Plum and bamboo : China's Suzhou chantefable tradition / Mark Bender.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bender, Mark.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tan ci--China--Suzhou (Jiangsu Sheng)--History and criticism.

Tan ci.

China--Suzhou (Jiangsu Sheng).

Physical Description:

xii, 259 pages, 6 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm

Other Title:

China's Suzhou chantefable tradition

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2003]

Summary:

In the cities of the Yangzi delta region of China, audiences sip tea in story houses while storytellers speak and sing stories accompanied by stringed instruments. The stories unfold week after week, usually revolving around a love intrigue. Plum and Bamboo is a thorough introduction to this enchanting oral narrative tradition that still flourishes in Shanghai and in Suzhou, an ancient city known as the "city of gardens." Storytelling in China was once a major art form that rivaled opera and other performance genres. The Suzhou chantefable of today is a rich, local tradition and one of the most viable storytelling traditions in the world, with hundreds of active storytellers in the Yangzi delta region. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and an appreciation of the Chinese art, Mark Bender utilizes a folkloristic approach to provide a useful overview of the tradition, focusing on the contextualized performance of narrative. In addition to supplying historical and contextual background, the book examines how oral territory is opened and explored in performance. Plum and Bamboo also features an in-depth exploration of a performance transcript of the Meng Lijun story and interlinear commentary by the storytellers; appendixes outlining traditional stories, some of which are synopsized here for the first time in English; and a romanized transcript of a portion of a performance in Suzhou dialect.

Contents:

1. Introducing Suzhou Chantefable 1

2. Opening Oral Territory in Suzhou Chantefable 67

3. Performing "Two Women Marry" 151

1. Outlines of Famous Suzhou Chantefable Stories 203

2. Outline of Love Reincarnate in the Pan Boying Lineage 220

3. A Sample Passage from "Two Women Marry" in Suzhou Dialect 229.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [239]-251) and index.

ISBN:

025202821X

OCLC:

50583573