Yiran Zhao; Yuan Cao; Liu Xun
Yiran Zhao
University of Edinburgh, 1st year PhD Candidate
The Forms of Time and the Temporal Aesthetics in Hong Lou Meng (紅樓夢)
What literary factors develop the tragic aesthetics of Hong Lou Meng? While this broad question may be ascribed to many perspectives like language, content, theme, character, etc., this paper examines it through the form of time, a seemingly technical but perhaps fundamental point. The form of time means the structure of time which is artistically represented in a narrative, (both a narrative feature of language and a cognitive concept). It affects not only the length, speed, and rhythm, but also the ending, ideology, and aesthetics of a narrative.
Based upon these suppositions, this paper looks at the internal temporal structure and aesthetics of Hong Lou Meng by examining the relationship of two main forms of time in the book: the “immortal temporality” in the mythical world (the Great Fable Mountains 大荒山) as large-scale structure, and the “mortal temporality” of the characters’ quotidian existence (the Prospect Garden大觀園) as small-scale structure.
This paper argues that the overall form of time in Hong Lou Meng, which can be simplified as “emptiness- form-emptiness”, corresponds with the structure of “nothing-being-nothing” in traditional perception of time. This shows the mutual reflection between individual lifetime and time order in the universe, in the logic of “the totality of time”. On the other hand, the exceedingly detailed day-to-day life in Hong Lou Meng disproves the nothingness and totality of time as well. In this sense, the unary tragic connotation inside the text is largely dissolved and neutralized.
Yuan Cao
The Education University of Hong Kong, Year 4 PhD Candidate in Literature
Liu Xun
Trinity College Dublin, 2nd Year Ph.D Candidate, Chinese Classical Literature and Semantics
Paper Title: Novel Readings of Chinese Classical Literature: Linguistic Approach to The Dream of Red Chamber
Abstract: The Chinese classical novel, The Dream of the Red Chamber, has been academically acknowledged as the cultural representative of the Manchu nobility class. However, the socio-political allusions and cultural references prove difficult to be fully expressed through translation. Moreover, the abstruse cultural features and the conversational logic that frequently appeared in the novel prevent the non-native readers or readers who are unaware of the Manchu nobility culture from a deeper understanding. Thus, this research means to set up a linguistic bridge that may surpass such difficulties.
The purpose of this paper is to decipher the cultural features selected from Dream of the Red Chamber, in other words, the words and the specific narrative logic that are untranslatable or generally misunderstood in translations for their rich and specific cultural features beneath. In this paper, the writer means to present a novel perspective to decipher Chinese classical literature. Through adopting linguistic methodology, not only the cultural features can be deconstructed into linguistic analysis, making it understandable despite the existing cultural barrier; but also it provides a linguistic media to fully explain the original meaning.
Since the Manchu nobility culture can be esoteric, because of the cultural strangeness and distance of the time. This paper will trace back to the historical and cultural backgrounds of the cultural features, which will be done by text analysis.