Saying All That Can Be Said : The Art of Describing Sex in Jin Ping Mei / Keith McMahon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McMahon, Keith, author.

Series:

Harvard-Yenching Institute monograph series ; Volume 134.

Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series ; Volume 134

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Chinese literature--Ming dynasty, 1368-1644--History and criticism.

Chinese literature.

Erotic literature, Chinese--16th century--History and criticism.

Erotic literature, Chinese.

Sex and history--China.

Sex and history.

Sex in literature--16th century.

Sex in literature.

Xiaoxiaosheng. Jin Ping Mei ci hua.

Xiaoxiaosheng.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (308 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

The Art of Describing Sex in Jin Ping Mei

Place of Publication:

Massachusetts ; Cambridge : Harvard University Asia Center, 2023.

Language Note:

English

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 金瓶梅 (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 premodern China. See Less

Contents:

Preliminary Material / Author: Keith McMahon

Saying All That Can Be Said / Author: Keith McMahon

Jin Ping Mei and the Art of the Bedchamber / Author: Keith McMahon

The Language of Sex in Jin Ping Mei / Author: Keith McMahon

Sex as Battle / Author: Keith McMahon

Graphic Description in Jin Ping Mei / Author: Keith McMahon

Different Sex with Different Women / Author: Keith McMahon

Jin Ping Mei and Ming and Qing Pornography / Author: Keith McMahon

The Ways of Being Pornographic / Author: Keith McMahon

Bibliography / Author: Keith McMahon

Index / Author: Keith McMahon

Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series / Author: Keith McMahon.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-68417-656-5

OCLC:

1443938297

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9781684176564 DOI