Rhetoric and the Discourses of Power in Court Culture

Key imperial and royal courts--in Han, Tang, and Song dynasty China; medieval and renaissance Europe; and Heian and Muromachi Japan--are examined in this comparative and interdisciplinary volume as loci of power and as entities that establish, influence, or counter the norms of a larger society. Contributions by twelve scholars are organized into sections on the rhetoric of persuasion, taste, communication, gender, and natural nobility. Writing from the perspectives of literature, history, and p