Vignettes from the Late Ming: A Hsiao-p’in Anthology
Yang
This anthology presents seventy translated and annotated short essays, or hsiao-p’in, by fourteen well-known sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Chinese writers. Hsiao-p’in, characterized by spontaneity and brevity, were a relatively informal variation on the established classical prose style in which all scholars were trained. Written primarily to amuse and entertain the reader, hsiao-p’in reflect the rise of individualism in the late Ming period and collectively provide a panorama of the colorful life of the age. Critics condemned the genre as escapist because of its focus on life’s sensual pleasures and triviality, and over the next two centuries many of these playful and often irreverent works were officially censored. Today, the essays provide valuable and rare accounts of the details over everyday life in Ming China as well as displays of wit and delightful turns of phrase.
The open access publication of this book was made possible by a grant from the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation.
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Reviews for Vignettes from the Late Ming: A Hsiao-p’in Anthology
Robert Hegel
Journal of Asian and African Studies
"Xiaopin, those brief, informal, and anecdotal essays that we associate with the late Ming, have been virtually invisible in the body of Chinese literature available in English translation. We have needed an anthology like Professor Ye’s for some time, and for a number of reasons. Xiaopin (or as Ye handily calls it, the “vignette”) is a delightful and approachable genre full of engaging but intimate surprises, and is thus a wonderful addition to a Chinese literature syllabus. Xioapin also help a great deal in rounding out our understanding of how the late imperial literati we encounter in historical studies perceived their embeddedness in a world that was only half public. Professor Ye has helped us get around the difficulty of Ming Classical Chinese by giving us a book of late-Ming informal prose that will be useful and engaging in undergraduate literature courses taught in English, but it deserves to be noticed by a wider readership as well."
Philip Kafalas
Ming Studies
"This book is well-produced and well-designed. It is also itself like a hsiao-p’in, short and elegant."
Sino-Platonic Papers 98
"This slim volume makes a major contribution to the field of Ming literary history. Yang Ye’s selection of texts and his elegant translations bring to the English-reading audience a representative yet varied sample of the xiaopin genre, which flourished in the final decades of the sixteenth and through the seventeenth centuries. These brief writings, dealing with the concerns, experiences, and objects of everyday life as well as with exotic and transitory phenomena, provide a unique window into Chinese society during an age of mounting crises and widespread anxiety. Yang Ye’s anthology of xiaopin translations is a welcome and significant addition to the corpus of Ming texts available in translation."
Kenneth Hammond
Journal of Asian Studies