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This collection is the first comprehensive treatment of the song lyric (tz'u) in China from its origins through the nineteenth century. Engaging issues of form, language, voice, and transmission, these essays explore the changing and frequently problematic situation of the tz'u over centuries of literary production. They articulate the common ground of critical discourse, focusing on concerns of gender and genre, that took shape in essays, anthologies, and the poems themselves.

Pauline Yu is Professor and Chair of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of California at Irvine.