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Mazanec's Poet-Monks offers a compelling meld of Tang literary history and literary analysis and also presents a novel approach to understanding the role of Buddhist practice and philosophy in Chinese poetry during the Tang dynasty (860-960). This book is divided into two parts: the first is a historical account of the development of the idea of poet-monks, and the second presents an analysis of the works of key figures in the tradition, such as Qiji (864-?937) and Guanxiu (832-913). Mazanec (UC Santa Barbara) offers three important new perspectives. First, he explores the vital role Buddhist monks played in the development of Chinese poetry. Second, he shows that the period around the end of the Tang was one of "innovation and possibility, not of stagnation and decadence" (p. 3). Third, he suggests the intersection of religion and poetry is most productively understood at the level of practice. In presenting these aspects, Mazanec not only revises and redefines how scholars might look at the poetry written during this period, but he also offers an intriguing approach for how scholars might explore other literary traditions defined by the spiritual world in which they developed. With extensive notes and an exhaustive bibliography, this book comes highly recommended.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.

Atherton radically transforms understanding of 17th- and 18th-century commercial fiction in Japan by analyzing how existing forms, such as modular plot lines and established character types, were manipulated to create new perceptions of the world. These works have been dismissed as didactic, frivolous, or plagiaristic, but through close readings and consideration of the sociohistorical context, Atherton offers provocative new interpretations of several texts. Medieval tales presented disasters as supernaturally wrought, but Atherton shows how an account of a huge fire in Japan's capital in 1657 highlights a new secular "information economy" and the "integrity and benevolence of the political order" (p. 62). Whereas conventional revenge stories treated authorized vendettas as virtuous violence that affirmed a rigid political hierarchy, Atherton argues that revenge stories by Saikaku and Chikamatsu made moral clarity impossible. Uncertainty is also apparently the point of an account of a man who beheaded his sister, which authorities pigeon-holed as an honor killing. Atherton's analyses are readable, detailed, and extensive. This book is a significant accomplishment.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.