Pub Date : 2019-07-03DOI: 10.1080/25723618.2019.1697176
Pengfei Wang
ABSTRACT The modernity of the Baroque is determined by its non-mimetic, non-symbolic, or, simply, its allegorical form. As allegory, the Baroque undermines and obscures the specific literal meaning of a representation open to (symbolic) understanding. Allegory contains a representational element that allows for understanding but only in order to show that the understanding it reaches is necessarily in error. Chinese poets of the mid-late Tang experienced a similar case of ostracism from their contemporaries. Although their poetry was admired, poets like Meng Jiao, Li He and Li Shangyin went unappreciated and almost forgotten until later poets discovered them and their poetry was recognized not only as great poetry, but also as “Baroque” poetry. Through a comparative translation analysis of three of the mid-late Tang poets and poems, this essay tries to redefine Chinese Baroque poetry and to illustrate a baroque poetics not only in the way they depart from traditional, or symbolic poetic modes but also in how they subvert them.
{"title":"Towards Redefining Chinese Baroque Poetry","authors":"Pengfei Wang","doi":"10.1080/25723618.2019.1697176","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25723618.2019.1697176","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The modernity of the Baroque is determined by its non-mimetic, non-symbolic, or, simply, its allegorical form. As allegory, the Baroque undermines and obscures the specific literal meaning of a representation open to (symbolic) understanding. Allegory contains a representational element that allows for understanding but only in order to show that the understanding it reaches is necessarily in error. Chinese poets of the mid-late Tang experienced a similar case of ostracism from their contemporaries. Although their poetry was admired, poets like Meng Jiao, Li He and Li Shangyin went unappreciated and almost forgotten until later poets discovered them and their poetry was recognized not only as great poetry, but also as “Baroque” poetry. Through a comparative translation analysis of three of the mid-late Tang poets and poems, this essay tries to redefine Chinese Baroque poetry and to illustrate a baroque poetics not only in the way they depart from traditional, or symbolic poetic modes but also in how they subvert them.","PeriodicalId":34832,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Literature East West","volume":"288 1","pages":"192 - 204"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90796570","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-07-03DOI: 10.1080/25723618.2019.1701306
Jianghua Han
ABSTRACT The elephant, as a national treasure of Thailand, is a sacred symbol of the Thai people. Elephants play a very important role in Thai people’s life; and it, as a culture, has penetrated into all aspects of Thai society. Thai people take the “elephant” as a source to construct a huge system of “Elephant Metaphors” with their own intelligence and wisdom. Through this huge system of “Elephant Metaphors,” people can clearly know about Thai “Elephant Culture.” The “Elephant Culture” represents the crystallization of Thai people’s adaptability and result of the adaption to the particular environment of the tropical region of Indo-China Peninsula; it is an important integral part of the overall Thai culture; and it is also a Faith Culture, which has its own system. Thai “Elephant Culture,” as a symbol of the Thai people as well as Thailand, has the following characteristics: a symbol of the Thai ethnic group, a symbol of power and honor, a symbol of auspiciousness and wisdom, a symbol of strength, as well as a modest symbol of negativity and evil.
{"title":"The Study of Thai Elephant Culture Based on the “Elephant Metaphors” in Thai Idioms","authors":"Jianghua Han","doi":"10.1080/25723618.2019.1701306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25723618.2019.1701306","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The elephant, as a national treasure of Thailand, is a sacred symbol of the Thai people. Elephants play a very important role in Thai people’s life; and it, as a culture, has penetrated into all aspects of Thai society. Thai people take the “elephant” as a source to construct a huge system of “Elephant Metaphors” with their own intelligence and wisdom. Through this huge system of “Elephant Metaphors,” people can clearly know about Thai “Elephant Culture.” The “Elephant Culture” represents the crystallization of Thai people’s adaptability and result of the adaption to the particular environment of the tropical region of Indo-China Peninsula; it is an important integral part of the overall Thai culture; and it is also a Faith Culture, which has its own system. Thai “Elephant Culture,” as a symbol of the Thai people as well as Thailand, has the following characteristics: a symbol of the Thai ethnic group, a symbol of power and honor, a symbol of auspiciousness and wisdom, a symbol of strength, as well as a modest symbol of negativity and evil.","PeriodicalId":34832,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Literature East West","volume":"13 1","pages":"148 - 162"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79067159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-07-03DOI: 10.1080/25723618.2019.1695710
Mohammed Hamdan
ABSTRACT This essay probes the notion of silence and women’s acoustic subversion in Surah “Al-Mujādilah” in the Holy Qurʾān and Edgar Allan Poe’s “Ligeia.” In the Islamic tradition and Poe’s literary texts, women’s voices and subjectivity are limited due to their conventional, hermeneutical association with the presumed hidden fear of corruption and violation in androcentric societies. The essay not only points to the Qurʾānic influence on Poe’s treatment of women as silent and submissive, but also seeks to position Poe’s female characters in relation to the Qurʾānic model of subversive femininity. Within both narratives, women are traditionally designated to play specific role models that seem to idealize them as passive linguistic constructs in their communities. The essay, however, reconsiders the orthodox patriarchal representation of women in the Qurʾānic chapter and Poe’s text and rather suggests a rereading of their silence as a subversive speech-act whereby they question and reevaluate the ontological tendency to view them as acoustic objects to male authority.
{"title":"“Be Silent in that Solitude”: Women and the Subversion of Silence in Surah “Al-Mujadilah” and Poe’s “Ligeia”","authors":"Mohammed Hamdan","doi":"10.1080/25723618.2019.1695710","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25723618.2019.1695710","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This essay probes the notion of silence and women’s acoustic subversion in Surah “Al-Mujādilah” in the Holy Qurʾān and Edgar Allan Poe’s “Ligeia.” In the Islamic tradition and Poe’s literary texts, women’s voices and subjectivity are limited due to their conventional, hermeneutical association with the presumed hidden fear of corruption and violation in androcentric societies. The essay not only points to the Qurʾānic influence on Poe’s treatment of women as silent and submissive, but also seeks to position Poe’s female characters in relation to the Qurʾānic model of subversive femininity. Within both narratives, women are traditionally designated to play specific role models that seem to idealize them as passive linguistic constructs in their communities. The essay, however, reconsiders the orthodox patriarchal representation of women in the Qurʾānic chapter and Poe’s text and rather suggests a rereading of their silence as a subversive speech-act whereby they question and reevaluate the ontological tendency to view them as acoustic objects to male authority.","PeriodicalId":34832,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Literature East West","volume":"15 1","pages":"128 - 147"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88750159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-02DOI: 10.1080/25723618.2019.1640042
S. Wang
ABSTRACT Nearly all of Hardy’s novels take place in Wessex: Egdon Heath, Casterbridge, Blackfield Valley. They are set in both rural and urban spaces, but the rural space is the most important. In his work the rural space is charged with symbolic meaning signifying specific social and cultural circumstances. Compared with other spaces, it is unique and described as marginal with its own specific customs and landscapes. However, the Wessex constructed by Hardy is not a closed, traditional rural space, but an open space which is constantly influenced by the outside world, which are urbanism and industrialism. It is continually undergoing new changes, adding to it both new aesthetic and modern connotations. In conclusion, Hardy shows us how modernism affects Wessex comprehensively, including production method, education, population change, structures of feeling, and the identity definition of people.
{"title":"Tradition and Modernity in Thomas Hardy’s Wessex","authors":"S. Wang","doi":"10.1080/25723618.2019.1640042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25723618.2019.1640042","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Nearly all of Hardy’s novels take place in Wessex: Egdon Heath, Casterbridge, Blackfield Valley. They are set in both rural and urban spaces, but the rural space is the most important. In his work the rural space is charged with symbolic meaning signifying specific social and cultural circumstances. Compared with other spaces, it is unique and described as marginal with its own specific customs and landscapes. However, the Wessex constructed by Hardy is not a closed, traditional rural space, but an open space which is constantly influenced by the outside world, which are urbanism and industrialism. It is continually undergoing new changes, adding to it both new aesthetic and modern connotations. In conclusion, Hardy shows us how modernism affects Wessex comprehensively, including production method, education, population change, structures of feeling, and the identity definition of people.","PeriodicalId":34832,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Literature East West","volume":"31 1","pages":"101 - 112"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81494716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-02DOI: 10.1080/25723618.2019.1592865
Elizabeth B. Harper
ABSTRACT As a sally in reading across cultures, this paper takes two dramas conceived and performed at opposite ends of Eurasia as a point of departure for ruminations on the genre of tragedy. Though not considered a masterpiece by critics within or outside of China, Ji Junxiang’s 纪君祥 Zhaoshi guer 赵氏孤儿 (The Orphan of Zhao) was the first Chinese drama to be rendered into any European language and the only Chinese play that has had a significant impact on European drama. Unreflectively known as the “Chinese Hamlet” by those first European readers who were eager to find their own selves reflected in the new encounter with China, the play has become bound up with the politics of cultural poetics, which govern how we read works from cultures outside of “the West.” Here, I point to those larger structures of thought which underpin a given culture’s literary production and use Hamlet and The Orphan of Zhao as a test case for thinking more broadly about how drama as an art form in two major cultural traditions reflects different answers to the same perennial human questions.
{"title":"East-West Theories of Tragedy: Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Ji Junxiang’s 纪君祥 Zhaoshi guer 赵氏孤儿 (The Orphan of Zhao)","authors":"Elizabeth B. Harper","doi":"10.1080/25723618.2019.1592865","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25723618.2019.1592865","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT As a sally in reading across cultures, this paper takes two dramas conceived and performed at opposite ends of Eurasia as a point of departure for ruminations on the genre of tragedy. Though not considered a masterpiece by critics within or outside of China, Ji Junxiang’s 纪君祥 Zhaoshi guer 赵氏孤儿 (The Orphan of Zhao) was the first Chinese drama to be rendered into any European language and the only Chinese play that has had a significant impact on European drama. Unreflectively known as the “Chinese Hamlet” by those first European readers who were eager to find their own selves reflected in the new encounter with China, the play has become bound up with the politics of cultural poetics, which govern how we read works from cultures outside of “the West.” Here, I point to those larger structures of thought which underpin a given culture’s literary production and use Hamlet and The Orphan of Zhao as a test case for thinking more broadly about how drama as an art form in two major cultural traditions reflects different answers to the same perennial human questions.","PeriodicalId":34832,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Literature East West","volume":"104 1","pages":"38 - 52"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81282679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-02DOI: 10.1080/25723618.2019.1644001
B. Hamamra
ABSTRACT This article makes use of two approaches to examine the misogynist and racist discourses in Shakespeare’s Othello (1604). I will read the play alongside a Palestinian intertext, the Romance of Antar (525–608), in order to illuminate the ways in which traditional Palestinian culture can be more liberal than that of early modern England. The racial discourse that the Romance of Antar embodies enables me to scrutinize this discourse in Othello. While Antar reiterates his otherness without self-contempt, I assert that Othello’s internalisation of the racial discourse leads to his self-degradation which he projects onto Desdemona. In addition, I will present a psychoanalytic reading of Othello which, perhaps more than any other critical approach, can expose uncomfortable truths about the ways in which hidden same-sex desires and loyalties challenge the heterosexual marriage of Desdemona and Othello. I argue that Othello’s projection of the racist and misogynist discourse that Iago breathes into his ears onto Desdemona and his eventual murder of her are signs of Othello’s defeat and loss of self-respect. Likewise, many Palestinians project their verbal and physical humiliation by the Israeli occupation onto Palestinian women, playing the role of the colonial power in the domestic sphere.
{"title":"Shakespeare’s Othello and The Romance of Antar: The Politics of Racism and Self-Fashioning","authors":"B. Hamamra","doi":"10.1080/25723618.2019.1644001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25723618.2019.1644001","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article makes use of two approaches to examine the misogynist and racist discourses in Shakespeare’s Othello (1604). I will read the play alongside a Palestinian intertext, the Romance of Antar (525–608), in order to illuminate the ways in which traditional Palestinian culture can be more liberal than that of early modern England. The racial discourse that the Romance of Antar embodies enables me to scrutinize this discourse in Othello. While Antar reiterates his otherness without self-contempt, I assert that Othello’s internalisation of the racial discourse leads to his self-degradation which he projects onto Desdemona. In addition, I will present a psychoanalytic reading of Othello which, perhaps more than any other critical approach, can expose uncomfortable truths about the ways in which hidden same-sex desires and loyalties challenge the heterosexual marriage of Desdemona and Othello. I argue that Othello’s projection of the racist and misogynist discourse that Iago breathes into his ears onto Desdemona and his eventual murder of her are signs of Othello’s defeat and loss of self-respect. Likewise, many Palestinians project their verbal and physical humiliation by the Israeli occupation onto Palestinian women, playing the role of the colonial power in the domestic sphere.","PeriodicalId":34832,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Literature East West","volume":"4 1","pages":"28 - 37"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74373723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-02DOI: 10.1080/25723618.2019.1586082
Feng Lan
ABSTRACT Zhang Yimou’s Curse of the Golden Flower is a product of his adaptive appropriation of Cao Yu’s Thunderstorm. While Zhang persistently asserts the relationship of his work with Cao’s play, in the film he unhesitatingly erases the primary theme of class conflict that sustains the play’s ideological articulation, thus drastically restructuring the social relations of the characters and reconfiguring the temporal–spatial settings of the narrative. Such a seemingly self-contradictory performance of adaptation on Zhang’s part is in fact dictated by the politico-economic conditions of post-socialist cinema in China. By reversing the ideological pursuit of the source work, Zhang has transformed a play resisting the newly emerging capitalist system in the China of the 1920s–1930s into a commercial movie courting the capitalist system that has been revitalized in post-Mao China. Moreover, the differences in terms of content between Cao’s play and Zhang’s film reflect profound changes in time regarding each age’s understanding of not only the nature and function of artistic works but also the social obligations of the creative artist.
{"title":"From Thunderstorm to Golden Flower: Politico-Economic Conditions of Adaptive Appropriation","authors":"Feng Lan","doi":"10.1080/25723618.2019.1586082","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25723618.2019.1586082","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Zhang Yimou’s Curse of the Golden Flower is a product of his adaptive appropriation of Cao Yu’s Thunderstorm. While Zhang persistently asserts the relationship of his work with Cao’s play, in the film he unhesitatingly erases the primary theme of class conflict that sustains the play’s ideological articulation, thus drastically restructuring the social relations of the characters and reconfiguring the temporal–spatial settings of the narrative. Such a seemingly self-contradictory performance of adaptation on Zhang’s part is in fact dictated by the politico-economic conditions of post-socialist cinema in China. By reversing the ideological pursuit of the source work, Zhang has transformed a play resisting the newly emerging capitalist system in the China of the 1920s–1930s into a commercial movie courting the capitalist system that has been revitalized in post-Mao China. Moreover, the differences in terms of content between Cao’s play and Zhang’s film reflect profound changes in time regarding each age’s understanding of not only the nature and function of artistic works but also the social obligations of the creative artist.","PeriodicalId":34832,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Literature East West","volume":"54 1","pages":"53 - 67"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82441458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-02DOI: 10.1080/25723618.2019.1644006
Asmaa Essakouti, Hossein Dabbagh
ABSTRACT War is evil, yet it brings about works of art and literature. Even so, is it ethically acceptable to wage a war in spite of all its bloody consequences, just because it may inspire some artistic masterpieces? It seems not. And is it ethically acceptable to appreciate the works of art triggered by war? This paper argues that since wars do not happen with our consent, the least that can be done is to transform them ethically, or aesthetically, towards a common good, building on individual imagination and social memory. This aesthetic justification of the consequences of war is demonstrated by examining some of the writings in English, French and Arabic literature, such as, Eco’s Inventing the Enemy, Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, al-Maʿarri’s The Epistle of Forgiveness and The Arabian Nights, etc.
{"title":"The Aesthetics of Post Bellum: From Umberto Eco to Abu al-ʿAlaʾ al-Maʿarri","authors":"Asmaa Essakouti, Hossein Dabbagh","doi":"10.1080/25723618.2019.1644006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25723618.2019.1644006","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT War is evil, yet it brings about works of art and literature. Even so, is it ethically acceptable to wage a war in spite of all its bloody consequences, just because it may inspire some artistic masterpieces? It seems not. And is it ethically acceptable to appreciate the works of art triggered by war? This paper argues that since wars do not happen with our consent, the least that can be done is to transform them ethically, or aesthetically, towards a common good, building on individual imagination and social memory. This aesthetic justification of the consequences of war is demonstrated by examining some of the writings in English, French and Arabic literature, such as, Eco’s Inventing the Enemy, Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, al-Maʿarri’s The Epistle of Forgiveness and The Arabian Nights, etc.","PeriodicalId":34832,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Literature East West","volume":"145 1","pages":"15 - 27"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77044346","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-02DOI: 10.1080/25723618.2019.1614845
Jinlong Liu
ABSTRACT Compared with his other works, The Twyborn Affair, as one of the three best novels in contemporary Australian writer Patrick White’s own opinion, has not received its due attention. Searching for the meaning of human existence is the basic theme in Twyborn. The protagonist makes the Whitean odyssey from France to Australia and to the UK in order to pursue h/er ideal identity. In the depiction of the protagonist’s journey of pursuing an ideal identity, White deconstructs the binary opposition between male and female via the protagonist’s three gender changes. After deconstructing the traditional identity system, White does not attempt to find a balance between male and female with the help of androgyny, but projects a new method to deal with identity issues—bricolage: abandoning settling all relations comprehensively by a unitary and fixed identity, but taking advantage of the polymorphism and fluidity of identity and using different selves in different situations. In Twyborn, White conveys a beyond-humanism-way to deal with identity issues. Ideal identity arises from bricolage and only bricoleur can be twyborn (twice born).
{"title":"Ideal Identity Arises from Bricolage: Identity Issues in Patrick White’s The Twyborn Affair","authors":"Jinlong Liu","doi":"10.1080/25723618.2019.1614845","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25723618.2019.1614845","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Compared with his other works, The Twyborn Affair, as one of the three best novels in contemporary Australian writer Patrick White’s own opinion, has not received its due attention. Searching for the meaning of human existence is the basic theme in Twyborn. The protagonist makes the Whitean odyssey from France to Australia and to the UK in order to pursue h/er ideal identity. In the depiction of the protagonist’s journey of pursuing an ideal identity, White deconstructs the binary opposition between male and female via the protagonist’s three gender changes. After deconstructing the traditional identity system, White does not attempt to find a balance between male and female with the help of androgyny, but projects a new method to deal with identity issues—bricolage: abandoning settling all relations comprehensively by a unitary and fixed identity, but taking advantage of the polymorphism and fluidity of identity and using different selves in different situations. In Twyborn, White conveys a beyond-humanism-way to deal with identity issues. Ideal identity arises from bricolage and only bricoleur can be twyborn (twice born).","PeriodicalId":34832,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Literature East West","volume":"1 1","pages":"68 - 78"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76631460","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-02DOI: 10.1080/25723618.2019.1615727
Kar Yue Chan
ABSTRACT The practice of “cross-dressing” is frequently seen in Cantonese operatic performances, whether in the physical attire worn by actors in on-stage shows or in the “virtual” disguises adopted in operatic song performances. Most instances of cross-dressing are cases of actresses disguising themselves to play male roles, owing to the innate constraints of male voices that make it difficult for most men to imitate female voices. Especially in pure singing scenarios, audiences frequently encounter female singers performing in a male voice, or actresses performing male gestures to act out the roles that they assume. The cross-dressing aspect of the role blurs the boundaries between the two genders. As cross-dressing performance has traditionally been a part of Chinese opera, it is worthwhile to analyze the gendered aspects of such cross-dressing practices by adopting a Western gender-studies perspective. In the case of the complicated physical and mental aspects of cross-dressing performance, accurately capturing a vocal representation of the opposite gender may involve displacement leading to a misapprehension of the performer‘s real-life gender. The combination and sublimation suggested by this `patchwork‘-style of role crossover is therefore worthy of in-depth discussion regarding the degree of gender-boundary confusion, flexibility and feasibility presented by these operatic performances.
{"title":"Cross-Dressing and Gendered Voice Representation in Cantonese Opera","authors":"Kar Yue Chan","doi":"10.1080/25723618.2019.1615727","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25723618.2019.1615727","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The practice of “cross-dressing” is frequently seen in Cantonese operatic performances, whether in the physical attire worn by actors in on-stage shows or in the “virtual” disguises adopted in operatic song performances. Most instances of cross-dressing are cases of actresses disguising themselves to play male roles, owing to the innate constraints of male voices that make it difficult for most men to imitate female voices. Especially in pure singing scenarios, audiences frequently encounter female singers performing in a male voice, or actresses performing male gestures to act out the roles that they assume. The cross-dressing aspect of the role blurs the boundaries between the two genders. As cross-dressing performance has traditionally been a part of Chinese opera, it is worthwhile to analyze the gendered aspects of such cross-dressing practices by adopting a Western gender-studies perspective. In the case of the complicated physical and mental aspects of cross-dressing performance, accurately capturing a vocal representation of the opposite gender may involve displacement leading to a misapprehension of the performer‘s real-life gender. The combination and sublimation suggested by this `patchwork‘-style of role crossover is therefore worthy of in-depth discussion regarding the degree of gender-boundary confusion, flexibility and feasibility presented by these operatic performances.","PeriodicalId":34832,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Literature East West","volume":"7 1","pages":"1 - 14"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82329153","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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