Hsi-Wei Tales

Hsi-Wei Tales PDF Author: Robert Wexelblatt
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
ISBN: 9781947548930
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
After performing a perilous service for the future Emperor, the peasant Chen Hsi-wei turns down the customary rewards in favor of receiving an education. The Court is astonished by this unheard-of request, but orders the strict teacher Shen Kuo to do what he can with the boy. In the course of copying out the words of the ancient masters, Hsi-wei begins writing poems of his own. As a young man, Hsi-wei leaves the capital for a vagabond life, supporting himself by making straw sandals. He encounters people of all stations and occupations, trekking through landscapes both flat and mountainous. He learns of the terrible price of building the Grand Canal, the miseries caused by floods, droughts, and endless wars. To his astonishment, Hsi-wei gains a degree of fame, first as a curiosity, then as a writer whose poems are beloved by the people and pass into the vast life of China.

Hsi-Wei Tales

Hsi-Wei Tales PDF Author: Robert Wexelblatt
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
ISBN: 9781947548930
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
After performing a perilous service for the future Emperor, the peasant Chen Hsi-wei turns down the customary rewards in favor of receiving an education. The Court is astonished by this unheard-of request, but orders the strict teacher Shen Kuo to do what he can with the boy. In the course of copying out the words of the ancient masters, Hsi-wei begins writing poems of his own. As a young man, Hsi-wei leaves the capital for a vagabond life, supporting himself by making straw sandals. He encounters people of all stations and occupations, trekking through landscapes both flat and mountainous. He learns of the terrible price of building the Grand Canal, the miseries caused by floods, droughts, and endless wars. To his astonishment, Hsi-wei gains a degree of fame, first as a curiosity, then as a writer whose poems are beloved by the people and pass into the vast life of China.

The Korean Singer of Tales

The Korean Singer of Tales PDF Author: Marshall R. Pihl
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684170176
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 310

Get Book Here

Book Description
P’ansori, the traditional oral narrative of Korea, is sung by a highly trained soloist to the accompaniment of complex drumming. The singer both narrates the story and dramatizes all the characters, male and female. Performances require as long as six hours and make extraordinary vocal demands. In the first book-length treatment in English of this remarkable art form, Marshall R. Pihl traces the history of p’ansori from its roots in shamanism and folktales through its nineteenth-century heyday under highly acclaimed masters and discusses its evolution in the twentieth century. After examining the place of p’ansori in popular entertainment and its textual tradition, he analyzes the nature of texts in the repertoire and explains the vocal and rhythmic techniques required to perform them. Pihl’s superb translation of the alternately touching and comic "Song of Shim Ch’ong"--the first annotated English translation of a full p’ansori performance text--illustrates the emotional range, narrative variety, and technical complexity of p’ansori literature. The Korean Singer of Tales will interest not only Korean specialists, but also students of comparative literature, folklore, anthropology, and music.

The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature

The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature PDF Author: William H. Nienhauser
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253329837
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 1108

Get Book Here

Book Description
"A vertitable feast of concise, useful, reliable, and up-to-dateinformation (all prepared by top scholars in the field), Nienhauser's now two-volumetitle stands alone as THE standard reference work for the study of traditionalChinese literature. Nothing like it has ever been published." --Choice The second volume to The Indiana Companion to TraditionalChinese Literature is both a supplement and an update to the original volume. VolumeII includes over 60 new entries on famous writers, works, and genres of traditionalChinese literature, followed by an extensive bibliographic update (1985-1997) ofeditions, translations, and studies (primarily in English, Chinese, Japanese, French, and German) for the 500+ entries of Volume I.

The Age of Eternal Brilliance

The Age of Eternal Brilliance PDF Author: Richard Mather
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004531777
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 549

Get Book Here

Book Description
The full original texts, Professor Richard Mather’s full annotated translations, and brief biographies of these three classical poets, who had such a profound impact upon the immediately succeeding centuries. The print edition is available as a set of two volumes (9789004120594).

The Last of the Whampoa Breed

The Last of the Whampoa Breed PDF Author: Pang-Yuan Chi
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231509057
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 287

Get Book Here

Book Description
Whampoa Military Academy was China's first modern military institution. For decades the "Spirit of Whampoa" was invoked as the highest praise to all Chinese soldiers who guarded their nation heroically. But of all the battles these soldiers have fought, the most challenging one was the civil war that resulted in the "great divide" of China in the mid-twentieth century. In 1949 the Communists exiled a million soldiers and their families to compounds in Taiwan and cut off communication with mainland China for forty years. The Last of the Whampoa Breed tells the stories of the exiles written by their descendants, many of whom have become Taiwan's most important authors. The book is an important addition to the vastly underrepresented literature of Taiwan in translation and sheds light on the complex relationship between Taiwan and the People's Republic of China. Western readers will not at first recognize the experiences of these soldiers who were severed from a traditional past only to face unfulfilled promises and uncertain futures. Many of the exiles were doomed to live and die homeless and loveless. Yet these life stories reveal a magnanimous, natural dignity that has transcended prolonged mental suffering. "I Wanted to Go to War" describes the sadly ineffectual, even comic attempts to "recapture the mainland." The old soldier in "Tale of Two Strangers" asks to have his ashes scattered over both the land of his dreams and the island that has sheltered him for forty years. Some of the stories recount efforts to make peace with life in Taiwan, as in "Valley of Hesitation," and the second generation's struggles to find a place in the native island society as in "The Vanishing Ball" and "In Remembrance of My Buddies from the Military Compound." Narrating the homeland remembered and the homeland in reality, the stories in this book affirm that "we shall not let history be burned to mere ashes."

Spirit and Self in Medieval China

Spirit and Self in Medieval China PDF Author: Nanxiu Qian
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824823979
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 574

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Shih-shuo hsin-yu, conventionally translated as A New Account of Tales of the World, is one of the most significant works in the entire Chinese literary tradition. It established a genre (the Shih-shuo t'i) and inspired dozens of imitations from the later part of the Tang dynasty (618-907) to the early Republican era of the 20th century. The Shih-shuo hsin-yu consists of more than a thousand historical anecdotes about elite life in the late Han dynasty and the Wei-Chin period (about AD 150-420).

Selected Papers from the Hall of Harmonious Wind

Selected Papers from the Hall of Harmonious Wind PDF Author: Liu Ts'un-Yan
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004642846
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 464

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Columbia History of Chinese Literature

The Columbia History of Chinese Literature PDF Author: Victor H. Mair
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231528515
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1369

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Columbia History of Chinese Literature is a comprehensive yet portable guide to China's vast literary traditions. Stretching from earliest times to the present, the text features original contributions by leading specialists working in all genres and periods. Chapters cover poetry, prose, fiction, and drama, and consider such contextual subjects as popular culture, the impact of religion, the role of women, and China's relationship with non-Sinitic languages and peoples. Opening with a major section on the linguistic and intellectual foundations of Chinese literature, the anthology traces the development of forms and movements over time, along with critical trends, and pays particular attention to the premodern canon.

Selected Papers from the Hall of Harmonious Wind

Selected Papers from the Hall of Harmonious Wind PDF Author: Cunren Liu
Publisher: Brill Archive
ISBN: 9789004044920
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 474

Get Book Here

Book Description


Tales of the Taoist Immortals

Tales of the Taoist Immortals PDF Author: Eva Wong
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834826763
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 177

Get Book Here

Book Description
As a girl growing up in Hong Kong, Eva Wong heard and memorized many tales told to her by Hong Kong's finest professional storytellers, by actors on the radio, and by her grandmother. These popular tales of the Taoist immortals were also often dramatized in Chinese operas. The stories are of famous characters in Chinese history and myth: a hero's battle with the lords of evil, the founder of the Ming dynasty's treacherous betrayal of his friends, a young girl who saves her town by imitating rooster calls. Entertaining and often provocative, these tales usually include a moral. The immortals are role models in Chinese culture, as well as examples of enlightenment. Some of the immortals were healers, some were social activists, some were aristocrats, and some were entrepreneurs. The tales chosen by Eva Wong here are of the best-known immortals among the Chinese. Their names are household words and their stories are told and retold by one generation to the next.