Fables for the Patriarchs: Gender Politics in Tang Discourse [Paperback]

An important and provocative book. There are many wonderful moments in the book, where example and analysis produce illumination. This is a book that will repay careful reading, a book that will be good to argue with for years to come. It tackles big questions with verve and originality.A completely engrossing, truly extraordinary work. There exists nothing in English on gender in Tang dynasty literature and culture that even remotely resembles this book, whether in terms of comprehensiveness, originality, or analytic depth. No one before has so confidently and persuasively applied feminist critical theory to the topic.This provocative study explores issues of gender in Tang-dynasty literature and culture, and their meaning for society as a whole. Drawing on a comprehensive range of historical, literary, and social texts, Jowen R. Tung unravels the complex mechanisms of one of the world's oldest patriarchal systems. With remarkable depth and originality of analysis, the author persuasively applies contemporary feminist theory to Tang dynasty poetry, narrative, and anecdotal literature. Interpreting both well-known and obscure works in fresh ways, Tung sheds light on areas long left shadowed or ignored. In the process, she paints a far darker picture of a period traditionally known as the 'golden age.'Exploring issues of gender in Tang-dynasty literature and culture, Jowen R.Tung draws on a comprehensive range of historical, literary, and social texts to unravel the complex mechanisms of one of the world's oldest patriarchal systems. The author reveals the profound damage inflicted by the masculine state ideology on its subjects by illuminating the problematics of male sexuality under the hovering phallus of the emperor, the construct of male and female psyches within the pseudo-monogamous household, the logic of the collective unconscious in the literati's writings, and a female tradition desperately trapped inside the law of the father. Tung poses urgent questions lCĪ