Polygamy and sublime passion sexuality in China on the verge of modernity

Polygamy and sublime passion sexuality in China on the verge of modernity

Polygamy

The author provides a thought provoking literary history of the normative ideal of polygamy from the late Ming to the late Qing, countering the ideal with the theme of sublime love between two people. McMahon argues that the fantasies of polygamy had intimate ties to the imagination of political power and sheds new light on texts that increasingly have been employed to redefine China’s literary transition to modernity. He reads late Qing love stories in a historically symbolic way by taking them as part of a larger fantasy of Chinese civilization undergoing fundamental crisis.

4. McMahon, K

Honolulu, Hawai'i: University of Hawai'i Press.

2010