Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-5lx2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-25T20:26:07.797Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Butterfly in the Garden: Utopia and the Feminine in The Story of the Stone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Kam-ming Wong
Kam-ming Wong*
Affiliation:
University of Georgia, Athens, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

With Peach Blossom Spring and other poetical works written by Tao Qian in the 5th century, there was born a vision of utopia that remains forever etched into the Chinese collective imaginary. Thirteen centuries later, Cao Xueqin drew inspiration from it when he gave form to the ‘Grandview Garden’, a universe with fundamentally female characteristics and one of the centres for the plot of The Story of the Stone, a masterpiece of Chinese romantic fiction also known as ‘Dream of the Red Chamber/Mansions’. Reading the two works in parallel, in both the figurative and the literal sense, points up the message of the Daodejing that utopia cannot be planned or imposed. In fact it emerges from a spirit of openness, an attitude of patient waiting, listening with the ear of the other. This intuition leads to reflection on difference, based on Zhuangzi's Butterfly Dream.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , February 2006 , pp. 122 - 134
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ames, Roger T. and Hall, David L., trans. (2003) Dao de jing: A Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballantine.Google Scholar
Cao, Xueqin (1973-1986) The Story of the Stone: A Chinese Novel in Five Volumes, trans. David Hawkes and John Minford. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Cao, Xueqin [Tsao Hsueh-chin] (1978) A Dream of Red Mansions, Vols 1-3, trans. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang. Peking: Foreign Languages Press.Google Scholar
Davis, A. R., ed. and trans. (1983) T’ao Yüan-ming (AD 365-427): His Works and Their Meaning, Vols I and II. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
Hightower, James Robert, trans. (1970) The Poetry of T’ao Ch’ien. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Mack, Maynard, general ed. (1995) The Norton Anthology, Expanded Edition, II. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Stephen, Owen., ed. and trans. (1996) An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Plak, Andrew H. (1976) Archetype and Allegory in the Dream of the Red Chamber. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wong, Kam-ming (1985) ‘Point of View and Feminism: Images of Women in Hongloumeng’, in Gerstlacher, Anna et al. (eds) Woman and Literature in China, pp. 29–97. Bochum: Brockmeyer.Google Scholar
Wong, Kam-ming (2004) ‘The Orchid and the “Barbaric Yawp”: Translating the Borders in Maxine Hong Kingston’, International Readings in Theory, History and Philosophy of Culture 19: 120–137.Google Scholar
Xiao, Chi (2001) The Chinese Garden as Lyric Enclave: A Generic Study of The Stone. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yu, Anthony C. (1997) Rereading the Stone: Desire and the Making of Fiction in Dream of the Red Chamber. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar