eBook - PDF

The Butterfly Lovers

Name: The Butterfly Lovers
Author: Wilt L. Idema

The Legend of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai: Four Versions with Related Texts

Wilt L. Idema,

258 pages
English
PDF
Available on iOS & Android

eBook - PDF

The Butterfly Lovers

The Legend of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai: Four Versions with Related Texts

Wilt L. Idema,

About this book

The late-imperial legend of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, the Butterfly Lovers--a story as central to Chinese culture as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is to Western culture--also relates a tale of two lovers help apart by social strictures. To audiences of the many Chinese ballads, plays, and films based on the story, the tragic ending offers proof that equality and happiness can only be achieved in a China freed from the traditional family system.

This volume offers translations of the earliest versions of the popular ballad along with later literary reinventions of the tale; a variety of related documents reveal the historical and cultural origins of the legend. In his Introduction, Wilt L. Idema provides essential contextual information and discusses how the story of the Butterfly Lovers fits into modern Chinese concepts of gender roles and sexual freedom.

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Yes, you can access The Butterfly Lovers by Wilt L. Idema in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Chinese History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.