The Origins of the Tun-huang Popular Narratives and Their Influences on Later Vernacular Literature - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Origins of the Tun-huang Popular Narratives and Their Influences on Later Vernacular Literature write by . This book was released on 1984. The Origins of the Tun-huang Popular Narratives and Their Influences on Later Vernacular Literature available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
The Origins of the Tun-huang Popular Narratives and Their Influences on Later Vernacular Literature
The Origins of the Tun-huang Popular Narratives and Their Influences on Later Vernacular Literature - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Origins of the Tun-huang Popular Narratives and Their Influences on Later Vernacular Literature write by Victor H. Mair. This book was released on 1982. The Origins of the Tun-huang Popular Narratives and Their Influences on Later Vernacular Literature available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The purpose of this thesis is to understand as much as possible of the history of the popular Chinese literary genre called pien-wen. These texts date from the eighth through the tenth centuries and are important because they represent the earliest surviving examples of extended vernacular narrative known in China. The thesis begins with a brief discussion of the discovery of the pien-wen manuscripts at Tun-huang in the northwestern province of Kansu. The author then turns to an intensive philological study of the term pien-wen and thereby justifies his translation of it as "transformation text." Having completed this analysis, he is in a position to delineate the corpus of pien-wen. In the process, he distinguishes it from other types of popular literary texts discovered at Tun-huang such as sutra lectures (chiang- ching-wen). The author then moves on to the significant questions of who wrote the pien-wen and why. He marshals evidence that most of the copyists were lay students studying at Buddhist monasteries in Tun-huang. The author proceeds to show that pien-wen were the written descendants of a type of oral performance called chuan-pien ("turning transformation [scrolls]"). This was a folk entertainment in which a storyteller used a picture scroll to illustrate his or her tale. The sudden and mysterious disappearance of pien-wen during the first half of the eleventh century is then explained. The last major section of the thesis deals with the effects of pien-wen on later Chinese popular literature, chief among these being the adoption of the prosimetric form and the use of vernacular language. The thesis concludes with an assessment of the current state of research on pien-wen.
Tun-huang Popular Narratives
Tun-huang Popular Narratives - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Tun-huang Popular Narratives write by Victor H. Mair. This book was released on 1983-11-10. Tun-huang Popular Narratives available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Tun-huang Popular Narratives presents authoritative translations of four vernacular Chinese stories, taken from fragmentary texts usually referred to as pien-wen or 'transformation texts'. Dating from the late T'ang (618-907) and Five Dynasties (907-959) periods, the texts were discovered early last century in a cave at Tun-huang, in Chinese Central Asia. However, written down in an early colloquial language by semi-literate individuals and posing formidable philological problems, the texts have not been studied critically before. Nevertheless they represent the only surviving primary evidence of a widespread and flourishing world of popular entertainment during these centuries. The tales deal with both religious (mostly Buddhist) and secular themes, and make exciting and vivid reading.
The Columbia History of Chinese Literature
The Columbia History of Chinese Literature - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Columbia History of Chinese Literature write by Victor H. Mair. This book was released on 2010-03-10. The Columbia History of Chinese Literature available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.
Chinese History
Chinese History - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Chinese History write by Endymion Porter Wilkinson. This book was released on 2000. Chinese History available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Endymion Wilkinson's bestselling manual of Chinese history has long been an indispensable guide to all those interested in the civilization and history of China. In this latest edition, now in a bigger format, its scope has been dramatically enlarged by the addition of one million words of new text. Twelve years in the making, the new manual introduces students to different types of transmitted, excavated, and artifactual sources from prehistory to the twentieth century. It also examines the context in which the sources were produced, preserved, and received, the problems of research and interpretation associated with them, and the best, most up-to-date secondary works. Because the writing of history has always played a central role in Chinese politics and culture, special attention is devoted to the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese historiography.
