Clouds and Rain: Love and Sexuality in Traditional Chinese Literature (in translation)

This seminar explores the spectrum of traditional attitudes toward romantic love and sexuality in pre-modern China as seen through the prism of classical Chinese literature. Fiction and drama will be the focus of this course with some attention given to lyric poetry and autobiographical writing. Literary texts to be analyzed include the early ninth-century story, The Story of Yingying, the late sixteenth-century drama, The Peony Pavilion, the late seventeenth-century erotic novella, The Carnal Prayer Mat, along with selected chapters from the late sixteenth-century erotic novel, Jin Ping Mei, and the eighteenth-century masterwork, The Story of the Stone (also known as Dream of the Red Chamber), etc. Normally offered in alternate years. (Either CHNS 0219, CHNS 0220, or CHNS/FMMC 0250, or by waiver. CHNS 0219 strongly recommended) 3 hrs. lect.