Comparative Literature in the Light of Chinese Prosody

Shudong Chen - Foreword by Roger T. Ames

In the light of Chinese prosody and various mutually illuminating major cases from the original English, Chinese, French, Japanese and German classical literary texts, the book explores the possibility of discovering “a road not taken” within the road well-trodden in literature. In an approach of “what Wittgenstein calls criss-crossing,” this monographic study, the first ever of this nature, as Roger T. Ames points out in the Foreword, also emphasizes a pivotal “recognition that these Chinese values [revealed in the book] are immediately relevant to the Western narrative as well”; the book demonstrates, in other words, how such a “criss-crossing” approach would be unequivocally possible as long as our critical attention be adequately turned to or pivoted upon the “trivial” matters, a posteriori, in accordance with the live syntactic-prosodic context, such as pauses, stresses, phonemes, function words, or the at once text-enlivened and text-enlivening ambiguity of “parts of speech,” which often vary or alter simultaneously according to and against any definitive definition or set category a priori. This issue pertains to any literary text across cultures because no literary text would ever be possible if it were not, for instance, literally enlivened by the otherwise overlooked “meaningless” function words or phonemes; the texts simultaneously also enliven these “meaningless” elements and often turn them surreptitiously into sometimes serendipitously meaningful and beautiful sea-change-effecting “les mots justes.” Through the immeasurable and yet often imperceptible influences of these exactly “right words,” our literary texts, such as a poem, could thus not simply “be” but subtly “mean” as if by mere means of its simple, rich, and naturally worded being, truly a special “word picture” of dasDing an sich. Describable metaphorically as “museum effect” and “symphonic tapestry,” a special synaesthetic impact could also likely result from such les-mots-justes-facilitated subtle and yet phenomenal sea changes in the texts. « less more »

Lexington Books

Pages: 278 • Trim: 6 1/4 x 9

978-1-4985-7338-2 • Hardback • October 2018 • $95.00 • (£65.00)

978-1-4985-7339-9 • eBook • October 2018 • $90.00 • (£60.00) (coming soon)

Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Composition & Creative Writing, Language Arts & Disciplines / Vocabulary, Literary Criticism / Books & Reading, Literary Criticism / Semiotics & Theory, Social Science / World / Asia

Comparative Literature in the Light of Chinese Prosody

Hardback

Summary

In the light of Chinese prosody and various mutually illuminating major cases from the original English, Chinese, French, Japanese and German classical literary texts, the book explores the possibility of discovering “a road not taken” within the road well-trodden in literature. In an approach of “what Wittgenstein calls criss-crossing,” this monographic study, the first ever of this nature, as Roger T. Ames points out in the Foreword, also emphasizes a pivotal “recognition that these Chinese values [revealed in the book] are immediately relevant to the Western narrative as well”; the book demonstrates, in other words, how such a “criss-crossing” approach would be unequivocally possible as long as our critical attention be adequately turned to or pivoted upon the “trivial” matters, a posteriori, in accordance with the live syntactic-prosodic context, such as pauses, stresses, phonemes, function words, or the at once text-enlivened and text-enlivening ambiguity of “parts of speech,” which often vary or alter simultaneously according to and against any definitive definition or set category a priori. This issue pertains to any literary text across cultures because no literary text would ever be possible if it were not, for instance, literally enlivened by the otherwise overlooked “meaningless” function words or phonemes; the texts simultaneously also enliven these “meaningless” elements and often turn them surreptitiously into sometimes serendipitously meaningful and beautiful sea-change-effecting “les mots justes.” Through the immeasurable and yet often imperceptible influences of these exactly “right words,” our literary texts, such as a poem, could thus not simply “be” but subtly “mean” as if by mere means of its simple, rich, and naturally worded being, truly a special “word picture” of dasDing an sich. Describable metaphorically as “museum effect” and “symphonic tapestry,” a special synaesthetic impact could also likely result from such les-mots-justes-facilitated subtle and yet phenomenal sea changes in the texts.

Book Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 278 • Trim: 6 1/4 x 9

978-1-4985-7338-2 • Hardback • October 2018 • $95.00 • (£65.00)

978-1-4985-7339-9 • eBook • October 2018 • $90.00 • (£60.00) (coming soon)

Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Composition & Creative Writing, Language Arts & Disciplines / Vocabulary, Literary Criticism / Books & Reading, Literary Criticism / Semiotics & Theory, Social Science / World / Asia

Author

Shudong Chen is professor of humanities at Johnson County Community College.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Roger T. Ames

Acknowledgments

Part One: Content Words

Chapter 1: A Word that Makes a World of Difference

Chapter 2: “Le Mot Juste” and “Content Words”

Chapter 3: “Les Mots Justes” as Choices

Part Two: Function Words

Chapter 4: The Unheard Melodies of the Trivial

Chapter 5: Indispensability of Function Words as Life-Makers

Chapter 6: Serendipity of the Familiar

Chapter 7: Function words as “Les Mots Justes”

Chapter 8: “Museum Effect” as “Le Mot Juste” – Mediated “Symphonic Tapestry”

Bibliography

Reviews

This is a fascinating journey search for le mot juste in a worded world, packed with sharp, rich, interdisciplinary, cross-cultural insights into eye-catching, ear-enamoring, and soul-nourishing Chinese poetry and comparative prosody.
— Robin R. Wang, author of Yinyang: The Way of heaven and Earth in Chinese Thought and Culture

This book integrates the studies of prosody, literature and philosophy, revealing Chen’s deep understanding of Western philosophy and Chinese classics. From a linguistic point of view, especially a prosodic one, the book studies Chinese poetic literature with a comparative view of Western poetic literature, exhibiting multidimensional perspectives with cutting-edge discussions of intimate interactions of sound, thought and literary diction. Chen has brought fresh air to literary studies and new insights to modern linguistics with this book.
— Shengli Feng, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Comparative Literature in the Light of Chinese Prosody

Shudong Chen - Foreword by Roger T. Ames

Comparative Literature in the Light of Chinese Prosody

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