Remembrance (Reappearance of Past Events in Chinese Classical Literature)

Author: [US] Stephen Owen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: This book is a study of Chinese classical literature by a sinologist, serving as impressionistic criticism based on the author's personal reflections. From the vast collection of classical texts, the author selects over ten poems and prose, unexpectedly connecting them together. Through brilliant readings, imaginations, analyses, and research, he highlights a classic image and fundamental motif of Chinese classical literature: nostalgia. As a richly connotative intellectual and artistic act, nostalgia is not only a reproduction and lamentation of past events and history but also embodies the "ontological" anxiety of Confucian intellectuals pursuing "immortality." It further reflects the traditional and mindset pattern of "looking backward" that has endured for thousands of years in Chinese culture. The book is not arranged chronologically and does not seek to classify its discussions. Through innovative, unique, and well-supported elaborations and analyses, the author attempts to construct a hall of nostalgia for us: "Poetry, objects, and landscapes outline a space, through which the past returns to us."