The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear

Name: The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear
Price: 54.99 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9780691269160

Nan Z. Da

$54.99

Hardback

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English

Princeton University Press
17 September 2025

Literary studies: plays & playwrights; Shakespeare studies & criticism; Asian history; Social & cultural history

A compelling new reading of The Tragedy of King Lear that finds parallels in twentieth-century Chinese history

At the start of Shakespeare's famous tragedy, King Lear promises to divide his kingdom based on his daughters' professions of love, but portions it out before hearing all of their answers. For Nan Da, this opening scene sparks a reckoning between The Tragedy of King Lear, one of the cruelest and most confounding stories in literature, and the tragedy of Maoist and post-Maoist China. Da, who emigrated from China to the United States as a child in the 1990s, brings Shakespeare's tragedy to life on its own terms, addressing the concerns it reflects over the transition from Elizabeth I to James I with a fearsome sense of what would soon come to pass. At the same time, she uses the play as a lens to revisit the world of Maoist China-what it did to people, and what it did to storytelling.

Blending literary analysis and personal history, Da begins in her childhood during Deng Xiaoping's Opening and Reform, then moves back and forth between Lear and China. In her powerful reading, the unfinished business of Maoism and other elements of Chinese thought and culture-from Confucianism to the spectacles of Peking Opera-help elucidate the choices Shakespeare made in constructing Lear and the unbearable confusions he left behind.

By: Nan Z. Da
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 140mm,
ISBN: 9780691269160
ISBN 10: 0691269165
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 17 September 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Nan Z. Da is associate professor of English at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Intransitive Encounters: Sino-US Literatures and the Limits of Exchange.

Reviews for The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear

""An ambitious blend of literary criticism and political analysis. . . . Da’s grasp of China’s 20th century history demonstrates how hauntingly Shakespeare prefigures the horrors unleashed by Mao’s coercive authority.""---Ron Charles, Washington Post ""Compelling and enjoyable.""---Peter Gordon, Asian Review of Books

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The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear

Nan Z. Da

$54.99

Hardback

Reviews for The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear

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