Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > 16th to 18th centuries
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The Substance of Fiction - Literary Objects in China, 1550-1775 (Paperback)
Loot Price: R1,136
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The Substance of Fiction - Literary Objects in China, 1550-1775 (Paperback)
Series: Premodern East Asia: New Horizons
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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Do the portrayals of objects in literary texts represent historical
evidence about the material culture of the past? Or are things in
books more than things in the world? 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. Volpp examines a series of objects-a robe, a box and a
shell, a telescope, a plate-glass mirror, and a painting-drawn from
the canonical works frequently mined for information about late
imperial material culture, including the novels The Plum in the
Golden Vase and The Story of the Stone as well as the short fiction
of Feng Menglong, Ling Mengchu, and Li Yu. She argues that although
fictional objects invite readers to think of them as illustrative,
in fact, inconsistent and discontinuous representation disconnects
the literary object from potential historical analogues. The
historical resonances of literary objects illuminate the rhetorical
strategies of individual works of fiction and, more broadly,
conceptions of fictionality in the Ming and Qing. Rather than
offering a transparent lens on the past, fictional objects train
the reader to be aware of the fallibility of perception. A deeply
insightful analysis of late Ming and Qing texts and reading
practices, The Substance of Fiction has important implications for
Chinese literary studies, history, and art history, as well as the
material turn in the humanities.
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