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Saying all that can be said : the art of describing sex in Jin Ping Mei / Keith McMahon.
Van Pelt Library PL2275.E74 M35 2023
By Request
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- McMahon, Keith, author.
- Series:
- Harvard-Yenching Institute monograph series ; 134.
- Harvard-Yenching Institute monograph series; 134
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Xiaoxiaosheng. Jin Ping Mei ci hua.
- Xiaoxiaosheng.
- Erotic literature, Chinese--16th century--History and criticism.
- Erotic literature, Chinese.
- Chinese literature--Ming dynasty, 1368-1644--History and criticism.
- Chinese literature.
- Sex in literature--16th century.
- Sex in literature.
- Sex and history--China.
- Sex and history.
- Jin Ping Mei ci hua (Xiaoxiaosheng).
- Chinese literature--Ming dynasty.
- China.
- Genre:
- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
- Physical Description:
- xiv, 287 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Asia Center, 2023.
- Summary:
- "In Saying All That Can Be Said, Keith McMahon presents the first full analysis of the sexually explicit portrayals in the Ming novel Jin Ping Mei (The Plum in the Golden Vase). Countering common views of those portrayals as "just sex" or as "bad sex," he shows that they are rich in thematic meaning and loaded with social and aesthetic purpose. McMahon places the novel in the historical context of Chinese sexual culture, from which Jin Ping Mei inherits the style of the elegant, metaphorical description of erotic pleasure, but which the anonymous author extends in an exploration of the explicit, the obscene, and the graphic. The novel uses explicit description to evaluate and comment on characters, situations, and sexual and psychic states of being. Echoing the novel's way of taking sex as a vehicle for reading the world, McMahon celebrates the richness and exuberance of Jin Ping Mei's language of sex, which refuses imprisonment within the boundaries of orthodox culture's cleanly authoritative style, and which continues to inspire admiration from readers around the world. Saying All That Can Be Said will change the way we think about sexual culture in pre-modern China"-- Provided by publisher.
- Contents:
- Saying All That Can Be Said
- Jin Ping Mei and the Art of the Bedchamber
- The Language of Sex in Jin Ping Mei
- Sex as Battle
- Graphic Description in Jin Ping Mei
- Different Sex with Different Women
- The Ways of Being Pornographic.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 9780674291355
- 0674291352
- OCLC:
- 1344422819
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