's contribution to Chinese thought.

Product details

• Authors: Zhi Li, Li Zhi, Haun Handler-Spitz Saussy
• Assisted by: Rebecca Handler-Spitz (Editor), Rivi Handler-Spitz (Editor), Handler-Spitz Rivi (Editor), Pauline Lee (Editor), Lee Pauline (Editor), Jeremy Rosen (Editor), Haun Saussy (Editor), Saussy Haun (Editor)
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 07.06.2016
• EAN: 9780231166126
• ISBN: 978-0-231-16612-6
• No. of pages: 408
• Series: Translations from the Asian Classics; Translations from the Asian Classics
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; China, History of Ideas, HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, HISTORY / Asia / China, 17th century, c 1600 to c 1699, Social and cultural history, Asian History, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, 16th century, c 1500 to c 1599, c 1500 to c 1600, religious philosophy