Substance of Fiction - Literary Objects in China, 15501775

Sophie Volpp considers fictional objects of the late Ming and Qing that defy being read as illustrative of historical things. Instead, she argues, fictional objects are often signs of fictionality themselves, calling attention to the nature of the relationship between literature and materiality.

List of contents

Introduction: The Substance of Fiction
1. The Python Robe of The Plum in the Golden Vase
2. Ling Mengchu’s Shell
3. Du Shiniang’s Jewel Box
4. Li Yu’s Telescope
5. The Plate-Glass Mirror in The Story of the Stone
6. Historicizing Recession via The Story of the Stone and the Juanqinzhai
Conclusion: Literary Objects
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the author

Sophie Volpp is professor of East Asian languages and cultures and professor of comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Worldly Stage: Theatricality in Seventeenth-Century China (2011).

Summary

Sophie Volpp considers fictional objects of the late Ming and Qing that defy being read as illustrative of historical things. Instead, she argues, fictional objects are often signs of fictionality themselves, calling attention to the nature of the relationship between literature and materiality.

Additional text

Through a persistent excavation of the rich and often paradoxical meaning of fictional objects, Sophie Volpp reveals a previously neglected aspect of the vernacular fiction of late imperial China, and in so doing expands the general conception of fictionality in literary creation. A marvelous book!

Product details

• Authors: Sophie Volpp, Volpp Sophie
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.01.2022
• EAN: 9780231199643
• ISBN: 978-0-231-19964-3
• No. of pages: 256
• Series: Premodern East Asia: New Horizons
• Subjects: Guides > Self-help, everyday life > Family; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; HISTORY / Asia / China, LITERARY CRITICISM / Asian / Chinese, Chinese, Literary studies: general, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, literary criticism; history