Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Many Faces of Mulian: The Precious Scrolls of Late Imperial China

Many Faces of Mulian: The Precious Scrolls of Late Imperial China

Berezkin, Rostislav
Mair, Victor H.

Hardcover

Literary CriticismChinese History

ISBN10: 0295742518
ISBN13: 9780295742519
Publisher: Univ Of Washington Pr
Published: Dec 1 2017
Pages: 272
Weight: 1.26
Height: 0.75 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

The story of Mulian rescuing his mother's soul from hell has evolved as a narrative over several centuries in China, especially in the baojuan (precious scrolls) genre. This genre, a prosimetric narrative in vernacular language, first appeared around the fourteenth century and endures as a living tradition. In exploring the evolution of the Mulian story, Rostislav Berezkin illuminates changes in the literary and religious characteristics of the genre. He also examines material from other forms of Chinese literature and from modern performances of baojuan, tracing their transformation from tools of Buddhist proselytizing to sectarian propaganda to folk ritualized storytelling. Ultimately, he reveals the special features of baojuan as a type of performance literature that had its foundations in multiple literary traditions.

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