Desire and fictional narrative in late imperial China

"Martin Huang argues that the development of traditional Chinese fiction as a narrative genre was closely related to changes in conceptions of desire and that the rise of vernacular fiction during the late Ming has to be studied in the context of the contemporary debate on desire and of the new and complex views that emerged from this debate. The maturing of the genre can best be appreciated in teams of the sophistication with which the phenomenon of desire is explored in many works."--BOOK JACKET.