C. H. Wang
From Ritual to Allegory: Seven Essays in Early Chinese Poetry.
Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1988. First edition. 9622013570 xv/195 pages.
Volume, measuring approximately 6.5" x 9.5", is bound in red cloth, with stamped gilt lettering to spine. Small black marker marking appears in upper outside corner of front flyleaf. Book and dust jacket are otherwise like new. Jacket is preserved in mylar cover. 
"This book collects seven essays on classical Chinese poetry Professor C. H. Wang authored in the 1970s. The primary subjects under consideration are "Shih Ching" and "Ch'u tz'u", the earliest Chinese literary expressions which lay the foundation for a great poetic tradition. Approached through a comparatist point of view and according to a meticulous philological discipline, the poetry of ancient China is brought to light in an urbane and faithful manner. Compositions of both nothern and southern origins emerge powerfully in these essays to assert not only a weight of profound classicism but also a compelling, modern immediacy. Wang organizes the archaic verses into ritualistic cycles,  investigates the origins of drama in ceremonies, defines a cultural heroism, reconstructs an epic, the "Weniad", and offers a creative interpretation of a major group of hymns in terms of the Confucian concept of civilization vis-a-vis barbarism.This book ends with two comparative essays on Ch'ü Yüan and his masterpiece, "Li sao".