Reviews for Haiku and Modernist Poetics

The average rating for Haiku and Modernist Poetics based on 2 reviews is 1.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2021-02-17 00:00:00 Todd Landess I didn't think I needed another book on Chinese literature because I have so many, but when I found this one I had to buy it because it was Lu Hsun (Lu Xun) and I'm SO glad I did. This is not simply another collection of Chinese literature but rather looks at the development of Chinese fiction from the legends and tales of The classic of mountain and seas (shanhaijing) to the beginning of the 19th century. Xun leaves out the philosophy and the plays and instead focuses on stories. He discusses at length all the different supernatural stories and the collections of them, what survived what didn't and how they changed over time. There are so many fascinating books talked about, so many I want to track down. When/if I ever get my Chinese to the level I need to do my PhD these are exactly the books I want to be studying, the ghost stories and supernatural tales that I love and this book will be an invaluable resource for them. Not only does he discuss the supernatural tale but he also talks about the classics of Chinese literature, Journey to the West, Three Kingdoms, Jinpingmei, the Scholars etc. He talks about the development of the stories, including early versions of the tales, variants, sequels etc. He also discusses the stories in depth, and includes excerpts to show style or emotion. One of the books discussed in the 19th century was a traditional scholar/beauty romance except in this case the "beauties" were in fact female-impersonators from the opera. Apparently it's a very touching romantic gay tale. It sounded lovely and I really hope one day I can find a copy. Such a great book containing so many treasures. I'm so glad I found a copy and am so pleased to see it still seems to be in print. Definitely one of the best things put out by the Foreign language press. I'd very highly recommend it.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-05-19 00:00:00 Thomas Balcerski Un libro bastante interesante si te gusta la cultura china y quieres saber un poco más de la evolución de su literatura a través del tiempo. La lectura un poco densa, puesto que es una recopilación de las disertaciones en ambientes universitarios que hizo Lu Xun sobre sus investigaciones, por lo tanto va más hacia lo comparativo y lo teórico. No obstante, colocan pasajes de los libros a los que se hace referencia en cada capítulo (bueno, si se conservaban aunque fuera extractos del mismo para el tiempo de la redacción), dejando ver lo rica de la literatura china y, por lo menos yo, me anoté unos cuantos títulos por ahí. Obviamente, desde el año de publicación de este libro (en la década de los 20`s del siglo pasado) hasta ahora, la literatura china se ha modernizado aún más; pero hasta la fecha de publicación, en mi opinión, resulta en un gran compendio que se convierte en esencial para los estudiosos de la materia.