The Problem of a Chinese Aesthetic (Meridian : Crossing Aesthetics)

Rating:
Summary: theoretical musings of a comparatist
Review: As the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies exclaims, "this book is not for the faint of heart." Deftly moving from the Homer of Chinese antiquity--the Shi Jing, or the Book of Odes, to Leibniz, Hegel, and even oblique bits of Vico and Stephen Greenblatt, it attempts a theoretical encounter of allegory in the Chinese tradition. It' all here: questions of the possiblilty of the hermeneutical enterprise, the beginning of aesthetics, cross-cultural encounters, and comparative poetics. Saussy is quite stunning--while his argument is always one or serveral steps ahead of the reader, his mind is several leaps beyond his prose, which makes sometimes for excruciating and thorny reading. His philology will make the sinologist wince, and his implications set the comparatist fluttering.