Idle Talk Under the Bean Arbor : A Seventeenth-Century Chinese Story Collection

Aina the Layman (COM); Ziran the Eccentric Wanderer (CON); Hegel, Robert E. (EDT)

ISBN 10: 0295746114 / ISBN 13: 9780295746111

Edité par University of Washington Press, 2019

A propos de cet article

N° de réf. du vendeur 37557609-n

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Idle Talk Under the Bean Arbor : A Seventeenth-Century Chinese Story Collection
• Éditeur: University of Washington Press
• Date de parution: 2019
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0295746114
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780295746111
• Reliure: Couverture souple
• État de l'article: New

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

Written around 1660, the unique Chinese short story collection Idle Talk under the Bean Arbor (Doupeng xianhua), by the author known only as Aina the Layman, uses the seemingly innocuous setting of neighbors swapping yarns on hot summer days under a shady arbor to create a series of stories that embody deep disillusionment with traditional values. The tales, ostensibly told by different narrators, parody heroic legends and explore issues that contributed to the fall of the Ming dynasty a couple of decades before this collection was written, including self-centeredness and social violence. These stories speak to all troubled times, demanding that readers confront the pretense that may lurk behind moralistic stances. Idle Talk under the Bean Arbor presents all twelve stories in English translation along with notes from the original commentator, as well as a helpful introduction and analysis of individual stories.

À propos des auteurs

Nothing is known of the seventeenth-century author (or compiler) of these tales, Aina the Buddhist Layman (Aina Jushi).

Brief commentaries by Ziran the Idiosyncratic Wanderer (Ziran Kuangke) that are included in the original edition are translated here along with each story.

Robert E. Hegel is Liselotte Dieckmann Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and Professor of Chinese at Washington University. He is the author of The Novel in Seventeenth-Century China (Columbia University Press, 1981); translator of True Crimes in Eighteenth-Century China: Twenty Case Histories (University of Washington Press, 2009); and editor of Idle Talk under the Bean Arbor: A Seventeenth-Century Chinese Story Collection by Aina the Layman (University of Washington Press, 2017).