Fragrant Companions - A Play About Love Between Women

The Fragrant Companions is the most significant work of literature that portrays female same-sex love in the entire premodern Chinese tradition. It is at once an unconventional romantic comedy, a barbed satire, and a sympathetic portrayal of love between women.

List of contents

Introduction: Women in Love and the Business of Men in Li Yu’s Chuanqi Drama
Dramatis Personae
The Relationship Between Role Types and Characters
Note on Editions of Lianxiangban
List of Scenes
The Fragrant Companions
Appendix: Modes and Tunes
Notes
Selected Works on Li Yu and Same-Sex Love in Classical Chinese Fiction and Drama
Index

About the author

Li Yu (1611–1680) was a popular author, playwright, and theatrical impresario with a reputation for tales that tested social limits. He was born into a gentry family, but after the chaos of the Ming-Qing transition kept him from an official career, he became a commercially successful writer. Li’s works in English translation include A Couple of Soles: A Comic Play from Seventeenth-Century China (Columbia, 2019).

Stephen Roddy is a professor of languages, literatures, and cultures at the University of San Francisco.

Ying Wang is Felicia Gressitt Bock Professor of Asian Studies at Mount Holyoke College.

Summary

The Fragrant Companions is the most significant work of literature that portrays female same-sex love in the entire premodern Chinese tradition. It is at once an unconventional romantic comedy, a barbed satire, and a sympathetic portrayal of love between women.

Product details

• Authors: Li Yu, LI (Book Review Editor Yu, Yu Li
• Assisted by: Stephen Roddy (Translation), Ying Wang (Translation), WANG YING (Translation)
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 12.07.2022
• EAN: 9780231206297
• ISBN: 978-0-231-20629-7
• No. of pages: 400
• Series: Translations from the Asian Classics
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; China, DRAMA / Asian / General, Of specific Lesbian interest, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Asian / Chinese, Relating to lesbians, Plays, Playscripts, C 1600 To C 1700, Classic and pre-20th century plays, Later 17th century c 1650 to c 1699, literary collections; literary criticism