The Female Rewriting of Grand History: The Tanci Fiction Jing zhong zhuan

dc.contributor.advisorEpstein, Maramen_US
dc.contributor.authorZhang, Yuen_US
dc.date.accessioned2013-10-03T23:31:54Z
dc.date.available2013-10-03T23:31:54Z
dc.date.issued2013-10-03
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation has examined the tanci fiction Jing zhong zhuan, or A Biography of Dedication and Loyalty, authored by a gentry woman writer Zhou Yingfang in the late nineteenth century. I argue that by adapting the well-known patriotic story of General Yue Fei in Chinese history, Zhou Yingfang suggests new directions in grand historical narrative in her own voice and from her own perspective. Negotiating the writing conventions of earlier legends, she turns the stereotyped masculine image of Yue Fei into a hero in both public and domestic settings. In addition, she adds many detailed episodes from Yue Fei's family life and portrays virtuous women in a chaotic historical period, paralleling the conventional narration of wars and politics. Although often (mis)read as a text that inspires nationalism, Jing zhong zhuan actually redefines significant values in late imperial China, including the importance of family and the complex relation between filial piety and political loyalty. The tanci also enriches the notions of female virtues, expanding them from chastity to beauty, learning and management skills. Employing tanci, a unique genre that is closely associated with and quite dominated by women, Zhou Yingfang demonstrates her gendered consciousness in relationship to late nineteenth-century Confucian family dynamics and her self-representation and literary engagement within grand historical narratives. My dissertation sheds light on the dynamics between women's writing and historiography, as well as on the discourses of patriotism and emerging nationalism at the turn of the twentieth-century in China.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1794/13242
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Oregonen_US
dc.rightsAll Rights Reserved.en_US
dc.subjectLate imperial Chinaen_US
dc.subjectTanci fictionen_US
dc.subjectWomen's writingen_US
dc.titleThe Female Rewriting of Grand History: The Tanci Fiction Jing zhong zhuanen_US
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertationen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineDepartment of East Asian Languages and Literaturesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Oregonen_US
thesis.degree.leveldoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.namePh.D.en_US

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