The Sword or the Needle
The Female Knight-errant ("xia") in Traditional Chinese Narrative
©2009
Postdoctoral Thesis
430 Pages
Series:
Welten Ostasiens / Worlds of East Asia / Mondes de l'Extrême-Orient, Volume 15
Summary
This study focussing on narratives about female knights-errant (nüxia) cuts along a thematic line in Chinese literary history, and thus seeks to contribute to understanding and appreciation mainly in three fields of inquiry: the formation of narrative subgenre; the literary representation of gender; and the particularities of the Chinese knight-errantry narrative. It traces the processes of textual collecting, editing, rewriting, and intertextual referencing by which narratives about female knights-errant were invented as, and forged into, a thematic sub-genre. The narratives about a character type who boldly transgresses gender boundaries are studied as an exemplary case for a general inquiry into the subversive significance of images of gender-bending strong female characters in the Chinese narrative tradition. Finally, the present study investigates into representations of the practice of Chinese knight-errantry, which includes assassination for social policing, private vengeance, and banditry.
Details
- Pages
- 430
- Publication Year
- 2009
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9783034300360
- Language
- English
- Keywords
- Frauen- und Geschlechterstudien Sinologie Aussereuropäische Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaften
- Published
- Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2009. 430 pp.