Materials for an Anatomy of Personality in Late Imperial China

The volume offers original materials on some aspects of the representation of personality and traits in Chinese culture, and is an attempt to re-construct the main features that describe partially or totally the personality of individuals and characters in late imperial China through documents from different sources. It discusses terms that express the propensity, inclinations, predispositions, and temperament of the subjects described in the examined sources to represent one’s or other’s self, as well as terms that describe or label a person, for the main qualities or defects of his personality. We notice a convergence of literary, historiographical and philosophical materials in privileging stereotypes in which people are classified: from the official biographies to the narrative characters, the images reflect exemplary or minatory models. However, we can notice how the variety and complexity of personages are more evident in literary creation. After a short survey of ideological Neo-Confucian perspective, the work analyses literary, philosophical and historical sources, singling out the main features of concrete judgments and descriptions. Il volume offre un nuovo contributo sul concetto di sé e di personalità nella Cina tardo-imperiale, attraverso l’analisi delle descrizioni di personalità dell’epoca. La varietà e la ricchezza delle fonti utilizzate permette una ricostruzione dei principali tratti caratteriali riportati nei testi.