Criticizing On Maram Epstein’s Study Of Ming-Qing Fictions Under The Vision Of Gender

As the professor of East Asian languages and literature at the university of Oregon, Maram Epstein has been devoted herself to researching Ming-Qing fictions based on the gender perspective, and focusing on the interpretation of the fictions within their specific cultural and aesthetic contexts. Her representative works include Competing Discourses:Orthodoxy, Authenticity, and Engendered Meanings in Late Imperial Chinese Fiction, Inscribing the Essentials:Culture and the Body in Ming-Qing Fiction, Reflections of Desire:The Poetics of Gender in Dream of the Red Chamber.In the book of Competing Discourses:Orthodoxy, Authenticity, and Engendered Meanings in Late Imperial Chinese Fiction, Maram Epstein creatively introduces the gender theory into the field of Chinese classical literature, and constructs a unique landscape of gender culture with profound thinking and bold imagination. Regarding this as the cutting point, this paper explores the characteristics and values of the Maram’s research on Ming-Qing fiction. The paper is divided into four chapters. The first chapter mainly discusses the association of gender theory and yinyang symbolism, interprets the connotation of Orthodoxy and Authenticity and explores the theory basis of gender perspective constructing. The second chapter analyses the explanation of the meaning about the feature symbol such as shrew and fair maiden and aesthetic landscape created by the opposite-complementation of gender. The third part describes the narrative pattern referring to yinyang numerology and some new ideas on the traditional issues. The last part demonstrates Maram’s unique angle of view and methods, and summarizes the gain and loss of the analysis of novels.This thesis adopts the method of detailed reading of text, tries to make a correct evaluation about the Maram’s research in terms of fictions and Chinese and western academic achievements, then overthrow the traditional mindset in the study of literature and opens a new window for the research of Ming-Qing fictions.