1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910741396903321

Autore

Sijia Yao

Titolo

Cosmopolitan love : utopian vision in D. H. Lawrence and Eileen Chang / / Sijia Yao

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ann Arbor, : University of Michigan Press, 2023

Ann Arbor, Michigan : , : University of Michigan Press, , 2023

©2023

ISBN

9780472903931

0472903934

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource

Classificazione

LIT000000LIT008010LIT020000

Disciplina

823/.912

Soggetti

Cosmopolitanism in literature

Transnationalism in literature

Love in literature

Sex in literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from eBook information screen..

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages 143-151)

Nota di contenuto

Incest prohibition and cosmopolitanism -- Sexual love as public defiance -- Adulterous love as modern creation -- The twin utopias of transcendental love.

Sommario/riassunto

Love, and the different manifestations of it, is a common theme in literature around the world. In Cosmopolitan Love, Sijia Yao examines the writings of D. H. Lawrence, a British writer whose literature focused primarily on interpersonal relationships in domestic settings, and Eileen Chang, a Chinese writer who migrated to the United States and explored Chinese heterosexual love in her writing. While comparing the writings of a Chinese writer and an English one, Yao avoids a direct comparison between East and West that could further enforce binaries. Instead, she uses the comparison to develop an idea of cosmopolitanism that shows how the writers are in conversation with their own culture and with each other. Both D. H. Lawrence and Eileen Chang wrote stories that are influenced by--but sometimes stand in opposition to--their own cultures. They offer alternative understandings of societies dealing with modernism and cultural



globalization. Their stories deal with emotional pain caused by the restrictions of local politics and economics and address common themes of incestuous love, sexual love, adulterous love, and utopian love. By analyzing their writing, Yao demonstrates that the concept of love as a social and political force can cross cultural boundaries and traditions to become a basis for human meaning, the key to a cosmopolitan vision.