Research Catalog
Saying all that can be said : the art of describing sex in Jin Ping Mei
- Title
- Saying all that can be said : the art of describing sex in Jin Ping Mei / Keith McMahon.
- Author
- McMahon, Keith
- Publication
- Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Asia Center, 2023.
- ©2023
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFE 23-902 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- xiv, 287 pages : illustrations; 24 cm.
- Summary
- "In Saying All That Can Be Said, Keith McMahon presents the first full analysis of the sexually explicit portrayals in the Ming novel Jin Ping Mei (The Plum in the Golden Vase). Countering common views of those portrayals as "just sex" or as "bad sex," he shows that they are rich in thematic meaning and loaded with social and aesthetic purpose. McMahon places the novel in the historical context of Chinese sexual culture, from which Jin Ping Mei inherits the style of the elegant, metaphorical description of erotic pleasure, but which the anonymous author extends in an exploration of the explicit, the obscene, and the graphic. The novel uses explicit description to evaluate and comment on characters, situations, and sexual and psychic states of being. Echoing the novel's way of taking sex as a vehicle for reading the world, McMahon celebrates the richness and exuberance of Jin Ping Mei's language of sex, which refuses imprisonment within the boundaries of orthodox culture's cleanly authoritative style, and which continues to inspire admiration from readers around the world. Saying All That Can Be Said will change the way we think about sexual culture in pre-modern China"--
- Series Statement
- Harvard-Yenching Institute monograph series; 134
- Uniform Title
- Harvard-Yenching Institute monograph series ; 134.
- Subject
- Xiaoxiaosheng
- Jin Ping Mei ci hua (Xiaoxiaosheng)
- 1368-1644
- Erotic literature, Chinese > 16th century > History and criticism
- Chinese literature > Ming dynasty, 1368-1644 > History and criticism
- Sex in literature > 16th century
- Sex and history > China
- Chinese literature > Ming dynasty
- Erotic literature, Chinese
- Sex and history
- Sex in literature
- Chinese literature
- China
- Genre/Form
- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Contents
- Saying All That Can Be Said -- Jin Ping Mei and the Art of the Bedchamber -- The Language of Sex in Jin Ping Mei -- Sex as Battle -- Graphic Description in Jin Ping Mei -- Different Sex with Different Women -- The Ways of Being Pornographic.
- Call Number
- JFE 23-902
- ISBN
- 9780674291355
- 0674291352
- LCCN
- 2022035946
- OCLC
- 1344422819
- Author
- McMahon, Keith, author.
- Title
- Saying all that can be said : the art of describing sex in Jin Ping Mei / Keith McMahon.
- Publisher
- Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Asia Center, 2023.
- Copyright Date
- ©2023
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Series
- Harvard-Yenching Institute monograph series; 134Harvard-Yenching Institute monograph series ; 134.
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Chronological Term
- 1368-1644
- Research Call Number
- JFE 23-902