Table of Contents

1. Ideal and Actual, Real and Not-real 2. "Family Togetherness": Patterns of Authority and the Subversion of Family Structure 3. Preexisting Conditions: Retributory Illness and the Limits of Medicine 4. A World Apart: Poetry and Society in the Garden of Total Vision 5. The Chiming of the Void: Poetry as a Vehicle to Enlightenment

Promotional Information

Levy explores the classic Chinese novelThe Story of the Stone(also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber), illuminating the work by interpreting its four major themes: the inversion of traditional family dynamics, the function of illness and medicine in a Buddhist society, the role of poetry in a dynastic Chinese society, and the use of poetry as a vehicle for spiritual retribution.

About the Author

Dore J. Levy is associate professor of comparative literature and East Asian Studies and chair of East Asian Studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She is the author of Chinese Narrative Poetry: The Late Han Through T'ang Dynasties.

Reviews

Though intended as an introduction for first-time readers of the masterpiece, Levy's book also offers some insights of use to specialists. A readable contribution to English studies of Honglou meng. -- Y. Wu Choice