A verbal paradise visualized: An ekphrasistic study of the “Daguanyuan” in Cao Xueqin's “Hongloumeng”
Abstract
The Dream of the Red Chamber (Hong Lou Meng), written by Cao Xueqin (1715 or 1724–1763 or 1764), is considered as a pinnacle in Chinese literature. In the past two and half centuries, redology has made a long journey and generated a large canon of criticism. This canon continues to grow through a constant process of correcting, reconstructing and re-polarization of the texts. Despite the depth and breadth of the secondary material, new lacunas continue to emerge as recent studies open up new avenues and approaches and invite yet further discussion. This dissertation is a tentative exploration of one of these new areas in that it applies the insights of Western aesthetic theory, specifically the analytical insights of the concept of ekphrasis, to the presentation in the novel of the Daguanyuan or "Grand View Garden." The dissertation opens with a comprehensive introduction to the Hongloumeng, its textual tradition and a the various critical approaches to the novel (hongxue or "redology") that developed over the centuries, concluding that the current approaches have run their course and that more innovative strategies are now needed especially given the way the novel has entered the mainstream of popular culture. The second chapter looks at garden imagery in a variety of cultures and is followed by a chapter introducing the concept of ekphrasis, the origin of the term and its development in the modern period. The fourth chapter looks in detail at the picture-making capacity of words in Hongloumeng with particular emphasis on the Daguanyuan, but not restricted to it. The fifth chapter considers the image as a rhetorical device with particular emphasis on the garden in the novel. The sixth chapter considers the notion of "reverse ekphrasis," that is the various attempts to depict the novel’s garden in drawings or in actual parks (there is one such garden in Beijing and another in Shanghai, both popular tourist attractions). The concluding chapter looks at ekphrasis in the “poetic moment,” that is the way in which ekphrastic language is used in the poems scattered throughout the text which have a bearing on the garden and its contents such as the poems on chrysanthemums in chapter thirty-eight.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Hughes, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Comparative literature|Asian literature
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