Episode 35 Rereading Hong lou meng 紅樓夢, Chapter 18 part 1/4

04/06/21 • 44 min

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Imperial Concubine Yuanchun returns home to visit family, to see the garden constructed in her honor, to review and edit the names and couplets assigned to all of the most famous spots, and to hear the celebratory, yet serious, poems everyone has written for the occasion. We begin by discussing temporal discrepancies in this chapter, exploring the relationship between logical contradiction and the oblique logic of dreaming. What does it mean to live in a gilded cage, a shimmering space of ritual and power? And why isn’t musk popular anymore?

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Episode 35 Rereading Hong lou meng 紅樓夢, Chapter 17 part 4/4

The final part of our first garden tour, can you handle this assault on the senses? Can you process this profusion of effusive allusions? Will it prompt your weary soul to dream fragrant dreams? Where’s the line between free play and plagiarism? Are you at home with homage, or do you rectify all references, towing the literal interpretative line? Our battle of literary minds reaches a fever pitch!

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Episode 37 Rereading Hong lou meng 紅樓夢, Chapter 18 part 2/4

We continue exploring Yuanchun’s new social standing in this episode. What does it mean to live in a gilded cage, a shimmering space of ritual and power? How does her new position affect her relationship with her family? Meanwhile poet-rockstar Daiyu feels that her talents are going to waste, Baochai plays the teacher, and Baoyu cheats on the test.

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