Andrew H. Plaks

Plaks studied as an undergraduate in the Department of Oriental Studies at Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude with an A.B. in 1967. He stayed on at Princeton University for graduate study in East Asian Studies. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1973 with a dissertation on Archetype and allegory in the Hung-Lou Meng. He was subsequently offered a position in the Department of East Asian Studies at Princeton University, becoming an associate professor in 1976, and a full professor in 1980. In 2007 he retired from Princeton University, and moved to Israel to take up a position at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he is currently Professor of East Asian Studies.[1]

Plaks' 1987 book Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel, which won the Joseph Levenson Book Prize is an analysis of a group of Ming dynasty novels which Plaks argues changed the genre: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Jin Ping Mei, and Journey to the West. Ellen Widmer, writing in the Journal of Asian Studies, says that the book creates "a far-reaching hypothesis about the consolidation of the novel form in China", namely that the four novels can be taken as a milestone.[3] He identifies a "figural density" and establishes that the key to understanding the novels is the use of irony, by which he means "every possible disjunction between what is said and what is meant". According to Plaks the novels ask serious questions about sexuality, selfhood, heroism, power, reality, and they offer serious Neo-Confucian answers.[3]

Another literary scholar, Paul Ropp, says that Plaks pays special attention to the 16th century editors, authors, and commentators who played different roles than those in earlier times. He also points out structural differences, such as their "paradigmatic length of one-hundred chapters [with one exception], narrative rhythms based on division into ten-chapter units, further subdivisions into building blocks of three- or four chapter episodes, contrived symmetries between the first and second halves of the texts, special exploitation of opening and closing sections, as well as certain other schemes of spatial and temporal ordering, notably the plotting of events on seasonal or geographical grids".[4] Ropp says that although not everybody may agree with all of Plaks' ideas, he has pioneered the sophisticated criticism of the traditional Chinese novel, and his emphasis on the use of irony in the novels is especially important.[4]

In 2018, the first volume of Dream of the Red Chamber, covering chapters 1-27, was published in Hebrew, translated jointly by Plaks and Amira Katz. This is the first translation of the novel into the Hebrew language.[5]

• Plaks, Andrew H. (1976). Archetype and Allegory in the Dream of the Red Chamber. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691046166. [6]
• with Kenneth J. DeWoskin (1977). Chinese Narrative : Critical and Theoretical Essays. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691063281.
• —— (1978). "Full-Length Hsiao-Shuo and the Western Novel: A Generic Reappraisal" (PDF). New Asia Academic Bulletin. 1: 163–176.
• —— (1980). "Shui-Hu Chuan and the Sixteenth-Century Novel Form: An Interpretive Reappraisal". Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR). 2 (1): 3–53. doi:10.2307/495478. JSTOR 495478.
• —— (1985). "After the Fall: Hsing-Shih Yin-Yüan Chuan and the Seventeenth-Century Chinese Novel". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 45 (2): 543–580. doi:10.2307/2718972. JSTOR 2718972.
• —— (1987). The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel: Ssu Ta Ch'i-Shu. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691067082.
• —— (1993). 明代小說四大奇书 (Ming Dai Xiao Shuo Si Da Qi Shu). Translated by 沈亨寿 (Shen Hengshou). Beijing Shi: Zhongguo he ping. ISBN 7800372618. (translation of The Four Masterworks)
• with Peterson, Willard J., Yingshi Yu, Ta-tuan Ch'en and Frederick W. Mote, ed. (1994). The Power of Culture : Studies in Chinese Cultural History. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. ISBN 9622015964.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
• —— (2006), Moretti, Franco (ed.), The Novel in Pre-Modern China, Princeton: Princeton University Press
• —— (2003). 紅樓夢批語偏全 (Hong Lou Meng Pi Yu Pian Quan). Beijing: Beijing da xue chu ban she. ISBN 7301059132.
• with Irene Eber (2004). דרך האמצע וקיומה (Derekh Ha-Emtsa' Ve-Kiyumah) [The Doctrine of the Mean]. Yerushalayim: Mosad Byalik.
• —— (2007). "Leaving the Garden: Reflections on China's Literary Masterwork". New Left Review. 47.

• Andrew Plaks at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem