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China's Peril and Promise is an advanced Chinese reader in two volumes, prepared for students who would like to enhance their understanding of modern China in general and modern Chinese literature and intellectuals in particular, through reading authentic materials. The selections--which span the twentieth century and include essays, short stories, biographies, and criticism--expose the students not only to a variety of modern Chinese literary genres but also to some of the major substantive issues that modern Chinese intellectuals have faced. Audio and video materials are available for use with this text. For further information, contact the Chinese Linguistics Project, 231 Palmer Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. 08544. (609-258-4269).

I. Du shi ("understanding poetry") or jie shi ("interpreting poetry") ? Many Western critics seem to take for granted that to read a poem is to understand it in terms of its linguistic meaning. They talk about "meaning" or "text": both words have almost become occupational cliches and have caused endless debates in contemporary Western literary criticism. Yet questions like "Is there an objective meaning in the text?", "Where is the text located, in the author, reader or text itself?" and so on, have hardly surfaced in Chinese literary discussions. For Chinese critics and poets, reading a literary text is not so much a cognitive as an aesthetic activity. To engage in a poem is not merely to interpret its linguistic meaning, but to have an evaluative and, above all, an emotional response to it. Let us consider how two poems are read, or are assumed to be read, in their distinctive cultural traditions