Qian Qianyi's Reflections on Yellow Mountain

Abstract

This book is a close examination of travel writing in seventeenth-century China, presenting an innovative reading of the youji genre. Taking the “Account of My Travels at Yellow Mountain” by the noted poet, official, and literary historian Qian Qianyi (1582–1664) as its focus, this book departs from traditional readings of youji, by reading the landscape of Qian's essay as the product of a complex representational tradition, rather than as an empirically verifiable space. Drawing from a broad range of materials including personal anecdotes, traditional cosmographical sources, gazetteers, Daoist classics, paintings, and woodblock prints, the book explores the fascinating world of late-Ming Jiangnan, highlighting the extent to which this one scholar's depiction of Yellow Mountain is informed, not so much by first-hand observation, as by the layers of meaning left by generations of travelers before him. The book includes the first complete English-language translation of Qian Qianyi's account, and presents a critical study.