Reading for the Moral is popular PDF and ePub book, written by Maria Franca Sibau in 2018-03-20, it is a fantastic choice for those who relish reading online the Literary Criticism genre. Let's immerse ourselves in this engaging Literary Criticism book by exploring the summary and details provided below. Remember, Reading for the Moral can be Read Online from any device for your convenience.
Reading for the Moral Book PDF Summary
Reassesses didacticism in seventeenth-century Chinese vernacular fiction and challenges the view that the late Ming was a notoriously immoral time. Reading for the Moral offers an innovative reassessment of the nature of moral representation and exemplarity in Chinese vernacular fiction. Maria Franca Sibau focuses on two little-studied story collections published at the end of the Ming dynasty, Exemplary Words for the World (Xingshi yan, 1632) and Bell in the Still Night (Qingye zhong, c. 1645). Far from being tediously moralistic tales, these stories of loyal ministers, filial children, chaste widows, and selfless friends provide a deeper understanding of the five cardinal relationships central to Confucian ethics. They explore the inherent tension between what we might call textbook morality, on the one hand, and untidy everyday life, on the other. The stories often take a critical view of mechanical notions of retribution, countering it with the logic of virtue as its own reward. Conflict between passion and duty is typically resolved in favor of duty, a duty redefined with a palpable sense of urgency. In constructing vernacular representations of moral exemplars from the recent historical past rather than from remote or fictitious antiquity, the story compilers show how these virtues are not abstract or monolithic norms, but play out within the contingencies of time and space. Maria Franca Sibau is Assistant Professor of Chinese at Emory University.
Detail Book of Reading for the Moral PDF
- Author : Maria Franca Sibau
- Release : 20 March 2018
- Publisher : State University of New York Press
- ISBN : 9781438469911
- Genre : Literary Criticism
- Total Page : 246 pages
- Language : English
- PDF File Size : 9,6 Mb
If you're still pondering over how to secure a PDF or EPUB version of the book Reading for the Moral by Maria Franca Sibau, don't worry! All you have to do is click the 'Get Book' buttons below to kick off your Download or Read Online journey. Just a friendly reminder: we don't upload or host the files ourselves.