Bringing Order to Chaos in Dream of the Red Chamber.
For the purposes of this analysis this paper will focus on the workings of Chinese myth as a literary device, and dwell on aesthetics and literary forms. This is best undertaken comparatively, for by drawing out the western myth-making conventions we can get a clearer understanding of the eastern literary aesthetics. Critics like Northrop Frye have isolated specific archetypal patterns in western mythology, and have used these mythic archetypes to provide the main outlines and the circumference of the verbal universe which later occupied literature as well. 8 pgs. 18 f/c. 7b.
