Orthodox Passions: Narrating Filial Love during the High Qing (Harvard East Asian Monographs)

In this groundbreaking interdisciplinary study, Maram Epstein identifies filial piety as the dominant expression of love in Qing dynasty texts. At a time when Manchu regulations made chastity the primary metaphor for obedience and social duty, filial discourse increasingly embraced the dramatic and passionate excesses associated with late-Ming chastity narratives. Qing texts, especially those from the Jiangnan region, celebrate modes of filial piety that conflicted with the interests of the patriarchal family and the state. Analyzing filial narratives from a wide range of primary texts, including local gazetteers, autobiographical and biographical nianpu records, and fiction, Epstein shows the diversity of acts constituting exemplary filial piety. This context, Orthodox Passions argues, enables a radical rereading of the great novel of manners The Story of the Stone (ca. 1760), whose absence of filial affections and themes make it an outlier in the eighteenth-century sentimental landscape. By decentering romantic feeling as the dominant expression of love during the High Qing, Orthodox Passions calls for a new understanding of the affective landscape of late imperial China. Copyright Page /Author: Maram Epstein --Dedication /Author: Maram Epstein --Tables and Figures /Author: Maram Epstein --Preface /Author: Maram Epstein --Chronology of Chinese Dynasties and Periods Relevant to This Study /Author: Maram Epstein --A Note on Textual Conventions /Author: Maram Epstein --Introduction /Author: Maram Epstein --chapter one Taking Filial Love Seriously /Author: Maram Epstein --chapter two Toward a New Paradigm of Emotions /Author: Maram Epstein --chapter three Changing Constructions of Filial Virtue in Local Gazetteers /Author: Maram Epstein --chapter four Filial Piety and the Empowering of Daughters during the Qing /Author: Maram Epstein --chapter five Rereading the Sentimental World of Story of the Stone /Author: Maram Epstein --chapter six Rethinking Interiority /Author: Maram Epstein --Epilogue /Author: Maram Epstein --Sources Cited /Author: Maram Epstein --Index /Author: Maram Epstein --Harvard East Asian Monographs (most recent titles) /Author: Maram Epstein "Analyzes filial narratives from a wide range of primary texts from late Imperial China, including local gazetteers, biographical records, and fiction, to identify filial piety as the dominant expression of love in Qing texts and show the diversity of acts that constituted exemplary filial piety"-- Provided by publisher