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Self-experimentation in medicine
WOW! This may be my new favorite non-fiction book. It's definitely the best I've read all year. Zeitlin managed to touch on all my favorite sources for Chinese ghost stories, including the obvious Pu Songling and Mu Dan Ting (the Peony Pavillion). She even started by discussing Tsai Hurak's Chinese Ghost Story. She looked at how ghosts became the ideal of womanly beauty at the end of the Ming, as the embodiment of qing.
She then went on to look at poetry that was attributed to ghosts. This included poets writing as if they were already dead, including Li He, who I'd totally forgotten but really like as he's particularly beautiful and morbid. (70-71). Zeitlin quotes a Ming critic, Wang siren, talking about Li He saying, "When someone's life is careening to a close, lovely scenery seems pointless. That's why he set his disturbed and mournful thoughts to such an obscure tune. He liked to use words such as Ghost, Weeping, Death and Blood. When someone's poetry is dark, chiling and perverse, as a rule they will die young."
She went on to follow the tradition of ghost poems from one's attributed to real people, to those attributed to ghosts and those written by people in seances. Eventually the trend changed from dead scholars to ghostly women composing poetry.
Chapter 3 looked at ghosts as a path to historical time. Young men would wander to a particular historical site and be so overwhelmed by feelings of the past that they would be visited by ghosts. Often these ghosts were at the fall of a dynasty, or killed unfairly. Most were palace women who because of their seclusion could tell little about the time that they lived in. Poems set in this vein are called huaigu in chinese, which is translated as "poetic reflections stimulated by visits to historic sites".
Chapters 4 and 5 look at the ghost heroine in Ming dramas. Following on the success of the Peony Pavillion there were many women ghosts in plays. Some who came back to life and those who returned only briefly. Some of the examples given were highly amusing. Zeitlin ended up looking at the Palace of lasting Life, which I have a dual language shortened edition of as the Palace of eternal youth. The play follows Yang Guifei, the famous (chubby) courtesan who committed suicide to save Tang Minghuang during the An Lushan rebellion. When I first read the book I was not familiar with the history but now I really want to re-read it. In the full version Yang is a ghost for half the story, and revisits the scene of her death, and spends time living as an immortal in heaven, unfortunately I think the 2nd half is greatly condensed in my version.
The book has everything I love, beautiful ghost women, tragic poetry, love of historical places and times, and chinese plays. The author has also written a book about Pu Songling which I must find, but unfortunately is not at SOAS, at least it seems reasonably cheap on amazon. This book costs £40. I liked it so much I wrote to the publishers to ask if a paperback was going to be released, but unfortunately as yet there are no plans for one. But I will definitely have to buy myself a copy at somepoint.
She then went on to look at poetry that was attributed to ghosts. This included poets writing as if they were already dead, including Li He, who I'd totally forgotten but really like as he's particularly beautiful and morbid. (70-71). Zeitlin quotes a Ming critic, Wang siren, talking about Li He saying, "When someone's life is careening to a close, lovely scenery seems pointless. That's why he set his disturbed and mournful thoughts to such an obscure tune. He liked to use words such as Ghost, Weeping, Death and Blood. When someone's poetry is dark, chiling and perverse, as a rule they will die young."
She went on to follow the tradition of ghost poems from one's attributed to real people, to those attributed to ghosts and those written by people in seances. Eventually the trend changed from dead scholars to ghostly women composing poetry.
Chapter 3 looked at ghosts as a path to historical time. Young men would wander to a particular historical site and be so overwhelmed by feelings of the past that they would be visited by ghosts. Often these ghosts were at the fall of a dynasty, or killed unfairly. Most were palace women who because of their seclusion could tell little about the time that they lived in. Poems set in this vein are called huaigu in chinese, which is translated as "poetic reflections stimulated by visits to historic sites".
Chapters 4 and 5 look at the ghost heroine in Ming dramas. Following on the success of the Peony Pavillion there were many women ghosts in plays. Some who came back to life and those who returned only briefly. Some of the examples given were highly amusing. Zeitlin ended up looking at the Palace of lasting Life, which I have a dual language shortened edition of as the Palace of eternal youth. The play follows Yang Guifei, the famous (chubby) courtesan who committed suicide to save Tang Minghuang during the An Lushan rebellion. When I first read the book I was not familiar with the history but now I really want to re-read it. In the full version Yang is a ghost for half the story, and revisits the scene of her death, and spends time living as an immortal in heaven, unfortunately I think the 2nd half is greatly condensed in my version.
The book has everything I love, beautiful ghost women, tragic poetry, love of historical places and times, and chinese plays. The author has also written a book about Pu Songling which I must find, but unfortunately is not at SOAS, at least it seems reasonably cheap on amazon. This book costs £40. I liked it so much I wrote to the publishers to ask if a paperback was going to be released, but unfortunately as yet there are no plans for one. But I will definitely have to buy myself a copy at somepoint.
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