Limited Views: Essays on Ideas and Letters (Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series)

This Translation Of 65 Pieces From Qian Zhongshu's Guanzhui Bian (limited Views) Makes Available For The First Time In English A Representative Selection From Qian's Massive Four-volume Collection Of Essays And Reading Notes On The Classics Of Early Chinese Literature.--book Jacket. Qian Zhongshu (b.1910) Is Arguably Contemporary China's Foremost Man Of Letters, And Limited Views Is Recognized As The Culmination Of His Study Of Literature In Both The Chinese And The Western Traditions.--book Jacket. The Meaning Surpasses The Image -- Worldly Frustration And Literary Composition -- Personal Conduct And Literary Style -- Poetic Landscapes And Fidelity To Nature -- The Corruption Of Consciousness -- The Writer As Critic -- Sadness As The Primary Value In Music -- Saddened By A Height -- Complex Emotions In Literature -- The Origins Of Delighting The Mind In Landscape -- Script And Nature, Script And Painting -- Resonance In Criticism On The Arts. The Misreading Of Xie He's Six Canons The Early History Of The Concept. Resonance And Concealment. A Lost Twelfth-century Treatise. From Music To The Literary And Visual Arts -- Metaphors Have Two Handles And Several Sides -- Human Life Is Like Ice -- Imagery In The Changes And The Songs -- Gifts With Symbolic Meanings -- Reverse Symbolism -- The Domesticating Metaphor -- Inflated Language -- Synaesthesia -- Constant Qualities, Variant Perceptions -- The Name But Not The Reality -- Impossible Tropes -- On Not Recognizing Mirrors. By Qian Zhongshu ; Selected And Translated By Ronald Egan. Parallel Title In Chinese Characters. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [421]-462) And Index. This translation of 65 pieces from Qian Zhongshu's Guanzhui bian (Limited Views) makes available for the first time in English a representative selection from Qian's massive four-volume collection of essays and reading notes on the classics of early Chinese literature. First published in 1979, it has been hailed as one of the most insightful and comprehensive treatments of themes and motifs in early Chinese writing to appear in this century. Scholar, novelist, and essayist Qian Zhongshu (b. 1910) is arguably contemporary China's foremost man of letters, and Limited Views is recognized as the culmination of his study of literature in both the Chinese and the Western traditions.