Symptoms of an Unruly Age : Li Zhi and Cultures of Early Modernity / / Rivi Handler-Spitz.

• VerfasserIn: Handler-Spitz, Rebecca,
• Place / Publishing House: Seattle, [Washington] ;, London, [England] : : University of Washington Press,, 2017.; ©2017
• Year of Publication: 2017
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (257 pages)

Symptoms of an Unruly Age compares the writings of Li Zhi (1527-1602) and his late-Ming compatriots to texts composed by their European contemporaries, including Montaigne, Shakespeare, and Cervantes. Emphasizing aesthetic patterns that transcend national boundaries, Rivi Handler-Spitz explores these works as culturally distinct responses to similar social and economic tensions affecting early modern cultures on both ends of Eurasia. The paradoxes, ironies, and self-contradictions that pervade these works are symptomatic of the hypocrisy, social posturing, and counterfeiting that afflicted both Chinese and European societies at the turn of the seventeenth century.

Table of Contents

Transparent language: origin myths and early modern aspirations of recovery -- The rhetoric of bluff: paradox, irony, and self-contradiction -- Sartorial signs and Li Zhi's paradoxical appearance -- Money and Li Zhi's economies of rhetoric -- Dubious books and definitive editions -- Provoking or persuading readers? Li Zhi and the incitement of critical judgment.