The Problem of a Chinese Aesthetic [Hardcover]

The Problem of a Chinese Aesthetic calls for and applies a new model of comparative literature - one that, instead of taking for granted the commensurability of traditions and texts, gives incompatibility and contradiction their due. Exposing contemporary literary theory to the risks of ancient Chinese literature (and vice versa), this book considers a linked series of case studies. To what degree does the translation between languages and texts that we call comparative literature depend on allegory or translation within a single text or language? The author offers an important, new perspective on the reading of the Shih-ching or Book of Odes and the question of allegory and metaphor in the Chinese poetic tradition.This book applies a new model of comparative literature that gives incompatibility and contradiction their due. In case studies that include Leibniz, theBook of Odes,and Hegel, it explores the intersection between translation and allegory. This is a study ofThe Book of Odes, the Prefaces, and the enormous tradition ofOdesscholarship. The display of erudition and interpretive subtlety is remarkable, not least becasue Saussy is able to articulate coherent problems from within what might otherwise seem an unmanageable wealth of details.