Beyond Eroticism translates and analyzes over forty songs and ninety jokes from Child's Folly, a trilogy of popular songs (Hanging Twigs), folksongs (Hill Songs), and jokes (Treasury of Laughs) compiled by Feng Menglong (1574-1646), a giant in late Ming (1368-1644) popular literature. Focusing on humor as the predominant characteristic of the "tactically forgotten" collections, the book offers a delightful study of the foibles, eccentricities, and anxieties of a broad cross section of late Ming society. The study also probes the inner world of the compiler as he reveals, unwittingly, the...
Beyond Eroticism translates and analyzes over forty songs and ninety jokes from Child's Folly, a trilogy of popular songs (Hanging Twigs), folksongs (...