@phdthesis{Zhang2023,
  author    = {Zhang, Yanxiang},
  title     = {The Making of a Place: Topographical Literature on West Lake by Tian Rucheng (b. 1501) and Zhang Dai (b. 1597)},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-32759},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-327590},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {This dissertation explores the local gazetteers of West Lake that were compiled by literati of the Ming dynasty. In 1547, the first West Lake gazetteer was published by the local literatus of Hangzhou, Tian Rucheng 田汝成. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, accompanying the huge enthusiasm for West Lake and the flourishing of its tourism, the production of West Lake gazetteers reached its peak. This trend, however, was reduced by the turmoils in the last years of the Ming and the dynastic transition, a period when West Lake had also experienced destruction. Nevertheless, the practice was resumed in the first decades of the Qing dynasty by some literati who had survived the disasters. One prominent work of this period was compiled by the Ming loyalist and "remnant subject" Zhang Dai 張岱, who wrote an author's preface in 1671. This dissertation can be divided into two parts. The first part focuses on the editorial principles of compilers, e.g., which materials are included, how they are organized and presented. It explores various possible intentions of the compilers, such as scholarly and documentary, practical and oriented toward tour-guiding, didactic and educational, and personal and nostalgic ones. The second part focuses on some of the perceptions, attitudes, and values of literati focusing on West Lake. The discourses analyzed in this part include West Lake as a hybrid between metropolitan city and sheer wilderness, as a national symbol and object of nostalgia of the lost dynasty, and as a place of pleasure-seeking and indulgence. While a discourse often had a long tradition and historical development, the emphasis of the study is on the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, i.e., the late Ming.},
  language  = {en}
}