From deluge to discourse : myth, history, and the generation of Chinese fiction
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
From deluge to discourse : myth, history, and the generation of Chinese fiction
（SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture）
State University of New York Press, c1996
- pbk. : alk. paper
Available at / 6 libraries
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National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies Library (GRIPS Library)
hbk. : alk. paper00495988
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Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Starting with a reevaluation of the critical scholarship done on the Chinese text, the Mu T'ien-tzu chuan, the author challenges the view of the text as a product of historical composition. Porter then argues that the discursive structures of flood myths, elements of which appear in the Mu T'ien-tzu chuan, have their origins in an attempt to mediate linguistically the frightening consequences of the falsification of cosmological truths.
The heuristic potential of the psychoanalytical theory of the symbol is used to explain the specific cosmogonic intentions underlying the genesis of myth, as well as broader manifestations of historical, social, and cultural behavior, most particularly literary works like the Mu T'ien-tzu chuan. The author explains how mythic symbols invested with cosmogonic and regenerative significance are appropriated in the literary resolution of a socio-political trauma analogous to those mediated by flood myths. Finally, she argues that not simply the Mu T'ien-tzu chuan but Chinese fictional discourse in general is most appropriately understood as a wholly symbolic form.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Contextualizing the Text: The Discovery, Compilation, Transmission, and Traditional Appreciation of the Mu T'ien-tzu chuan
2. See Yü Later: A New Interpretation of Chinese Flood Myths
3. Toward an Aesthetic of Symbol in Early Chinese Thought
4. Symbolic Foundations of the Mu T'ien-tzu chuan:K'un-lun, Ho-tsung, and Hsi-wang-mu
5. The Generation of Symbolism in the Mu T'ien-tzu chuan
6. Heaven's Text and the Invention of Fictional Discourse in China
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"