Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 1032231009, 9781032231006

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Contents
Preface
Chinese Dynasty Chronology
Abbreviations
Notes on Contributors
Part One Poetry
Editors’ Introduction
Section I Pre-Qin and Han Poetry
1 The Classic of Poetry
2 Qu Yuan and the Songs of Chu
3 Poetry of the Han
Section II Poetry of the Six Dynasties
4 Poetry of the Wei and Jin
5 Tao Yuanming
6 Xie Lingyun and Xie Tiao
Section III Poetry of High Tang: A
7 Landscape and Farmstead Poets: Meng Haoran and Wang Wei
8 Frontier Poets: Gao Shi, Cen Shen, and Others
9 Chan Poetry of Hanshan
Section IV Poetry of High Tang: B
10 Li Bai: The Poet-Transcendent
11 Du Fu: The Poet–Historian
12 Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen
Section V Poetry of Late Tang
13 Li He
14 Du Mu
15 Li Shangyin
16 Wen Tingyun
Section VI Poetry of the Song
17 Lu You
18 Yang Wanli’s “Chengzhai Style” Poetry
19 Li and Chan in Zhu Xi’s Poetry
Section VII Lyrics of the Song
20 Liu Yong, Qin Guan, and Zhou Bangyan
21 Li Qingzhao
22 Su Shi
23 Xin Qiji
Part Two Prose
Editors’ Introduction
Section VIII Prose of Historians
24 Zuo Commentary
25 Discourse of States and Stratagems of the Warring States
26 The Grand Scribe’s Records
Section IX Prose of Philosophers
27 The Analects and Mencius
28 The Laozi and Zhuangzi
29 Mozi and Han Feizi
Section X Prose of Literati
30 Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan
31 Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi
32 Yuan Hongdao and Zhang Dai
Part Three Drama
Editors’ Introduction
Section XI Tragedy and Romance in Yuan Drama
33 Guan Hanqing and His Injustice to Dou E
34 Autumn of the Han Palace and Rain on the Wutong Trees
35 The Orphan of Zhao
36 Romance of the Western Chamber
Section XII Southern Plays of Ethics
37 Top Graduate Zhang Xie
38 The Thorn Hairpin
39 The Lute
Section XIII Chuanqi Plays of the Ming and Qing
40 The Peony Pavilion
41 The Palace of Lasting Life
42 The Peach Blossom Fan
Part Four Fiction
Editors’ Introduction
Section XIV Classical-Language Tales
43 Strange Tales and Anecdotal Stories of the Six Dynasties
44 Tales of the Tang, Song, and Ming
45 Strange Tales from Liaozhai
Section XV Vernacular Short Stories
46 Storytelling of the Song and the Yuan
47 Feng Menglong and His Three Words
48 Ling Mengchu and His Two Slappings
Section XVI The Heroic Romance
49 Romance of the Three Kingdoms
50 The Water Margin
51 Romance of the Sui and the Tang
Section XVII Novels of Spirits and Devils
52 Journey to the West
53 Canonization of the Gods
Section XVIII Novels of Manners and Social Satire
54 The Plum in the Golden Vase
55 The Story of the Stone
56 The Scholars
Section XIX Novels of Social Exposure and Prostitution
57 The Travels of Lao Can and Exposure of the World of Officials
58 A Precious Mirror for Judging Flowers
Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles
Index

Citation preview

ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF TRADITIONAL CHINESE LITERATURE

This Handbook presents a comprehensive overview of 3,000 years of Chinese literature from its earliest beginnings to the end of the Qing (1644–1911), the last empire of China. With a focus on well-known authors and masterpieces in each important genre, this volume covers verses, prose, drama, and fiction arranged in the following thematic groupings: • Pre-Qin and Han poetry, poetry of the Six Dynasties, poetry of the Tang, poetry of the Song, and lyrics of the Song • Prose of historians, prose of philosophers, and literati prose • Tragedy and romance in Yuan drama, southern plays of ethics, and chuanqi plays of the Ming and the Qing • Classical-language tales, vernacular short stories, heroic romances, novels of spirits and devils, novels of manners and satire, and novels of social exposure and prostitution Featuring both introductions and in-depth analyses, this Handbook incorporates the most recent scholarly works for each entry and also facilitates future research by providing further readings. Authored by a stellar line-up of experts in the field of Chinese literature, this is an essential reference guide for all students and scholars in the fields of Chinese literature and culture. Victor H. Mair is Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. Zhenjun Zhang is Professor of Chinese and Coordinator of Asian Studies at St. Lawrence University, USA.

ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF TRADITIONAL CHINESE LITERATURE

Edited by Victor H. Mair and Zhenjun Zhang

Designed cover image: Getty Images First published 2025 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Victor H. Mair and Zhenjun Zhang; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Victor H. Mair and Zhenjun Zhang to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mair, Victor H., 1943– editor. | Zhang, Zhenjun, 1956– editor. Title: Routledge handbook of traditional Chinese literature / edited by Victor H. Mair and Zhenjun Zhang. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2025. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2024042866 (print) | LCCN 2024042867 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032231006 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032231013 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003275688 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Chinese literature—History and criticism. Classification: LCC PL2265 .R68 2025 (print) | LCC PL2265 (ebook) | DDC 895.109—dc23/eng/20241214 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024042866 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024042867 ISBN: 978-1-032-23100-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-23101-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-27568-8 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688 Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their permission to reprint material in this book. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not here acknowledged and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future editions of this book.

CONTENTS

Prefacexii Chinese Dynasty Chronology xiv Abbreviationsxvi Notes on Contributors xvii PART ONE

Poetry1

Editors’ Introduction

1

SECTION I

Pre-Qin and Han Poetry

5

 1 The Classic of Poetry7 Zhi Chen and Qianmeng Guo   2 Qu Yuan and the Songs of Chu22 Trever McKay   3 Poetry of the Han Robert Joe Cutter

33

SECTION II

Poetry of the Six Dynasties

43

  4 Poetry of the Wei and Jin Robert Joe Cutter

45 v

Contents

  5 Tao Yuanming Pauline Lin

56

  6 Xie Lingyun and Xie Tiao Cynthia L. Chennault

69

SECTION III

Poetry of High Tang: A

81

  7 Landscape and Farmstead Poets: Meng Haoran and Wang Wei Thomas Donnelly Noel

83

  8 Frontier Poets: Gao Shi, Cen Shen, and Others Lucas Rambo Bender

94

  9 Chan Poetry of Hanshan Chi-chiang Huang

111

SECTION IV

Poetry of High Tang: B

121

10 Li Bai: The Poet-Transcendent Timothy W. K. Chan

123

11 Du Fu: The Poet–Historian Lucas Rambo Bender

135

12 Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen Mei Ah Tan

151

SECTION V

Poetry of Late Tang

163

13 Li He Lucas Klein and Kexin Tang

165

14 Du Mu Ji Hao

177

15 Li Shangyin Zhenjun Zhang

187

vi

Contents

16 Wen Tingyun Thomas J. Mazanec

199

SECTION VI

Poetry of the Song

209

17 Lu You Wanmeng Li

211

18 Yang Wanli’s “Chengzhai Style” Poetry Li E

221

19 Li and Chan in Zhu Xi’s Poetry Wenli Zhang (Translated by Zhenjun Zhang)

230

SECTION VII

Lyrics of the Song

241

20 Liu Yong, Qin Guan, and Zhou Bangyan Amelia Ying Qin

243

21 Li Qingzhao Xiaorong Li

253

22 Su Shi Alice W. Cheang

265

23 Xin Qiji Chi-chiang Huang

280

PART TWO

Prose295

Editors’ Introduction

295

SECTION VIII

Prose of Historians

299

24 Zuo Commentary301 Trever McKay

vii

Contents

25 Discourse of States and Stratagems of the Warring States311 Weiguo Cao 26 The Grand Scribe’s Records322 William H. Nienhauser, Jr. SECTION IX

Prose of Philosophers

333

27 The Analects and Mencius335 Trever McKay 28 The Laozi and Zhuangzi344 Richard Lynn 29 Mozi and Han Feizi356 Eirik Lang Harris SECTION X

Prose of Literati

367

30 Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan Xin Zou

369

31 Ouyang Xiu and Su Shi Ronald Egan

381

32 Yuan Hongdao and Zhang Dai Yang Ye

391

PART THREE

Drama401

Editors’ Introduction

401

SECTION XI

Tragedy and Romance in Yuan Drama

405

33 Guan Hanqing and His Injustice to Dou E407 Hongchu Fu

viii

Contents

34 Autumn of the Han Palace and Rain on the Wutong Trees416 Li-ling Hsiao 35 The Orphan of Zhao424 Maria Franca Sibau 36 Romance of the Western Chamber431 Ying Wang SECTION XII

Southern Plays of Ethics

441

37 Top Graduate Zhang Xie443 Regina Llamas 38 The Thorn Hairpin452 Patricia Sieber 39 The Lute459 Patricia Sieber SECTION XIII

Chuanqi Plays of the Ming and Qing

471

40 The Peony Pavilion473 Liana Chen 41 The Palace of Lasting Life484 Jessica Moyer and Guojun Wang 42 The Peach Blossom Fan494 Jing Shen PART FOUR

Fiction505

Editors’ Introduction

505

ix

Contents SECTION XIV

Classical-Language Tales

509

43 Strange Tales and Anecdotal Stories of the Six Dynasties Zhenjun Zhang and Nanxiu Qian

511

44 Tales of the Tang, Song, and Ming Jing Wang and Zhenjun Zhang

520

45 Strange Tales from Liaozhai536 Rania Huntington SECTION XV

Vernacular Short Stories

551

46 Storytelling of the Song and the Yuan Xiaosu Sun

553

47 Feng Menglong and His Three Words560 Maria Franca Sibau 48 Ling Mengchu and His Two Slappings571 Zhenjun Zhang SECTION XVI

The Heroic Romance

579

49 Romance of the Three Kingdoms581 Kimberly Besio 50 The Water Margin592 Scott W. Gregory 51 Romance of the Sui and the Tang602 Robert Hegel SECTION XVII

Novels of Spirits and Devils

611

52 Journey to the West613 Richard G. Wang

x

Contents

53 Canonization of the Gods623 Mark Meulenbeld SECTION XVIII

Novels of Manners and Social Satire

633

54 The Plum in the Golden Vase635 Andrew Schonebaum 55 The Story of the Stone647 Martin Huang 56 The Scholars659 David L. Rolston SECTION XIX

Novels of Social Exposure and Prostitution

669

57 The Travels of Lao Can and Exposure of the World of Officials671 Ying Zou 58 A Precious Mirror for Judging Flowers678 Ying Wang Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles 687 Index710

xi

PREFACE

The Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature is designed and written especially for college students, teachers, and scholars in the field of Chinese literature and culture, as well as for general readers. Not intended to add an additional volume to the many publications on the premodern literature of China, the Handbook instead presents an accessible and broad review of the three thousand years of Chinese literature from its earliest beginnings to the end of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the last empire of China, through the following distinctive characteristics: First, in contrast to a general history of Chinese literature that tries to cover as many literary works as possible, the Handbook focuses on well-known authors and masterpieces in each of the four important major genres in Chinese literature: poetry, prose, drama, and fiction. This goal shapes the structure of the book: it consists of fifty-eight chapters arranged in four parts, each offering carefully selected exemplary works in its genre, arranged in the following sections: Part One. Poetry: Pre-Qin and Han Poetry, Poetry of the Six Dynasties, Poetry of the Tang, Poetry of the Song, Lyrics of the Song Part Two. Prose: Prose of Historians, Prose of Philosophers, Prose of Literati Part Three. Drama: Tragedy and Romance in Yuan Drama, Southern Plays of Ethics, Chuanqi Plays of the Ming and the Qing Part Four. Fiction: Classical-Language Tales, Vernacular Short Stories, Heroic Romance, Novels of Spirits and Devils, Novels of Manners and Satire, Novels of Social Exposure and Prostitution Second, the Handbook offers informative overall introductions, in-depth studies, and detailed analysis, so readers are provided not only with general knowledge of the specific works and genres in traditional Chinese literature but also with insights that lead them to interpret, understand, and enjoy the masterpieces. Third, with the aim of providing readers with authoritative and updated information, the volume incorporates the most recent scholarly work for each entry, from the West as well as the East, especially China. At every opportunity, critical analysis will help to contextualize and explain the work.

xii

Preface

The style and content of each entry discussing the life and career of the author, literary achievements, and analysis of representative works may vary, as contributors were given freedom to adopt structures that they felt were most appropriate to their subject matter. At the beginning of each section is a brief introduction by the editors that defines the specific genre, depicts its development and evolution, places the selected works in their historical and literary contexts, and, finally, provides information about important works for which excerpts have not been included, broadening the scope of the discussion. To help satisfy the interests of readers and facilitate future research, a list of further readings, mainly in English and Chinese, is provided at the end of each chapter. A chronology of Chinese history, a glossary of terms, names, and titles, and an index are also included. To save space, many citations are given only the author’s name and page numbers if the cited work is mentioned previously or can be found in the endnotes or further readings. This handbook is authored by fifty-five professors and/or researchers of Chinese literature in the United States, Canada, Europe, and China, including many of the leading sinologists such as Professors Ronald Egan, Robert Hegel, William H. Nienhauser, Jr., Richard Lynn, and Robert Joe Cutter. It is our hope that the Handbook will be an essential reference guide for students, teachers, and scholars in the fields of Chinese literature and culture, as well as general readers. Victor H. Mair and Zhenjun Zhang January 8, 2024

xiii

CHINESE DYNASTY CHRONOLOGY

Shang ca. 1554–1045 BCE Western Zhou ca. 1045–771 BCE Eastern Zhou 770–256 BCE Spring and Autumn Period 770–481 BCE Warring States Period 475–221 BCE Qin 221–207 BCE Western Han 206 BCE-8 CE Xin 9–25 CE Eastern Han 25–220 Three Kingdoms 220–280 Wei 220–265 Shu 221–263 Wu 222–280 Western Jin 265–316 Eastern Jin 317–420 Southern and Northern Dynasties 386–589 Southern Dynasties 420–589 [Liu] Song 420–479 Southern Qi 479–502 Southern Liang 502–557 Southern Chen 557–589 Northern Dynasties 386–581 Northern Wei 386–534 Eastern Wei 534–550 Western Wei 535–556 Northern Qi 550–577 Northern Zhou 557–581 Sui 581–618 Tang 618–907 Five Dynasties 907–960 xiv

Chinese Dynasty Chronology

Northern Song Dynasty 960–1127 Southern Song Dynasty 1127–1279 Yuan Dynasty 1279–1368 Ming Dynasty 1368–1644 Qing Dynasty 1644–1911

xv

ABBREVIATIONS

BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies CLEAR Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews comp. compiler EMC Early Medieval China HJAS Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society JAS Journal of Asian Studies JOS Journal of Oriental Studies MS Monumenta Serica n. (nn.) note(s) no. number OE Oriens Extremus TkR Tamkang Review TP T’oung Pao TS T’ang Studies v. (vv.) volume(s)

xvi

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Lucas Rambo Bender, Associate Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures at Yale University, is a scholar of Chinese literature and thought, specializing in the medieval period (roughly 200 CE through 1100). Kimberly Besio is Ziskind Professor of Chinese at East Asian Studies Department, Colby College. Her research interests center on traditional Chinese fiction and drama, particularly their influence on the Chinese imagination in areas such as gender construction and visual culture. She has published articles related to these topics in Nan Nu: Men, Women and Gender in Early and Imperial China; Ming Studies; CHINOPERL Papers; Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies; and Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient and is the co-editor with Constantine Tung of an essay collection titled Three Kingdoms and Chinese Culture. Weiguo Cao received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and is now Associate Professor at Washington State University. His research interests include early historical texts and translation. His publications include annotated translations of several chapters of Sima Qian’s Shi ji, The Grand Scribe’s Records, vols. 2, 5.1, and 7 (2002, 2006, and 2021), as well as annotated translations of classical Chinese tales in Tang Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader (2010), Anthology of Tang and Song Tales (2020), and Ming Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader (2022). Timothy W. K. Chan is Professor of Chinese at Hong Kong Baptist University. He held academic positions at the Ohio State University and the University of Sydney. He received an M.A. in Chinese language and literature from Peking University and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Colorado at Boulder. His research interests include early and medieval Chinese poetry, poetics, narratives, literary criticism, religious literature, and comparative literature. He publishes his work in English and Chinese, including his monograph Considering the End: Mortality in Early Medieval Chinese Poetic Representation (2012), and articles in journals such as T’oung Pao, Journal of the American Oriental Society, T’ang Studies, Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies, Journal of Chinese Studies, and others. Alice W. Cheang studied pre-modern English poetry at Yale College and Classical Chinese literature at Harvard University and is a senior research fellow at the University of Massachusetts xvii

Notes on Contributors

at Amherst. She continues to publish scholarly research on Chinese poetry ranging from the Six Dynasties to the Southern Song. Translations include A Silver Treasury of Chinese Lyrics, which she edited, annotated, and in part translated. She has also contributed to editing the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Renditions, and the Journal of Chinese Studies (Chinese University of Hong Kong). Liana Chen is Associate Professor of Chinese Language, Literature, and International Affairs at the George Washington University in Washington, DC, as well as director of the Taiwan Education and Research Center. She is the author of Literati and Actors at Work: The Transformations of Peony Pavilion on Page and on Stage in the Ming and Qing Dynasties (2013) and Staging for the Emperors: A History of Qing Court Theatre, 1683–1923 (July 2021). Her areas of teaching and research focus on Chinese drama and theater; Chinese literature of the Ming and Qing dynasties; and Taiwanese theater, literature, and film. Zhi Chen is Chair Professor of Chinese Literature and Director of the Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology (JAS) at Hong Kong Baptist University as well as president of Hong Kong Chu Hai College. His main research areas include classical studies, early Chinese culture and history, historiography, traditional Chinese poetry, excavated documents such as bronze inscriptions and bamboo and silk writings, paleography, and intellectual history of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Cynthia L. Chennault is Associate Professor, Emerita, at the University of Florida. She served as editor of the Early Medieval China journal during 2000–2010 and co-edited Early Medieval China: A Bibliographical Guide (2014). Her research focuses upon stylistic changes in the poetry of the fourth through sixth centuries and the social context of genres and themes. Among her essays is “The World of Poetry” for The Six Dynasties, 220–589 (The Cambridge History of China, vol. 2 (2020)). She is currently working on a monograph about the fifth-century poet Xie Tiao. Robert Joe Cutter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He specializes mainly in early medieval and medieval Chinese literature. Li E received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies at Susquehanna University. Her research interests include classical Chinese poetry, literati identity, and literary representations of place and geography. She is the author of “Beyond the City Walls: Photographic Seeing and the Longing for Wilderness in Yang Wanli’s Nature Poems,” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 7. 2 (2020): 313–38. Ronald Egan is Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford University. His books include The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China (Asia Center, 2006); Qian Zhongshu’s Reading of the Classics: An Analysis of the Underlying Principles of Guanzhui bian, 錢鍾書之古典解讀方法: 《管錐編》治學原則探索 (bilingual edition, in Chinese and English), 1998; Limited Views: Essays on Ideas and Letters by Qian Zhongshu, 1998; Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi, 1994; and The Literary Works of Ou-yang Hsiu (1007–72), 1984, paperback edition, 2009. Hongchu Fu (Ph.D. in comparative literature, UCLA) is Professor of Chinese at W & L University. His research interests include premodern Chinese drama, especially Yuan dynasty zaju xviii

Notes on Contributors

drama, and Chinese language teaching pedagogy. He has authored two books: Common Chinese Synonyms Discriminated (2010) and Chinese Drama (2012). Scott W. Gregory is a scholar of Chinese literature, with a special interest in late imperial vernacular fiction and its intersection with the culture of print. He is currently working on a book manuscript concerning different manifestations of the sixteenth-century work The Water Margin and the reading practices surrounding them. He has also published on how novels of the Ming Dynasty conceived of their own historical era. He obtained his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2012. Before coming to Arizona, he spent two years as a visiting fellow at the National University of Singapore. He has also lived in Taipei and Kyoto. Qianmeng Guo is a Ph.D. candidate at Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology (JAS). Her main interests of research include literature, religion, and the history of the early and middle Qing dynasty, with a focus on the poetry written by emperors and imperial family members of the Qing. Ji Hao is currently Associate Professor of Chinese at the College of the Holy Cross. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. His research interests include traditional Chinese poetry and poetics, fantastic tales, literature and religion, and translation studies. He has published a book monograph on Du Fu (The Reception of Du Fu and His Poetry in Imperial China, 2017) and a few articles on the sixteenth-century novel Journey to the West (Xiyou ji). He is currently working on two projects. One is a book-length study of the Xiyou ji tradition, and the other centers on a Tang poet, Bai Juyi. Eirik Lang Harris is a philosopher interested in the social and political realms whose research focuses primarily on the early Chinese tradition, especially Confucian and Legalist views on the relationship between morality and politics. He works at Colorado State University’s Department of Philosophy. His first book, The Shenzi Fragments: A Philosophical Analysis and Translation, was published in 2016. Robert Hegel is Professor Emeritus of Chinese Language and Literature, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Washington University. In recent years Hegel has worked with a number of Washington University alums on translations of several literary forms. This began with a collection of short stories, Doupeng xianhua 豆棚閒話, published around 1660 by the unidentifiable Aina the Layman, Idle Talk under the Bean Arbor (2017), a collaborative effort with seven Washington University graduates. With Dr. Shen Jing of Eckerd College, St. Augustine, Florida, they published a humorous play by Li Yu (1610–1680), Bimu yu 比目魚 as A Couple of Soles (2020). Dr. Li Qiancheng, Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and he collaborated in translating a dense little novel attributed to Dong Tuo (1620–1686) but probably penned by his father, Dong Sizhang (1586–1628), Xiyou bu 西遊補, 1641; it appeared as Further Adventures on the Journey to the West late in 2020. With the assistance of Yang Shuhui (Bates College) and Yang Yunqin (a UN interpeter), he is finishing a translation of the long 1633 novel Sui shi yiwen 隋史 遺文, Forgotten Tales of the Sui, by Yuan Yuling (1599–1674). He also continues to explore the early history of the novel in China, focusing on developments during the late sixteenth century. Li-ling Hsiao is Associate Professor of Chinese Language and Literature as well as the Associate Dean and Director of First-Year Curricula at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research encompasses literature, art, guqin music, history, and printing. She has published a book xix

Notes on Contributors

titled The Eternal Present of the Past: Illustration, Theatre, and Reading in the Wanli Period, 1573–1619 (2007) and co-authored a book with Marinas Vlessas titled Xue Tao: Poet, Papermaker and Courtesan in China in 800 A.D. (2014). She has completed a draft of a manuscript: To Know or Not to Know by Virtues of Music: Guqin Musicking Scenes in Yuan and Ming Drama. She is currently working on another book project titled It’s Silent yet Musical: The Ontology of Guqin Music Reflected in Chinese Paintings. She came from a family of four generations of puppeteers and plays the Chinese instrument guqin. Chi-chiang Huang received his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona and is now Professor of Chinese at Hobart, William Smith Colleges. His scholarly interests include Chinese history and historiography; history of Buddhism in China, Korea, and Japan; Buddhist historiography; comparative religion and culture; Buddhism and literature; history of Chinese medicine; and science and religion. Martin Huang is Professor of Chinese Literature at Department of East Asian Studies, University of California-Irvine. His publications include Intimate Memory: Gender and Mourning in Late Imperial China (2018), Male Friendship in Ming China (editor; 2007), Negotiating Masculinities in Late Imperial China (2006), Sankes’Legs: Sequels, Continuations, Rewritings and Chinese Fiction (editor; 2004), Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China (2001), and Literati and Self-Re/Presentation: Autobiographical Sensibility in the Eighteenth-Century Chinese Novel (1995). Rania Huntington is Professor of Chinese in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her areas of studies include Ming and Qing narrative and drama, literature of the weird and supernatural, memory in literature, and depiction of women in literature. Lucas Klein (Ph.D., Yale) is a father, writer, translator, and associate professor of Chinese at Arizona State University. He is associate editor of the Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature, author of The Organization of Distance (2018), co-editor of Chinese Poetry and Translation (2019) and the Bloomsbury Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature in Translation (2023), and translator of Mang Ke (2018), Li Shangyin (2018), Duo Duo (2021), and Xi Chuan (2012, 2022). Wanmeng Li earned her Ph.D. in Chinese literature and culture from UCLA and is now a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. Her research focuses on the literary and religious co-construction of natural geography in China during the middle period (800–1300). Her first book project, entitled From Peach Blossom Spring to Grotto-Heavens: Literati Writing on Daoist Sacred Geography in Song (960–1279) China, addresses the way the changing literary representation of sacred caves known as “grotto-heavens” (dongtian) contributed to evolutions in literati culture during the watershed period of the Tang–Song transition. Xiaorong Li is professor of Chinese literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. from McGill University and an M.A. and B.A. from Peking University. She has authored two monographs, The Poetics and Politics of Sensuality in China: The “Fragrant and Bedazzling” Movement (1600–1930) (2019) and Women’s Poetry of Late Imperial China:

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Notes on Contributors

Transforming the Inner Chambers (2012), and has also published in several journals, including Nan Nü: Men, Women, and Gender in China and Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. Pauline Lin received her Ph.D. in East Asian languages and civilizations at Harvard University and taught as Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Bryn Mawr College. She is currently Senior Lecturer in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University. She specializes in literature and art from the late Han to the Six Dynasties and has published on Tao Qian, Ying Qu, Zhang Xie, Liu Kun, and the Southern Dynasties tomb murals of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. Regina Llamas holds a B.A. from Beijing University and a M.A. and a Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Harvard University. She is currently Associate Professor in the Humanities at IE University, Spain. Her earlier work, both in English and Spanish, focused on southern Chinese drama, dramatic historiography, modern ethnography and dramatic performance, and the later Qing commentarial dramatic tradition. She is the author of Top Graduate Zhang Xie: The Earliest Extant Chinese Southern Play and co-editor with Patricia Sieber of How to Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology. She has also published a number of papers on subjects related to these interests. Currently she is working on a monograph on the historiography of Chinese drama and how the discipline was formed. Richard Lynn holds an A.B. from Princeton University (magna cum laude) and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. He has held faculty positions in New Zealand, Australia, the United States, and Canada. He is now Professor Emeritus of Chinese Thought and Literature, University of Toronto. His publications include Kuan Yün-shih 1286–1324 (1980), Chinese Literature Draft Bibliography in Western European Languages (1980), Guide to Chinese Poetry and Drama (1984), The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi (1994), and The Classic of the Way and Virtue: A New Translation of the Tao-te ching of Laozi as Interpreted by Wang Bi (1999). He is also editor of James J. Y. Liu, Language—Paradox—Poetics: A Chinese Perspective (1988), Zhuangzi: A New Translation of the Sayings of Master Zhuang as Interpreted by Guo Xiang (2020), and Huang Zunxian: Chinese Literatus in Japan (1877–1882) (in preparation). Victor H. Mair is Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania and has been teaching there since 1979. He is the author, translator, and editor of numerous publications, including Columbia History of Chinese Literature and several anthologies of Chinese literature. He is also the editor of Sino-Platonic Papers, the ABC Chinese Dictionary Series, and the Cambria Sinophone World Series. Thomas J. Mazanec is Associate Professor of Premodern Chinese and Comparative Literature at UC Santa Barbara. He is the author of Poet-Monks: The Invention of Buddhist Poetry in Late Medieval China (2024), as well as over a dozen peer-reviewed articles on classical Chinese poetry, literary history, translation, and digital humanities. Trever McKay is Associate Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at Brigham Young University—Idaho. Trained in classical literature at National Taiwan University, he enjoys a broad range of interests. He specializes in Shiji studies and the Analects of Confucius; his current research project is a book entitled A Guided Reader to the Analects. His other research interests include Lu

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Xun’s short stories and pronunciation and tone correction in second-language learners. He has published an app, Chinese Tones, that aids students in the mastery of tones, in addition to correct pronunciation. He also has translated professionally for more than ten years and has worked for the National Central Library in Taiwan in this capacity for the last eight years. Mark Meulenbeld received his training at the Sinological Institute of Leiden University, the Netherlands, where he was steeped in philological and anthropological approaches to traditional China, with special training in Daoism. From 2000 to 2007, he studied at Princeton University, where he obtained a Ph.D. in East Asian studies on the history of Thunder Gods in ritual and literature. He is currently Associate Professor in the School of Chinese at The University of Hong Kong and has previously taught at Bryn Mawr College, University of Wisconsin–Madison, National University of Singapore, and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is the author of Demonic Warfare: Daoism, Territorial Networks, and the History of a Ming Novel (2015) and many articles on Daoism and literature. Most recently, he has completed a book manuscript titled The Presence of Peach Spring: Daoism and Local Cult(ure)s of Southern China. Jessica Moyer is Associate Professor of Chinese at Smith College and the author of Woman Rules Within: Domestic Space and Genre in Qing Vernacular Literature (2020). She received her Ph.D. in Chinese literature from Yale University in 2015. Her current research focuses on the intersection of ethnicity, gender, and political ideology in classical scholarship of the early Qing. Other research and teaching interests include anthologies, conduct literature, spatial practice, and material culture of the Ming and Qing dynasties. William H. Nienhauser, Jr., earned his Ph.D. (1972) under Professor Wu-chi Liu at Indiana University and also studied under Professor Peter Olbricht at Bonn. He has taught at the University of Wisconsin since 1973, as Halls-Bascom Professor of Classical Chinese Literature since 1995. His research explores early Chinese biographies, historical and fictional. Besides two monographs on Tang literati, Pi Rixiu and Liu Zongyuan, Nienhauser has co-translated and edited eight volumes of Sima Qian’s Shiji (The Grand Scribe’s Records). His essays in Chinese appeared in Zhuanji yu xiaoshuo Tangdai wenxue bijiao lunji (2007), and he also edited Tang Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader (2v., 2010 and 2016). In addition to many fellowships, he received the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s Forschungspreis for lifetime achievement in 2002. Thomas Donnelly Noel currently teaches Chinese language and literature at Villanova University, and he has previously taught at University of Vermont. He received his Ph.D. in Chinese from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, as well his M.A. in comparative literature in and his M.A. in Chinese from the same institution. His research focuses on medieval poetry and narrative, early historiography, comparative ecocriticism and ecopoetics, and translation studies. Nanxiu Qian (1947–2022) was Professor of Chinese Literature in the Chao Center for Asian Studies at Rice. She received her M.A. from Nanjing University, China (1982) and her Ph.D. from Yale (1994). Qian’s research interests include classical Chinese literature, Chinese intellectual history, comparative literature, and studies on the Sinosphere. She has published in both English and Chinese. She is the author of Politics, Poetics, and Gender in Late Qing China: Xue Shaohui (1866–1911) and the Era of Reform (2015) and Spirit and Self in Medieval China: The Shih-shuo hsin-yu and Its Legacy (2001). She is editor of Chanting Following Jia (2007) and co-editor of Different Worlds of Discourse: Transformations of Gender and Genre in Late Qing and Early xxii

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Republican China (2008), Chinese Literature: Conversations Between Tradition and Modernity (2007), and Beyond Tradition and Modernity: Gender, Genre, and Cosmopolitanism in Late Qing China (2004). David L. Rolston is Associate Professor of Chinese Literature at University of Michigan. In 1990, he completed the editing and publication of a collection of introductory essays and translations of traditional essays on how to read six classical Chinese novels (How to Read the Chinese Novel). He published a heavily revised version of his doctoral thesis in 1997 (Traditional Chinese Fiction and Fiction Commentary: Reading and Writing Between the Lines), which changed the focus of the original thesis from one novel to all traditional Chinese fiction, both in the literary and vernacular languages, and also addressed the influence of Chinese fiction commentary in East Asia. Amelia Ying Qin (Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin–Madison) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities & Religious Studies and Department of History, California State University, Sacramento. Her current research interest is in the relationship and dynamics between cultural memory and historiography in anecdotal and historical narratives during the time period of 600–1300. She also explores digital humanities methods and uses them to organize and analyze the large number of anecdotes and miscellanies involved in her research. Andrew Schonebaum is Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is interested in vernacular entertainments, encyclopedia, natural science, and daily life in China. His recent works include Novel Medicine: Healing, Literature and Popular Knowledge in Early Modern China, Approaches to Teaching The Story of the Stone (Dream of the Red Chamber – co-edited with Tina Lu), and Approaches to Teaching The Plum in the Golden Vase (The Golden Lotus) (edited, from Modern Language Association). His new book, Classifying the Unseen: Curiosity, Fantasy, and Common Knowledge in Late Imperial China, is forthcoming. Jing Shen is Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, East Asian Studies, Eckerd College, and the author of Playwrights and Literary Games in Seventeenth-Century China: Plays by Tang Xianzu, Mei Dingzuo, Wu Bing, Li Yu, and Kong Shangren (Challenges Facing Chinese), Lexington Books (August 4, 2010). Maria Franca Sibau is Associate Professor of Chinese studies at Emory University. She received her Ph.D. in traditional Chinese literature from Harvard University. Her research interests include late imperial vernacular fiction, drama, and Confucian traditions. Her book, Reading for the Moral: Exemplarity and the Confucian Moral Imagination in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Short Fiction (2018), discusses the representation of exemplars across the Five Cardinal Relationships in late Ming vernacular stories. She has published on filial exemplarity in vernacular fiction, the depiction of marginal characters in fiction and drama, and the modern repackaging of Confucian Classics. Her current research is on comparative novella traditions (Italy and China), fiction-to-drama adaptations, and plays making fun of Confucian sages. Patricia Sieber is Professor of Chinese Literature at Ohio State University. Her primary research interests center on the canon formation, print culture, and cultural translation surrounding early Chinese vernacular genres both in China and in transnational contexts. She is the author of Theaters of Desire: Authors, Readers, and the Reproduction of Early Chinese Song-Drama, 1300–2000 (2003), a cross-cultural history of the construction and reception of “Yuan zaju song-dramas,” the xxiii

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co-editor of How To Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology (2022), How To Read Chinese Drama in Chinese: A Language Companion (2023), and Ecologies of Translation in East And South East Asia, 1600-1900 (2022), and the guest editor of “The Protean World of Sanqu Songs” (Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture, 2021). More recently, she has published articles and book chapters on the transnational fate of vernacular Chinese belles lettres in Europe in Representations, East Asian Society and Publishing, and Towards a History of Translating: and Sinologists As Translators in the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries. Xiaosu Sun is an associate professor of Chinese literature in the International College for Chinese Studies and the Director of the Institute for Chinese Culture and International Communication, Nanjing Normal University. She received her Ph.D. in Chinese literature from Harvard University and specializes in late imperial Chinese vernacular literature, with an emphasis on popular religious storytelling and ritual soundscape. She has been awarded a CIAC research grant (AAS), a Loeb Fellowship (Harvard University), and a National Endowment for Young Scholars in Humanities and Social Sciences (China’s Ministry of Education), among other awards. Her recent publications appeared in Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, Journal of the European Foundation for Chinese Music Research, and Asian Ethnology. Mei Ah Tan specializes in medieval Chinese literature and is interested in examining how a literary piece is formulated using a cross-disciplinary approach. Prior to joining Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, she taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where she obtained experience in teaching Chinese-related subjects, running language programs, and producing online learning courses; one funded by the Teaching Development Grant. She has also compiled bibliographies on Chinese studies and edited translations of Chinese classics. Kexin Tang is a Ph.D. student in Chinese literature at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on medieval Chinese literature, with a particular interest in the intersections between Daoism and Tang poetry. She holds a master’s degree in East Asian studies from Rutgers University and a bachelor’s in Chinese literature and language from Nanjing University. Guojun Wang is Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at McGill University. He specializes in early modern Chinese literature and culture, especially the intersections between writing, performance, materiality, and gender. He is the author of Staging Personhood: Costuming in Early Qing Drama (2020). His papers have appeared in Late Imperial China, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, CLEAR, T’oung Pao, and Nan nü, among others. He is currently working on a project about the representation of dead bodies in forensic literature of early modern China. Jing Wang received her Ph.D. in Chinese literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She has taught at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of North Carolina–Charlotte and is now Senior Lecturer and Director of the Chinese language program at Princeton University. She has published Song Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader (2017; co-authored with Zhenjun Zhang). Richard G. Wang is Associate Professor of Chinese at University of Florida. His research focuses on Daoism, Chinese fiction, and religion and Chinese literature of late imperial China (fourteenth– nineteenth centuries). He is currently exploring Daoism and local society in the Ming as well as

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the religious dimensions of Ming novels. His teaching interests include Taoism and Chinese culture, Chinese culture, pre-modern Chinese fiction in translation, Journey to the West, and advanced Chinese. Ying Wang is Felicia Gressitt Bock Professor of Asian Studies at Mount Holyoke College. She published “Simulation of Love and Debasement of the Courtesan in Flowers of Shanghai,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 32 (2010): 113–134; “A Revisit of the Hero-Lover Model: Textual Dialogueand Generic Convergence in Lanhua meng qizhuan,” Hainan shifan xueyuan xuebao 5 (2006): 55–58; “The Supernatural as the Author’s Sphere: Jinghua Yuan’s Reprise of the Rhetorical Strategies of Honglou meng,” T’oung Pao XCII (2006): 129–161; and “The Disappearance of the Simulated Oral Context and the Use of the Supernatural Realm in Honglou meng,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 27 (2005): 137–150. Yang Ye is Professor Emeritus of Chinese and Comparative Literature at University of California, Riverside, and a member of the editorial committee of the Journal of East-West Thought. His books include Chinese Poetic Closure (1996), Vignettes from the Late Ming: A Hsiao-p’in Anthology (tr. with annotations and an introduction, 1999), A Concise History of Chinese Literature by Luo Yuming (tr. 2 Volumes, 2011), The Fleeting Years (in Chinese, 2012), and Luminaries in Fine Arts (in Chinese, 2014). He has contributed to Encyclopedia of Modern China, Encyclopedia of Literary Translation into English, and The Encyclopedia of the Novel. His articles and book reviews have appeared in China Review International, Chinese Arts and Letters, Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles and Reviews, Frontiers of Literary Studies in China, International East-West Studies, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Journal of Developing Societies, Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies, and To’ung Pao. Wenli Zhang is Professor and Chair of the Chinese Language and Literature Department at Northwestern University, China. She specializes in classical Chinese literature and culture, especially Song dynasty literature and Neo-Confucianism and literature, as well as ci poetry. Her publications include The Integrity of Li and Zen and The Studies of Song Poetry理禪融會與宋詩研究 (2004) and A Literary Study of Wei Liaoweng魏了翁文學研究 (2008). Zhenjun Zhang received his B.A. from Zhengzhou University, M.A. from Peking University, and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is Professor of Chinese and Coordinator of the Asian Studies Program at St. Lawrence University; the author of Traditional Fiction and Chinese Culture傳統小說與中國文化 (1996), Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China (2014), Song Dynasty Tales: a Guided Reader (2017; with Jing Wang), and Chinese Culture through Legends and Fiction (Routledge, 2024); translator of Hidden and Visible Realms: Early Medieval Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic (2018) and New Stories Told while Trimming the Wick (2024; as lead translator); and co-editor (with Victor H. Mair) of Anthology of Tang and Song Tales: The Tang Song chuanqi ji of Lu Xun (2020), Ming Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader (2022), and Classic Chinese Poems of Mourning and Texts of Lament: An Anthology (2024). Xin Zou teaches at NYU Shanghai. She received her B.A. from Peking University and M.A. and Ph.D. in Chinese literature as well as M.S. in curriculum and instruction from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research focuses on classical Chinese literature, especially the interaction

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of social–political changes, language, and literature. She has published several journal articles on classical Chinese literature and annotated translations of classical Chinese tales, co-authored Eyes on China: An Intermediate-Advanced Reader of Modern Chinese (2019), and is currently working on a book manuscript tracing the production and transmission of Tang anecdotes. Ying Zou holds a Ph.D. in Chinese literature from Stanford University and is currently Associate Professor at Renmin University of China. She is the author of The Studies of Ming and Qing Fiction in the US 美國的明清小說研究(2016); “Cross-Dressing and Other Disguises in Zaisheng yuan,” Late Imperial China, December 2012; and “Talent, Identity, and Sociality in Early Qing Scholar-Beauty Novels,” T’oung Pao, Sep. 2016.

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PART ONE

Poetry

Editors’ Introduction China is a country of poetry (shi). Not only has poetry as a literary form enjoyed a long cultural dominance, but it has also played an important role in Chinese politics and daily life. As it continued to develop and evolve over its long history, poetry has taken various forms in different eras.1 The Chinese poetic tradition can be traced back to at least the Spring and Autumn period (771–476 BCE). The Shijing, or the Classic of Poetry, is conventionally considered the first collection of Chinese poetry, written in the earliest form of Chinese verse, rhyming couplets of four-syllable lines. This was the beginning of the poetic tradition of realism, which seemingly covered every aspect of society, including the early history of Zhou (c. 1045–222 BCE), the daily life of the nobility, the misery of women in unfortunate marriages, and the suffering of commoners. In terms of poetic genre, both lyric poems and narrative poems are evident in the collection (see Chapter 1). As one of the five Confucian classics, the Shijing has had a profound influence on Chinese literature and culture. During the Warring States period (476–221 BCE), Chuci, or the Songs of Chu, appeared in the south. The representative works are Qu Yuan’s “Encountering Sorrow” (Li Sao), “Nine Songs” (Jiuge), and “Heavenly Questions” (Tianwen). Featuring rich creative imaginings and colorful imagery, they formed another tradition of Chinese verse and heavily influenced the poetry and fiction of later generations (Chapter 2). The fu, or rhapsody, has been viewed as a continuation of the sao form of the Chuci and deemed the representative literary genre of the Han dynasty. Famous fu writers include Sima Xiangru (ca. 179–117 BCE), Jia Yi (200–168 BCE), and Yang Xiong (53 BCE–18 CE). But the fu is also classified as an example of wen, or ornamental prose, in traditional literary taxonomies. In the study of poetry, modern scholars have given much attention to the extensive body of five-syllable-line poetry that existed in the Han dynasty. China experienced social turbulence and disunity from the late Han (206 BCE–220 CE) to the Southern and Northern Dynasties (386–589). This did not prevent pentasyllabic-line poems from becoming popular, and the form made great progress during this period. In addition to the anonymous old poems (gushi), represented by “Nineteen Old Poems,” the Music Bureau (yuefu) poetry was evident in the Han dynasty, conventionally considered related to the Music Bureau of the Han 

DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-1

Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature

court, since one of the functions of the bureau was collecting folksongs. However, such a convention has recently been questioned by some scholars (see Chapter 3). Five-syllable-line poems reached a high level of maturity and artistry in the Jian’an period (196–220), the last reign period of the Han. Leading literary figures who lived during this brief era include the Three Cao: the noted poet-general Cao Cao (155–220) and his two sons, Emperor Wen Cao Pi (187–226) and Cao Zhi (191–232), as well as the famous Seven Masters of Jian’an (see Chapter 4). Famous poets of the Jin dynasty include Tao Qian (365–427), the earliest pastoral (tianyuan) poet (see Chapter 5), and Xie Lingyun (385–433), the forerunner of landscape (shanshui) poets (Chapter 6). One of the most noted Southern dynasties poets is Bao Zhao (414–466), whose poems are “characterized by a boldness and vigor more reminiscent of the Han and Wei than of his own time,”2 and who had obvious influence on the great Tang poet Li Bai (701–762). Another is Yu Xin (513–581), whose poetry and shorter fu “managed to frame and highlight emotional intensity with a masterful formal control and the cultivated grace of the Liang court poet.”3 Chinese poetry reached its golden age during the Tang. Although the triggering forces for the prosperity of poetry are not completely clear, the maturity of poetry-writing skills, especially antithetical parallelism (duizhang) and the rules of tonal euphony (shenglü), developed from the Han, Wei, and the Six Dynasties, and the fact that poetry composition became part of the imperial civil service examination under Empress Wu (r. 690–705), are clearly among them. The popularity of poetry can be seen through the Complete Poems of the Tang (Quan Tang shi), which was compiled in 1705 and included almost 50,000 poems by 2,200 poets.4 In terms of quality, no later poems are considered to be better than their counterparts of the Tang. As for the form of composition/poetic form, in addition to the old-style poems that are still attractive to readers, such as Li Bai’s “The Road to Shu Is So Hard” (Shudao nan) and Bai Juyi’s “Long Lasting Regret” (Changhen ge), the so-called “modern-style poetry” (jinti shi), or regulated verse (lüshi), became popular during the Tang. The new-style verse includes five-syllable or seven-syllable octets and quatrains with strict rules as to tones, rhymes, and parallelism. Beginning in the Tang, regulated poetry has become one of the two best-loved forms of Chinese verse (the other is ci poetry). Tang poetry is usually classified into four periods: Early Tang (618–712), High Tang (712–756), Mid-Tang (756–820), and Late Tang (820–907).5 The poems of the Four Talents, Wang Bo (650–676), Yang Jiong (650–693), Lu Zhaolin (636–695), and Luo Binwang (626?–687?), are considered the highest achievements of Early Tang. High Tang marks not only the peak of the dynasty’s economic and cultural achievements but also the highest point of Tang poetry. Many of the most famous poets lived in this period, including representative poets of the landscape school such as Wang Wei and Meng Haoran (Chapter 7), representative poets of the frontier school such as Gao Shi and Cen Shen (Chapter 8), the eccentric and reclusive poet Hanshan (Chapter 9), the “poet transcendent” Li Bai (Chapter 10), the “poet sage” Du Fu (Chapter 11), and the excellent poets Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen (Chapter 12). The Late Tang also saw many talented, well-known poets, such as Li He (Chapter 13), Du Mu (Chapter 14), Li Shangyin (Chapter 15), and Wen Ting‑ yun (Chapter 16). Song dynasty poetry is not considered as good as Tang poetry, but it has its own charm. Famous poets of the Song include the versatile and prolific writer Lu You (Chapter 18), the inventor of the noted “Chengzhai style” (Chengzhai ti) poetry Yang Wanli (Chapter 19), and Fan Chengda (1126–1193), well known for his pastoral poetry. A prominent feature of Song poetry is the amalgamation of the zest for principles (li qu), Chan witticism (chan ji), and poetic beauty. This is best seen in Zhu Xi’s (1130–1200) poems (Chapter 19).

2

Poetry

Ci poetry, or song lyrics, is a branch of Chinese verse that appeared in the late Tang and flourished during the Song dynasty.6 Of the prominent lyricists of the late Tang, Wen Tingyun (812–870) and Wei Zhuang (836–910) are two of the best. Yet they are completely different in style. As Anna M. Shields observes, Wen Tingyun’s style in “Pusa man” is syntactically and imagistically dense, a compression of centuries of conventional figures and techniques; Wen combines an exploration of older medieval “palace style” with a new attention to the unrevealing surfaces of beautiful objects.7 By contrast, Wei Zhuang uses simpler diction, explicit narrative connections, and more direct statements of emotions—what Ye Jiaying has called “subjective” and Kang-i Sun Chang “hypotactic” (Chapter 16). Li Yu (937–978), the last emperor of Southern Tang, was a well-known lyricist during the Five Dynasties period.8 His lyric “To the Tune ‘Fair Lady Yu’” (Yu meiren) has been widely celebrated among readers up to today, especially the lines “I ask you how much sorrow can there be/It is exactly like a river of spring-time water flowing to the east.” In the early Song dynasty, noted lyricists include Yan Shu (991–1055) and Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072). Their ci poetry features short lyrics (xiaoling) expressing a faint sadness. The major lyricists of the Northern Song, of course, are the representative poets in the Graceful (wanyue) School, such as Qin Guan, Liu Yong, Zhou Bangyan (see Chapter 20), and Li Qingzhao (Chapter 21), as well as Su Shi (Chapter 22) and Xin Qiji (1140–1207; Chapter 23) of the Bold and Unconstrained (haofang) School. Of the top Southern Song lyricists, Jiang Kui’s (1155–1221) works are considered by many critics the culmination of ci in the Southern Song. “His mastery of structure and language produced richly textured compositions more like the art songs of the European traditions than like the lyrics for popular entertainment with which the ci tradition began.”9 Wu Wenying (ca. 1200–ca. 1260) “wrote in a very dense style . . . his ci present a flow of images that are elliptical and challenging. Like Li Shangyin’s shi poetry, they invite allegorical reading.”10 The qu, or aria, is another form similar to ci poetry. It flourished during the Yuan dynasty, though its popularity and influence are limited as compared with ci poetry. The Ming and Qing dynasties also produced many noted poets and lyricists, such as Wu Weiye (1609–1672), Nalan Xingde (1655–1685), and Gong Zizhen (1792–1841). Generally speaking, however, these periods are better known for novels than poetry.

Notes 1 For detailed discussions on the genre of poetry in Chinese literature, see Charles Hartman’s entry, “Poetry,” in Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, reprint ed., ed. William H. Nienhauser, Jr. (Taibei: SMC Publishing, 1986), 59–74; Paul Rouzer’s entry “Chinese Poetry,” in The Oxford Handbook of Classical Chinese Literature, ed. Wiebke Denecke et al. (Oxford University Press, 2017), 241–57. 2 Robert Cutter, “Poetry from 200 B.C.E. to 600 C.E.,” in The Columbia History of Chinese Literature, ed. Victor Mair (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 269. 3 Xiaofei Tian, “Literature in the South, the Sixth Century,” in Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, ed. Kang-i Sun Chang and Stephen Owen (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 2.270. 4 Cao Yin (1658–1712), Peng Dingqiu (1645–1719), et al., eds., Quan Tang shi [The Complete Collection of Poetry from the Tang] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1960, 1999). 5 Cf. Stephen Owen, The Poetry of the Early Tang (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977; Quirin Press, 2012); The Great Age of Chinese Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981); The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827–860) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006).

3

Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 6 See Kang-i Sun Chang, The Evolution of Chinese Tz’u Poetry: From Late T’ang to Northern Sung (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980). 7 Anna M. Shields, Crafting a Collection: The Cultural Context and Poetic Practice of the Huajian ji [Collection from Among the Flowers] (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), 11. 8 See Yeh Chia-ying, Wen Tingyun, Wei Zhuang, Feng Yansi, Li Yu (Taipei: Da’an chubanshe, 1988). 9 Michael A. Fuller, An Introduction to Chinese Poetry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2018), 423. 10 Fuller, An Introduction to Chinese Poetry, 435.

4

SECTION I

Pre-Qin and Han Poetry

1 THE CLASSIC OF POETRY Zhi Chen and Qianmeng Guo

Shijing, also known as the Book of Poetry,1 Book of Songs, Book of Odes,2 or Classic of Poetry,3 contains 305 poems dating from the beginning of the Western Zhou to the middle of the Spring and Autumn period (eleventh to seventh centuries BCE). In Chinese, it is sometimes referred to as the “three hundred songs” (shi sanbai). The poems anthologized in the Classic of Poetry were by no means the only ones extant at the time. It is traditionally held that Confucius created this anthology, selecting from over 3,000 poems. In addition, there are six “reed songs,” with titles listed but no text. A discussion of the main contents of the Classic of Poetry and a re-exploration of the nature of its text, as well as an analysis of its rhythm and structure, can help us understand it as a source of ancient Chinese realist literature and a way to understand the lives of the ancient Chinese people. Their poems were passed down for generations and eventually were compiled into the Classic of Poetry.

The Content of the Classic of Poetry The anthology was mentioned frequently in pre-imperial texts, even before it was canonized in the second century BCE. For example, the Zuo Tradition, which is believed to have been compiled no later than the fourth century BCE, contains 127 citations. In other contemporary texts, the poems from this anthology are also frequently quoted, either just a few lines or entire stanzas, including 21 times in the Discourses of the States, 10 times in the Analects, and 8 times in Mozi. These poetic lines are sometimes cited simply as shi and sometimes as Zhou shi (poems of Zhou), shi sanbai, ya (elegantiae), or song (hymns). This may suggest that these poems were viewed as odes from the Zhou court. Nevertheless, the fact is that some of the poems were collected from the courts of regional states, grouped into the feng (airs) section in later editions. By the Western Han dynasty (206 BCE–7 CE), four major traditions for the Classic of Poetry— passed down through oral transmission and memorization—were officially recognized by the imperial court: the Qi, the Lu, the Han, and the Mao. The former three, known later as the modern script (jinwen) versions (i.e., written in the lishu clerical form used in the Han), came to be accepted by the Official Learning (guanxue) as authoritative during Emperor Wen’s (r. 179–157 BCE) and Emperor Jing’s (r. 157–141 BCE) reigns, whereas the Mao version was understood traditionally as written in the ancient script (guwen) used prior to the Qin (222–207 BCE). The  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-3

Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature

ancient script version of the Classic of Poetry was recovered by Liu De (?–130 BCE), King Xian of Hejian and second son of Emperor Jing, who was fond of old books. The name of the Mao school is derived from the surname of its commentators, Mao the Elder (Mao Heng) and Mao the Junior (Mao Chang, the nephew of Mao Heng). The Mao school was established during the reign of Emperor Ping of Han (r. 1–6).4 The Mao version, with its complete exegesis, is the only Han commentary that has survived intact, even though some fragments from the commentaries of the other three schools are also extant. The poems in the Mao version are divided into three major sections, feng (airs), ya (elegantiae), and song (hymns). The first section, feng, is composed of 15 subsections arranged according to the names of states or other places. Apart from the first two subsections, the other 13 section names are composed of “place or state name + feng.” The character nan (south) in the titles of the first two subsections may indicate that they are different from the 13 airs preceded by the names of states or regions, even though they are included in the same section. The second section is divided into Greater Elegantiae (daya) and Lesser Elegantiae (xiaoya). The third section contains three subsections: Hymns of Zhou (zhou song), Hymns of Lu (Lu song), and Hymns of Shang (Shang song). Following Arthur Waley’s translation,5 we have prepared the following table for the reader’s reference: Name of section or subsection

Sequential number Notes of poems in the Mao version

The Airs of the States South of Zhou South of Shao

1–160 1–11 12–25

Airs of Bei Airs of Yong Airs of Wei

26–44 45–54 55–64

Airs of the Royal Domain

65–74

Airs of Zheng

75–95

Airs of Qi

96–106

Airs of Wey

107–113

Although listed under the Airs section, South of Zhou and South of Shao are believed to have originally belonged to a separate category called nan (south). Zhou and Shao are the names of the hereditary fiefs of the dukes of Zhou and Shao, two younger brothers of King Wu of Zhou. These can be traced back to a single region in which the state of Wei (c. 1042–209 BCE) was located. Bei and Yong were short-lived states (each only existing for about three years) inhabited by the Shang nobles in the early Western Zhou period, located near Wei. The name wang refers to “king.” Traditional scholars believe that the ten poems here came immediately from the Zhou royal domain, which includes about 500 square li (approximately 200 miles) according to the Zhou regulations. Zheng was founded during the reign of King Xuan of Zhou (827–782 BCE). The state of Zheng was destroyed by the State of Han in 375 BCE.6 1046–379 BCE. A mighty state located on the east coast of China. Different from the state of Wey (403–225 BCE) in the Warring States period, this Wey could either refer to a small state enfeoffed in the eleventh century BCE by King Wu or to a township located in the same region. (Continued)

8

The Classic of Poetry (Continued) Name of section or subsection

Sequential number Notes of poems in the Mao version

Airs of Tang

114–125

Airs of Qin

126–135

Airs of Chen

136–145

Airs of Gui (Kuai)

146–149

Airs of Cao Airs of Bin

150–153 154–160

The Elegantiae The Lesser Elegantiae

161–265 161–234

The Greater Elegantiae The Hymns

235–265

The Hymns of Zhou

266–296

The Hymns of Lu

297–300

266–305

The Hymns of Shang 301–305

Also known as Jin (1033–376 BCE), one of the most powerful states in the Spring and Autumn period. It was initially called Tang in early Zhou and renamed Jin during the reign of Marquis Xie, the second ruler of the state. Ca. 900–222 BCE. A state that overtook the core domain of the Zhou kings after the royal house moved to the east in the early eighth century. It became the most powerful state during the Warring States era and unified China under the reign of the First Emperor of Qin in 222 BCE. Chen (1045–478 BCE) was a state ruled by the descendants of the legendary Emperor Shun. A small state enfeoffed in early Western Zhou and destroyed in 769 BCE by the state of Zheng. The state name Kuai or Gui could refer to the territory that once belonged to this state. 1045–487 BCE. Bin was an early domain purportedly founded by Gong Liu, a pre-dynastic ancestor of Zhou kings believed to have lived seven generations before King Wu. This section consists of pieces performed at the Zhou court. The composition of these 74 poems spans the Western Zhou to the early Spring and Autumn periods. This group includes the six so-called “reed songs,” for which only titles survive. There is also some debate whether these pieces ever contained text. These 31 poems also contain pieces performed at Western Zhou court, likely composed during the late Western Zhou. According to the Mao Preface (traditionally attributed to Mao Heng) and the Discourses of the States, these were a style of song inherited from the Shang dynasty.7 These 31 poems are believed to be the earliest in the entire anthology. They focus on the sacrifices offered to the founders of the Zhou dynasty or otherwise performed at the Zhou court. Lu was founded by Boqin, the duke of Zhou’s son, in 1042 BCE, when the duke of Zhou pacified the rebellion of the Shang loyalists in the east. These four poems were composed during the reign of Duke Xi of Lu (r. 659–627 BCE). These are primarily related to the religious sacrifices and ritual activities of the Shang people.8 The date of their composition has been contested, with the lower boundary ranging between late Shang to late Western Zhou and the upper boundary corresponding to the reign of Duke Xiang of Song (?–637 BCE).

Although the origins of the Classic of Poetry are still debated, it is generally accepted that the 305 poems came from different regions and were composed between the late Shang (eleventh cent. BCE) and late Spring and Autumn (sixth cent. BCE) periods. These poems also span a broad range 9

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of themes, from love, courtship, weddings, hunting, and feasting to poems pertaining to court life, sacrifice, clan history, military campaigns, and civil service.

Recent Literature on the Classic of Poetry In the field of Shijing studies, numerous monographs have emerged in the past five years. Michael Hunter’s book The Poetics of Early Chinese Thought: How the Shijing Shaped the Chinese Philosophical Tradition (2021) reconsiders the Classic of Poetry as a work of major intellectual–historical significance and reaffirms its central role in the formation of the Chinese philosophical tradition. In the same year, Han Yan synthesized syntax, prosody, and musical analysis, investigating Chinese poetry’s nature from the Classic of Poetry to regulated verse. Li Leidong and Chen Zhaoxuan compiled medieval and early modern commentaries and research works from China, Japan, and Korea dealing with the “Chixiao” (the Owl). In 2020, Cheng Tsai Fa elaborated on the composition, structure, syntax, and rhyme patterns of each poem in the Classic of Poetry and explored the poetic meter from the perspective of poetry and music, thus re-examining the division of ancient rhymes. Li Shujun interpreted the Classic of Poetry through the critical perspective of “social interactions.” Japanese scholar Yabu Toshihiro compared the Mao version with excavated texts. The year 2019 was relatively productive for monograph publications in the field of Shijing research, particularly within the Chinese academic community. Scholars examined various sections of the Classic of Poetry from a variety of perspectives, including instrumental music (Li Tingting), pre-Qin ritual and music systems (Yao Xiao’ou), the history of philosophy (Meng Qingnan), and regional cultural ecology (Wang Zhifang). Li Shan and Liu Yuqing explored its content and provided insightful details in the same year. In 2018, Liu Chang’an discussed the “Nan” section of the Classic of Poetry, and Zeng Xiaomeng combed through the quotations of the Classic of Poetry in the pre-Qin classics. Hu Meixin analyzed the 1871 English translation by James Legge in comparison with traditional Chinese commentaries and canonical texts to gain a deeper understanding of the discursive features of Western scholars’ cross-cultural reconstruction of Chinese classics. Luo Jing translated the work of American scholar Wang Shiyuan, focusing on the Classic of Poetry’s portrayal of love and war in ancient China. In the realm of articles related to the Classic of Poetry, despite the mature research frameworks in fields like stylistics, phonology, philology, archaeology, and cultural studies, some scholars have brought fresh perspectives, yielding new insights. For instance, Korean scholar Lee Ukjin (2022), in his discussion of “Qiyue,” proposes that the author or narrator was a nobleman and that the poem was intended to educate nobility about their monthly tasks. Huang Yiqing and Hu Jiajia’s (2021) database analyzed rhymes in the collection, discerning central vowel distribution, medial classification, and their relationships with the old Chinese rhyme categories. Through the eight Dafengli (Frontier Safeguarding Ceremony) poems, Liu Jiafeng (2021) sorted out the process of formation, development, and evolution of this ceremony. Li Shan (2020) examined four changes in the works during the reign of King Xuan in Western Zhou, reaffirming the significance of its literary study. Yim Ju Tak (2020) explored poetic elaboration of the Classic of Poetry. In 2019, Yuan Su explored the differences in prosodic forms based on the perspective of metrical feet and morae. Korean scholars have explored issues such as sound symbolism (Hong Hyunji), etymological explanations of certain words (Shin Woosun), and female narrative poems in the Airs of Zheng (Yun Hyeji). Chen Chih-hong (2018) retranslated “Caiwei” using numerous rhetorical devices. Ahn Choonboon (2018) explored satirical emotion and “friendly emotion” in the Airs of Qi. Due to the discovery and accumulation of an increasing number of previously unearthed documents in recent years, some parts of the Classic of Poetry have been more accurately interpreted 10

The Classic of Poetry

through these new materials; one noteworthy case is the Anhui University (Anda) collection of bamboo strips, which have been studied extensively since their discovery in 2018. Loh Chenyee (2022) conducted a detailed study of the Anda Shijing, which was published by Zhongxi Book Company. Cao Jianguo (2021) proposed that the difference between the Anda Shijing and the Mao version is due to the former being used as a funerary object, a suggestion that may clarify the excavated version’s exegetical, philological, hermeneutical, and paleographical value. Korean scholar Kim Jungnam studied the paleographic aspects of the Anda Shijing. Xiang Yujian (2019) compared the text of the Classic of Poetry to numerous unearthed documents from different sources, exploring textual differences, character changes, and evolution. Dirk Meyer and Adam Craig Schwartz (2022) jointly provide the first comprehensive interpretation of the Royal Zhōu and the Royal Shào from the Anda Shijing, revealing the varied uses of these poems among different groups during the Warring States period. In the field of translation of the Classic of Poetry, Li Guangwei (2021) focused on its English translation and dissemination. Articles by other authors covered the English translations of Legge and Karlgren, the Latin translation by Joseph de Prémare, the German translations of Friedrich Rückert and Viktor von Strauß, and the Russian translation of “Longing for the Husband” (Junzi yuyi) by A. Shtukin.

The Nature and Authorship of the Poems The content of the poems in Zhounan and Shaonan is not strikingly different from other poems in the Airs. Judging from certain elements, such as the toponyms (Jiang, Han, Huai, Ru, Ying and Tuo rivers) and dialectal features (Chen 2007, 227–32), these poems were possibly collected from several principalities of southern states located along the basins of these rivers. These states were mostly enfeoffed by the duke of Zhou and the duke of Shao to their kin and related clans immediately after the defeat of the Shang loyalists in these areas.9 Having little to do with martial topics, these two subsections preserved the voices of the southern elites of the Zhou, with topics including love (Mao 1, 9, 10), courtship (Mao 14, 20, 23), weddings (Mao 6, 12, 24), hunting (Mao 7, 11, 25), and poems pertaining to court life (Mao 2, 18), sacrifice (Mao 4, 5, 15), and civil service (Mao 3, 13, 21). The poem “Gantang” (Mao 16) is ostensibly a song composed to praise the virtue of the duke of Shao, and “Zhongsi” (Mao 5) and “Linzhizhi” (Mao 11) are poems eulogizing the prosperity of the ducal house’s offspring. The Zheng and Wei subsections include a large number of verses deviating from the ritual orthodoxy of Zhou, as represented by the Elegantiae and the Hymns sections. The most striking feature of the Airs of Wei and Zheng is the theme of courtship and the rendezvous of lovers. This aspect allows us to revisit the question whether the Airs are folk poems or compositions by nobles. Initially, modern scholarship came to the consensus that the Airs were mostly poems improvised by the lower class, such as farmers, soldiers, hunters, shepherds, servants, palace attendants, lower-ranking officials, and young lovers in the country. However, judging from the content of these poems, we have drawn the opposite conclusion: most of these 161 poems can be positively identified as creations of the aristocratic or ruling class. Building on Zhu Dongrun’s research, we have created a list to help evaluate the nature of the poems and versification used in them.10 1) The identity of poets or the social status of the addressees; 2) The place of residence described in the poems; 3) State administration and other public institutions referred to in the poems; 4) Servants and other functionaries mentioned in the poems; 11

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5) Material artifacts mentioned in the poems, such as clothing, weapons, horses, and chariots, which can indicate the social status of the authors; 6) The mention of precious ritual objects restricted to nobles; and 7) The use of formulaic expressions that are also seen in inscriptions cast on bronze ritual utensils. The list indicates that 90 percent of the poems in the two Nan subsections can be identified as poetry by Zhou elite. Furthermore, in the other subsections of Airs (besides the Airs of Zheng), most of the poems are also related to the life and experiences of the Zhou nobles. In the Airs of Zheng, some poems depict the hunting scenes of a Zheng prince (Mao 77, 78), while others portray the romantic affections of noble women (Mao 82, 83, 88) and the martial demeanor of noble men (Mao 79, 80). There are still other examples that prove the Airs were created by the aristocratic or ruling class, such as the poem “Lüyi” (Mao 27): Green with a yellow lining . . . Green the upper, and yellow the lower garment . . . [Dyed] green has been the silk. (Legge, 41–2) The poem “Ziyi” (Mao 75) refers to black clothes worn by officials to the government offices. These clothes were not available to commoners. Yet another example is the poem “Yanyan” (Mao 28), in which the author uses such phrases as zhongshi Ren (the second daughter of the Ren clan), xianjun (deceased lord), and guaren (I or me; used by dukes or marquesses to refer to themselves, as well as by their wives in self-address). These expressions highlight that the poems comes from aristocratic literati, or at least that the author imitates an aristocratic tone. Additionally, some poems mention specific aristocratic figures, some of whom are even recorded in historical sources, such as the Marquis of Qi (Mao 24, 57), Sun Zizhong (Mao 31), the Count of Xun (Mao 153), Mengjiang (Mao 48, 83), and the Marquis of Wei (Mao 54, 57). This also corroborates the thesis that most of the poems in the Airs may have been produced by the aristocratic or ruling class. The section Elegantiae includes 105 poems from Zong-Zhou, the central domain of the Zhou house. The poems “Wen Wang” (Mao 235), “Da Ming” (Mao 236), and “Mian” (Mao 237) in the Greater Elegantiae used to be regarded as early Zhou creations. However, the consistent style of these poems, including rhyming and the final consonants, formulaic expressions, and metric schemes, suggests that they were likely created between the late Western Zhou (eighth or ninth century BCE) and early Spring and Autumn (seventh century BCE) periods.11 The latest compositions in the Greater and Lesser Elegantiae are some poems in the latter, such as “Zhengyue” (Mao 192), “Yuwuzheng” (Mao 194), and “Shiyue zhi jiao” (Mao 193). The ode “Zhengyue” contains a line that reads “Splendid was the Zong-Zhou, but Bao Si eradicated it” (Hehe Zong-Zhou, Bao Si mie zhi), which clearly refers to the destruction of the Western Zhou capital by foreign tribes in 771 BCE. The same event is also mentioned in the poem “Yuwuzheng,” except Zong-Zhou is rendered Zhouzong,12 an alternative name for the Zhou capital. The poem “Shiyue zhi jiao” mentions a solar eclipse and a recent lunar eclipse. Scholars have dated the composition of this poem to 735 BCE, when a total solar eclipse was observable in many parts of the Zhou realm.13 If we divide the Classic of Poetry into categories by topics, we find that most of the poems about drinking and feasting at a palace are grouped in Lesser Elegantiae. The poem “Bin zhi chuyan” in the Lesser Elegantiae, which depicts a drinking rite, is conventionally attributed to Duke Wu of Wei. In addition to the previous example, the 74 poems in the Lesser Elegantiae focus on the life and experiences of monarchs, grand ministers, high-ranking officials, and perhaps some lower-status literati. Their subjects vary widely, including drinking, feasting, and the welcoming of guests (Mao 161, 170, 171, 174, 175, 178, 217, 220, 221, 231), musical entertainment (Mao 12

The Classic of Poetry

208), sacrifices (Mao 164, 165, 166, 173, 209), military campaigns (Mao 162, 167–169, 177, 179, 181, 227), toasting for good health and long life (Mao 172, 213, 215, 216), meeting with gentlemen (Mao 176, 182, 228), hunting (Mao 226), weddings (Mao 218), celebration and blessing of the harvest (Mao 210, 211, 212), other ritual and official activities (Mao 222), political satire (Mao 200, 205, 223), complaints against war (Mao 232), weariness in civil service (Mao 197, 198, 203, 219), concerns about state affairs (Mao 180, 183, 192, 193, 194, 195, 204), appreciation of parents (Mao 202), personal affections of a noble man or woman (Mao 201, 214, 217, 225), and poignant grief (Mao 196, 199, 206, 224, 229, 233). Some official titles mentioned in the poems, such as Huangfu (Mao 193), Situ (Mao 193), Shishi (Mao 193), Shanfu (Mao 193), Yinshi (Mao 191), and Dashi (Mao 191), indicate that these poems were probably composed in Western Zhou, particularly in light of cross-references to bronze inscriptions. Yin Jifu, Jia Fu, and Qi Fu were also celebrated figures recorded in other texts as ministers and military leaders of late Western Zhou. These themes suggest that the creators were poets of the Zhou noble class, in addition to some literati of lower status. Furthermore, poems were also collected from the areas surrounding Zong-Zhou and presented as suitable for singing in the ya music. For example, such pieces as “Luming” (Mao 161), “Simu” (Mao 162), “Huanghuang zhe hua” (Mao 163), and “Yuli” (Mao 170) are recorded in the Zhou ritual texts as performed during archery ceremonies, feasting, drinking receptions of feudal lords, during the meetings of two regional rulers, and in other ceremonies performed in the fiefs of grandmasters and scholars.14 The Greater Elegantiae begins with several hymns sung to praise the accomplishments of the founding heroes of the Zhou clan. The opening stanza of “Wen Wang” (Mao 235), the first poem in the section, reads: King Wen is on high, oh, he shines in heaven; though Zhou is an old state, its (heavenly) appointment is new. (Karlgren, 185–86) Similar to that of the Lesser Elegantiae, the predominantly chronological arrangement of these poems displays thematic changes over time. From “Wen Wang” to “Juan-e” (Mao 252), the poems mostly laud the early accomplishments of the Zhou (Mao 235, 237, 244, 250), the glory and success of the royal family (Mao 240, 241), legendary origins of the Zhou clan (Mao 235, 237, 245), the Heavenly mandate (Mao 235, 237, 241, 243), palace constructions (Mao 242), splendid weddings (Mao 236, 240), military victories (Mao 238, 244), grand feasting, and archery (Mao 246–249, 251). These poems are traditionally labeled “Standard Elegantiae.” In contrast, the poems “Minlao” (Mao 253) to “Shaomin” (Mao 265) contain more complaints against the endless war or natural disasters (Mao 258, 265), improper administration (Mao 253, 254), ruthless autocracy, and bitter remonstrations over the waning of Zhou (Mao 255–257, 264). These poems have been categorized as “Mutated Elegantiae” by Mao Heng. “Songgao” (Mao 259), “Zhengmin” (Mao 260), “Hanyi” (Mao 261), “Jiang-Han” (Mao 262), and “Changwu” (Mao 263) are different from the two categories mentioned previously. It was believed that these poems were composed during the revival reign of King Xuan of Zhou (r. 827–782 BCE) to extol the military accomplishments of the Earl of Shen, Zhongshan Fu, Marquis of Han, Hu, the Earl of Shao, and Nan Zhong. All of them are historical figures, attested in transmitted sources, known to have served during the reign of King Xuan. A key aspect of Shang and Zhou religions was the worship of spirits associated with deceased kings and ancestors. The poems in the Hymns section contain the appellations of the composers’ ancestors, as well as concrete depictions of sacrificial ceremonies; they also contain terms frequently used in liturgical prayers. These features indicate that these odes were initially sung as part of sacrificial rites in ancestral worship of the Shang and Zhou rulers. We have scrutinized the 13

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contents of these 31 poems against chronologically arranged Western Zhou bronze inscriptions and found that the rhymed poems in the Hymns of Zhou can be dated to mid- and late Western Zhou, probably after the reigns of Kings Gong (r. 917/15–900/898 BCE) and Yi (r. 899/97–873 BCE).15 The apparently unrhymed poems (Mao 266, 271, 273, 277, 285, 293, 294, 296) were most likely created in early Zhou times (mid-eleventh century BCE). The Zuo Tradition (Xuan 12) and the “Records of Music” section in the Book of Rites record that when King Wu of Zhou, accompanied by the duke of Zhou, led an expedition against Zhow, the last Shang king, the duke created some musical works called “Wusuye”; they further quote the lines of “Shimai” (Mao 273), “Wu” (Mao 285), “Lai” (Mao 295), and “Huan” (Mao 294). The linguistic features and evidence from historical sources here both seem to point to the fact that these poems should be attributed to the duke of Zhou, or at least were composed during his time. Early Zhou works also include “Zhijing” (Mao 274), “Zaijian” (Mao 283), “Zhuo” (Mao 293), and “Pan” (Mao 296), approximating to the time of King Wu. Apart from these early poems extolling the military accomplishments of the Zhou clan, other works ascribed to later kings contain poems of feasting, dancing, and hunting, as well as sacrifices conducted in the court and temples of the Zhou house. The Hymns of Lu contain four lengthy poems from the state of Lu that are all ascribed to Duke Xi of Lu, a lord who was enthroned in early the Spring and Autumn period and who strengthened Lu by annexing several neighboring states. “Jiong” (Mao 297) is a poem of praise to Duke Xi. “Youbi” (Mao 298) was more likely to have been sung as accompaniment to drinking and feasting. “Pan Shui” (Mao 299) is a song to celebrate a triumph over the eastern yi tribes. The poem “Bigong” (Mao 300) eulogizes the construction of a new ducal palace. The five poems in Hymns of Shang display a certain similarity to the historical narratives in the Greater Elegantiae. However, they differ in commemorating the ancient kings and heroes of Shang. “Nuo” (Mao 301) and “Liezu” (Mao 302) are both poems in praise of Tang, the founder of Shang, and have the same ending lines, They look favourably upon our winter and autumn sacrifices;/the descendant of Tang presents them. (Karlgren, 262) “Nuo” provides a concrete description of the musical performance in a palace, including musical instruments, choreography, sequence of performances, and so on, whereas “Liezu” concentrates more on the food and drink in sacrifices. “Xuanniao” (Mao 303), “Changfa” (Mao 304), and “Yinwu” (Mao 305) trace the origin of the Shang clan to the mysterious birth of Xie, whose mother swallowed the egg of a mystical bird. Tang and Wu Ding are also complimented in these hymns for their accomplishments in founding the state, the growth of its power, and the enlargement of its domain.

Meter, Syllable, Rhythm, and Rhyme of the Classic of Poetry The extant sources, both transmitted and excavated, inform us that the tetrasyllabic style was the dominant prosodic form from the beginning of Chinese poetic history through the fourth century BCE. Many traditional and twentieth-century Shijing scholars believed that the majority of the stanzas in the Airs were mostly adapted from folk poems. However, considering the great temporal and regional variation of these poems, why do we not observe the expected linguistic diversity in

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the extant versions? Why are these works, regardless of themes and origins, mostly composed in a similar style? Based on the vast amount of newly discovered archaeological and paleographic data, we can gain a clearer understanding of this question. Each character is pronounced as one syllable in Chinese. The Classic of Poetry is predominantly composed of poems written in the tetrasyllabic style. That is, each line has four characters that equal four syllables. The meter of a poem is determined by the number of characters. Although the line length varies in some of the poems, from as few as one character to as many as eight, four characters per line is the most typical meter. Chinese characters, by distribution and function, are conventionally divided into two categories: content (plerematic) and form (cenematic). The former are called shizi (literally “substantive words”) and carry specific meanings either individually or in compounds. In contrast, the latter are xuzi (literally “empty words”) and function either as expressions of acclamation, affirmation, negation, or question or as signifiers of initiation, conclusion, or conjunction in a sentence. The rhythm of the poetic language frequently echoes with plerematic words (substantive words, hereafter S). The cenematic words (empty words, hereafter E), including prepositions, conjunctions, and particles, are not considered independent units or feet and are subordinative to substantive words. The rhyme movement of a four-character line in the Classic of Poetry takes one of the following patterns:  1) SS⁄SS (frequently seen)  2) SS/ES (most frequently seen)  3) SS⁄SE (less frequently seen)  4) SSEE (occasionally seen)  5) SE⁄SE (occasionally seen)  6) SEEE (rarely seen)  7) EEEE (never seen)  8) EEES (rarely seen)  9) EESS (occasionally seen) 10) ES⁄ES (frequently seen) 11) ES⁄SE (occasionally seen) 12) ES/SS (less frequently seen) Most of the poems consist of several stanzas. In the Airs, most of the stanzas are composed of four, six, or eight lines, whereas in other sections, the number of lines in a stanza varies from four to more than ten and sometimes is even more irregular. This is true of most poems in Zhou song, each of which contains only one stanza. The poem “Yanyan” in Bei Airs is typical of an Airs poem in terms of meter, line, rhythm, rhyme, and structure. The following is the original poem with our translation (Chen 1999, 27): 2. SS/ES燕燕 于 飛(a) 1. SS/SS差池 其 羽(b) 2. SS/ES之子 于 歸(a) 2. SS/ES遠送 于 野(b) 1. SS/SS瞻望 弗 及(c)

The swallows go flying about, With their wings unevenly displayed. The lady was going to be wed, And I escorted her far into the country. I looked til I could no longer see her, (Continued)

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature (Continued) 2. SS/ES燕燕 于 飛(a) 1. SS/SS泣涕 如 雨(b)

The swallows go flying about, And my tears fell down like rain.

2. SS/ES 燕燕 于 飛(a) 5. SE/SE 頡之 頏(d) 之 2. SS/ES 之子 于 歸(a) 10. ES/ES遠于 將(d) 之 1. SS/SS 瞻望 弗 及(c) 2. SS/ES 佇立 以 泣(c)

The swallows go flying about, Now up, now down. The lady was going to be wed, And far did I accompany her. I looked til I could no longer see her, And long I stood and wept.

2. SS/ES 燕燕 于 飛(a) 1. SS/SS 下上 其 音(e) 2. SS/ES 之子 于 歸(a) 2. SS/ES 遠送 于 南(e) 1. SS/SS 瞻望 弗 及(c) 1. SS/SS 實勞 我 心(e)

The swallows go flying about, From this and beyond comes their twittering. The lady was going to be wed, And far did I escort her to the south. I looked til I could no longer see her, And great was the grief of my heart.

3. SS/SE 仲氏 任(e) 只 1. SS/SS 其心 塞 淵(d) 10. ES/ES終 溫 且 惠(f) 1. SS/SS 淑慎 其 身(g) 2. SS/ES 先君 之 思(h) 12. ES/SS以 勗 寡 人(g)

Alas! Lady zhongshi Ren; Truly deep was her feeling. Both gentle was she and docile, Virtuously careful of her person. In thinking of my deceased lord, It stimulated me, the lonely one.

(The English letter in parenthesis in each line indicates the possible rhyming word and its vowel category.) In this poem, there are four six-line stanzas. The principal rhyme scheme involves rhyming on even-numbered lines. The rhyme schemes of poems consisting of four-line stanzas, the most common type in the anthology, vary from aaba, abab, abcb to not rhyming at all. In the second line of the last stanza, the ending word yuan belongs to the rhyme group of yang, neighboring the group of zhen, which was used as a rhyme in this stanza. Similar borrowing can also be seen in many other poems. However, not all 305 poems in the anthology are written in a specific meter or rhyme. For example, “Haotian you chengming” (Mao 271), possibly one of the earliest creations in this section, is far from regular in terms of meter, rhythm, and syllabic structure when compared to later compositions in other sections: “Haotian you chengming” (Karlgren, 241): SS/SS 昊天有成命 (mrjeŋs) SS/SE 二后受(tus)之 SS/ESS 成王不敢康 (khaŋ) SS/SS/SS夙夜基命宥密 (mrjit)

Great Heaven had a definite charge, Two sovereigns (Wen and Wu) received it; Ch’eng Wang did not dare to dwell in happy idleness, Morning and evening he laid the foundations of his

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(appointment=) great task, magnanimous and quiet;

ESS 於緝熙 (xjə) Oh, continuously bright, S/ES單厥心 (sjəm) He made (ample=) generous his heart, SE/SE肆其靖 (dzjeŋʔ)之 And so he could secure tranquility. This poem only has one stanza, which is made up of seven lines that vary in length from three to six characters. The vowels in the ending of these lines vary drastically except for the first and last lines. Since the poem does not demonstrate any awareness of phonological and syntactic rules, one remains skeptical whether it was originally a poem as such. It might have been a liturgical prayer, as its content suggests. Judging from the linguistic features, such as irregularity of the length of poetic lines ranging from two to seven syllables, random metrical patterns, and varieties of rhyming patterns, the Hymns of Zhou can be dated from the time of the dynastic transition between Shang and Zhou (eleventh cent. BCE) to the late Western Zhou (eighth cent. BCE). The content of these 31 poems, passed down from remote antiquity, is not only alien to general readers but also not fully comprehensible to experts in early China. Through juxtaposition with the Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, their poetic language has become clearer, as many formulaic patterns and idiomatic expressions can be identified in these two groups of sources, excavated, and transmitted. By comparing the texts of these poems to the regularly structured and rhymed inscriptions on the Western Zhou bronze vessels, we conclude that the tetrasyllabic form, the earliest genre in Chinese poetic history, may have emerged in the middle Western Zhou, specifically during the reigns of kings Gong and Yi. The early rhyming poems in the Elegantiae and the Hymns can be dated no earlier than these periods.16

Realistic Poetic Traditions and Tendencies in the Classic of Poetry Zheng Qiao (1104–1162) wrote, The “feng” originated from the term “tufeng” (regional traits). It must refer to the words of petty men, low-level officials, women, and maids.17 Zhu Xi’s (1130–1200) theory on the Airs as folk poems likely originates from Zheng Qiao.18 In the West, Marcel Granet translated 68 of the poems in the Airs, noting the symmetry and repetitive vocabulary that reflects the peasants’ rhythmic singing during agricultural festivals.19 Inspired by the theory of Adam Parry and Albert B. Lord, C. H. Wang has suggested that the formulaic expressions in poems from different sections reflect their origins in a folk tradition of spontaneous oral composition. We reevaluated the nature of the Airs previously, arguing that, in addition to the Elegantiae and the Hymns sections, a large portion of the poems in the Airs must also have been composed by the aristocratic or ruling class. However, this doesn’t diminish their sense of realism. Confucius once claimed, The Odes serve to stimulate the mind. They may be used for purposes of self-contemplation. They teach the art of sociability. They show how to regulate feelings of resentment. (Legge 1861, 187) The early interpretations of the terms xing (to stir), guan (to consider), qun (to express fellowship), and yuan (to show resentment) employed in this citation are found in the Han dynasty

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commentaries of Zheng Xuan and Kong Anguo, who focused more on the political function of extolment and satirical criticism. Zhu Xi, based on the value system reflected in the text of the Classic of Poetry, argued that “virtue embodied in an individual song resided in the virtue of the reader”20 and gradually extended to the preference for individual life. Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692) is even more innovative in his discussion of these four canonical functions of poetry, linking them together via qing (affection): The particular quality of a “song” is a relation between its original quality and present circumstance, that the affect shifts through alternatives in the process of reading. (Owen, 456) Therefore, the elaboration of poetry should not only focus on the sincere outpouring of the lyrical hero’s heartfelt emotion but also, more importantly, on its intersection with the actual state of individual life in which the reader lives. This way of elaboration also reaffirms the interpretation and view of the text of the Classic of Poetry in the realist literary tradition. Recently excavated evidence shows that Confucius indeed took part in the compilation and transmission of the early texts of the Classic of Poetry canon, though some anonymous scholars may still have contributed to the shaping of the collection before him. Our theory is that the gu (blind musician), an official title given to the musicians serving at the courts of Zhou and other feudal states, played a significant role in collecting, copying, collating, editing, and circulating the early text. Their efforts were influenced by their close observation and keen feeling of everyday life, bringing emotional and sensual elements into the collection. To summarize, the realistic aspects of the Classic of Poetry are mainly reflected in three layers: the first is the life and labor as reflected in the text, the second is connected to the most authentic life experience, and the last one is the will to live that is born out of it. Although the themes of each section of the Classic of Poetry vary, a closer look reveals that these seemingly disparate texts ultimately return to the same central point: “life” or “vitality.” The poem “Qiyue” (Mao 154) in the Airs of Bin consists of eight stanzas that vividly depict all possible activities through the natural changes of the four seasons of the year, including spring cultivation, raising silkworms to weave clothes, hunting, building, harvesting, brewing, labor, and feasting. The poem’s positive attitude towards a difficult life offers a sense of original simplicity and authenticity, which is the starting point of a nation and a civilization. This way of life is presented figuratively as a way of survival for the ancestors of Zhou. Another poem, “Dadong” (Mao 203), in the Lesser Elegantiae, says, The road of Chou is (smooth) like a whetstone, it is straight like an arrow; that is where the noblemen tread, where the (small men:) commoners look on. (Karlgren, 154) The road built by the Zhou people was so flat and wide that carriages and horses could speed along it, but only the nobles were permitted to stroll there, while ordinary people could only gaze on it. The producers of material civilization remained at the bottom of the social hierarchy, even though they worked hard from morning until night. Such a cry, as sung through the voice of the laborers, is a strong protest against the “noblemen” and a realistic depiction of inequality in the society of the time. Through their intuitive observation of life, the ancestors of the Zhou people acquired a strong, tangible feeling for depicting it, whether as perceived in the present or as a connection to the historical past. Whether it is the theme of political and military affairs or the reflection of individual

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lives, the lyrical heroes of the poems are a manifestation of the historical and realistic tradition of the Classic of Poetry. The “Shengmin” (Mao 245) in the Greater Elegantiae traces the deeds of Houji, the founder of the Zhou nation. The description of his exceptional achievements in agriculture contains rich historical information about ancient agricultural production. Moreover, the poem contains vivid descriptions of crops, such as large beans, hemp, wheat, gourds, and so on. The poem carefully observes Houji’s planting of crops and their growth cycle, describing everything from germination to the emergence of seedlings, the forming of ears of grain, and maturing of the fruit. In addition, there are copious other depictions of nature by the composers of the Classic of Poetry, who presented their abundant experiences of life and reality through poetic expression. Regarding historical connections, apart from the often-cited “Great Preface” and “Lesser Preface,” a typical example is the book Shijing shiben guyi by He Kai (1594–1645) composed in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.21 He aimed to link annotated events in poems with a poetic–historical perspective. That is, through miscellaneous annotations and examining references to historical events or the words of former sages, he identifies the socio-political conditions of individual reigns reflected in each poem. Although many of the conclusions in the book are far-fetched and untenable, this method of poetic interpretation reflects the tradition of historicizing the Classic of Poetry through textual elaboration. “Wen Wang” in the Greater Elegantiae exemplifies historical contextualization. Ji Chang or King Wen, revered as a great founding hero of Zhou, is a recurring figure in the Classic of Poetry, with this poem leading the sequence. The poem emphasizes how the heavenly mandate was transferred from the Shang to King Wen, owing to his supreme virtue and excellent reputation. In the poem, King Wen is regarded as the Son of Heaven, possessing extraordinary personality and wisdom, a model of morality, and the embodiment of Heaven’s will. The mythologizing of King Wen’s image represents the tacit agreement between the individual lives of the composers and their deity. This extends the survival of the ancestors to their tangible sense of life and access. In the Classic of Poetry, the composers’ ancestors are both the practitioners of their way of life and the expression of their sense of reality, as well as the inheritors of their ever-changing but continuous will to live. The realistic poetic tradition and tendencies of the Classic of Poetry are underscored by the thoughts, feelings, and everyday activities of individual lives. In this way, we can truly enter the world of life as experienced by individuals in antiquity and recover their original state of existence. This kind of poetry, which records both the genuine experience of life and the vigorous will to live, is a window into the inner world of the Zhou ancestors, the source of the Chinese realist poetic tradition. More importantly, it captures the vitality of a people, or even a civilization, that lives and breathes. This will to live is a simple yet profound attitude. It is in this will to live that the history of the people has been passed down from generation to generation.

Notes 1 James Legge, The Chinese Classics, Vol. 4, She King; or, the Book of Poetry (Hong Kong: London Missionary Society’s Printing Office, 1871). It is also so titled in other two translations by Chinese scholars. Xu Yuanchong (1921–2021), Book of Poetry (Changsha: Hunan chubanshe, 1993); and Wang Rongpei and Ren Xiuhua, The Book of Poetry (Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu chubanshe, 1995). Clement Francis Romilly Allen (1844–1920) translates it as The Book of Chinese Poetry (1891). 2 Launcelot Cranmer-Byng, Book of Odes (Shi-king) (London: John Murray, 1908); Karlgren published his Glosses on the Book of Odes in three separate issues (14, 16, 18) of the Bulletin of the Museum of Far

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Further Reading Baxter, William H. A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1996. Chen Zhi. “A New Reading of Yen-yen (Mao 28).” T’oung Pao 85 (1999): 1–28. Chen Zhi. The Shaping of the Book of Songs: From Ritualization to Secularization. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2007.

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The Classic of Poetry Chen Zhi. Shishu liyue zhong de chuantong [The Legacy of Odes, Documents, Ritual Music]. Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Publishing House, 2012. Cranmer-Byng, Launcelot. Book of Odes (Shi-king). London: John Murray, 1908. Granet, Marcel. Fetes et chansons ancienne de la Chine. Paris: Leroux, 1919; English transl: Festivals and Songs of Ancient China. London: G. Routledge, 1932. Hunter, Michael. The Poetics of Early Chinese Thought: How the Shijing Shaped the Chinese Philosophical Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press, 2021. Jennings, William. The Shi King, the Old “Poetry Classic” of the Chinese. London and New York: G. Routledge and Sons, 1891. Karlgren, Bernhard. The Book of Odes. Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1974. Karlgren, Bernhard. Glosses on the Book of Odes. Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1964. Legge, James. The Chinese Classics, Vol. 4, She King; or, the Book of Poetry. Hong Kong: London Missionary Society’s Printing Office, 1871. Lewis, Mark Edward. Writing and Authority in Early China. New York: State University of New York Press, 1999. Maoshi zhengyi [The Correct Interpretation of the Maoshi]. Shisanjing zhushu [Notes and Commentaries on the Thirteen Classics]. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2009. Wang, C. H. Bell and Drum: Shih Ching as Formulaic Poetry in an Oral Tradition. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974. Wang Xianqian. Shi sanjia yi jishu [Collected Commentaries on the Three Masters’ Interpretations of Shijing]. Taibei: Mingwen Shuju, 1988. Zheng Qiao. Liujing aolun [The Commentaries on the Six Classics]. In Tongzhitang jingjie (Tongzhitang Classics Interpretation). Taibei: Dadong shuju, 1969. Zhu Xi. Shijizhuan [Collected Commentaries on Shijing]. Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1958.

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2 QU YUAN AND THE SONGS OF CHU Trever McKay

Qu Yuan (c. 343–278 bc) lived in the state of Chu during the Warring States period and was the nominal founder of a short-lived yet highly influential literary genre called Chuci (Songs of Chu or Songs of the South). He possessed a larger-than-life personality, a shamanic-inspired imagination, and transcendent wordsmithing. Works attributed to him, such as “Encountering Sorrow” (lisao) and the “Nine Songs” (jiuge), combined with later imitative pieces, were bundled together in the Han dynasty under the title Chuci. Due to its freer form and flowery, expressive nature, this anthology had a strong influence on the development of the rhapsody (fu) in the Han dynasty, as well as on poetry and fantastical stories of later dynasties.

Qu Yuan As Qu Yuan is the central figure of this anthology, understanding him is key to appreciating Songs of Chu. Yet he remains an enigmatic figure with no clear textual attestation from the Warring States period.1 The first mention of him currently known is Jia Yi’s (200–168 bc) “A Rhapsody Mourning Qu Yuan” (Diao Qu Yuan fu), written after Jia was banished to Changsha in the south during the reign of Emperor Wen of Han (r. 180–157 bc). It informs us that Jia Yi heard of Qu Yuan from others (ze wen)—perhaps after he arrived in Changsha or on the way there, that Qu Yuan had been a man of virtue in a fallen world and was misunderstood by his lord, and that in the end he drowned himself in the Miluo River. This represents the earliest known account of Qu Yuan outside the Chuci anthology. Several decades later, Sima Qian (145/135–c. 87 bc) wrote a biography on Qu Yuan—also after traveling to where Qu Yuan died—and coupled it with one on Jia Yi (including his rhapsody on Qu Yuan).2 Curiously, the biography does not represent the polished writing that Sima Qian exhibits in other chapters of Shiji; rather, it is a pastiche from various incongruous sources. While these sources have not been fully identified, they likely include Liu An’s (179–122 bc) explanation of “Encountering Sorrow.”3 Later, other Han scholars also wrote about Qu Yuan and his works. The traditional understanding of Qu Yuan comes from Sima Qian’s biography and these writings. Summarized, they portray Qu Yuan as an official in Chu during the reign of King Huai (328–299 bc). With the surname Qu, he belonged to a collateral line of the royal clan. His erudition and strong DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-4 

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memory enabled him to ascend to a high position in the Chu court. This later brought on the slandering machinations of other officials, resulting in Qu Yuan falling out of favor with the king and being banished. Distraught that his loyalty and pure intentions would be so easily falsified in the king’s mind, he wrote “Encountering Sorrow” during his exile and, at some point, committed ritual suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River as a display of his loyalty to the king. Qu Yuan’s writings and his staunch loyalty led to his becoming a local hero, the founder of this new literary genre, and the patron saint for frustrated scholars of subsequent generations. Qu Yuan’s importance and what can be known about him, however, extend beyond this understanding in Han texts. If we follow the consensus and view him as the author of at least “Encountering Sorrow,” then he is the first known poet of China. While names of poets on rare occasion appear in the Odes (Shijing), virtually nothing is known about them.4 Yet, with Qu Yuan, as David Hawkes observes, “for the first time in the history of literature, the authentic voice of the Chinese poet is heard. . . . In fact, the voice that speaks to us in Lisao sounds remarkably like the sort of person [Sima Qian’s] biography describes: a learned, religious, outspoken, old-fashioned type of aristocrat-official, loyal to his royal kinsman but at odds with the newfangledness of the age.”5 Viewing Qu Yuan, as Hawkes does, as an official who happens to be well-versed in the shamanism of the region is one possible reading. The other, detailed by Zheng Zaiying (1938–2017), but following in the footsteps of Wen Yiduo (1899–1946) and others, portrays Qu Yuan as coming from a lustrous family of shamans, with a shorter stint in officialdom. This is the reason, Zheng avers, for Qu’s curious assertion of his background in “Encountering Sorrow” by referencing only Gaoyang and his father Boyong.6 Qu Yuan’s reference to Gaoyang alludes to his role in the separation of gods and men, thus making the shaman an important part of society.7 Qu’s reference to his father and the latter’s divining for a beautiful name for his son, born on the first of the year, implies his father was also a shaman.8 Viewing his brief background as focused on his shamanic heritage lends a layer of clarity that is helpful in linking it to the shaman-heavy content of “Encountering Sorrow.” Also, in “Encountering Sorrow,” after Qu Yuan realizes the fickleness of his lord and his own loss of status, a woman called Nüxu tries to persuade him against his determined course of action. She “was fearful and clung to me imploringly. . . . ‘Why be so lofty, with your passion for purity? . . . Why must you be so aloof? Why not heed my counsel?’” (Hawkes, 71–72)9 Some scholars assert that Nüxu was his sister; others say a concubine. In Shuowen jiezi, it states, “the people of Chu call their older sisters xu.”10 Xu Shen also states elsewhere that in Chu, the younger sister was called wei 媦 instead of mei 妹 (Duan, 615). Thus, it seems determinable that Qu Yuan had an older sister as well. Beyond these, additional details about Qu Yuan’s life are available only if other poems are viewed as being authored by him. For example, some Chinese scholars read “Nine Sections” (jiuzhang) as being written by Qu Yuan. One of those poems, “Crossing the Yangtze River” (shejiang), has Qu Yuan riding west to E’zhu, then taking a boat up the Yuan River. Another, “Lamenting the Capital Ai” (ai ying), mentions fleeing the capital and moving eastward, as well as following the waterways “into exile.” It laments that the author was “cast off and banished” unjustly. If these were written by him, they show him traveling in many different directions, leading scholars to concoct different theories about how many times he was banished, exiled, and so on. However, there is no strong indication that Qu Yuan wrote these poems; it seems more likely they were written by later poets. Qu Yuan exerted a deep influence on Chinese culture. In many respects, his life and later cultural roles are not unlike that of Confucius. Both had a strong sense of how the government should be 23

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run, and, because they were unwilling to yield their ideals, they were left with no choice but to leave their homes—Qu Yuan being banished and Confucius choosing self-exile. Their perspectives on life and society made them into posthumous local heroes. Their frustration with the inability of the world to embrace the ideal resonated with later generations. During the Han dynasty, their regional influence expanded in large part due to the admiration of rulers and scholars. Qu Yuan’s writings and Confucius’ teachings further inspired countless literati and officials. Now, one is known as the first poet of China and the other its first teacher. At present, both have national holidays associated with them—the Dragon Boat Festival for Qu Yuan and Teachers’ Day for Confucius. Both gained a form of immortality through the written word. Yet Qu Yuan falls far short of Confucius in his renown in the Western world.

Formation and Authorship of the Songs of Chu From our current textual vantage point, it is unknown what kind of anthology, if any, existed in pre-Qin times. The genre seems to have begun with Qu Yuan, and specifically with his “Encountering Sorrow.” Qu Yuan’s contemporaries and later generations continued writing similar poetry. In the Warring States, Song Yu, Tang Le, and Jing Cuo (290–223 bc) followed in his literary footsteps.11 Sima Qian notes that they learned from his graceful style but did not imitate his propensity for directly remonstrating with the king (Shiji, 84.249). This imitation continued with subsequent writers in the Han, who often used Qu Yuan as the protagonist. The term “Chuci” signified a genre of writing during Emperor Wu’s time (see Shiji 122.3143 and Hanshu 28B.1668) but did not specifically refer to the anthology until perhaps Liu Xiang (77–6 bc) or at the latest Wang Yi (fl. 140).12 David Hawkes pushes the initial compilation earlier based on the original order of the poems in Wang Yi’s edition. This, he informs us, is based on “textual notes of a twelfth-century editor” (Hawkes, 31).13 According to this unnamed editor, the original order was not chronological, as it is in the received text.14 This original order then shows different strata of compilation. The first nine poems included the seven attributed to Qu Yuan, “Nine Changes” (jiubian) attributed to Song Yu, and “Summoning the Recluse” (zhao yinshi) by Liu An (r. 164–122 bc). The next stratum has “Summoning the Soul” (zhaohun) by Song Yu, along with three more, the last of which is by Liu Xiang. The last layer was compiled by Wang Yi: after adding one poem each by Zhuang Ji (fl. 150 bc),15 Jia Yi, and Jing Cuo, he adds his own “Nine Longings” (jiusi) to round out the collection (Hawkes, 30–31). It does not seem probable that all the poems attributed to Qu Yuan were written by him. Consequently, some scholars have turned to Sima Qian’s biography for a more contemporary source on what Qu Yuan may have written. While well intentioned, such an approach is done without an understanding of Sima Qian’s historical methodology. First, he compiled Shiji before Liu Xiang spearheaded China’s interest in bibliographic studies, so he was not concerned about making a catalog of who wrote what. Second, Sima Qian was not interested only in pure historical facts, as Western historians are; rather, he composed both a cultural history and a blueprint in the vein of the Annals (Chunqiu) to show how society should best be ordered. On the level of the individual, he was mainly concerned with how personality and choices lead to one’s end in life. Thus, he cites texts only to the extent that they further his overall aim in composing a biography. So, while he writes, “When I read ‘Encountering Sorrow,’ ‘Heavenly Questions,’ ‘Summoning the Soul,’ and ‘Lamenting Ying,’ I grieved over his determination,” this should not be viewed as a complete bibliography of Qu Yuan’s writings. Sima Qian also quotes from “Embracing Sand” (huaisha) and “Fisherman” (yufu) as details regarding Qu Yuan’s life, but many of these poems do not hold up to scrutiny (Shiji, 84.2503 et passim). For example, “Fisherman” is written in the third person about 24

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Qu Yuan and exhibits a strong Daoist bent. The poem “Divining” (buju), also attributed to Qu Yuan, does the same. Others, such as “Journeying Afar” (yuanyou), quote lines from “Encountering Sorrow,” which would be an odd approach if written by Qu Yuan. Many of the poems attributed to him read like they were written by later followers or admirers. In all, the received version has seventeen titles attributed to ten authors, seven of which were from the Han dynasty. Shiji and the Hanshu make it clear that many more scholars were writing Chu poems during Western Han, in part due to the patronage of the emperors.16 Why only works from these seven were included is never discussed. It is interesting to note that the majority of them had a direct affiliation with the Chu region. Liu An was given a fiefdom in Shouchun, which was the last capital of Chu (Hanshu, 28B.1668); Jia Yi wrote about Qu Yuan after being banished to Changsha; Zhuang Ji was from Wu, which was part of Chu toward the end of the Warring States; Liu Xiang’s family was from Fengyi, and his great-great-grandfather, King Yuan of Chu (d. 178 bc), was the younger brother of Emperor Gaozu (d. 195 bc); and Wang Yi was from Yicheng, which was an administrative city in Chu during the Spring and Autumn period.17 The poems written in the Han seem to be of less importance than those attributed to Qu Yuan. His larger-than-life persona overpowers any literary genius expressed in the works of other authors in the Songs of Chu, so much so that they often seem like footnotes to his literary creations rather than later works in the same genre. As such, some editions and translations have left out many of these Han poems.18

Contents of Songs of Chu As a whole, the Songs of Chu is a rather unwieldy collection that is difficult for the modern reader to make sense of. There are layers upon layers of imagery, references to cultural practices not well understood, and allusions to lost ancient history and myth. To resolve these problems, Hawkes proffers a framework to begin making more orderly sense of them. He divides the poems into three main categories based on thematic content: 1) tristia, or poems that express sorrow, complaints, and unrealized ambition or talent—the elements that led to later poets viewing Qu Yuan as a patron saint for frustrated scholars; 2) itineria, or poems that discuss traveling, both actual and fantastical; and 3) shamanistic poems, including “Nine Songs,” the “Summoning the Soul,” and “Heavenly Questions” (tianwen).19 While this paradigm adequately describes the main content of the collection, most poems do not fit into only one category. Take the crown jewel of the collection, “Encountering Sorrow”—it contains elements of all three, while “Nine Sections” (jiuzhang) exhibits aspects of the first two. In terms of poetic composition, Songs of Chu is quite different from the Odes. The poems most often use rhymed quatrains of lines five or six characters long. “Heavenly Questions” is the exception, with its Odes-esque four-syllable lines. There is a ubiquitous use of xi 兮 throughout the collection, which some have described as a breathing or pause insertion. Six of the seventeen poems have a “nine” in the title, and another has a “seven.” This primarily denotes the number of short poems in the group, although some scholars link this to ancient Chinese numerology. Another characteristic feature of Songs of Chu is the luan (often translated as “coda” or “envoi”) found at the end of many poems.20 This is a short summary verse, sometimes in a different meter. A common theme in the codas is that of not fitting in with the world, often employing the symbolism of a phoenix being aloof from the other birds and animals. Liu Xie (c. 465–520) has observed, “Without Qu Yuan, how could there be an ‘Encountering Sorrow’?”21 “Encountering Sorrow,” in turn, functions as the bellwether for the collection. Almost every other poem is derivative and often exhibits signs of heavy borrowing. Many of the later 25

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poems either reference Qu Yuan, quote lines from “Encountering Sorrow,” or discuss the same theme of being misunderstood by a benighted ruler and elbowed out by sycophantic officials. It is as if Qu Yuan struck a chord with later scholars and gave voice to the pent-up emotions and helpless frustration they felt, with their later works merely echoing this chord. Given the similar and derivative nature of most of the poems, the following section will only examine the first three poems in detail: “Encountering Sorrow,” “Nine Songs,” and “Heavenly Questions,” as these are all unique and warrant explanation.

“Encountering Sorrow” “Lisao” is the foundational piece of the Songs of Chu collection. Its title has two potential interpretations, depending on how the poem is read: to encounter sorrows, or to leave them. Unfortunately, the poem itself does not give a clear indication for one interpretation or the other. This is because li is used both ways in the poem. Line 49 has libie (to separate) in speaking of being cut off from the king, and line 111 uses liyou (to come into trouble) when speaking of his reluctance to return to the king. Throughout the lengthy poem, the conflicting emotions of leaving and wanting to return but being repeatedly thwarted are in constant tension. So, while the English translation must commit to one of the two interpretations, the original is best read as a double entendre. It is understood to be the work of Qu Yuan about himself, although he never mentions himself specifically as Qu Yuan or Qu Ping. Instead, the given name and style name he provides in the poem are Zhengze and Lingjun, respectively. From at least Wang Yi on, scholars have understood this to be a pun of sorts on his name, a way to talk about himself without being direct.22 The poem covers many aspects of his life, including his ancestry, his birth and naming, his falling out of favor with the king and subsequent banishment, his discussion with his sister Nüxu, and later his desire to end his life. His use of yu and wu (“I” or “me”) totals more than 75 times, imbuing it with an even stronger sense of a self-narrative. Still, its true magic is found in its merging intense pathos with political commentary and an otherworldly, shamanistic vision peppered with Chu symbolism. A summary of its content is as follows: after delineating his heritage and family status, Qu Yuan is seen trying to get the ruler to change his errant ways. His remonstrations are rejected, after which he engages in a lengthy mental discussion that is part pep talk, part soliloquy on flowers and self-adornment. Most commentators understand his frequent references to thoroughwort, lotus, angelica, chrysanthemums, and other fragrant flowers as metaphors for his virtue and admirable traits. He vacillates between returning to his lord to try again and leaving to “go and visit all the world’s quarters” (line 122). At this critical juncture, his sister Nüxu admonishes him to be more accommodating; instead, he travels south to state his case before Chonghua, another name for the ancient sage emperor Shun. This seems to be some sort of sacrificial oratory at Shun’s tomb. Qu Yuan objects to his unjust treatment, claiming “I have looked back into the past and forward into later ages,/examining the outcomes of men’s different designs./Where is the unrighteous man who could be trusted?” (lines 169–71). Thereupon, he embarks on his first spiritual journey, having yoked four dragons to pull his chariot. This is a wild ride past clouds and rainbows, through whirlwinds, visiting the Pool of Heaven and fusang trees, and beyond. Qu Yuan seems to have a different status on this trip, for he orders about many powerful beings, including Xi He (the driver of the sun), Wang Shu (the driver of the moon), and the Wind God. Eventually, he makes it to the doors of Heaven, whereupon the gatekeeper refuses to open them and merely stares back at him. 26

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Rejected, he is back in the mortal realm; the next day he embarks on a quest to woo a lady. His three attempts each fail. These seem to be symbolic stand-ins for a wise ruler, for he concludes, “The wise king slumbers and will not be awakened/. . . How can I endure this until the end of my days?” (lines 254, 256). At a loss as to what to do, he has Lingfen divine for him. The answer is to “think of the vastness of the wide world/. . . Why need you always cleave to your old home?” (lines 261, 266). Unable to muster the courage to follow this advice, he hears that Wuxian will descend that night, so he waits for a second opinion. Yet the answer is the same: travel elsewhere for your perfect match. A bout of self-talk leads him to conclude, “I will go off wandering to look for a lady” (line 330). So he sets off again on another cosmic journey, accompanied by phoenixes and commanding water dragons and the God of the West to aid in his journey. They leave in a flurry of ecstasy, traveling through the sky dancing and playing music. However, at the peak of his arc, he glimpses his old home and can no longer travel on. Given his inability to move elsewhere and his lord’s inability to wake up to the path of righteousness, Qu Yuan is left with only one choice: “Since none is worthy to work with in making good government,/I shall go and join Peng Xian in the place where he resides” (line 371–72). While this is an enchanting journey, it is also rather jarring to read of Qu Yuan being rejected by the king one minute, then flying through the air in a dragon-drawn chariot commanding the gods to do his bidding the next, or to see his anxiety and melancholy suddenly morph into romantic desires to pursue a bride. In a word, there seems to be a disconnect between the various scenes. Michael Hunter has proffered a cogent explanation for this that draws from Odes poetics. He finds that poems in the Odes exhibit strong movement, which is “profoundly kinetic.”23 Primary among these movements is the desire to return. Various poems in the collection contain aspects of separation and return, especially in terms of military campaigns (zheng). Various poems address this from the viewpoints of the homesick driver with his road-weary horse, the man on the march, the woman left behind, and the victorious king (Hunter, 146). While individual poems in the Odes only take one point of view, Hunter argues “Encountering Sorrow” utilizes them all to explore the tension between returning and leaving. In this light, lines 17–104 depict the homesick driver and his uncomfortable separation; in lines 105–128, Qu Yuan becomes “a toiling ‘campaigner’ or ‘man on the march,’” with his eyes suddenly turning back in longing; lines 129–141 employ the same terminology and imagery as odes on wives left all alone while the husbands are on their campaign; in lines 183–208, he transitions into the lavishness of a king on the march (with added supernatural elements), which explains his commanding of the various gods; then in lines 213–256, he becomes a suitor in search of a mate; the last scene in lines 337–364 is a repetition of the theme of the king on the march. Thus, Qu Yuan’s “progress through ‘[Encountering] Sorrow’ isn’t a literal campaign but a movement through different roles associated with the Shi” (Hunter, 156). This explanation, while insufficient to elucidate the entire poem, does make clear sense of the disjointed scenes that unfold. “Encountering Sorrow” is a tour de force that is at once personal and mystical, full of pathos and devoid of hope, plain in its gist and whirling with symbols. It is little wonder that Wang Yi, or perhaps another scholar in the Han dynasty, appended the word “classic” (jing) to it.

“Nine Songs” “Jiuge” or “Nine Songs” is a title borrowed from a very ancient myth. The Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shanhai jing) records, “[Qi] went up on high three times to the sky as a guest, and he succeeded in getting the ‘Nine Changes’ [Jiubian] and the ‘Nine Songs’ and brought them back down to earth.”24 This same incident is referenced twice in the collection: a line in “Heavenly Questions” 27

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echoes this: “Qi was many times the guest of God in heaven and brought back the Nine Changes and Nine Songs” (Hawkes, 129), whereas “Encountering Sorrow” has a slightly pejorative twist: “Singing the Nine Songs and dancing the Nine Changes, Qi of Xia made revelry and knew no restraint” (Hawkes, 75). The Nine Songs were viewed in the same vein as the fusang tree and other symbols of otherworldliness. Accordingly, at the end of “Encountering Sorrow,” as Qu Yuan is ascending into heaven, the Nine Songs are being played, and the shao dances are being performed. The “Nine Songs” in Songs of Chu shares only a title with this legend. The content of the songs is very much oriented to this world, albeit reaching for the transcendent. The songs depict, from multiple perspectives, a shamanistic celebration and wooing of various gods. Each of the first nine songs has the name of a deity for its title, beginning with the Sovereign of the Eastern Sky, the Great Unity (donghuang taiyi), and spanning various river gods, the gods of fate, the sun god, and a mountain god, indicating whose attention and blessings are being courted. As a whole, they read like a text for ritual performance or a description thereof. The first song opens with “On a lucky day with an auspicious name/Reverently we come to delight the Lord on High” (Hawkes, 102). This delighting is manifest in using singing, beautiful dancing, fragrant flowers and plants, and jade and other attractive adornments to entice the gods to descend. Of course, the gods often prove very fickle. In the third song, the petitioner laments, I waft my magic, but it does not reach her. The lady is sad, and sighs for me. And my tears run down over cheek and chin. I am choked with longing for my lady. (Hawkes, 107) This same sentiment permeates several of the songs. Feelings of longing and laments of impermanence are directed toward not only the gods but also the dead. The first nine songs are about the gods, but the last two are entitled “Hymn to the Fallen” (Guoshang) and “Honoring the Dead” (Lihun). That there are eleven songs total in “Nine Songs” has perplexed many scholars. However, in observing season-specific references in some songs and the fact that the third and fourth songs are about two goddesses of the Xiang River, while the fifth and six are about the greater and lesser gods of fate, Hawkes builds on the research of Aoki Masaru (1887–1964) in showing the likelihood that these were texts used in rituals twice a year—once in the spring and once in the fall. Songs 3 and 5 would have been used in the spring and Songs 4 and 6 in the autumn, meaning only nine were performed each time (Hawkes, 100–01). This model finds poignantly beautiful supporting evidence in the ending lines of the last song: “Orchids in spring and chrysanthemums in autumn:/So it shall go on until the end of time.” What the wooing of gods has to do with commemorating the dead is not specifically clear. But this is not a problem with this interpretative model as much as it is an enigma inherent in “Nine Songs.”

“Heavenly Questions” “Tianwen” has been traditionally translated as “Heavenly Questions.” However, some confusion exists regarding the meaning of the title. Is tian wen a polite way to say wen tian (asking Heaven)? Or is tian anything that is beyond mortal comprehension? Or does the title only refer to the first part of the poem (questions about the celestial realm and the formation of the earth)? All of these explanations have been put forth by scholars. While the first part of the poem contains questions regarding the universe, the Heavens, and the earth, the vast majority of the 172 questions pertain 28

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to ancient mythology and history. Topics include Yao, Shun, Xia history and myth, Shang history and myth, Zhou history, and even some questions about Chu. These are questions about people and historical events—and not just about factual details but more about the whys and the wherefores. The underlying assumption of the poem is that there are laws and bounds to the Heavens, the earth, the sky, and man. What are those bounds? What are the fundamental laws and rules? Scholars often link this unique poem with similar queries into the origins of Heaven and earth found in Chapter 14 of Zhuangzi or even “Fanwu liuxing” (All things flow into form).25 In the Zhuangzi passage, after “The heavens: are they spinning? The earth: is it standing still?” and other such questions, the interlocutor ends with “I venture to ask why it all happens!”26 Curiously, the shaman Xian is there to respond to these questions. Linked with the fact that the last vignette in Zhuangzi is of a strange man from the south named Huang Liao, who asks why the heavens do not fall down and the earth does not collapse, it seems that Chu in the south is associated with such queries. But “Heavenly Questions” goes beyond wondering about the root of cosmology to include the world of man—both actual history and myths conceived about it. In this regard, many of the topics queried in “Heavenly Questions” can be found in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, which Lu Xun and others view as being from Chu.27 Structurally it differs from the other poems in that it does not contain xi. In addition, it starts with yue (“it is said”), which implies Qu Yuan is quoting content from elsewhere. Some have suggested that this is some sort of shamanic catechism, which is tenable; however, modern knowledge of Chu shamanism is insufficient to make a clear determination. One of the issues with understanding the gist of “Heavenly Questions” is that the ending is garbled, ostensibly due to a mixing up of the bamboo slats upon which it was written (a not-uncommon occurrence in ancient China). Were the text not garbled at the end, perhaps it would be clearer if, in the last few lines or stanzas, the poet’s voice were heard. Most reconstruction efforts done by Chinese scholars result in a text portraying Qu Yuan’s feelings of hopelessness concerning the benightedness of the ruler or the imminent demise of the Chu. If accurate, this could be the reason for the meandering question chain. Certain lines support this kind of moral interpretation. For example, in lines 99–100 the poem states, Shun served his brother, but his brother still did him evil. Why, when he behaved worse than a brute beast to Shun, did Shun’s brother come to no harm? Or in lines 143–44, Who was it that led King Zhou into folly? Why did he hate his ministers and let flatterers and backbiters serve him? And specifically, in lines 165–66, When High God in heaven confers His mandate, how does He give notice of it? When he has bestowed dominion over the world on one, why does He take it away and give it to another? (Songs of the South, 130–33) Thus, a likely interpretation is that Qu Yuan adapts and perhaps expands a pre-existing text to explore the reasons why there seems to be a lack of correlation between one’s actions and just retribution from Heaven. 29

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Later Influence The individual writings of Qu Yuan and his literary disciples Tang Le, Song Yu, and Jing Cuo had a direct and deep impact on the development of the Han rhapsody (fu), which had by Emperor Wu’s reign become one of the most prevalent forms of literary expression. Rhapsodies are most well known as lexicographic in nature, lauding to excess a specific place or object. This style is traceable to Songs of Chu, especially to the first part of “Ode to the Orange Tree” (ju song) in the “Nine Sections,” which extols the virtues and characteristics of an orange tree; the section of “Summons of the Soul” meant to entice the soul back with its descriptions of the luxurious palace and the lively party; and “Great Summons” (dazhao) with its specific focus on the cuisine, music, women, and hunting in Chu. In addition, Jia Yi wrote what has later been termed saofu, or “rhapsody of frustration.” This genre continued with Dong Zhongshu (179–104 bc), Sima Qian, Ban Gu, and so on.28 As Mark Lewis has observed, “The ‘Li sao’ and the related poems brought together all Han scholars who felt insufficiently appreciated or ignored by the ruler, as evidenced by the poem of Jia Yi, the biography in Shiji, and the swelling body of Han rhapsodies of scholarly grievance.”29 In subsequent dynasties, the Songs of Chu continued to exert influence on both poetry and fiction. Poems on wandering immortals (youxianshi), for example, by Cao Zhi and others became very popular during the Six Dynasties. These were strongly influenced by “Encountering Sorrow” and “Journeying Afar.” In addition, the abundance of symbolism in Songs of Chu gave rise to what was later termed poems on fragrant plants and beautiful women (xiangcao meiren). Cao Zhi continued developing Qu Yuan’s political symbolism of fragrant plants representing talented ministers and virtuous abilities, while beautiful women often indicated the ruler. His poem “The Rejected Wife” (qifu shi) and its inferred reference to Cao Cao killing Wang Song is an example of this. This style of poetry also affected the romantic poetry of the Six Dynasty, as is attested by many similar references to plants and women in New Poems of a Jade Terrace, albeit with much less political symbolism. In the Tang, Li Shangyin continued to develop this genre, especially with his “Untitled Poems” (wuti). The Songs of Chu also exerted some indirect influence on the fantastical element of Tang and Song chuanqi stories, especially those describing the protagonist traveling or being summoned to meet a god. Several stories in Qu You’s (1347–1433) New Stories Told while Trimming the Wick (Jiandeng xinhua) during the Ming dynasty borrow lines, imagery, or symbolism from Songs of Chu.

Notes 1 Hawkes lists “Buju” [Divining How to Live in the World] and “Yufu” [Fisherman] as potential exceptions to this, given they mention specific facts about Qu Yuan that do not seem to be known in the Han. See Hawkes, Songs of the South (London: Penguin Books, 2011), 203. 2 Sima Qian, Shiji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983), 84.2481–504. 3 See Ban Gu, Hanshu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), 44.2145. 4 See Martin Kern, “Authorship and the Shijing: Fate and Heroism in Early Chinese Poetry,” L’annuaire du Collège de France 111 (2012): 887–90. 5 David Hawkes, “Review of A Madman of Ch’u: The Chinese Myth of Loyalty and Dissent by Laurence A. Schneider,” CLEAR 4, no. 2 (July 1982): 246. 6 Zheng Zaiying, Chuci tanqi [Exploring Marvels in Chuci] (Taipei: Wanjuanlou, 1994), 9–13. 7 See Xu Yuangao, Guoyu jijie [Collected Annotations on Discourse of States] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2006), 512–15. 8 For further explanation on his day of birth, see Hawkes, “Review of A Madman of Ch’u,” 79–81. 9 All citations of the Songs of the South will be from Hawkes’ translation.

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Qu Yuan and the Songs of Chu 10 Duan Yucai, Shuowen jiezi zhu [Explaining Single-Component Graphs and Analyzing Compound Characters] (Taipei: Hanjing wenhua, 1983), 617. 11 Not much is known about them apart from random anecdotes in the Hanshi waizhuan [Outer Commentary on Han’s Odes], Xinxu [New Narratives] and a piece discovered in the Yinqueshan Han tomb texts titled “Tang Le.” 12 Hong Xingzu’s (1090–1155) Chuci buzhu [Supplementary Annotations to the Songs of Chu] lists Liu Xiang as the initiator of the anthology and Wang Yi as the commentator. See Hong Xingzu, Chuci buzhu (Taipei: Yiwen yinshuguan, 1996), 5. 13 A glimpse of this different order can be seen in Wang Yi’s annotations. In “Jiubian,” he explains the meaning of “jiu” (nine). This is odd, because in the current ordering of his text, “Jiuge” and “Jiuzhang” precede “Jiubian,” implying that “Jiubian” used to be first. See Hong Xingzu, Chuci buzhu, 299. 14 According to Fu Xiren, this reordering of the poems was done in 1032. See Xinyi Chuci duben (Taipei: Sanmin shuju, 2003), 174. 15 Ban Gu changed his surname to Yan in Hanshu to avoid using the personal name of Emperor Ming. 16 Hanshu records, “Emperor Gaozu enjoyed songs from Chu, so the imperial music played in the palace was Chu in style” (Hanshu, 22.1043). Scholars such as Zhu Maichen and Yan Zhu were promoted to official positions for their ability to write Chu-styled poems during Emperor Wu’s reign (Shiji, 122.3143). 17 Not enough historical information is available on Dongfang Shuo and Wang Bao, although the latter had some interaction with Liu Xiang. 18 See, for example, Xianyi Yang and Gladys Yang’s translation, Li sao and Other Poems of Qu Yuan (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1953). 19 David Hawkes, “The Quest of the Goddess,” Asia Major 13 (1967): 84. 20 “Jiutan” [Nine Laments] marks its coda with a tan, or “lament.” 21 Vincent Yu-chung Shih, trans., The Literary Mind and the Carving of the Dragons (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), 31. 22 See, for example, Pauline Yu, The Reading of Imagery in the Chinese Poetic Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 86. Gopal Sukhu has a very different reading of the poem’s beginning, viewing it as a description of a spirit descending rather than of Qu Yuan’s birth. Such a reading seems to focus on one or two characters and neglect the rest. See The Shaman and the Heresiarch: A New Interpretation of the Li Sao (Albany: SUNY Press, 2012), 39–40. For an explanation of Qu Yuan’s name, see Cong Yaoting, Qu Yuan fu bianyi [A Study and Translation of Rhapsodies by Qu Yuan] (Beijing: Gugong chubanshe, 2012), 23. 23 Michael Hunter, The Poetics of Early Chinese Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 2021), 35–36. 24 Anne Birrell, trans., The Classic of Mountains and Seas (London: Penguin Books, 1999), 177. Minor changes to the translation were made for coherence with the subsequent citations. Qi was the son of Yu the Great (ca. 2025 BC) and a king of the Xia dynasty. 25 For the latter, see “Fanwu liuxing,” in Shanghai bowuguan cang Zhanguo Chu zhujian (qi) [Bamboo Slips of the Warring States in Shanghai Museum], ed. Ma Chengyuan (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2008), 76–132, 220–300. 26 Brook Ziporyn, Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2020), 118. 27 For a list of related passages, see Zheng, Chuci tanqi, 112–16. 28 See Gong Kechang and David Knechtges, eds., Studies on the Han Fu (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1997), 3–4. 29 Mark Edward Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China (New York: SUNY, 1999), 190.

Further Reading Field, Stephen. Tian Wen: A Chinese Book of Origins. New Directions Publishing, 1986. Guo Moruo, annot., Xianyi Yang and Gladys Yang, trans. Li Sao and Other Poems of Qu Yuan. Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1953. Hawkes, David. The Songs of the South: An Anthology of Ancient Chinese Poems by Qu Yuan and Other Poets. London: Penguin, 1985, reprint 2011. Hong Xingzu. Chuci buzhu [Supplementary Notes to the Chuci]. Taipei: Yiwen yinshuguan, 1996. Hunter, Michael. “The Shi and the Verses of Chu.” In The Poetics of Early Chinese Thought: How the Shijing Shaped the Philosophical Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press, 2021.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature Schneider, Laurence. A Madman of Ch’u: The Chinese Myth of Loyalty and Dissent. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1980. Sukhu, Gopal. The Shaman and the Heresiarch: A New Interpretation of the Li Sao. Albany: SUNY Press, 2012. Sukhu, Gopal. The Songs of Chu: An Anthology of Ancient Chinese Poetry by Qu Yuan and Others. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. Waley, Arthur. The Nine Songs: A Study of Shamanism in Ancient China. London: Unwin Brothers Limited, 1956. Waters, Geoffrey. Three Elegies of Ch’u. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. Williams, Nicholas. Chinese Poetry as Soul Summoning: Shamanistic Religious Influences on Chinese Literary Tradition. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2022. Williams, Nicholas. Elegies of Chu. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. Yu, Pauline. “Imagery in ‘Encountering Sorrow.” In The Reading of Imagery in the Chinese Poetic Tradition, 84–117. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987.

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3 POETRY OF THE HAN Robert Joe Cutter

The literary form most closely identified with the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) is the fu, but hundreds of poems in other modes are also traditionally ascribed to the Han dynasty.1 Many of these pieces have played an important role in Chinese literary history. The most prominent and influential among them have been pentasyllabic-line poems, both yuefu and gushi. Discussions of the poetry of the period are complicated by issues of dating, attribution, textual variation, and classification; the principal sources for many often-anthologized pieces are relatively late, coming from the fifth and sixth centuries and beyond. At the risk of oversimplification, this brief account of Han poetry will focus largely on works employing the five-syllable line. In hindsight, this was a major development that took place mainly in the Later Han (25–220) and reached a high level of maturity and artistry in the Jian’an period (196–220), the last reign period of the Han.

Old Poems Gushi means “old poem” or “ancient poem.”2 Although the term has sometimes been used in a broad sense to refer to the poems of the Shijing and other early texts, it is more commonly applied to later poems, sometimes anonymous and often in five-syllable lines.3 Early uses of the term are found in the collection of anecdotes Shishuo xinyu, attributed to Liu Yiqing (403–444); Wenxin diaolong, the famous treatise on literature authored by Liu Xie (ca. 465–ca. 521); and the preeminent early medieval anthology Wen xuan, attributed to Xiao Tong (501–531). In all three cases, gushi refers to a particular set of poems contained in Wen xuan, there grouped under the title “Gushi shijiu shou,” or “Nineteen Old Poems.”4 Certain of these poems have been attributed to known individuals, such as Mei Sheng (d. 141 BCE) and Fu Yi (d. ca. 90), but these attributions are unfounded, and most modern scholars believe that the poems are anonymous compositions of uncertain date. A plausible and widely accepted view is that all or most come from near the end of the Han dynasty. In any case, later critics valued these poems for both their literary qualities and what was considered their place in the literary tradition. The poems in the set are in pentasyllabic lines, with a nearly universal preference for a caesura after the second syllable. Even-numbered lines are rhymed; this rhyming practice is essentially the only formal rule governing an old poem. Wen xuan has many poems using the five-syllable  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-5

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line; its employment in this group of much-admired anonymous poems is one sign of the growing popularity of that prosodic form during the late Han and early medieval periods. It should be noted, however, that the older tetrasyllabic line remained a frequently used form; it was even preferred by some poets and was de rigueur in certain contexts. The “Nineteen Old Poems” may be literary reworkings of popular material; their formulaic lines are offset by references to the paraphernalia and activities of upper-class life, and they appear to draw upon earlier works of Chinese literature in a way that untutored poets would be unlikely to do. The poems are readily intelligible and require no elaborate notes or commentary to explain them, but our understanding of them has been enhanced by sophisticated interpretations by modern scholars. A sense of melancholy informs a number of the pieces. Themes include such matters as the grief of separation or alienation, the brevity of human life, injunctions to carpe diem, and homesickness. Following are the ninth and eleventh poems (in the Wen xuan order):5 #9 In the courtyard is a marvelous tree; Its green leaves send forth a burst of blossoms. I pull down a branch and break off its flower, Intending to send it to the one I love. The sweet fragrance fills bosom and sleeve; The road is far and I cannot convey it there. This gift may not be worth offering, But I am moved by the length of time we’ve been apart. #11 Turning my carriage, I drive forth; Afar and afar, traversing the long road. On looking to every side, how boundless! An east wind riffles the grass. Nothing I encounter is as before: How can one not suddenly feel old? Rise and fall each have their time; I regret I did not sooner find success. Human life is not metal or stone, So how can we lengthen our lives? Suddenly we, like all things, die; A glorious reputation is what we prize. The designation “old poem” is not restricted to anonymous works such as “Nineteen Old Poems.” It stands juxtaposed to the later term “modern-style poetry” (jintishi or xintishi), which denotes the forms of prosodically determined “regulated verse” (lüshi) and quatrains (jueju) that, after a transitional phase in the late Six Dynasties, became a mainstream form of versification during and after the Tang (618–907). Thus, so-called “old poems” existed before modern-style poetry came into existence and do not follow the same strictures regarding number of lines, line length, antithesis, or tonal patterning that governed the new form.6 When we speak of old-style poems, we may mostly think of five- and seven-syllable-line pieces, especially the former; but in addition to 34

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the five-syllable line form, there are old-style poems that employ other line lengths: tetrasyllabic (usually with a caesura after the first two syllables) and heptasyllabic (usually with a caesura after the first four syllables). Rarer are three- and six-syllable line poems and those with irregular line lengths. Of course, old-style poetry was not entirely replaced by new forms. It continued to exist alongside them. In early medieval times, imitations of old poems by famous poets such as Lu Ji (261–303) and Bao Zhao (ca. 414–466) appear. The descriptives ni gu or ni gushi (“in imitation of an old poem”) were applied to such pieces by anthologists and critics.7 And from Tang times, we have poems written in the old style that are called gufeng, a term also meaning “old-style poem.” For example, fifty-nine such pieces were composed by the famous Tang poet Li Bai (701–761). Here is a gufeng from his contemporary Gao Shi (ca. 704–765): Dark and dreary beyond the Great Wall; At sundown staggered smoke and dust. Though Hu cavalry pose a threat, The Han soldiers are heedless of their lives. Ancient trees fill the vacant frontier, Yellow dust clouds worry men to death.8 At the beginning of the Han, poetry had remained close to the Shi jing in its continued use of the tetrasyllabic line and to the Chu ci through the Chu ge (Chu song) form. Popular ditties and adages preserved in the Han histories typically used tetrasyllabic lines, as did poems by known figures.9 Representative of the latter are “Poem of Remonstrance” (“Fengjian shi”) and “In Zou” (“Zai Zou shi”) attributed to Wei Meng (ca. 228–ca. 156 BCE).10 The four-syllable line was extensively used throughout both the Former and Later Han. Later Han poets known for tetrasyllabic-line poems include Fu Yi (mentioned previously) and Zhongchang Tong (179–219), but other even better known poets used this form, as well. Zhongchang Tong is not known primarily as a poet but rather as an unconventional personality, a debater, and an essayist. He has left a poem entitled “Exhibiting My Ideals” (“Xian zhi shi”), which concludes:11 I’ll renounce and reject the Five Classics, Destroy and discard the “Airs” and “Elegantiae.” The hundred schools of thought are incoherent, Let me commit them to fire. I’ll loft my ideals west of the mountains, Let my heart wander east of the seas. With the primal pneuma as my boat, Gentle breezes as my rudder, I’ll sweep and soar in the grand empyrean, Free my mind, be carefree and complacent. For their part, Chu songs were associated with music of the southerly Chu region. Their pattern is typically a line of two hemistiches of three characters each separated by the metrical-cum-emotive particle xi 兮, though there are variations. Chu songs tend to have a melancholy air and are often presented as having been improvised at moments of peak emotion. Thus, there are elements of orality and lyricism associated with some of them. Among the earliest Han poems are two particularly well-known songs in the Chu song form. One is the song reported to 35

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have been extemporized by Xiang Yu (232–202 BCE) at Gaixia when he realized that his defeat by the soon-to-be founder of Han, Liu Bang (256–195 BCE), was imminent. It came to be known as the “Song of Gaixia” (“Gaixia ge”) and was likely composed not by Xiang Yu but by someone else not long after his death. The other song is often called “Great Wind” or “Song of the Great Wind” (“Da feng” or “Da feng ge”) and was supposedly sung by Liu Bang near the end of his life.12 Here is the former:13 “Song of Gaixia” My strength can uproot mountains, my might overarches the world, But the times are unlucky, and Dapple will gallop no more. If Dapple gallops no more, what can I do? And Yu, my lady Yu, what to do about you? But Chu songs are not normally classified as gushi; rather they are viewed as offshoots of the Chu ci tradition. In early medieval China, among the most famous pentasyllabic old poems that were ostensibly from the Former Han (206 BCE–25 CE) were the poems attributed to Li Ling (d. 74 BCE), Su Wu (140–60 BCE), and Ban jieyu (Favorite Beauty Ban; d. ca. 6 BCE), but even in early medieval times some doubted the authenticity of these poems.14 Li Ling was a general during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han (r. 140–87 BCE). In 99 BCE, while leading a force of 5, 000 men against the Xiongnu, he encountered a much larger body of Xiongnu cavalry and surrendered after a running battle. In captivity, he met another prisoner from the Han, Su Wu, and they became close friends. In 80 BCE, Su Wu was freed, and their parting allegedly resulted in a group of poems.15 Modern scholarship views the pieces attributed to Li Ling and Su Wu as works dating from the Eastern Han or Six Dynasties.16 In other words, the story of their famous friendship provided material for unidentified later poets who wrote about them. Although Favorite Beauty Ban’s piece is sometimes treated as an old poem, it is usually considered a song and will be discussed in the later section on yuefu. Variability in the categorization of early poems and songs is common. As the posited dating of the “Nineteen Old Poems” indicates, the Later Han saw a growth in pentasyllabic-line poetry. It so happens that Favorite Beauty Ban was a great-aunt of the famous Han historian and poet Ban Gu (32–92). Ban Gu is credited with a “Poem on History” (“Yong shi”), entirely in five-syllable lines, that is widely considered the first such poem to deal with an historical episode, but its attribution to Ban is not beyond question.17 A pentasyllabic-line piece, “Song of Like Sounds” (“Tong sheng ge”), attributed to the great polymath Zhang Heng (78–139) and contained in the sixth century anthology New Songs of the Jade Terrace (Yutai xinyong), is of doubtful authenticity. The same anthology contains a number of other poems attributed to Later Han figures, but some of the attributions are at least questionable.

Yuefu Yuefu means Music Bureau. A Music Bureau may have existed already in the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE), and the reign of Emperor Hui (r. 195–188 BCE) in the Han apparently also had this office, for there was a yuefu ling (Prefect of the Bureau of Music) then. But the Music Bureau clearly expanded and gained in importance during the long reign of Emperor Wu (r. 140–87 BCE).18 It was dissolved in 7 BCE during the reign of Emperor Ai (r. 7 BCE–1 CE). The Music Bureau was responsible for court music for sacrificial and entertainment purposes, as well as, perhaps, for selecting popular songs and music from parts of the realm and even foreign areas. However, 36

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the notion that the Music Bureau collected regional popular songs has been questioned by some Chinese and Western scholars.19 Thus, there was a musical and performative context originally fundamental to songs called yuefu. Yuefu was not used as the name of a genre until the fifth century. Originally such pieces were referred to as geshi (song poems). Two types of sacrificial song texts have been preserved from the Former Han: the “Songs for Suburban Sacrifices” (“Jiao si ge”) and the “Songs of a Pacified Age for the Inner Chambers” (“An shi fang zhong ge”).20 Besides the ritual pieces, two famous songs that are reliably Han (though perhaps not as early as the narratives surrounding them indicate) are one attributed to the singer Li Yannian (d. ca. 87 BCE) and one attributed to Lady Qi (d. 194 BCE), who ultimately was to suffer a horrible fate at the hands of Empress Lü (241–180 BCE). These short pieces are almost entirely in pentasyllabic lines.21 The most anthologized and celebrated pentasyllabic anonymous Han yuefu poems cannot be dated with any certainty to the Han. They make their first appearance in the section on music in Shen Yue’s (441–513) Song History (Song shu) and in New Songs of the Jade Terrace. Two of the most famous such songs are “Mulberries by the Path” (“Mo shang sang”) and “Southeast Flies the Peacock” (“Kongque dongnan fei”). “Mulberries by the Path,” also known as “The Ballad of Luofu” (“Luofu xing”), tells of the beautiful Qin Luofu rejecting the suggestive advances of a governor. “Southeast Flies the Peacock,” also known as “Jiao Zhongqing’s Wife” (“Jiao Zhongqing qi”), is the longest ballad up to its time. It is the tragic love story of the minor official Jiao Zhongqing and his wife Lanzhi. His mother constantly and apparently groundlessly finds fault with the wife and drives her out. Jiao promises her he will bring her back, but she tells him to forget her. Back at her family’s home, she is determined to remain loyal to Jiao but is pressured to remarry and finally agrees. There is a scene in which she and Jiao meet, and he blames her for being inconstant. But in the end, she drowns herself and he hangs himself. The poem is justly famous for its narrative technique and its use of dialogue. There is a preface to the poem included in its earliest source—New Songs of the Jade Terrace—that indicates the poem is based on an actual occurrence during the Jian’an period. But there are doubts about the preface, and the poem itself as we have it in New Songs of the Jade Terrace has linguistic, prosodic, and other elements that probably date from the fifth or sixth centuries.22 Both of these poems employ formulaic language, as well as lax rhyming (meaning they often employ sequences of half-rhymes).“23 Southeast Flies the Peacock,” at well over 300 lines, is too long to translate here, but following is “Mulberries by the Path.”

“Mulberries by the Path”24

The sun comes up in the southeast corner, Shines on our Qin family home. The Qin family has an attractive daughter, Who calls herself Luofu. Luofu excels at raising silkworms and picking mulberry leaves; She picks mulberry leaves at the southern corner of the city-wall. Blue silk forms her basket cords, Cassia branches her basket handles. On her head a tilted chignon, In her ears bright moon pearls. Of flaxen tabby is her skirt, Of purple tabby is her jacket. When passers-by see Luofu 37

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They lower their burdens and stroke their beards. When young men see Luofu They doff their caps and don their kerchiefs. Those tilling forget their plows, Those hoeing forget their hoes. Returning home they are querulous and cross, Just because they have seen Luofu. A governor from the south did come, His five horses stopped, moving to and fro. The governor sent a functionary forth, To ask whose house this beauty was from. “The Qin family has an attractive daughter, Who calls herself Luofu.” “And Luofu, how old is she?” “Not twenty yet, Somewhat more than fifteen.” The governor inquired of Luofu: “Wouldn’t you like to ride with me?” Luofu stepped forward and replied: “How very foolish the governor is! The governor has a wife of his own, And Luofu has a husband of her own. In the east are over a thousand riders, My husband positioned at their head. How can you recognize my husband? A white horse followed by a black colt. Blue silk tied to his horse’s tail, Yellow gold bridles his horse’s head. At his waist a windlass-pommeled sword, Worth ten million or more. At fifteen he was a minor office clerk, At twenty he was a court grandee, At thirty he was a gentleman palace attendant, At forty he sits in command of a city. He is a man of a pure white complexion, And has a trace of scant and wispy beard. Gracefully he paces his headquarters, Slowly he moves within his residence. Thousands of men are seated there All say my husband is unique.” Anonymous yuefu that were traditionally dated to Han often reflect hardships, including hunger, poverty, orphanhood, the aftermath of war, and oppression, but also love and feasting and drinking. As can be seen from “Mulberries by the Path,” they tend to be written in rather straightforward language and do not contain much in the way of metaphors or allusions. In Guo Maoqian’s (ca. 38

Poetry of the Han

1046–1099) Collection of Yuefu Poetry (Yuefu shiji), the principal repository devoted exclusively to yuefu, they are found mainly in the “Lyrics for Accompanied Songs” (“Xianghe geci”) section, the “Lyrics for Drum and Pipe Songs” (“Gu chui quci”) section, and the “Lyrics for Miscellaneous Songs” (“Zaqu geci”). In the waning decades of the second century, the Han dynasty entered a serious decline that ended in the abdication of its final ruler in 220 CE. The Han’s last reign period, Jian’an, lends its name to a fertile period for Chinese poetry—one in which the pentasyllabic line came into its own in the hands of skilled literati poets and during which poetry was produced that would influence centuries of later poets. Although there is excellent reason for treating this literary period as part of the Han, it is not uncommon to see its poetry considered as belonging to the subsequent Wei dynasty founded by Cao Cao’s son Cao Pi (187–226; Emperor Wen of Wei, r. 220–226).25 Jian’an poetry will be discussed in the following chapter.

Notes 1 Lu Qinli, ed., Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi [Poetry of Pre-Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties], 3 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983), 1:87–344; Lü Yixin, Han dai wenti wenti yanjiu [A Study of Genres of the Han Dynasty] (Ji’nan: Qi Lu shushe, 2011), 10, says that there are 638 poems. 2 Also called gutishi, or “old-style poem.” 3 It should be noted that even early on the term “old poem” was not always exclusively used to refer to anonymous poems. The bibliographic treatise of the Sui History lists a no-longer-extant anthology entitled Gu shi ji [Collection of Old Poems] and indicates that it was in nine fascicles—likely too large to have included only anonymous pieces. See Stephen Owen, The Making of Early Chinese Classical Poetry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), 29, 317. No date or compiler of Gushi ji is provided, but its placement in the treatise indicates it may have been in existence before the sixth century. See Sui shu [Sui History] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1973), 35.1084. 4 Xu Zhen’e (1901–1986), Shishuo xinyu jiaojian [Annotated Edition of a New Account of Tales of the World], 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1984), 1:149; Huang Shulin (1672–1756), ed. and comm., Zeng ding Wenxin diaolong jiaozhu [Supplementary Collations and Commentaries on the Wenxin diaolong], additional comm. Li Xiang (1859–1931), amended comm. Yang Mingzhao (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2012), 2.66; Xiao Tong, comp., Wen xuan (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1986), 1343–50. 5 Xiao Tong, Wen xuan, 1347. 6 It should be noted that regulated verse did not appear out of nowhere. There was a transitional period in the Qi (479–502), Liang (502–557), and Chen (557–589) dynasties, during which poets were paying increased attention to tonal and semantic patterns. 7 On imitation in early medieval Chinese poetry, see, for example, Owen, The Making of Early Chinese Classical Poetry, 261–97; C. M. Lai, “The Craft of Original Imitation: Lu Ji’s Imitations of Han Old Poems,” in Studies in Early Medieval Chinese Literature and Cultural History: In Honor of Richard B. Mather and Donald Holzman, ed. Paul W. Kroll and David R. Knechtges (Provo, Utah: T’ang Studies Society, 2003), 121. 8 Liu Kaiyang, ed., Gao Shi shiji biannian jianzhu [Gao Shi’s Poetry Collection, Chronologically Organized and Annotated] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), 33. 9 See David Zebulon Raft, “Four-Syllable Verse in Medieval China” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2007), 1–143. 10 See Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:105–7. 11 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:205. 12 On these and other Chu songs, see Martin Kern, “The Poetry of Han Historiography,” EMC 10–11, no. 1 (2004): 38–51; David R. Knechtges and Taiping Chang, eds., Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide, Part One (Leiden: Brill, 2010), s.v. “Chu ge (Chu songs).” 13 Sima Qian, Shi ji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983), 7.333; Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1.89. 14 On the Favorite Beauty Ban poem, see David R. Knechtges, “The Poetry of an Imperial Concubine: Favorite Beauty Ban,” OE 36, no. 2 (1993): 127–36.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 1 5 The poems are collected in Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:336–42. 16 See Knechtges and Chang, Part Two (Leiden: Brill, 2014), s.v. “Li Ling” and “Su Wu.” 17 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:170. See Owen, The Making of Early Chinese Classical Poetry, 254–56. 18 The date of the establishment of the Music Bureau and the precise role of Emperor Wu have been the subject of much discussion. See, for example, David R. Knechtges, “A New Study of Han Yüeh-fu,” JAOS 110, no. 2 (1990): 310; Jean-Pierre Diény, Aux Origines de la poésie classique en Chine: Étude sur la poésie lyrique à l’époque des Han (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 81–84; Joseph R. Allen, In the Voice of Others: Chinese Music Bureau Poetry (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 1992), 38. 19 Anne Birrell, “Mythmaking and Yüeh-fu: Popular Songs and Ballads in Early Imperial China,” JAOS 109, no. 2 (1989): 232–34. 20 Ban Gu, Han shu [Han History] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), 22.1046–70. See also David R. Knechtges, “The Emperor and Literature: Emperor Wu of the Han,” in Imperial Rulership and Cultural Change in Traditional China, ed. Frederick P. Brandauer and Chun-chieh Huang (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994), 60–66; Hans Frankel, “Yǜeh-fǔ Poetry,” in Studies in Chinese Literary Genres, ed. Cyril Birch (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 70–74. 21 For these poems, see Owen, The Making of Early Chinese Classical Poetry, 56–70. 22 Hans H. Frankel, “The Chinese Ballad ‘Southeast Fly the Peacocks,’” HJAS 34 (1974): 258–61; Mei Zulin (Tsu-lin Mei), “Cong shilü he yufa lai kan ‘Jiao Zhongqing qi’ de xiezuo niandai” [Judging the Date of Composition of “Jiao Zhongqing’s Wife” from Its Prosody and Grammar], Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo jikan 53, no. 2 (1982): 227–49. 23 See, for example, Luo Changpei and Zhou Zumou, Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao yunbu yanbian yanjiu [An Investigation of the Development of Archaic Rhyme Categories in the Han, Wei, Jin, and the Northern and Southern Dynasties] (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 1958), 131, 132, 152. On half-rhyming, see Nicholas Williams, “The Half-Life of Half-Rhyme,” EMC 17 (2011): 22–50. 24 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:259–61. For analyses, see Joseph Roe Allen III, “From Saint to Singing Girl: The Rewriting of the Lo-fu Narrative in Chinese Literati Poetry,” HJAS 48, no. 2 (1988): 321–61; Owen, The Making of Early Chinese Classical Poetry, 336–45. 25 Lu Qinli places some of its figures in the Han, but he includes its most important poets under the Wei.

Further Reading Allen, Joseph R. In the Voice of Others: Chinese Music Bureau Poetry. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 1992. Allen, Joseph Roe III. “From Saint to Singing Girl: The Rewriting of the Lo-fu Narrative in Chinese Literati Poetry.” HJAS 48, no. 2 (1988): 321–61. Cai Zong-qi. “Pentasyllabic Shi Poetry: The ‘Nineteen Old Poems.’” In How to Read Chinese Poetry: A Guided Anthology, edited by Zong-qi Cai, 103–20. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Cutter, Robert Joe. “Poetry from 200 BCE to CE 600.” In The Columbia History of Chinese Literature, edited by Victor Mair, 248–73. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Diény, Jean-Pierre. Aux Origines de la poésie classique en Chine: Étude sur la poésie lyrique à l’époque des Han. Leiden: Brill, 1968. Diény, Jean-Pierre. trans. Les Dix-neuf poèms anciennes. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2010. Frankel, Hans H. “The Chinese Ballad ‘Southeast Fly the Peacocks.’” HJAS 34 (1974): 248–71. Frankel, Hans H. “The Formulaic Language of the Chinese Ballad ‘Southeast Fly the Peacocks.’” Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo jikan 29, no. 2 (1969): 219–45. Frankel, Hans H. “Yǜeh-fǔ Poetry.” In Studies in Chinese Literary Genres, edited by Cyril Birch, 69–107. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. Ho, Kenneth P. H., trans. The Nineteen Ancient Poems. Hong Kong: Kelly & Walsh, 1977. Hsieh, Daniel. “The Origin and Nature of the ‘Nineteen Old Poems.’” Sino-Platonic Papers 77 (January 1998): 1–49. Kern, Martin. “Early Chinese Literature, Beginnings Through Western Han.” In The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature. Vol. 1, To 1375, edited by Kang-I Sun Chang and Stephen Owen, 1–115. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Kern, Martin. “The Poetry of Han Historiography.” EMC 10–11, no. 1 (2004): 23–65.

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Poetry of the Han Knechtges, David R. “The Emperor and Literature: Emperor Wu of the Han.” In Imperial Rulership and Cultural Change in Traditional China, edited by Frederick P. Brandauer and Chun-chieh Huang, 51–76. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994. Knechtges, David R. “From the Eastern Han Through the Western Jin (AD 25–317.” In The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature. Vol. 1, To 1375, edited by Kang-I Sun Chang and Stephen Owen, 116–98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Knechtges, David R. “A New Study of Han Yüeh-fu.” JAOS 110, no. 2 (1990): 310–16. Knechtges, David R. “The Poetry of an Imperial Concubine: Favorite Beauty Ban.” OE 36, no. 2 (1993): 127–44. Owen, Stephen. The Making of Early Chinese Classical Poetry. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006. Su Jui-lung. “Shi Poetry: Music Bureau Poems (Yuefu).” In How to Read Chinese Poetry: A Guided Anthology, edited by Zong-qi Cai, 84–102. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Tian Xiaofei. “Woman in the Tower: ‘Nineteen Old Poems’ and the Poetics of Un/concealment.” EMC 15 (2009): 3–21.

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SECTION II

Poetry of the Six Dynasties

4 POETRY OF THE WEI AND JIN Robert Joe Cutter

During the final hundred years of the Later Han dynasty (25–220 CE), the central government was often in crisis due to power struggles at court, rebellion in the provinces, and debasement of the civil bureaucracy, until ultimately, late in 189, court control was lost. A frontier general named Dong Zhuo (d. 192) seized power, ousted the recently installed young emperor Liu Bian (176–190), and replaced him with his younger brother Liu Xie (181–234). The empire fell into a state of nearly constant warfare. While violent men contested for power, Liu Xie—known to history by the posthumous title Emperor Xian (r. 189–220)—remained alive as the last ruler of a fragmented land. The most powerful single military leader to emerge from this chaos was Cao Cao (155–220). He had played a role in suppressing the Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184.1 By 188, he was one of the eight leaders of a special defense force organized partly to protect the emperor and capital Luoyang.2 When Dong Zhuo entered the capital in 189, Cao Cao and other military leaders quit the city and formed an alliance against Dong.3 Due to the threat posed by the opposition forces, and against the protests of the court, on 9 April 190, Dong Zhuo sent Emperor Xian to Chang’an, forcing the population of Luoyang to move, too.4 At this time, Luoyang was one of the greatest cities in the world. The suffering caused by Dong’s decision and the violence with which he put it into effect can only be imagined, but there are moving descriptions of the pain and destruction he inflicted. It was due to this state of affairs that the poet Wang Can (177–217) fled south from Chang’an to Jingzhou. The alliance against Dong Zhuo did not last long, and the allies soon fell upon one another.5 But despite setbacks, Cao Cao’s power and the size of his armies continued to grow. The next three decades saw him engaged in continuous maneuvering and fighting against numerous enemies. One of the most important events in Cao Cao’s rise to power occurred in 196, when he took Emperor Xian under his protection and installed the Han court at Xu (modern Xuchang, Henan). A few years later, in 200, Cao Cao defeated his chief rival Yuan Shao (d. 202). Yuan’s seat of power, the city of Ye (modern Linzhang, Hebei) remained for a time in the hands of his son Yuan Shang (d. 207). But in 204, Cao Cao captured the city.6 Ye became a monument to Cao Cao’s success, and he embarked upon an ambitious building program there as he rose in power and status. Cao Cao became chancellor (chengxiang) in 208, duke of Wei in 213, and king of Wei in 216.7 By 213, Cao Cao had provided three of his daughters to Emperor Xian as “honorable ladies” (guiren), further solidifying his relationship with the throne.8  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-7

Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature

Having survived countless battles, as well as an epidemic in 217 that carried away many of his contemporaries, Cao Cao died in Luoyang on 15 March 220.9 No cause of death is known.10 Once he was gone, the Han soon came to an end with the abdication of Emperor Xian to Cao Cao’s eldest living son Cao Pi (187–26; Emperor Wen of Wei, r. 220–226). It was on 10 or 11 December 220 that Cao Pi became emperor of the new Wei dynasty (220–265).11 The tripartite division of the empire was soon formalized, with Wei in the north, Wu (222–265) in the south, and Shu (221–263) in the southwest. The last reign period of the Han, Jian’an (196–220), lends its name to a fertile and consequential period for Chinese poetry. It was a time when many of the elements associated with classical Chinese poetry were first formed or ratified through use. It was then that the pentasyllabic line came into its own in the hands of skilled literati poets, and poetry was produced that would influence centuries of later poets. This was also an age when the collecting and editing of the works of individual writers was undertaken by Cao Pi and others. Leading literary figures who lived during this brief era include Cao Cao and his sons Cao Pi and Cao Zhi (192–232). In addition, there were the famous Seven Masters of Jian’an (Jian’an qizi): Kong Rong (153–208), Chen Lin (d. 217), Wang Can, Xu Gan (171–218), Ruan Yu (ca. 165–212), Ying Yang (d. 217), and Liu Zhen (d. 217). Also of note were Cai Yan (ca. 178–post 206/215/ca. 249), Zhongchang Tong (179–219), Mi Heng (173–198), and others. Scholarly attention in recent years has focused on matters such as the instability and fungibility of early poetry, manuscript culture and the influence of fifth- and sixth-century scholars and anthologists on the texts we read today, the significance of the Jian’an period in the history of classical poetry, and the importance of Ye as a site of literary production and the transmogrification of reception through time. As in the case of Li Ling and Su Wu, sometimes stories are too good not to spawn poems and songs. Cai Yan, the daughter of the famous scholar Cai Yong (132/3–192), was captured by foreign cavalrymen in the early 190s and eventually became the wife of a Xiongnu chieftain, with whom she had two children. Twelve years later, Cao Cao, who was by then the most powerful warlord in China, was able to ransom her back to Han. Three poems attributed to her remain, all of which speak of her abduction and release in moving terms. Two of the poems are entitled “Poem of Sorrow and Resentment” (“Beifen shi”), while the third is “A Hu Flute Song in Eighteen Stanzas” (“Hu jia shiba pai”).12 One “Poem of Sorrow and Resentment” is in pentasyllabic lines; the other is in Chu song style. While some consider the pentasyllabic-line poem authentic, it is unlikely that any of these three pieces are by Cai Yan.13 Cao Cao, Cao Pi, and Cao Zhi all were poets and were in a position to promote literature. They established a social world that encouraged and even required poetic production. Eulogistic motives aside, Cao Zhi had good cause to write of his father in “Dirge for Emperor Wu” (“Wudi lei”):14 He directed all government affairs, And also perused the scholarly corpus. He personally wrote odes and hymns, And set them to cither and zither. There was severe friction between Cao Pi and Cao Zhi and their adherents over which would be named Cao Cao’s successor. Eventually, due to Cao Zhi’s irresponsible behavior, his father made Cao Pi his heir. Once Cao Pi became emperor of Wei, he sent all his brothers out to their fiefs to remove them from the center of power and to keep them separated. His treatment of Cao Zhi was especially harsh, and this has led to a pronounced tendency to read many of Cao Zhi’s works as allegories on his relationship with his imperial brother. Although there are pieces among Cao Zhi’s 46

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writings that can properly be so understood, this way of reading Cao Zhi has sometimes been too unswervingly applied. Although Jian’an shi and yuefu poems are mostly in pentasyllabic and tetrasyllabic lines, there are some six-syllable line poems. Cao Zhi has two yuefu, both entitled “I Am Ill-Fated” (“Qie boming”), using that line length, for example. Kong Rong has three hexasyllabic-line poems surviving. Here is one:15 In its middle years the way of the Han House languished; Dong Zhuo rising in revolt took advantage of its decline. Usurping those above and oppressing those below, he monopolized power; The myriad officials were terrified and none defied him. The commoners, anguished and apprehensive, were sad at heart. Kong Rong has a very limited number of poems remaining. Of the poets of the Seven Masters, it is Wang Can who typically receives the most acclaim. Remembering that this is a period in which fu writing remained very important, it is worth noting that Wang wrote one of the most famous early medieval lyrical fu. His “Fu on Ascending the Tower” (“Deng lou fu”) was composed during the fifteen years he spent at the court of Liu Biao (144–208), governor of Jingzhou (in modern Hubei and Hunan), after fleeing turmoil in Chang’an. His most famous poem is the first of his pieces entitled “Seven Sorrows” (“Qi ai shi”), written in 193 as he left Chang’an. It speaks of the sadness of his departure, the death and destruction he sees outside the city, and his encounter with a woman who abandons her infant out of hopelessness.16 Both Kong Rong’s poem previously and Wang Can’s “Seven Sorrows” are emblematic of the “realism” that many Chinese literary critics and historians have seen as an admirable characteristic of the poetry of the Jian’an period.17 A signature feature of Jian’an literary life was group composition, in the sense of poets writing on a common theme, often in one another’s company. This was a development that was centered on the city of Ye after Cao Cao had captured it in 204. But it was really after 208, when Wang Can joined Cao Cao following Liu Biao’s death, that the outings, banquets, and drinking parties began. This socio-literary scene was singled out as an essential attribute of Jian’an poetry by later literati, including Xie Lingyun (ca. 465–ca. 532), Liu Xie (ca. 465–ca. 521), and Xiao Tong (501–531).18 These moments provided an opportunity for bonding, one in which the composition of poems might be deployed for both aesthetic and sociopolitical purposes. In a sense, these were command performances—the writers present were expected to express their gratitude for the event and to praise the host. Often, especially in the case of certain fu and works in the related Sevens genre, the participants had a topic set for them by the host, generally one of the Caos. The existence of these occasional poems is significant, for they reflect one aspect of the lifestyle of the period, especially in Ye, and imply important issues: the peril of death and brevity of life in a time of frequent war and recurrent disease, issues of rank and social status in a shifting court environment, obligations between superior and inferior, the nature of friendship, literary display and competition. Some of these poems bear the title “Lord’s Feast” (“Gong yan shi”). Other topics and themes of the Jian’an poets include the quest for immortality; parting and separation; abandoned women; history; sightseeing; and “poems of presentation and reply,” or “exchange poems” (zengda shi), among others. Poems on “roaming into transcendence” (youxian shi) are informed—to a greater or lesser degree—by the search for immortality (or great longevity) and may feature encounters with transcendent beings, obtaining elixirs of deathlessness, and 47

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celestial journeys. Cao Zhi has a number of poems on this theme written in tetrasyllabic, pentasyllabic, and irregular-length lines. An example of the latter is Cao Zhi’s yuefu “East of Pingling” (“Pingling dong”):19 Heaven’s Portal is open, The Celestial Highway is clear. I don my feather robe and mount a flying dragon. Mount a flying dragon, To rendezvous with a transcendent And in the east ascend Penglai to gather numinous mushrooms. Numinous mushrooms—gather them and they can be ingested, And one’s years, like the King Father’s, will have no end. Cao Zhi was not the only one to write such poems in Jian’an times. Cao Cao and Cao Pi both have poems on the transcendent theme. It is not clear whence the impetus for this poetry came. There are anonymous yuefu of indeterminate date, such as “Excellent! A Ballad” (“Shan zai xing”), that make use of the theme,20 and in the Chu ci and fu there was already a tradition that involved celestial and terrestrial journeys in quest of immortals. Perhaps the surrender of Zhang Lu, leader of the Daoist denomination Way of the Celestial Masters, to Cao Cao in 215 had an effect, for Cao Cao had Zhang and his family and followers move from the theocratic realm he had established in the Hanzhong region to the cities of Luoyang and Ye.21 Daoist beliefs apparently did gain some currency during the Wei.22 Parting and separation are important topics in early Chinese poetry, partly due to the contemporary precariousness of life, uncertainties and difficulties of travel, and impediments to communication. Some poems that at first look like parting poems may swerve in another direction. An example is Cao Zhi’s very famous poem entitled “Seeing Off Mr. Ying” (“Song Ying shi”), which depicts the speaker’s emotional reaction on seeing the desolation of Luoyang wrought by Dong Zhuo’s forces.23 The close of this poem says, “The countryside—how bleak and desolate!/For a thousand li no smoke of man./Thinking of those I was close to my whole life,/My breath catches and I cannot speak.” A poem that speaks more directly to separation is the yuefu “I Watered My Horse at a Hollow by the Great Wall” (“Yin ma Changcheng ku xing), attributed to Chen Lin. It features dialogue and an exchange of letters between a man working on the construction of the Great Wall and his wife.24 Cao Zhi’s “Presented to Biao, Prince of Baima” (“Zeng Baima wang Biao”) is one of the most famous Jian’an poems on parting and separation. This long, seven-part poem of presentation on parting from his half-brother Cao Biao is an example of what traditional critics term kangkai, which they consider a special characteristic of Jian’an verse, connoting strength in the face of adversity, a righteous fortitude even when one’s innermost desires or heroic ambitions are thwarted. A poem that still more clearly embodies kangkai (and even contains the term in its final line) is the sixth of Cao’s “Unclassified Poems” (“Za shi”).25 Poems about or in the voice of women occupy a conspicuous place in Jian’an literature. There are numerous poems and fu dealing with lonely, abandoned, divorced, and widowed women. Reasons for this may range from the influence of earlier literature, through the social realities of the time, to the allegorical effectiveness of such poems in lamenting a loyal subject’s alienation from his ruler. One interesting poem dealing with a woman is Cao Zhi’s “The Beautiful Woman” (“Mei nü pian”).26 This yuefu poem is related to the anonymous “Mulberries by the Path,” seen in the previous chapter. But Luofu of the anonymous poem is transformed by Cao Zhi. In his poem, there is no governor, for no man has access to the woman in the poem. She has even lost her name in 48

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Cao’s version, a denial of particularity that helps transform her into a static ideal of beauty and high principle. When Cao Pi died, in 226, he was succeeded by his son Cao Rui (ca. 206–239), known posthumously as Emperor Ming of Wei (r. 226–239). In 239, Cao Rui died and was succeeded by Cao Fang (231–274), who was only eight. Cao Fang reigned until 254, mainly under the sway of his regents Cao Shuang (d. 249) and Sima Yi (179–251). When the Sima family took full control of the Cao court in 254, Cao Fang was deposed and replaced with Cao Mao (241–260). In 260, Cao Mao tried to oust the Sima family but was killed. The Wei carried on in name only until 265, when Sima Yan (236–290; Emperor Wu of Jin, r. 265–290) ascended the throne of a new dynasty, the (Western) Jin (265–317). Zhengshi was the name of Cao Fang’s first reign-period (239–248). As the name of a literary period, Zhengshi does not coincide precisely with the reign period. Instead, it can be understood as lasting roughly until the Wei dynasty came to an end in 265. A number of leading poets met violent deaths at the hands of the state during the years the Sima family held power. Participating in government became so dangerous that some went to extraordinary lengths to avoid it. But that could be dangerous, too; refusing to serve might also be interpreted as criticism. The literary theorist and critic Liu Hsieh (465?–520?) pointed to the Daoist proclivities of the age in Wenxin diaolong, no doubt reflecting on the escapism and interest in immortality prevalent among Zhengshi era writers. The most famous Zhengshi poets are Ruan Ji (210–263) and Xi Kang (223–262). They are members of a putative grouping of nonconformists called the Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove (Zhulin qixian), who supposedly would meet at Xi Kang’s estate for drinking and writing and engaging in the intellectual discussions known as “pure conversation” (qingtan) popular at the time. The group is mostly considered a retrospective construct by later literati. Ruan Ji was the son of Ruan Yu, one of the Seven Masters of the Jian’an Period. The facts of Ruan Ji’s life are obscured by an anecdotal tradition that has grown up around him and affected not only his biography but also the interpretation of his works. Ruan served in government under the Sima clan and was particularly in favor with Sima Zhao (211–265). A philosophical tradition known as “arcane learning” (xuanxue) was influential in Ruan Ji’s day. It drew on Daoist metaphysics and emphasized nonconformity. Ruan Ji was a devotee, writing on Daoism in prose and often returning to the topic of immortality in both poetry and prose. As is well known, there are numerous anecdotes concerning his unconventional behavior. Yet he was wary of the danger that might attend slighting the Simas or their followers, so was reticent when it came to commenting overtly on contemporary affairs. Ruan is best known for his eighty-two poems entitled “Singing My Cares” (“Yonghuai”), which, except for thirteen tetrasyllabic pieces, are in five-syllable lines. The poems do not form a cycle and were apparently composed over a long period. The poems time and again express feelings of melancholy and anxiety. They sometimes contain allusions to legend and history. A hermeneutical tradition grew up that held that the poems often contain hidden references to current affairs and individuals. Although there may be such instances among the poems, when Ruan does criticize, it seems more often to be of behaviors or types of people.27 Xi Kang (or Ji Kang; ca. 223–ca. 262) was a votary of practices for prolonging life and of the quest for immortality. One of his most famous works is the prose essay “On Nourishing Life” (“Yangsheng lun”), and, in fact, he is better known for his prose writing and unconventional lifestyle than his poetry. After 245, he spent most of his time at his estate at Shanyang, north of Luoyang, where the Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove are supposed to have sometimes gathered. As we have observed, the rule of the Sima family was a perilous period for poets. Like his friend Ruan Ji, Xi Kang endeavored to steer clear of politics and current affairs—not surprising, especially 49

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given his Daoist orientation and unorthodox outlook. His contempt for government service is on display in his eighteen tetrasyllabic-line poems of presentation bearing the title “Tetrasyllabic-Line Poems Presented to My Elder Brother the Cultivated Talent on His Entry into the Army” (“Zeng xiong xiucai ru jun”).28 But the most famous expression of his opinion of official service and social niceties may be the letter he wrote in 261 severing relations with Shan Tao (205–283), a member of the Seven Worthies who had taken employment in the Sima administration, after Shan had recommended Xi Kang for a position. In his letter, Xi explains how utterly unsuited he was for officialdom. The letter goes by the title “Letter to Shan Juyuan Breaking off Relations” (“Yu Shan Juyuan juejiao shu”).29 Xi Kang was a friend of Lü An, a man mentioned in passing in the Shan Tao letter. In 262, Lü An was involved in a dispute with his older brother, who had had an affair with Lü An’s wife. Lü An was going to expose the affair, but Lü An’s brother preemptively accused him of beating their mother. Lü An was arrested, as was Xi Kang for trying to help him, and both were executed. Xi’s end is described in several places. Xi Kang’s execution was at least in part the result of his having slighted the influential official Zhong Hui (225–264) when the latter had earlier visited his home. Xi Kang had a reputation as a zither player, and he asked to play again just before his execution. One source says that thousands of students and many great men appealed for his life to be spared, but to no avail. Xi Kang’s reputation as a poet is eclipsed by those of Cao Zhi and Ruan Ji. Half of his sixty extant poems are in tetrasyllabic meter, only twelve are in pentasyllabic lines, ten are hexasyllabic, and the rest are in uneven line lengths. He carries on the theme of “roaming into transcendence” seen in Jian’an times and in the poetry of Ruan Ji. Here is one of the poems to his brother, as translated by Wendy Swartz: #16 I ride the wind to my lofty retreat, Where, far away, I climb the numinous hills. I have befriended Red Pine and Wangzi Qiao; Clasping their hands, I roam together with them. In the morning, we set out from Mount Tai Hua, And in the evening, we lodge at the Divine Island. I play the zither and intone poems, So as to forget my sorrows for a while.30 The Western Jin (265–317) was a short-lived dynasty, undone by serious conflict within and, ultimately, invasion from the north. Like the end of the Wei under the Sima family, the Western Jin was a precarious age for poets. Poetry of this time is often referred to as Taikang poetry, after the Taikang reign period of Emperor Wu of Jin (Sima Yan, r. 265–290). Five of the leading poets were executed in 300, including Zhang Hua (232–300) and Pan Yue (247–300). Lu Ji (261–303) and Lu Yun (262–303) and their families were executed in 303. Liu Kun (271–318) in was executed in 318, and Guo Pu (276–324), who lived into the Eastern Jin (317–420), was killed in 324. Fu Xuan (217–278) was born in the Jian’an period, lived through the Zhengshi era, and died in the Western Jin. He is known for both his fu on objects (yongwu fu) and his yuefu. Most of his surviving poems are yuefu, many of them ritual pieces in praise of the Simas. In some of his poems, he writes of women, sometimes in the voice of a woman. An example is one of his most famous yuefu poems “Bitter Fate” (“Ku xiang pian”), which begins, “A bitter fate to have a woman’s body,/ 50

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So lowly and base it can’t be overstated.”31 The poem goes on to speak of inequality and the alienation of husband and wife. Does this mean Fu was sensitive to women’s plight in traditional society? Does the fact that he has a yuefu entitled “Prelude” (“Yan’ge xing”) that is almost a copy of the first half of the old anonymous “Mulberries by the Path” negate that view? One can only note that Fu Xuan was skilled at imitation and at creating new poems from old themes, and in his poetic treatment of the plight of women, there is a connection with Cao Zhi and Jian’an poetry. The tendency toward imitation seen in Fu Xuan was typical, for in the Western Jin imitative verse became very common. Zhang Hua was one of the leading political and literary figures of his day. He is perhaps better known for All Things Considered (Bo wu zhi), a collection of recorded marvels (zhiguai), than for his poetry. He was a patron of other writers, including Lu Ji, Lu Yun, and the historian Chen Shou (233–297). During the later years of Zhang’s life, Empress Jia (Jia Nanfeng, d. 300) was in power. Zhang was not originally on the side of the Jia family in court struggles, but he eventually allied with them. As in the case of Pan Yue, this cost him his life once Sima Lun (d. 301) rose against the Jias. Zhang Hua wrote some poems of social criticism, the most famous being the pentasyllabic-line yuefu “Frivolity” (“Qingbo pian”), an exposé of the extravagance and profligacy of aristocratic life.32 On the other hand, his poem “Hunting” (“Youlie pian”) is about a clearly aristocratic activity.33 He also has a number of “Love Poems” (“Qing shi”). One of the most famous is in the voice of a woman longing for her absent lover and concludes, “Stroking the pillow, I deeply sigh alone,/ Wracked with emotion, my heart is aching inside.”34 One of the leading poets of the early medieval period was Pan Yue. He was from a family of prominent officials and began serving in office around 266, thereafter holding a number of posts, both in and out of the capital. About 293, he returned to Luoyang, where he joined the clique known as the “Twenty-four Companions” of Jia Mi (d. 300), who was Empress Jia’s nephew. In 300, Jia Mi was killed in the coup staged by Sima Lun. Pan Yue was accused of plotting with rival Sima family members, and he and his entire family were executed. Not many poems from Pan Yue are extant, but he also wrote in a number of other genres, including fu and the dirge (lei). There has been increased attention to threnodic genres in recent years, though mostly to entombed epitaphs (muzhiming). Pan is a master of threnodic writing in shi, fu, lei (11 pieces), jiwen (3 pieces), and aiwen (9 pieces). Genuine and personal grief seems to inform such works to an extent not seen in other early medieval writers; this personalization of grief makes these writings powerful. Pan Yue’s wife died in 298, and his most famous pieces are the three poems entitled “Mourning the Departed” (“Daowang shi”) written to lament the death of his wife.35 He also wrote for her “Fu Mourning the Departed” (“Daowang fu”) and “Lament for One Gone Forever” (“Ai yongshi wen”).36 Like Pan Yue, Lu Ji was one of the Twenty-four Companions of Jia Mi. His best-known composition is his “Fu on Literature” (“Wen fu”). This is one of the three most important works of literary theory from the early medieval period, the others being Liu Xie’s Wenxin diaolong and Cao Pi’s “Lun wen” from his Dian lun. Like Cao Pi, Lu Ji was an important poet. He came from a family of very high officials in the state of Wu. Wu was subjugated by the Jin dynasty in 280, and—though there is some uncertainty about the date—in 289, Lu Ji and his brother Lu Yun went north to Luoyang to serve in the Jin government. That trip resulted in two of his most famous poems, both entitled “Written On the Road to Luoyang” (“Fu Luoyang dao zhong zuo”). In the first of these pentasyllabic-line poems, he takes leave of those close to him and complains of being caught in the “worldly net” (shiwang) and having to leave his southern homeland. But Lu Ji was an active participant in governmental and even military affairs. In 294, he took a post on the staff of Sima 51

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Yan (281–311) in the southeast. He was brought back to Luoyang in 296, and, on this occasion, Jia Mi had Pan Yue write a tetrasyllabic-line poem in honor of Lu Ji’s return. It is entitled “Presented to Lu Ji, Written on Behalf of Jia Mi” (“Wei Jia Mi zuo zeng Lu Ji shi”). In return Lu Ji composed “Responding to Jia Mi” (“Da Jia Mi shi”) using the same structure. These are examples of the important early medieval subgenre of poetry known as zengda (presentation and reply). In the end, Lu Ji was caught up in the Rebellion on the Eight Princes (Ba wang zhi luan) and was executed in 303, along with his sons and brothers. As noted in the preceding chapter, part of Lu Ji’s reputation comes from his imitations of anonymous poems, including most of the “Nineteen Old Poems.” Lu Ji was also one of the originators of poems summoning the recluse (zhaoyin shi), a subgenre of shi poetry popular in the Western Jin and traceable to the “Summoning the Recluse” (“Zhao yinshi) poem of Chu ci, where the goal is to lure the recluse out of reclusion. But in summoning the recluse poems by Lu and others, such disengagement is depicted as an agreeable alternative to social and political entanglements. Reclusion may have been an ideal during the early medieval period, but substantive reclusion was hard, so substantive (as opposed to nominal) reclusion remained a literary pose for those unwilling or unable to distance themselves from worldly affairs (Lu Ji’s “worldly net”). Zhang Hua, Zuo Si (250–305), and Wang Kangju all have such poems. In Wang’s case, there is just a fragment of a “Summoning the Recluse” poem, but he also has left a “Contra Summoning the Recluse” (“Fan zhaoyin”) that starts with the distinction between substantive and nominal reclusion. In Alan Berkowitz’s translation, the lines read: “Lesser Hiders hide in the hills and marshes,/Greater Hiders hide in the court and marketplace.”37 It is said that Lu Ji intended to write a fu on the capitals of Wei, Wu, and Shu, and when he heard that Zuo Si was already writing his “Fu on the Three Capitals” (“San du fu”), he disparaged it in a letter to his brother Lu Yun. Once Zuo’s fu appeared, however, its genius made Lu forgo his own project. Like Lu Ji, Zuo Si’s reputation is to a significant degree owing to fu. Zuo’s “Fu on the Three Capitals” is an extravagant and erudite tripartite work in the grand tradition of fu on capitals and metropolises by Ban Gu and Zhang Heng. Zuo Si’s father was an official, and his sister Zuo Fen (ca. 256–300) was taken into the harem of Emperor Wu of Jin in 272. Fourteen of Zuo Si’s poems remain, including two “Summoning the Recluse” pieces.38 More unusual is “Darling Daughters” (“Jiaonü shi”), a charming description of his two daughters.39 Although there are some earlier pieces dealing with daughters, they are often laments or threnodies for deceased children. Zuo Si’s most famous poems are his eight pentasyllabic-line “Poems on History.” In most of these pieces, he discusses historical figures to express his views. Although Zuo Si was affiliated with Jia Mi, he was able to avoid execution and, with the fall of the Jias, left the capital. He succumbed several years later to illness. The Western Jin came to an end in 317. The Rebellion of the Eight Princes so weakened the dynasty that eventually non-Chinese groups coalesced around a Sinicized Xiongnu leader named Li Yuan (d. 310). After Li Yuan died, he was succeeded by his son Liu Cong (d. 318). By 317, the north was lost, and the Western Jin had effectively ended. In 314, Sima Rui (276–322) established a Jin loyalist regime in Jiankang (modern Nanjing), and in 318 he became emperor of the (Eastern) Jin. The Eastern Jin saw development in a variety of cultural arenas, including thought and religion, art, scholarship, anthology making, and literature. One of the most important intellectual figures and poets of the Eastern Jin was Guo Pu. He was a native of north China who moved south in the migrations resulting from the gradual loss of the North. Guo was an outstanding scholar. He wrote commentaries on many texts, including the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Traditions of the Son of Heaven Mu (Mu tianzi zhuan), Approaching the Correct (Erya), and Regional Words (Fang yan). These are still standard. Guo was famous 52

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as a diviner, a skill that cost him his life. In 323, he was in the service of the insurgent Wang Dun (266–324) and presented a divination that predicted failure for Wang’s plan to take over the Jin court, so Wang had him executed. Many of Guo’s extant poems are poems of presentation and reply (zengda shi) in tetrasyllabic lines, a testament to the continued importance of social poetry, as well as to this prosodic form. Guo is best known for his “Poems on Roaming into Transcendence.” Guo’s are widely understood to be the finest among the many early medieval poems on Daoist escape and immortality. Some of his poems on the theme show a desire to flee the entanglements of this world, while others are more narrowly focused on the ideas, imagery, and conventions of the universe of the immortals. The most important poets of the Eastern Jin are Tao Qian (Tao Yuanming, 365?–427) and Xie Lingyun (385–433). Both were born under the Eastern Jin and lived into the following Song 宋 dynasty (420–479). Tao Yuanming, long a favorite poet of modern scholars, is the subject of excellent recent scholarship.40 His talent as a poet was not immediately recognized, for his rather plain style ran contrary to the tastes of the day. It took centuries for him to be recognized as one of China’s great poets. Tao Yuanming’s poetry is often characterized as field and garden, or bucolic, poetry (tianyuan shi), and it is true that many of his poems deal with the hardships and pleasures of farmstead life. But Tao has a very rich fund of poetry on a wide variety of topics. Xie Lingyun is best known for his landscape poetry. Some would seek landscape poetry as far back as the Shijing, but realistically one can imagine factors in Xie’s own time that could contribute to the growth of this art. Among those factors might be the lush and mountainous environment of the South and the contemporary interest in Daoism and reclusion. Both poets will be discussed subsequently in a separate entry. One face of poetry during the Eastern Chin was a kind of philosophical poetry called “arcane discourse” or “abstruse language” (xuanyan shi), which derived from the interest in Daoism that developed in the Wei and Jin; it also incorporated Buddhist ideas. Although such poems can be found in the corpora of most of the notable Jin poets, Sun Chuo (320–377) and Xu Xun (fl. ca. 358) are sometimes considered representative.

Notes 1 Chen Shou (233–297), San guo zhi [History of the Three Kingdoms] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982), 1.3–4. See also Carl Leban, “Ts’ao Ts’ao and the Rise of Wei: The Early Years” (PhD diss., Columbia, 1971), 101, 119–21; Rafe de Crespigny, Imperial Warlord: A Biography of Cao Cao 155–220 AD (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 35–43. 2 Fan Ye (398–445), Hou Han shu [History of Later Han] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1963), 8.356 (Li Xian’s [651–684] commentary quoting Yue Zi’s [fl. 3rd century CE] Shanyang gong zaiji), 69.2247, 74A.2374; Chen, San guo zhi, 1.5. See also Leban, “Ts’ao Ts’ao and the Rise of Wei,” 124–27. 3 Fan, Hou Han shu, 74A.2374; Chen, San guo zhi, 1.5–6. See also Leban, “Ts’ao Ts’ao and the Rise of Wei,” 146–52; de Crespigny, Imperial Warlord, 45–68. 4 Fan, Hou Han shu, 9.369, 62A.2327; Chen, San guo zhi, 1.7; de Crespigny, Imperial Warlord, 54–55. 5 Two of Cao Cao’s best-known poems, “Hao li xing” and “Xie lu xing,” deal with the fall of the Han and the failure of the alliance. See Lu Qinli, ed., Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi [Poetry of Pre-Qian, Han, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983), 347. See also Jean-Pierre Diény, trans., Les Poèmes de Cao Cao (155–220) (Paris: Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, College de France, 2000), 27–40; Paul Kroll, “Portraits of Ts’ao Ts’ao: Literary Studies on the Man and the Myth” (PhD diss, University of Michigan, 1976), 67–71. 6 Chen, San guo zhi, 1.25. 7 Chen, San guo zhi, 1.13, 30, 37.47. See also de Crespigny, Imperial Warlord, 87–89. 8 Chen, San guo zhi, 1.42. 9 Chen, San guo zhi, 1.53.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 1 0 See de Crespigny, Imperial Warlord, 438. 11 On the different dates in the relevant sources, see Fang, Achilles Fang, trans., The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms (220–265): Chapters 69–78 from the Tzu chih t’ung chien of Ssu-ma Kuang (1019–1086), ed. Glen W. Baxter, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952–1965), 1:38; Lu Bi (1876–1967), ed., San guo zhi ji jie [Collected Commentaries on the History of Three Kingdoms], 8 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai shiji chuban gufen youxian gongsi, 2012), 2.244–45, 281. The story of Cao Pi’s accession and its documentary trail has been well studied; see David R. Knechtges, “The Rhetoric of Imperial Abdication and Accession in a Third-Century Chinese Court: The Case of Cao Pi’s Accession as Emperor of the Wei Dynasty,” in Rhetoric & the Discourses of Power in Court Culture: China, Europe, & Japan, ed. David R. Knechtges and Eugene Vance (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005), 3–35. Howard L. Goodman, Ts’ao P’i Transcendent: The Political Culture of Dynasty-Founding in China at the End of the Han (Seattle: Scripta Serica, 1998). 12 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:199–204. 13 Hans H. Frankel, “Cai Yan and the Poems Attributed to Her,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 5, no. 1/2 (1983); Knechtges and Chang, comp., Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide, Part One (Leiden: Brill, 2010), s.v. “Cai Yan.” 14 Zhao Youwen, ed., Cao Zhi ji jiaozhu [Annotated Collected Work of Cao Zhi] (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1984), 2.294. Cao Cao was given the title Emperor Wu posthumously. 15 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:197. 16 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:365. 17 See, for example, Zhang Keli, Jian’an wenxue lungao [Draft Essays on Jian’an Literature] (Ji’nan: Shandong jiaoyu chubanshe, 1986), 117. 18 See Xiaofei Tian, The Halberd at Red Cliff: Jian’an and the Three Kingdoms (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2018), 30–62; Robert Joe Cutter, “Gastropoetics in the Jian’an Period: Food and Memory in Early Medieval China,” EMC 24 (2018); Robert Joe Cutter, “Cao Zhi’s (192–232) Symposium Poems,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 6, no. 1/2 (1984): 1–32; Huang Yazhuo, Han Wei Liuchao gongyan shi yanjiu [A Study of Poetry for the Lord’s Feast in the Han, Wei, and Six Dynasties] (Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 2006). 19 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:437; Zhao, Cao Zhi ji jiaozhu, 400. 20 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:266–67. This poem, like certain other “roaming into transcendence” pieces, is actually a feast poem with a carpe diem message. Cao Pi has two yuefu to this title that are feast poems and do not involve the theme of “roaming into transcendence”; see Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1.393. 21 Chen Shou, San guo zhi, 1.45, 8.265, 23.666. 22 Timothy Wai Keung Chan, Considering the End: Mortality in Early Medieval Chinese Poetic Representation (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 88. Interestingly, Cao Zhi also has a prose work entitled “Bian dao lun” [Disputing Daoism], in which he criticizes the quest for immortality. Another piece, entitled “Shi yi lun” [Dispelling Doubts], reverses opinions expressed in “Disputing Daoism,” but its attribution to Cao Zhi is not universally accepted. 23 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:454. 24 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:367. 25 These two poems are in Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:452–54, 457. 26 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:431–32. 27 Stephen Owen identifies no. 20 (in his translation) as “one of the few ‘Singing My Cares’ with internal evidence to make a credible case for reference to the contemporary political situation”; see also Stephen Owen and Wendy Swartz, trans., The Poetry of Ruan Ji and Xi Kang (Boston and Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017), 52. 28 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1.482–84. 29 See Xiao Tong (501–31), comp., Wen xuan (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1986), 1923–30. 30 Owen and Swartz, The Poetry of Ruan Ji and Xi Kang, 285. 31 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:555–56. 32 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:610–11. 33 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:612–13. 34 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:619. 35 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:635–36.

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Poetry of the Wei and Jin 36 On Pan’s threnodic writings, though not his dirges, see C. M. Lai, “The Art of Lamentation in the Works of Pan Yue: ‘Mourning the Eternally Departed,’” JAOS 114, no. 3 (1994): 409–25. See also Robert Joe Cutter, “Saying Goodbye: The Lyrical Transformation of the Dirge,” EMC 10/11 (2004/5): 67–130. 37 Alan J. Berkowitz, Patterns of Disengagement: The Practice and Portrayal of Reclusion in Early Medieval China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 145. See also Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 2:952. 38 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:734–35. 39 Lu Qinli, Xian Qin Han Wei Jin Nanbeichao shi, 1:735–36. 40 See, for example, Wendy Swartz, Reading Tao Yuanming: Shifting Paradigms of Historical Reception (427–1900) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008); Xiaofei Tian, Tao Yuanming and Manuscript Culture: The Record of a Dusty Table (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005).

Further Readings Berkowitz, Alan J. Patterns of Disengagement: The Practice and Portrayal of Reclusion in Early Medieval China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. Cutter, Robert Joe. “Cao Zhi’s (192–232) Symposium Poems.” CLEAR 6 (1984): 1–32. Cutter, Robert Joe., trans. The Poetry of Cao Zhi. Boston and Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021. Frankel, Hans H. “Fifteen Poems by Ts’ao Chih: An Attempt at a New Approach.” JAOS 84, no. 1 (1964): 1–14. Knechtges, David R. “From the Eastern Han Through the Western Jin (AD 25–317).” In The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Vol. 1, To 1375, edited by Kang-I Sun Chang and Stephen Owen, 116–98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Lai, C. M. “The Craft of Original Imitation: Lu Ji’s Imitations of Han Old Poems.” In Studies in Early Medieval Chinese Literature and Cultural History: In Honor of Richard B. Mather and Donald Holzman, edited by Paul W. Kroll and David R. Knechtges, 17–48. Provo, Utah: T’ang Studies Society, 2003. Owen, Stephen. The Making of Early Chinese Classical Poetry. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006. Owen, Stephen, and Wendy Swartz, trans. The Poetry of Ruan Ji and Xi Kang. Boston and Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017. Roy, David T. “The Theme of the Neglected Wife in the Poetry of Ts’ao Chih.” JAS 19, no. 1 (1959): 25–31. Tsao, Joanne. The City of Ye in the Chinese Literary Landscape. Leiden: Brill, 2020.

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5 TAO YUANMING Pauline Lin

Tao Yuanming (365–427), also known as Tao Qian and posthumously as Jingjie, is celebrated as one of the earliest Chinese pastoral poets (tianyuan shi ren).1 During his time, Tao was recognized more as a recluse in the Lu Mountain area (modern-day Shaanxi province) than a poet. He was a wine-lover, a county official who chose to retire from service to become a farmer; he was celebrated for his moral character and eccentricities, a poet writing in simple, unadorned language to reflect the beauty in ordinary life. Tao’s poetry was loved and imitated by generations of readers for the authenticity of his voice, his depictions of nature, and his philosophical reflections. Later, stories about Tao Yuanming extended beyond literature and were referenced in art, calligraphy, and tomb epitaphs. How did a farmer’s poetry on everyday life come to be so renowned?

Discovering Tao’s Poetry Tao was known as one of the Three Recluses of Xunyang in his time.2 Over a century later, Zhong Rong (ca. 468–518) became the first to evaluate Tao’s poetry, classifying it in the “middle rank” in his Shi pin (Gradation of Poetry), maintaining that Tao’s writings “had their roots in Ying Qu’s (190–252) style,”3 and reflected his genuine personality and moral character: [Tao’s] literary style is sparing and serene, having virtually no excess of words. His sincere intentions are genuine [and possess virtues of] the past, his phrases generate a gentle and pleasing [tone]. Each time I read his writing, I think of his [fine] character; the world admires his straightforward nature. As for “Joyfully ladling the spring wine” or “At dusk, not a cloud in the sky”—his style is pure and delicate, how could it simply be the words of the farmer folk? [He is] the originator of the recluse poet, ancient and present!4 Zhong Rong highlighted the style for which Tao is best known: simple diction, pure descriptions, and a reflection of Tao’s moral character. Most importantly, Zhong celebrated Tao Yuanming as the originator of Chinese recluse—rather than pastoral—poetry. Earlier, Tao Yuanming’s friend, the noted poet Yan Yanzhi (384–456), similarly emphasized Tao’s moral integrity rather than his poetry in Tao zhengshi lei (Dirge for Summoned Scholar Tao),

DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-8 

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where Yan relegated Tao’s writing to being a mere conduit for his thoughts: “In his learning he did not profess to a [specific] Master, [in] writing, he sought to communicate” (Yan III, 2646–47).5 Yan further noted that they proposed the posthumous name Jingjie Zhengshi “Summoned Scholar [of] Clear Integrity” to reflect Tao’s integrity: To have the fine quality that he had—completing his life with a reputation of generosity and joyfulness, and a commitment to integrity and to overcoming his desires— correspond with the rules of [presenting] a posthumous name. (Yan III, 2646–47) The main objective of Yan’s dirge was to praise Tao Qian’s moral strength. As for Tao’s writing, Yan implies that it was merely to “seek to communicate.” However, by the sixth century, Prince Xiao Tong (501–531), the patron and compiler of the famous anthology Wenxuan (Selections of Refined Literature) and the compiler of the first collection of Tao’s works, gave a ringing endorsement of Tao’s literature: I love and cherish [Tao’s] writings and cannot put them down. Even now, as I think of his virtue, [I] regret that I cannot live at the same time [as he did]. Thus, I sought out [his works], and made rough categories [for them].6 (Yan III, 3066–67) Xiao Tong characterized Tao Yuanming’s writing as follows: Extraordinary, [his] phrasings are brilliant, refined, outstanding, and gloriously transcendent. [He] surpasses all—no one can compare with his greatness. . . . He [is] steadfast [in his] ambition and does not give in; [he is] at ease in the Way and takes pains to [preserve] his integrity. [He does not] consider farming disgraceful, nor not having wealth a failing. If he were not a person of great virtue and dedicated resolve, one who does not acquiesce to the flow of stagnant waters, then who is?!7 (Yan III, 3066–67) While Tao’s lofty character was mentioned, the emphasis was now on the beauty of Tao’s writing and its impact on the reader. Xiao believes that, for Tao’s readers, “[their] thoughts of rushing to the end goal will be dispersed, their narrow-minded pettiness will be driven off; a greedy person will become uncorrupted; a coward can stand firmly.” Xiao concluded that Tao’s work could help elevate “the moral standards of the masses” (Yan III, 3067). By the end of the Southern Dynasties, Tao’s works were being circulated and read. Some scholars have speculated, based on insubstantial evidence from the “Biography of Master Five Willows” and “Preface to the Drinking Wine Poems,” that Tao Qian himself had assembled his poems into a collection (Yan II, 2102, 2098). Yet having one’s friend copy one’s poems hardly qualifies as solid evidence for the existence of a collection, although Xiao Tong’s preface to Tao’s poetry proved that, by the Liang, there already existed collected works of Tao.8

Life and Career The earliest extant biographical account of Tao was the eulogy written by Yan Yanzhi in the “Dirge for Summoned Scholar Tao.” Focusing on Tao’s character, the dirge revealed that Tao thrice refused offers of official position but eventually became magistrate of Pengze to support his family, only to resign later. Though Tao was offered a position as court attendant, he would ultimately decline,

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supporting himself by farming and thereupon “releasing his body from the entanglements of the world” (Yan III, 2646). The first “Biography of Tao Qian” in the dynastic histories is found under the “Recluse” section of Shen Yue’s Song History; it primarily quotes from Tao’s own writings to paint a biography of the poet. The account cites in full five of Tao’s works: Wu liu xian sheng zhuan (Biography of Master Five Willows), Gui qu lai xi (Return Home!), “To My Sons, Yan and the Others,” and “Charge to My Sons.”9 In these pieces, Tao speaks about his familial lineage, the person he believes he is, the difficult decisions he has made, and his hopes for his sons. It is further peppered with anecdotes of Tao Yuanming’s eccentricities: the famous account of Tao resigning his position after lamenting that he could not bow down to a country official for five pecks of rice, the story of Regional Inspector Wang Hong providing a table of wine to meet him, how Tao Qian used the 20, 000 qian that Yan Yanzhi left him for wine, and Tao strumming his stringless zither. These anecdotes all emphasize Tao’s unconventional nature and spontaneity. The same biography, with Tao’s own autobiographical prose and the anecdotes, is repeated in Xiao Tong’s biography of Tao Qian, and later again in (Tang) Li Yanshou’s History of the Southern Dynasties.10 More than any other poet, Tao Yuanming wrote about himself, in both his literary works and his biographies; the most famous is the fictional “Biography of the Gentleman of Five Willows” and the prose poem “Return Home!” The first portrays the fictitious Master Five Willows as one who is: [q]uiet and taciturn, [he] did not aspire to fame or wealth; he loved to read books, but did not seek to over-interpret. Each time he has comprehended something, he would joyfully forget to eat. . . . He frequently wrote to amuse himself, which rather expressed his aspirations. He is not concerned with gains or losses; and in this way conducted his entire life. (Yan II, 2102) This describes a quiet person who delighted in learning, cared not for profit or gain, wrote to amuse himself and to express his feelings, delighted in wine, and was at peace in his poverty— much like our poet. In the preface to the prose-poem “The Return” (dated 405), Tao tells us the reason he chose to serve and why he decided to return home: “I was poor, and what I got from farming was not enough to support my family. The house was full of children, the rice-jar was empty, and I could not see any way to supply the necessities of life”11 (Lu II, 986; tr. H, 268). Yet after a few days in office, he longed to return home: “My instinct is all for freedom, and will not brook discipline or restraint. Hunger and cold may be sharp, but this going against myself really sickens me” (Lu II, 986; tr. H, 268). The rhymed prose section opens with a vision of his garden “overgrown with weeds,” with the poet resolutely stating, “I must go back.” The poem paints an ideal picture of retired life: with wine aplenty, extended time for leisure when our poet took “delight in sincere conversation with [his] family,/Find joy in books and cither to dispel [his] worries,” and gazed at natural scenery (Lu II, 987–88). Tao concludes with a philosophical reflection on life: “How long can I lodge my body in the universe?/Why not follow the heart and be free to come and go?” He knows that “wealth and honor are not [his] desire,” rather: I embrace a fine day to go out alone, At times to tend to the crops with a staff in hand. Climbing the eastern hill to let out long whistles, And looking on the clear stream to compose poetry. (Lu II, 987)

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The commodity of leisure—so rare for a busy official—is here quietly extolled. Nature is thus associated with what is natural for Tao Yuanming—it is only by being home, enjoying nature, that he can truly be himself.

Elevating the Pastoral: Writing the Fields and the Gardens Tao’s decision to retire and his life of farming are often the subjects of his poetry; they are the topics for which he is most well known. Earlier poets, such as Shi Chong (249–300 AD) and Pan Yue (247–300 AD), have written about retirement, but they were either wealthy patrons like Shi Chong who went to their estates only for leisure, or, like Pan Yue, writing about retirement merely as a pose (Lu II, 643–45, 627–38). However, Tao Qian had to support himself through farming and accordingly wrote about a different kind of life than did Shi or Pan. A famous example is the first of Tao’s “Returning to the Farm to Dwell” poems, written in 406 (Lu II, 991; tr. H, 50). Tao begins by telling us that “From early days [he has] been at odds with the world;/[His] instinctive love is hills and mountains.” Like the birds and fish that long for their natural habitats, Tao longed to “abide by [his] clumsiness, return to [his] gardens and fields” (Lu II, 991; tr. H, 50). The return to a pastoral lifestyle was a crucial decision, one of sacrificing material goods in exchange for time. An idealized life in retirement is further evoked in the fifth of the “Drinking Wine” poems, where Tao notes that while he “built [his] hut beside a travelled road/Yet [he] hears no noise of passing carts and horses,” because “With the mind detached, one’s place becomes remote” (Lu II, 998; tr. H, 130). The space of his retirement is one where he can be away from demands of the official world, where he can be in nature and be his natural self. The poem centers on two famous couplets—a gesture and a simple scene of the southern hills that Tao catches at sunset—to evoke the serene inner state of the poet: Picking chrysanthemum by the eastern hedge, I catch sight of the distant southern hills: The mountain air is lovely as the sun sets, And flocks of flying birds return together. (lines 5–10, H tr, 130) It is a gentle scene: the lightly colored mist surrounding the southern mountains, the homing birds evoking the peaceful state of the birds, who, like our poet, are returning to their rightful resting place. It stands in stark contrast to Tao’s earlier life, when he was tied down by work he did not enjoy. In the fifth of his “Za shi” (Miscellaneous Poems), Tao dispels the idea that he had always determined to live retired from life; in fact, he had had great ambitions when young, but the reality of the official world caused him to turn away from service: I recall when I was in my prime I could be happy without cause for joy. My ambition ranged beyond the seas, On widespread wings I thought to soar afar. Months and years inexorably fell away And as they went this feeling left me too. I feel no joy when pleasures come my way And everything is just one worry more: My vital energy slackens and declines,

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And each new day seems worse than yesterday. The valley boat stayed hardly a moment there— I too am pulled along, unable to rest. (Lu II, 1006; tr. H, 191) The ambitions of his youth were tempered by time and reality; he had to learn to contend with his circumstances. In the best-known of Tao’s poems, there is joy in relishing everyday life, an extraordinary ability to uncover beauty in the mundane. The first poem in the series “On Reading the Classic of the Mountains and Seas” is one such example: [Joyfully] I pour the spring-brewed wine, And in the garden pick some greens to cook. A gentle shower approaches from the east Accompanied by a temperate breeze. I skim through the story of King Mu; And view the pictures in the Seas and Mountains Classic. A glance encompasses the ends of the universe— Where is there any joy, if not in these? (Lu II, 1010; tr. H, 229) After completing his plowing and sowing, our poet retreats to the safe green cocoon of his home. In this delicious space of privacy, Tao reads the travels of the King of Zhou and the Seas and Mountains Classic, which serves to open up the confined space, connecting him spatially and temporally to those ancient, distant places. While Tao is best known for poems in which he celebrates the joys of the pastoral, he also wrote numerous verses that reflect the difficulties of farming. Only by reading through Tao’s entire corpus can we realize Tao’s depiction of his life in retirement is far more complicated and nuanced than a romanticized pastoral. In poem number two of “Returning to the Farms to Dwell,” for example, Tao idealizes the humble life in the village, where he “talks nothing else/Than how the hemp and mulberry are growing.” But lurking behind the simple joy is the “constant worry that frost may come,/ And [his] crops will wither with the weeds” (Lu II, 991–92; tr. H, 51). In poem number three of the same set, Tao famously depicts the toils of farming: “I got up at dawn to clear away the weeds,/And come back now with the moon, hoe on shoulder” (Lu II, 992, tr. H, 52). Writing in 410, Tao more realistically describes the hardship of going early to till, when the “frost is heavy in the hills,” and, returning at sunset, he reflects: Is a farmer’s life not bitter? We can’t avoid such difficulties. My four limbs are weary enough— Other troubles should be spared us. (Lu II, 996; tr. H, 121) Writing about harvesting in a faraway field in the desolate mountains, Tao expresses being the “hungry man [who will] gladly eat his fill/And sits with tightened belt to wait for cockcrow.” While he is famished, he still notices the beautiful details of the landscape during his trip into the forest: the “level lake,” the “clear twisting valley stream,” “thickly wooded wild hills,” the sad and lonely cries of the gibbons, and the mournful winds of the early morning. Though it has been twelve years since he has been there, Tao declares that despite the hardship, “not once has [he] stayed away from work” (Lu II, 997; tr. H, 122–23). 60

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In “In the Sixth Month of 408, Fire,” Tao tells about the fire that burned down his house. Instead of dwelling on his loss, however, Tao discovers the expansive view offered by the burnt roof, of the crystalline moon in the night sky: “Space is vast this early autumn evening,/The moon, nearly full, rides high above” (Lu II, 995; tr. H, 117). Later, in his sixties, in a poem to Secretary Peng and Scribe Deng, Tao enumerates the hardship he encountered in his life, noting that “[d]ark and distant is the Way of Heaven,” and that, in spite of trying to do right since his childhood, things did not always go as he had wished: At twenty I met with troubled times, When thirty I lost my first wife; More than once bright fire burned down my house, Weevils had their way with the grain I grew, Wind and rain came from every quarter, And the yield would not suffice a single man. Through summer days we often bore our hunger, Winter nights we slept without covers; In the evening we would long for cockcrow, At dawn we prayed the crow would quickly cross. (Lu II, 976; tr. H, 64–65) Tao suffered a fire, hunger, the death of his first wife—life was so grueling that he hoped for the quick passage of time. Tao apologized to his sons in a letter that he had caused them “to endure hunger and cold” (Yan II, 2097). Tao even wrote a poem in which he was begging for food and encountered a kind-hearted person who gave him wine and good conversation (Lu II, 992–93). Life was not easy for Tao, but his courage in rejecting the profitable offices unsuitable for him, and his ability to contend with his hardship and still find beauty in his everyday life, made him a kindred soul to later poets. The great Song poet Su Shi (1037–1101), for instance, admired Tao’s “Begging for Food” and agreed with Yuanming that it is better to express oneself, because “[when] one expresses words [that come] from the heart and [out of] the mouth, one could offend people, but if one were to suppress [the expressions], then it would go against the self.”12 It is because Tao communicates the complexity of his emotions and life so genuinely that later readers like Xiao Tong and Su Shi cherished his poetry and thought of Tao’s character when reading his poetry.13

“Appears Unadorned yet Is Exquisite” Su Shi famously declared that Tao Qian’s poetry appears “unadorned and yet is exquisite; [the poems seem] gaunt but are in truth rich.” Zhong Rong states that Tao’s poetry is “sparing [in lexes] and serene, having virtually no excess of words.”14 Indeed, in a time when the poets were vying with one another to use exquisite words for descriptions,15 Tao’s poetry is surprisingly sparse in embellishment. In the famous couplet from the fifth of the “Drinking Wine” poems cited earlier, for example, there is only one adjective—“fine” (jia)—used to describe the atmospheric mist (qi) at dusk around the Southern mountain, yet it immediately conjures a tranquil scene at sunset with its soft, fine colors. The homing birds flying by the mountain at dusk evoke a peaceful, exquisite scene at sunset; it also reflects the poet’s decision to, like the birds, return home. It is not only a beautifully framed scene (jing), but also one that reflects the poet’s emotions (qing), “one that corresponds with his intent.” The beauty of Tao’s scenes lies in the way they are injected with a sensory feeling of the seasons. In describing a scene from spring, for instance, Tao uses the word “delicate” (wei) to describe the 61

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rain, “lofty” (gao) to describe the forest, “clear” to describe the breeze—simple words, but when put together, the entire scene gives us a clean spring scene of rain-washed forests above which birds soar in the clouds: “the fine rain washes the lofty forest,/Clear draft lifts the birds soaring in the clouds” (Lu II, 983). Likewise, in “Progression of the Seasons,” Tao describes the eastern outskirts of town as where the “Mountain is scoured by the [remaining] clouds/The sky dimmed by a film of mist”—a pure spring scene cleansed by the rain (Lu II, 968; tr. H, 16). The mist and mountains change to reflect the seasons, as verbs such as “congeal” (ning) and adjectives like “lofty” (gao) are used to evoke the lofty autumn sky and the cool peaks of autumn: The dew congeals, no more miasmas drift, The sky is [lofty], the scene shows clear. Soaring peaks stand out above the range— A far-off view of scenery unsurpassed. (Lu II, 978–979; tr. H, 81) And at the year’s end, the same clouds on the mountains become “cold” (han), and the atmosphere turns “sharp” (yan), so that, of the homing bird at dusk, it says, “[c]old clouds engulf the western hill,/Chill, chill, the winds turns sharp,/In flocks the flying birds return” (Lu II, 980; tr. H, 89). It is a frigid world the birds are escaping. Tao Qian’s pastoral is not only a space to be seen and heard but also one to be felt, sensitively attuned as the poet was to the seasons.16 Often, the descriptive words Tao chooses allude to clarity: for instance, words like “clear” (che), “bright” (ming), “radiant” (zhaozhao), or “white”/”clear” (xiaoxiao): The [clear] air scours summer’s dregs away,/The distant boundary of heaven is high. (Lu II, 990; tr. H, 119) A cool breeze arises, and evening comes on,/The rays of the night exhibit their clear brilliance./Luminous, the heavenly vault is vast;/Shining smoothly on the surface of the stream. (Lu II, 983) Additionally, as we have seen in the first and second of the “Return to Dwelling in the Fields” poems, Tao often uses Daoist terms of negation—“none” (wu), “empty” (xu), “dustless” (wu chen za), and “nature” (ziran)—to portray his home: #1 My home remains unsoiled by worldly dust Within bare rooms I have my peace of mind. For long I was a prisoner in a case And now I have my freedom back again. (Lu II, 991; tr. H:50) #2 From the bare rooms all dusty thoughts are banned. (Lu II:991; H: 51) Like the ideal state in the Laozi, this is a paradise of freedom where the sullied world is kept away. In addition to simply naming the objects in the landscape (hills, birds, streams, clouds, trees), we find a few elements that have taken on added symbolism. Tao often stares longingly at the white clouds, whose pureness represents the moral virtue or purity of the past (Lu II, 978, 987). In contrast, dark clouds foreshadow difficult times (Lu II, 967). Chrysanthemum is a flower particularly associated with Tao Qian, a hardy, ordinary flower that blossoms in the most ordinary places in

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autumn; it came to represent Tao’s moral purity (Lu II, 979, 998). Likewise, the pine stands tall and does not wither in winter, echoing the Analects to symbolize the gentleman who stays loyal even during hardship (Lu II, 979, 987, 999). The bird, however, is a more complex symbol in Tao’s poetry. Often Tao seems to see aspects of himself in the bird: the bird “confined to a cage” is Tao trapped in official life (Lu II, 991); the homing birds reflect the Tao who has found his group (Lu II, 998). In contrast, the anxiously seeking “bird [that is] lost from the flock” embodies Tao Qian as he searches for like-minded friends (Lu, 998). And the lone bird that “slowly emerge[s] from the woods/To return again before the close of the day” symbolizes Tao, who chooses to stay by himself while others clamor to seek office and fame. Like Tao Qian, that bird “stays at home/Where there is no avoiding cold and hunger”17 (Lu II, 1008; tr. H, 204).

“Seems Gaunt but Is in Truth Rich” In the second part of Su Shi’s assessment of Tao’s poetry, he declared that Tao’s poems “[seem] gaunt but are in truth rich.” Indeed, Tao’s poetry appears simple, representing an uncomplicated life in retirement; farming,18 domesticity,19 the joys of seeing friends or conversing with neighbors,20 and going on outings,21 or of reading, writing, and drinking wine.22 Prior to his retirement, many poems showed Tao’s own internal dilemma about whether to serve in positions he disliked or to retire and contend with economic hardship.23 While the best-known poems in Tao’s corpus describe the poet enjoying his leisure in retirement, we also see a more nuanced depiction of his life, including an unsympathetic wife, difficulties in farming, and hardships such as having to beg for food (Lu II, 976). These poems go beyond presenting a rich and multifaceted tapestry of Tao’s own existence— they form a base from which our poet reflects on philosophical questions about life: what does it mean to live one’s most authentic self? What are the difficult choices we must make in life, and are those choices worth their cost? What is happiness? How do we survive the hardships of life? What is the relationship between our spirits, which need nourishing, and our bodies, which require material support? Tao’s poems are written not only to reflect on his own life but also as philosophical ruminations on human life in general.24 While observing the trees in bloom, Tao was keenly aware of the passage of time, noting that, like the radiant blossoms that had died by nightfall, so too, “[h] uman life is like a visit;/There comes a time of decrepitude.” While Tao laments that he has “accomplished nothing” so far in his life, he inspires us to think about what we can do with our limited time (Lu II, 969; tr H,19). Nowhere is the brevity of life reflected so poignantly as in the fourth of the poems, “Returning to the Farm to Dwell,” where Tao walks around grave mounds and lingers at the dwellings of the past, thinking of those who have come and gone. He concludes that “In one lifetime, court and market change—/This in truth is not an idle saying./ Man’s life is like a conjuror’s illusion/That reverts in the end to empty nothing” (Lu II, 992; tr. H, 53). Our lives are full of flux,25 and in the end, we revert to nothingness—this echoes the Daoist idea of emptiness. The “Miscellaneous Poems” explore the inconstancy of our lives, “light as dust on the path./Scattered and carried by a gust of wind—/In this body is no permanency” (Lu II, 1005–1008; tr. H, 185).26 Death hovers over some of his works, where Tao considers questions of fame after one’s passing, about how ultimately “Human life comes always to its end,” as he writes for his friend, Attendant Chang, at the year’s end, pondering the year end, the termination of life, and even the end of a dynasty (Lu II, 976–77, 979–89). Tao’s “Bearers’ Songs” most unambiguously reflect on death, as

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the poet imagines his own end from within his grave and contemplates the relationship between life and death, between the living and the dead (Lu II, 1012–1013). While most of Tao’s poems include thoughtful reflections on life, there are specific sets of poems on philosophical topics. Critics have noted Tao’s allusions to Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist texts, and Tao himself would often look to historical figures for company.27 The famous “Peach Blossom Spring” is both a description of a delightful agrarian utopia and a reflection on what humans truly need: peace, security, and economic livelihood (Lu II, 985–86). “Substance, Shadow, and Spirit” mimics contemporary Buddhist polemics and deliberates on Substance (the physical parts of us which will inevitably perish), Shadow (the name and fame that will outlive us), and Spirit (which argues for giving way to the transformations).28 These are all parts of our existence, but Spirit urges us to relinquish our attachment to life and to give in to the inevitable transformation of things (Lu II, 989–990). Ironically, Tao’s own name outlives his physical and spiritual forms, being passed down through his poetry, written, purportedly, merely to amuse himself (Lu II, 997). While Tao’s poetry seems to be about his agrarian lifestyle, it is also a complex set of reflections on the choices he had made and the life he lived—a contemplation of life itself. Tao writes about nature and about what is natural for him. Thus, Su Shi thinks that his poetry appears “gaunt” (because it seems to be merely about rural living) but is “in fact rich.”

Tao’s Influences in Later Cultural Spheres As early as the Southern Dynasties, Tao’s poetry was read and his style replicated: Bao Zhao (414–466) was one of the first to imitate Tao’s works. Bao’s “Imitating the Style of Tao Pengze, Ordered to Be Set to the Rhyme of Wang Yixi’s [Poem]” opens with allusions to Tao’s poems, where he light-heartedly dismisses worry and focuses only on wines in the goblet and friends visiting: “Prolonged worrying is not my intent in life/I have no need for small hopes./[My] only wish is that wine is full in the goblet,/[And] my friends can frequently stop by”29 (Lu II, 1300). While the sentiments reflect those of Tao’s, the language is elegant and crafted, reflecting more of the later Southern Dynasties descriptive sensibility. In Liang, the poet Jiang Yan (444–505) included Tao Qian in his “Za ti shi” (Miscellaneous Style Poems), a collection of poems imitating earlier poets. This attests to the fact that Jiang already considered Tao Qian one of the important poets in Chinese history. The title of the poem itself—“Tao Zhengjun Qian tian ju” (The Summoned Scholar Tao Qian’s Dwelling in the Fields)—illustrates the crux of both Tao’s poetic focus (pastoral poetry) and his soul (that of a recluse). The poem shows good knowledge of Tao’s oeuvre, alluding to and reworking lines from Tao’s poems, further using well-known gestures, such as “carrying the hoe,” “wishing for the hemp and the mulberry [to] grow,” and “gazing at the three paths”30 (Lu II, 1577). Tao was therefore not merely a reclusive personality but a poet who came to be known through his works. By the Tang (618–907), poets began to allude to Tao’s retirement and his love of chrysanthemums and wine; “peach blossom spring” took on a life of its own as a desired utopia. The early Tang poets Wang Ji (590–644), Wang Wei (?–761), and Meng Haoran (?–740), in particular, were influenced by Tao’s keen eye in observing nature and everyday life, fully establishing the genre of “pastoral poetry” (tian yuan shi). Notably, Bo Juyi (772–846) set out to extensively mimic Tao Qian’s lyrics during a period when he withdrew from office, writing “In Imitation of Tao Qian’s Poetic Styles, Sixteen Poems.”31 While these refer to many of Tao’s famous lines and even mimic Tao’s gestures in retirement, claiming empathy with Tao’s plight, Bo’s poems nevertheless have nothing like Tao’s easy-going, reflective style. Recently, several sets of Tang tomb epitaphs with references to Tao Yuanming have been made available. Hu Kexian and Yuan Zhang analyzed the contents of the epitaphs, the social position of 64

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the tomb owners, and the allusions to Tao.32 They found that references to Tao became extremely popular in the Tang—from 602 to 931 AD—and that references to Tao focused on his image as a moral exemplar rather than his poetry. A large percentage of these epitaphs came from tombs of lower-middle-ranking officials who did not do well in service, indicating the affinity that their descendants must have felt they had with Tao. By the Song (960–1127), Tao’s poetry was firmly established in the literary canon; the choice of simple words found in Tao’s pastoral resonated well with the Song aesthetic of ping dan (“mildness” or “the ordinary”). Su Shi most famously wrote over a hundred poems set to the rhymes of Tao’s verses. While earlier poets might mimic Tao’s gestures or borrow lines from Tao, Su Shi wrote poems using the same rhyming patterns—often the same words—and spoke of similar topics in his poems; it was as if he were speaking with Tao, like friends conversing.33 Similarly, in Song painting, Tao Qian and his poetry have their own sub-genre, beginning with Li Gonglin’s rendering of Tao’s bucolic life in retirement, illustrating “The Return” in a handscroll format. Equally popular later were portrayals of Tao’s “Peach Blossom Spring.” In addition, we see iconography of Tao as a recluse, often a figure with billowing sashes, or holding a chrysanthemum or wine cup in his hands. Finally, we find images of chrysanthemums, eastern hedges, or southern mountains, evoking lines from Tao’s poetry, hinting at the leisurely life of a retired, moral gentleman.34 Tao Yuanming—the person, the principles in his poetry, and the life he chose to live—have become firmly ingrained in the Chinese cultural imagination.

Notes 1 Tao’s biography can be found in Shen Yue (441–513 AD), Song shu [Song History] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974), 9.2286–90. For details of his life and works, see Yuan Xing’pei’s “Tao Qian,” in Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature. David Knechtges and Taiping Chang, eds. (Leiden: Brill, 2010), II, 1090–1124, and the chronicle in Xu Yimin, ed. Tao Yuanming nianpu [Chronologies of Tao Yuanming] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), 175–213. See also comparisons of the various chronologies in Jingjie xiansheng nianpu kaoyi [Investigation of Differences Between the Chronologies of Jingjie], in Tao Shu, ed. Tao Jingjie ji zhu, fu Dongpo he Tao shi [Commentary on the Collected Works of Tao Jingjie, with Su Dongpo’s Poems Set to the Rhymes of Tao] (Taibei: Shi jie shu ju, 1999), 136–78. In two of his own writings—“Biography of the Former Administrator to the Jin General-in-Chief for Subduing the West His Excellency Meng” and “A Sacrificial Writing for My Younger Sister Madame Cheng”—Tao refers to himself as Yuanming. See Tao Shu, Tao Jingjie ji zhu, fu Dongpo he Tao shi, 14–25, 84–87, 93–94. On Tao’s farmstead poetry, see Charles Kwong, “The Rural World of Chinese ‘Farmstead Poetry’ (Tianyuan Shi): How Far Is It Pastoral?” CLEAR 15 (1993): 57–84. 2 For biographies of the other two recluses, see “Biography of Zhou Xuzhi” and “Biography of Liu Ningzhi” in Shen Yue, comp., Song Shu, juan 93, 2280–81, 2284–85. 3 Pauline Lin, “Rediscovering Ying Qu and His Poetic Relationship to Tao Qian,” HJAS 69, no. 1 (2009): 37–74. 4 Zhong Rong, Shi pin zhu [Commentary on the Gradation of Poetry], ed. Wang Zhong (Taibei: Zhong hua shu ju, 1990), 155–56. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine. 5 Yan Yanzhi, “Dirge for Summoned Scholar Tao,” in Liu chen zhu Wenxuan [Selections of Refined Literature, with Commentaries by the Six Officials], 57.19b–57.26b (SBCK); Zhang Yuanji, comp., Sibu Congkan chu bian (Shanghai: Shangwu shuju, 1919), 57.19b–57.26b; also in Yan Kejun, comp., Quan Shanggu sandai Qin Han Sanguo Liuchao wen [Complete Prose from the Antiquities, Three Dynasties, Qin, Han, Three Kingdoms, Six Dynasties] (Taibei rpt, Zhonghua shuju, 1999), III, 2646–47. Hereafter cited as Yan. 6 Xiao Tong, Tao Yuanming ji xu [Preface to the Collection of Tao Yuanming] in juan 4 of the Liang Zhaoming taizi Xiao Tong ji [Collected Works of Xiao Tong, Prince of Zhaoming of the Liang], Yan, III, 3066–67. 7 My translation; see also Wang Ping, “Between Reluctant Revelation and Disinterested Disclosure: Reading Xiao Tong’s Preface to Tao Yuanming ji,” Asia Major 23, no. 1 (2010): 201–22. 8 By the Liang, there existed at least three collections of Tao’s works: a six-juan collection and two eight-juan works. For the important prefaces to Tao’s editions, see Tao Shu, Tao Jingjie ji zhu, fu Dongpo he Tao

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Tao Yuanming 29 Trans. by Lin, “A Separate Space, a New Self,” 180; for discussion of later literary references to Tao, see Lin, “A Separate Space, a New Self,” 180–207; see also Swartz, Reading Tao Yuanming, 145–260. 30 Lin, “A Separate Space, a New Self,” 183–85. 31 Swartz, Reading Tao Yuanming, 160–88. 32 Chen Chang’an, ed., Sui Tang Wudai muzhi huibian [Collections of Epitaphs of Sui, Tang, and the Five Dynasties], Luoyang Volume, Vols. 7, 11, and 13 (Tianjing: Tianjing guji chubanshe, 1991); Guo Junfeng, “Shandong Jiyang Qianluicun Tangdai jiazu mu fajue jianbao” [Short Report of the Excavation of a Family’s Tomb in Qianliu Cun, Jiyang, Shandong], Journal of the China National Museum 5 (2017): 6–16; Hu Ji and Rong Xinjiang, eds., Datang xishi bowuguan cang muzhi [Collections of Epitaphs Owned by the Datangxi Museum] (Beijing: Bejing-daxue chubanshe, 2012). For translations of some of the epitaphs and analyses of the portrayal of Tao, see Hu Kexian and Yuan Zhang, “Tao Yuanming in Recently Unearthed Epitaphs from the Sui and Tang,” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 6, no. 2 (November 2019): 461–82. 33 A. R. Davis, “Su Shih’s ‘Following the Rhymes of T’ao Yüan-Ming’ Poems: A Literary or a Psychological Phenomenon?” East Asian History 38 (February 2014): 137–50; Vincent Yang, “A Comparative Study of Su Shi’s He Tao shi,” Monumenta Serica 56 (2008): 219–58; Swartz, Reading Tao Yuanming, 198–210. 34 Lin, “A Separate Space, a New Self,” 200–15; Susan Nelson, “What I Do Today Is Right: Picturing Tao Yuanming’s Return,” Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies (Albany) 28 (1998): 61–90; Elizabeth Brotherton, “Beyond the Written Word: Li Gonglin’s Illustrations to Tao Yuanming’s Returning Home,” Artibus Asiae 59, nos. 3–4 (2000): 225–63; Susan Nelson, “Tao Yuanming’s Sashes: or, the Gendering of Immortality,” Ars Orientalis 29 (1999): 1–27; Susan Nelson, “ Catching Sight of South Mountain: Tao Yuanming, Mount Lu, and the Iconographies of Escape,” Archives of Asian Art 52 (2000–2001): 11–43; Luo Hui, “From Home to Utopia, and Back Again: Locating and Relocating the Peach Blossom Spring,” New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 20, no. 2 (December 2018): 41–62; Hajni Elias, “In the Path of Tao Qian; ‘Chrysanthemum’ Wares of the Yongzheng Emperor,” Arts of Asia 45, no. 3 (May–Jun 2015): 72–85.

Further Reading Editions and Reference Works Chinese Department of Beijing University and Beijing Teachers’ University, comp. Tao Yuanming yanjiu ziliao huibian [Compilations of Sources for the Study of Tao Yuanming]. Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju, 1962. Tao Shu, ed. Tao Jingjie ji zhu, fu Dongpo he Tao shi [Commentary on the Collected Works of Tao Jingjie, with Su Dongpo’s Poems Set to the Rhymes of Tao]. Taibei: Shi jie shu ju, 1999.

Studies: Ashmore, Robert. The Transport of Reading: Text and Understanding in the World of Tao Qian (365–427). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. Brotherton, Elizabeth. “Beyond the Written Word: Li Gonglin’s Illustrations to Tao Yuanming’s Returning Home.” Artibus Asiae 59, nos. 3–4 (2000): 225–63. Chang, Kang-i Sun. “T’ao Ch’ien: Defining the Lyric Voice.” In Six Dynasties Poetry, 3–46. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. Davis, A. R. T’ao Yuan-ming (AD 365–427): His Works and Their Meaning. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Hightower, James Robert. The Poetry of T’ao Ch’ien. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970. Holzman, Donald. “A Dialogue with the Ancients: Tao Qian’s Interrogation of Confucius.” In Culture and Power in the Reconstitution of the Chinese Realm, 200–600, edited by Scott Pearce, Audrey Spiro, and Patricia Ebrey. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Hu Kexian and Yuan Zhang. “Tao Yuanming in Recently Unearthed Epitaphs from the Sui and Tang.” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 6, no. 2 (November 2019): 461–82. Jiu si congshu Editorial Board, comp. Tao Yuanming yanjiu [Studies of Tao Yuanming]. 2 vols. Taibei: Jiusi chubanshe, 1977. Kwong, Charles. Tao Qian and the Chinese Poetic Tradition: The Quest for Cultural Identity. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1994. Lin, Pauline. “Rediscovering Ying Qu and His Poetic Relationship to Tao Qian.” HJAS 69, no. 1 (2009): 37–74.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature Nelson, Susan. “Tao Yuanming’s Sashes: Or, the Gendering of Immortality.” Ars Orientalis 29 (1999): 1–27. Nelson, Susan. “What I Do Today Is Right: Picturing Tao Yuanming’s Return.” Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies (Albany, NY) 28 (1998): 61–90. Swartz, Wendy. Reading Tao Yuanming: Shifting Paradigms of Historical Reception (427–1900). Cambridge, MA: Harvard East Asia Center, 2008. Tian Xiaofei. Tao Yuanming and Manuscript Culture. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005. Xu Yimin, ed. Tao Yuanming nianpu [Chronologies of Tao Yuanming]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986. Yuan Xing'pei. “Tao Qian.” In Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature, II, comp. by David Knechtges and Taiping Chang, 1090–124. Leiden: Brill, 2010.

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6 XIE LINGYUN AND XIE TIAO Cynthia L. Chennault

An overview of poetry’s development by Liu Xie (fl. late fifth–early sixth centuries) outlined changes from prior generations that were ongoing through his day: During the early [Liu] Song (420–479) successive changes occurred. When Zhuangzi and Laozi announced their departure, mountains and streams flourished. Writers paired embellishments in couplets that ran to hundreds of words and vied to achieve the wondrous in a single line. In the expression of feelings, they harmonized them thoroughly with the forms of things [in the scene]. In the choice of phrasing, they made every effort to pursue freshness. These are the areas in which recent writers have been competing.1 The account first alludes to a genre of philosophical verse that preceded the flourishing of “mountains and streams.” This poetry of arcane discourse (xuanyan shi) by Neo-Daoist intellectuals of the Eastern Jin (317–420) made references to the Zhuangzi, Laozi (aka Daodejing), and Yijing (Book of Changes) that outweighed its fragmentary vignettes of the natural world. Yet its projection of a cosmic order vitalized by the workings of the Dao prefigured the philosophical or religious understanding of nature that would underlie landscape verse (shanshui shi; literally, mountains-and-rivers poetry).2 Xie Lingyun (385–433) was the most powerfully creative Liu-Song writer to bring nature to poetry’s forefront. In quest of a spiritual awakening, he chronicled explorations of the untamed wilderness in detail. A hallmark of his poetry was to signify the unity of the forces of yin and yang by pairing images of water and land in the lines of successive parallel couplets. Another feature, syntax that ingeniously differed from one antithetical couplet to the next, indicated the speaker’s changing outlook as he moved through the terrain as well as the diverse relationships among the landscape’s elements. Xie Tiao (464–499) introduced a new descriptive style. While his simpler diction and sparing use of difficult allusions reflected the aim of a movement to make literary writings more easily understood and recited, he surpassed his avant-garde associates of the Southern Qi (479–502) in melding internal states of mind with natural imagery—in Liu Xie’s words, to “harmonize” feelings with the “forms of things” in the scene. Riverscapes were the typical setting of Xie Tiao’s farewell poetry and verses about his travels to and from the capital. He is known also for contemplating the countryside surrounding his headquarters when he governed a rural commandery.  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-9

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Xie Lingyun’s Career and Landscape Style Xie Lingyun belonged to one of the Yangjia Xie’s most honored descent lines. Two years before his birth, his grandfather Xie Xuan (343–388) had been the leading commander of the Fei River Battle that saved the southland from foreign conquest. The Xie produced few male children who survived to adulthood, and it was probably to safeguard Lingyun’s health that his upbringing was entrusted to a Daoist master. Soon after taking office in 405, he joined the suite of Liu Yi, General of the Pacifying Army.3 Upon the general’s demotion in 410, he followed him to Yuzhang (modern Nanchang), where he learned about the emerging doctrines of Pure Land and Chan at the center for Buddhist learning on Mount Lu founded by the monk-scholar Huiyuan (334–416). His study of Buddhism, along with the Daoist tutelage of his childhood, would shape his poetry’s religious syncretism. Although his longtime superior Liu Yi was executed in 412 by Liu Yu (the future Song founder, Emperor Wu; r. 420–422), Xie continued to hold honorable appointments until 419, when he was suspended from office for killing a household retainer. After the Song dynasty was inaugurated in 420, he reentered the service of Liu Yu’s eldest son Yifu (the future Emperor Shao; r. 422–424). In consequence, however, of his closeness with a younger prince who aspired to supplant his brother as heir, he and other members of the prince’s circle, such as the poet Yan Yanzhi (384–456) and the monk Huilin (dates unknown), were expelled from the capital Jiankang (modern Nanjing) upon Liu Yifu’s accession. Xie’s rustication to govern Yongjia (Wenzhou, southern Zhejiang)4 marked the start of works in which he represented south China’s natural splendors while also voicing determination to dedicate himself to a life of spiritual self-betterment. En route to Yongjia, he wrote about betraying that commitment in the opening lines of “Upon Spending a Few Days at My Estate in Shining.” When my hair was bound up, I vowed to be true to my principles, But the world lured me on and turned me from my intent. It seems only yesterday that I was false to my purpose, Yet since then the year-star has twice gone gliding round. Worn-out and defiled, I make my excuses to the pure wilderness, Exhausted and ill, I stand shamed before all honest men.5 At the homestead to which his renowned grandfather retired (Shaoxing, northeastern Zhejiang) in order to “follow his heart and abandon this dusty world,”6 Xie was no doubt especially ashamed of his inability to resist joining the Song government. Leading to a resolve to return permanently to Shining, he described the estate’s alluring beauty: Crags are towering above me, peak upon peak, Sandbanks are winding around me, island after island. White clouds are clinging to the shadowing rocks, Green dwarf-bamboos adorn the crystal waves. Remarking on the effect upon readers of Xie Lingyun’s imagery, Lu Shiyong (fl. 1633) may have thought of the passage’s second couplet when he commented, “Being well-versed in Lingyun’s poetry can cleanse the five senses. White clouds and green bamboo have an unsullied pure flavor as though [seen] in clear ripples.”7 Another aspect of Xie’s depiction of his inheritance is its vastness. Recent scholarship has theorized that the aesthetic regard for nature that arose in Eastern Jin 70

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writings was not simply a response to the southlands’ dramatic topography. Rather the activity of upper-elite settlers to inspect and claim land for their latifundia caused a shift toward describing the natural world in more sensuous and intimate terms. Differing from earlier literature’s stock imagery, “mountains and rivers” were represented as places the authors knew personally from roaming them.8 During his governorship Xie developed a typical format. Following a narrative prelude and depiction of a scene, the four-part structure contained a section expressing the stirring of emotion as well as a philosophic meditation.9 In “Climbing Yongjia’s Green Crag Mountain,” each line of the prelude creates a forward momentum by anticipating a stretch of the journey ahead. 1

I packed some provisions and grabbed a light staff; Following the winding path, I climbed to my hidden abode. I proceeded upstream, the path winding further away, I reached the peak, my feelings not yet exhausted.10

The description of a pond at the summit of the mountain range—motionless but for the gleaming of its frozen surface—captures the season’s cold, silent purity: 5

Gentle ripples congealed in wintry beauty, Bamboos glistened in frosted strength.

Yet this spell of rapturous engagement is followed by a scene of nature’s impenetrable self-sufficiency: The stream wound about, its water often lost from view, The forest stretched far, crags ever more dense. The next passage, expressing the stirring of emotion, makes evident the peril of being unable to discern a route of return. Presumably lost in a forest or ravine, the poet cannot tell whether the faint light in its depths comes from the sun or moon. By steadily venturing on, however, he recovers his temporal and spatial bearings (ll. 11–12). Details are omitted, but it can be inferred that his entering “even the most secluded spots” along the descent satisfied feelings that were earlier “not yet exhausted” (l. 4). 10

I looked westward, taking it to be the rising moon, I gazed eastward, wondering about the setting sun. I walked until evening, having stayed from dawn to dusk. Even the most secluded spots have become familiar.

Commentaries on Yijing hexagrams 18 (“Ills to be Cured”) and 10 (“Treading”) head the poem’s concluding meditation. Unlike the neo-Daoist poets’ citations of that classic, Xie Lingyun’s references signaled a new perspective or course of action. The reading of “Ills to be Cured” commends a person who “does not concern himself with the affairs of king or feudal lords” but works to elevate his own higher pursuits. “Treading” predicts “a level and smooth path” for those who practice constancy in seclusion.11

“Harm at the top”: one values not serving, “Treading” in second place: one extols good fortune. 71

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15 20

A recluse will always walk a level step, His lofty aims, so remote, are hard to match. A yes and a no—how far apart are they? In quietude, I entrust myself to embracing wholeness. As tranquility and knowledge conjoin, The cultivation of one’s nature begins here.

The blurring of opposites, based on the Laozi (l. 17), defines a higher perspective wherein no distinction exists between success and failure. The rejection of conventional judgments suggests Xie’s reconciliation with his banishment and intention to pursue spiritual cultivation according to his own values.12 More broadly, a leveling of differences in the embrace of wholeness (l. 18) characterizes the poet’s mystical communion with nature in which barriers between the self and external phenomena dissolve.13 “On the Lakeside Tower” contains his best-known scenic portrayal. He had long “blotted out the season” while convalescing from an illness during the winter of 422. Rousing himself from his sickbed, he finds that the world outside the tower has changed: Inclining my ear I listen to surging billows, And raising my eyes behold the craggy peaks. Early spring has replaced the drawn-out winds, The new yang changes the old yin. The pond is growing into springtime plants, Garden willows have turned to singing birds.14 The grasp of cosmic renewal becomes suddenly profound through a transitive reading of the last couplet. Before resigning office on grounds of illness in the autumn of 424, Xie Lingyun completed the “Discussion of Essentials” (Bianzong lun) in which he explicated the Buddhist thesis of instantaneous enlightenment or awakening (dunwu). Although the essay did not mention experiences of the natural world, his poetry combined Daoist and dunwu ideology. For example, the following couplet may reflect not only the Dao’s immanence in nature but also the mindful observation of natural phenomena which, in Xie’s understanding, was a practice that could result in Buddhist enlightenment because it guided one to perceive the reality beyond material forms: If no one appreciates the spirit they manifest, Who will transmit the reality hidden therein?15 In another piece, aesthetic immersion in nature is comparable to the state of enlightenment by its liberating the observer from his ties to the world: Beauty is formed by heartfelt discernment, With whom in the end could I debate the subtle matter? When I behold all this, worldly anxieties vanish— In a glimpse of enlightenment, I am disburdened of them.16 But the euphoria induced by nature is also an attachment necessarily extinguished in Buddhist enlightenment. This precept may have informed the sequence in Xie’s poems from the display and disappearance of a landscape to dispassionate reflection at the work’s end.17 72

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Back at Shining, Xie set about repairing his property’s long-neglected fields and arbors. Likewise described in his monumental “Rhapsody on Dwelling in the Mountains” (Shanju fu) were dwellings he constructed for himself and a monastery, lecture hall, and meditation chamber for clergy living on the estate. Despite the satisfaction Xie took in creating an idyllic retreat, and the specialists of both Buddhism and Daoism whom he hosted, a sense of loneliness began to pervade his lyrics. In “Around My New Lodge at Stone Gate on All Sides are High Mountains, Winding Streams and Rocky Rapids, Lush Woods and Tall Bamboo,” he drew upon imagery from the Songs of Chu (Chu ci) to voice melancholic yearning for a soulmate: And,

Gently whispering, the autumn wind passes, Lush and green, the spring plants spread. The Fair One went wandering and does not return; How is our tryst to be honored? Useless the billows upon Dongting Lake— In vain I climb up in the cassia boughs. Bound up in memories that dwell in the Milky Way, My lone shadow has no one with whom to forget.18

While Xie’s quest for enlightenment was hindered by the lack of an ideal companion with whom he might “climb this ladder into the sky,”19 the theme of loneliness enriched his emotional range. The poems from Shining established his fame, such that residents in the capital vied to copy out every new work of his. After being twice summoned by Emperor Wen (Liu Yilong; r. 424–53), Xie returned to Jiankang in 426. As director of the Imperial Library, he worked on cataloguing the collection and writing a history of the Jin dynasty, among other tasks. Emperor Wen much admired his writings and calligraphy but disappointed the poet’s expectation of being entrusted with a substantive role in government—an employment Xie believed that his talent and family stature warranted. He eventually absented himself from court for weeks at a time. Asked to explain the neglect of his duties, he sent up a memorial stating he was ill, and was granted sick leave to return home. Early the next year of 429, when word reached the Censorate that in the company of his cousin Xie Huilian (407–433) and others, Xie spent his days in Shining roaming about and carousing as he pleased, he was impeached and dismissed from office. Heedless of mounting criticisms of the practices of large landowners, Xie ran afoul of political authority in ventures to improve his holdings. An expedition to expand his Shining estate a hundred miles southward panicked the local governor, who mistook Xie’s multitude of laborers for bandits. Closer to home, attempts to convert lakes to farmland caused the governor of Guiji (aka Kuaiji) to claim that Xie’s appropriation of the wilds was inciting popular unrest, and later to accuse him of seditious intent.20 After reading the self-defense that Xie hastened to deliver in person, Emperor Wen determined that the accusation was baseless slander. He nonetheless barred Xie from returning to any of his properties. Following a year’s detention in the capital, Xie was sent out as Inner Officer of Linchuan (Fuzhou, Jiangxi). He considered the appointment a banishment and increasingly identified with the tragically maligned exile Qu Yuan (fl. fourth cen. BCE), putative author of many of the Songs of Chu.21 His Linchuan lyrics lacked the narrative complexity and moments of spiritual elation of earlier quests. In “Entering Huazi Hill, the Third Valley of Hemp Stream,” an effortless penetration 73

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of the heavens discloses the absence of what he hoped to encounter. The poem ends with the intention to take momentary pleasure in the moonlit waters of a bubbling stream.22 When Xie was again denounced in 432 for negligence in office, a warrant was issued for his arrest. He raised a militia to defend himself but was captured and brought to Jiankang, where he was sentenced to be executed for rebellion. Through Emperor Wen’s mediation, the punishment was commuted to exile in Linhai (Guangzhou). Within months of arriving at the empire’s southernmost reach, however, he faced a trumped-up charge of newly planning a rebellion and was executed in the marketplace. Critics widely acclaimed Xie Lingyun as the progenitor of landscape poetry. Of 112 poems and fragments still extant, the Wenxuan (Selections of Refined Literature; comp. ca. 526) featured forty as lyrical models. Zhong Rong (469?–518) placed Xie Lingyun in the top rank of the Shipin (Gradings of Poetry), on a par with only ten other superlative masters.

Xie Tiao’s Career and Landscape Style Xie Tiao was born in Jiankang or its vicinity after his father returned from a long exile in Guangzhou. Xie Wei (dates unknown) had not been implicated in the plot of his brothers and their maternal uncle Fan Ye (398–446) to overthrow Emperor Wen and escaped execution. Yet he was unable to rise later from the position of an ordinary court attendant. Xie Tiao’s marriage to the commoner daughter of Wang Jingze (d. 498), a powerful general instrumental in establishing the Qi dynasty, was likely arranged to improve the family’s prospects.23 In 482 Xie Tiao entered the bureaucracy as an aide to a son of the Qi founder. His reputation rose during the Yongming reign (483–493) of his successor Emperor Wu (Xiao Ze). Assigned in 486 to the suite of the literarily precocious prince Xiao Zilong (474–494), he later frequented the Western Villa opened in 487 by Xiao Ziliang (460–494), the most ardent patron of the age. Along with Shen Yue (441–513) and Wang Rong (468–493), he was recognized as one of the prince’s “Eight Friends”—among a multitude of visitors. The trio promulgated a set of tonal guidelines for poetry that had been catalyzed by Xiao Ziliang’s project to reproduce in Chinese the metric rhythm of Buddhist hymns.24 Another change embraced by the avant-garde was Shen Yue’s dictum that literary writings should concern matters that readers readily recognized and that their words be easy to understand and recite aloud.25 No record survives of Xie’s conversations with Zhong Rong, who opposed the stylistic revolution then underway, but he is known to have held an ideal of seamless compositional fluidity: “Good poetry has a round beauty that rolls and turns like a bead.”26 Lyrics from Xie’s early career were mainly composed at literary gatherings or by royal command and had the brief format of eight to twelve lines. None are landscape poems, but certain of their characteristics can be found in Xie’s later works. For example, in a verse that celebrated Xiao Zilong’s promotion to Regional Inspector of Jingzhou (southern Hubei) and took the viewpoint of the prince’s retinue approaching Jiankang’s inner city, details of the scenes are organized in sensuously appealing patterns.27 Similar treatments that reflect an aesthetic rather than philosophic consciousness would recur in Xie’s contemplative poetry. In 491 he accompanied Xiao Zilong to Jingzhou as his literary instructor. Most poems from his tenure in Jiangling, the region’s administrative seat on the middle Yangzi, were written to match the topics of pieces authored by the teenaged prince or by acquaintances stationed in other parts. A few occasional poems showed a longing to return to Jiankang. While deprived of the lively society of the capital’s salons, Xie joined the gatherings that Xiao Zilong regularly held to compose rhapsodies. The prince particularly favored him for his talent, and they became inseparable friends. In the summer of 493, however, the prince’s senior military officer reported that Xie was exerting undue influence on him. Emperor Wu recalled 74

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him to Jiankang.28 Xie’s poem describing his return—“Temporarily Dispatched to the Lower Capital, I Set out at Night from Xinlin and upon Reaching the Jurisdiction of the Imperial City, Present this Poem to Colleagues in the Western Ministry”—begins powerfully with an embodiment of his sorrow in the Yangzi’s inexhaustible flow: The great River flows day and night, There’s no end to the sorrow in a traveler’s heart. Why tell myself that passes and mountains are near— Knowing the while the road back is long?29 As the river takes Xie eastward to his destination, his thoughts turn in contrary direction to the friends from whom he is increasingly separated. A reframing of the duality of actual and imagined vistas in a later quatrain marks the night’s passing through a series of celestial bodies, each of which emits a different quality of light: Gold Waves [the moon] adorn Ostrich Watchtower, The Jade Rope [two stars of the Big Dipper] dips low over Jianzhang Palace. As I hasten the carriage to Tripod Gate, I see in my mind the sunlit tomb of Zhao.30 Beyond the happiness of any long-absent homecomer in sight of familiar landmarks, the first couplet of the passage conveys Xie’s special enchantment with “the glories of the capital.”31 His concluding lines boast of escaping a slanderer’s harm: I always feared that hawks and falcons would strike, And autumn chrysanthemums bend beneath harsh frost. Tell those who spread nets to trap little birds: He has already soared into the empty sky! But Xie arrived at a capital in the throes of a crisis of succession that ensued from Emperor Wu’s death in late summer and the throne’s transfer to a young grandson, Xiao Zhaoye (r. 493–494). The court was factionalized, and by order of the regent Xiao Luan (the future Emperor Ming, r. 494–498), many of the literati who had flocked to Jiankang during the Yongming reign were posted to the provinces.32 In the same autumn of Xie’s arrival, a farewell poem he presented to Fan Yun (451–503) transformed the place of Qu Yuan’s exile into a region of musical production and gaiety (ll. 1–2). Projecting Fan’s return, he reprised the device of oppositional movement wholly through natural imagery. Rain-bearing clouds will feed tributaries in Chu of the waterways that lead back to Jiankang (ll. 3–4): 1

Dongting is a land where music spreads, By the Xiao and Xiang, Yao’s daughters roam. Clouds leave for the wilds of Cangwu, Waters return to the currents of the Yangzi and Han.33

Another consolation is that Fan’s handling of his duties should earn him the fame of a Han dynasty official who effected the virtuous transformation of Guangping (l. 7). For himself, Xie foresaw the 75

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fate of the rhapsodist Sima Xiangru (179–117 BC), who had died in retirement at Maoling by the time a summons recalled him to court. 5 10

Halting my steeds, I feel sad and dejected. Shipping your oars, you seem to linger a while. From Guangping your fame will soon resound, At Maoling I will be sought in time to come. Our intended achievements [in the past] are ended forever, On the river is only the pain of parting.

The poem exemplifies a compositional method wherein ideas or feelings are conveyed at the outset through scenic description (ll. 1–4). The discursive portion that follows (ll. 7–10) is introduced by a transitional couplet that defines the lyric’s occasion. The penultimate line may allude to the ruined attempt to seat the Prince of Jingling as Emperor’s Wu’s successor.34 Xie was finally reappointed to the bureaucracy in late 493 as a record keeper in the suite of the puppet emperor’s younger brother, Xiao Zhaowen (r. 494), a position that brought him into the immediate orbit of Xiao Luan’s authority. Assignments during 494, all based upon his ability as a writer, led to his heading the bureau that issued the dictator’s proclamations. The year saw the deposing of Emperor Wu’s two grandsons and the murder of a dozen other Xiao descendants in the legitimate group of succession, preceding Xiao Luan’s enthronement in December. In addition to expressing grief and the hope that loyalty to the new regime would protect him from harm, Xie’s writings of the period debated whether to remain in office or retire. His posting in 495 to govern Xuancheng (Anhui) offered a solution to the dilemma. While the first quatrain of “On the Way to Xuancheng Commandery, I Head toward Banqiao from Xinlin Ford” juxtaposed the prospect of a faraway journey with the sight of a boat returning to port, Xie’s conclusion looked forward to holding office in a place that would shield him from the capital’s “dust and mire”: Now this happens to meet my desire for preferment, And accords also with my taste for the Watchet Isles. The dust and mire are screened off from now on— Here I shall find that which pleases my heart. Though I haven’t the visage of a black-spotted leopard, I may nonetheless hide in South Mountain’s mist.35 The leopard shrouded in mist, an image understood to represent a recluse, has broader meaning, as it originated in a warning to a miscreant governor to cultivate his virtue. In a later poetic exchange with Shen Yue, Xie would more fully elaborate upon his identity and shortcomings as a “governor-in-hiding.”36 Xie’s landscape poems from Xuancheng mainly comprised observations from a stationary perspective, which he often contextualized in relation to his duties as governor. In an example composed at his headquarters, the contemplation of nature is a welcome respite from adjudicating disputes: Between official cases now and then come periods of leisure and repose, When I will sit bemused, and contemplate the plants and woodlands.

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. . . Through bluish mists I gaze out at the wintery mountains: Towering they look down at the level plain.37 Another of Xie’s observations of the natural order takes place before the start of the workday, preceding dissatisfied broodings about his position in government (indicated in the poem’s latter half). Xie’s view from his hilltop residence resolves over time into a balanced design. Patches of snow shine from green mountains, A cold fog parts beneath the brightening sun. Dark and vague, river villages appear; One by one, waterside trees emerge. Putting on my cloak, I go to the clear washbasin; Leaning on the rail, I now grasp my writing brush.38 The remnant snow upon mountains, whose sheen catches the eye in the predawn light, is inversely matched by the dark contours of villages and trees that materialize when the sun’s warmth penetrates the white fog overlying them. While in Xuancheng, Xie also wrote poems that adopted features of Xie Lingyun’s explorations of mountains. The subject of “Jingting Mountain,” included among Xie’s twenty-one lyrics in the Wenxuan, was a prominent range visible from Xuancheng’s walled city. Retitled “Roaming Jingting Mountain” in editions derived from a twelfth-century printing of Xie’s poems, the work incorporates phrases echoing his predecessor’s style. Nonetheless, the opening lines’ attention to Jingting’s attributes and uses recalls the descriptive method of the “odes on objects” (yongwu shi) from Xie’s practice in the capital’s salons. This mountain spans a hundred li, Its jumbled peaks match the clouds in height. Just as “the hidden and submerged” here took refuge, So “the numinous and strange” likewise roost.39 The conclusion justifies pursuing an “interest in the marvelous” by the possible loss of the emperor’s favor: “Should imperial favor be finally ended and done/This reasoning is surely not perverse.” After Xie returned to Jiankang in late 496, he was assigned to the suite of Emperor Ming’s eldest son Xiao Baoyi (dates unknown) and in 497 appointed Grand Warden of Nan Donghai (Jiangsu), the seat of the territory of which the reclusive prince was regional inspector. The following year, when Xie’s brother-in-law asked his support for a rebellion planned by Wang Jingze, Xie rushed to Jiankang to inform the court, with the result that his father-in-law’s unprepared troops were quickly defeated. For his loyalty, Xie was promoted in the summer of 498 to “Officer of the Ministry of Personnel,” an influential position that he tried unsuccessfully to decline. Emperor Ming died two months thereafter and was succeeded by his second son Xiao Baojuan (posthumously titled “Marquis of Eastern Darkness,” r. 498–501). In 499 Xie was invited into a clique that aimed to replace the dissolute heir with a nephew of the former emperor. Indebted to Emperor Ming’s favor, Xie was unwilling to participate. To preclude his exposing their plot, the conspirators drew up a memorial charging Xie with treasonous slander and plans. He was imprisoned and later executed. Besides pieces Xie composed for ritual use, modern editions of his works contain 163 lyrical verses and yuefu (folk-style poems).

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Critics praised Xie Tiao for his fresh originality and lucidity. Many considered his works a bridge to the spirit of the Tang. Hu Yinglin (1551–1602) correlated the language of couplets from four of his verses with the dynasty’s poetic stages.40 Of these, Li Bai (702–760) had admiringly quoted verbatim the second line of the couplet illustrating the early Tang style: “Remnants of sunset mist spread to form a brocade/The limpid river is serene as bleached silk.”41 Li Bai referenced Xie Tiao more than any other poet. His “Sitting Alone on Jingting Mountain”42 may be understood as a tribute that acknowledged Xie Tiao’s watchful gaze.

Notes 1 My translation with minor changes follows Vincent Yu-chung Shih, The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (Taipei: Chung Hwa Book Co., 1970), 48. 2 Wendy Swartz, “Revisiting the Scene of the Party: A  Study of the Lanting Collection,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 132, no. 2 (2013): 275–300. The use of shanshui to define a poetic genre is a modern coinage. 3 Sources for Xie Lingyun’s career include his biographies in Songshu (comp.  493; Beijing: Zhonghua, 1974), 67.1743–79 and Nanshi (comp.  659; Beijing: Zhonghua, 1975), 19.538–42, and in English, J. D. Frodsham, The Murmuring Stream: The Life and Works of the Chinese Nature Poet Hsieh Ling-yün (385–433), Duke of Kang-Lo, 2 vols. (Kuala Lampur: University of Malaya Press, 1967) and Antje Richter, “Xie Lingyun,” in Classical Chinese Writers of the Pre-Tang Period, ed. Curtis Dean Smith (Detroit: Gale, 2011), 232–46. 4 As taishou (lit., “grand warden”), Xie was the commandery’s chief administrator. 5 J. D. Frodsham, trans., with the collaboration of Ch’eng Hsi, An Anthology of Chinese Verse: Han, Wei, Chin, and the Northern and Southern Dynasties (London: Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1967), 124–25. 6 From “Two Poems Telling of the Virtue of My Grandfather,” J. D. Frodshan, The Murmuring Stream, vol. 2, 113, line 19. 7 Shijing zonglun [General Introduction to the Mirror of Poetry], in Xu Lidai shihua [Sequel to Poetry Talks of Past Ages], ed. Ding Fubao, 2 vols. (Taipei: Yiwen, 1983), 2.1688. 8 Yü-yü Cheng, “Bodily Movement and Geographic Categories: Xie Lingyun’s ‘Rhapsody on Mountain Dwelling’ and the Jin-Song Discourse on Mountains and Rivers,” The American Journal of Semiotics 23, nos. 1–4 (2007): 193–219. 9 Wendy Swartz examines the function within the structure of Yijing citations in “Naturalness in Xie Lingyun’s Poetic Works,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 70, no. 2 (2010): 355–86. 10 Translation by Swartz, “Naturalness,” 366–78. 11 Richard John Lynn, trans., The Classic of Changes, a New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 201–2, 252. 12 Swartz, “Naturalness,” 370. 13 Francis Westbrook notes that the first-person subject disappears during these experiences. “Landscape Transformation in the Poetry of Hsieh Ling-yűn,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 100, no. 3 (1980): 239–40. 14 Translation by Westbrook, “Landscape Transformation,” 242. See also Richter, “Xie Lingyun,” 238. 15 Translation mine, from “Climbing the Solitary Island in the River,” ll. 9–10. See also the discussion of this poem in Timothy Wai Keung Chan’s analysis of Xie Lingyun’s religious thought, Considering the End: Mortality in Early Medieval Chinese Poetic Representation (Leiden: Brill, 2012), ch. 5, “Xie Lingyun on Awakening,” 149–50. 16 My translation from “Following the Jinzhu Torrent, I Cross the Peak and Go Along by the River” follows Obi Kōichi’s reading, Chūgoku bungaku ni arawareta shizen to shizenkan—chūsei bungaku o chūshin to shite (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1962), 548. See also Chan, “Xie Lingyun on Awakening,” 146–47. 17 Chan understands Xie’s poetic structure to embody the experience of enlightenment, “Xie Lingyun on Awakening,” 144–58 passim. 18 Translation by Westbrook (pinyin substituted), “Landscape Transformation,” 249.

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Xie Lingyun and Xie Tiao 19 The phrase is from “On Climbing the Highest Peak of Stone Gate,” discussed by Richter, “Xie Lingyun,” 241. Kang-i Sun Chang gives further examples of the theme of loneliness, Six Dynasties Poetry (Princeton University Press, 1986), ch. 2, “Hsieh Ling-yün, A New Descriptive Mode,” 72–76. 20 As described by Frodsham, An Anthology of Chinese Verse, 1.65–66. 21 Westbrook’s “Landscape Transformation” examines the identity in depth. 22 Stephen Owen translates and discusses the poem in “The Librarian in Exile: Xie Lingyun’s Bookish Landscapes,” Early Medieval China 10–11, no. 1 (2004): 203–26. 23 Fan Ye plotted to supplant Emperor Wen with Liu Yikang (409–451), Xie Lingyun’s nemesis at court. Xie Wei’s brothers joined him in jealousy over Wei’s betrothal to a daughter of the emperor. Songshu 52.1497. Sources for Xie Tiao’s career include biographies in Nan Qishu (comp. 537; Beijing: Zhonghua, 1972), 47.825–28 and Nanshi (comp. 659; Beijing: Zhonghua, 1975), 19.532–35, and Cynthia L. Chennault, “Xie Tiao,” in Smith, ed. Classical Chinese Writers of the Pre-Tang Period, 247–61. 24 For correspondences between the Buddhist hymns and regulated verse, see Victor H. Mair and Tsu-lin Mei, “The Sanskrit Origins of Recent Style Prosody,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 51, no. 2 (1991): 375–470. For the Southern Qi’s tonal and euphonic guidelines, see Richard B. Mather, The Poet Shen Yueh (441–513): The Reticent Marquis (Princeton University Press, 1988), 57–59, and Meow Hui Goh, Sound and Sight: Poetry and Courtier Culture in the Yongming Era (483–493) (Stanford University Press, 2010), 22–35. 25 As recounted by Yan Zhitui, in Teng Ssu-Yu, trans., Family Instructions for the Yen Clan (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 96. 26 As quoted by Shen Yue, Nanshi, 22.609. Concerning their conversations about poetry, Zhong Rong remarked only that Xie’s fervor and modulation of tone surpassed his writings. Shipin jizhu, ed. Cao Xu (Shanghai: Xinhua shudian, 1994), 298. 27 Xiaofei Tian discusses the poem “Entering the Court” in “Representing Kingship and Imagining Empire,” T’oung Pao 102, nos. 1–3 (2016): 55–56. 28 According to Nanshi, 19.532, Xie knew that a negative report was planned and asked to leave Jiangling. 29 Translation of excerpts mine. For the full poem and allusions not here explained, see Richard B. Mather, The Age of Eternal Brilliance: Three Lyric Poets of the Yung-ming Era (483–493), 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 2.128–29. 30 Royal constructions of the Han dynasty and earlier stand for those of the southern capital, a common substitution by Xie and his contemporaries. The tomb of Zhao was near Jiangling. 31 The phrase is from “A Night Gathering of Fellow Exiles.” Mather, The Age of Eternal Brilliance, 2.102, line 7. 32 For the Yongming decade and its aftermath, see Cynthia L. Chennault, “Odes on Objects and Patronage During the Southern Qi,” in Studies in Early Medieval Chinese Literature and Cultural History, ed. Paul W. Kroll and David R. Knechtges (Provo: Tang Studies Society, 2003), 331–98. 33 Translation mine of “Farewell to Fan Yun of Lingling Commandery.” For allusions, see Mather, The Age of Eternal Brilliance, 2.142–43. Liu Yuejin dates Fan’s departure to autumn 493. Yongming wenxue yanjiu (Taipei: Wenjin, 1992), 255. 34 Wang Rong was forced to commit suicide for leading the attempt. For Fan’s service to Xiao Zilong, see Chennault, “Odes on Objects,” 364–65. 35 Chennault, trans., “Xie Tiao,” 257–58. 36 Chennault, trans., “Xie Tiao,” 257–58; “Lying Sick in My Commandery: Presented to Shen of the Department of State Affairs,” 258–59. 37 Lines 1–2 and 7–8 from “On a Winter’s Evening during a Break in Commandery Affairs,” Mather, The Age of Eternal Brilliance, 2.247. 38 Translation mine, from “Overseeing Affairs from My Lofty Study.” For the full poem, see Mather, The Age of Eternal Brilliance, 2.225. 39 My translation with some changes follows Mather, The Age of Eternal Brilliance, 233. See also his discussion of additional poems concerning the mountain in “Ritual Aspects of Hsieh T’iao’s Wardenship of Hsűan-ch’eng,” Early Medieval China 6 (2000): 32–47. 40 Shisou [Thickets of Criticism] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1958), “Outer Chapters,” 2.150. 41 Translation mine, from “Late in the Day, I Climb Three Peaks Mountain and Gaze Back at the Capital District.” David Palumbo-Liu discusses Li Bai’s citation in The Poetics of Appropriation: The Literary Theory and Practice of Huang Tingjian (Stanford University Press, 1993), 36–40. 42 Translated by Mather, “Ritual Aspects,” 33–34.

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Further Reading Chennault, Cynthia L. “The World of Poetry.” In The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 2: The Six Dynasties, 220–589, edited by Albert E. Dien and Keith N. Knapp, 641–43, 647–50. Cambridge University Press, 2019. Mather, Richard B. “Hsieh Tiao’s ‘Poetic Essay Requiting a Kindness’ (Ch’ou-te fu), A.D. 498.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 110 (1990): 603–15. Wang, Ping. “Contemplating ‘Return’: Xie Lingyun’s ‘Hillside Garden.’” Journal of Chinese Humanities 7 (2021): 286–309.

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SECTION III

Poetry of High Tang A

7 LANDSCAPE AND FARMSTEAD POETS Meng Haoran and Wang Wei Thomas Donnelly Noel

In her seminal study of Chinese nature poetry, Ge Xiaoyin, one of the great modern scholars of the genre, candidly admits that any notion of a genre of “nature poetry” in early China is at least partially anachronistic.1 We might say the same for this chapter’s pairing of Wang Wei (701–761) and Meng Haoran (689–740). Much like our inclination to theorize the existence of a genre of Chinese nature poetry, our proclivity to read these two distinct lyricists together is the result of longstanding bibliographic and critical tropes; the choices of influential anthologists; and widespread inclination to read poetry within the contexts of an author’s life and especially any perceived political, intellectual, or religious allegiances they might have held. However, and again much the like the many texts and authors who must constitute any theorized tradition of early Chinese nature writing, there are a great many reasons why critics have fruitfully read Wang Wei and Meng Haoran together, though any such harvest should be carefully gathered. Foremost among these is of course their unassailable status as the two preeminent shanshui (“mountains and waters,” landscape) and tianyuan (“fields and gardens,” farmstead) poets in an era which has been hailed as an apogee of Chinese lyricism. Other, perhaps less compelling, reasons have included what some have perceived to be their sincerely espoused interests in Buddhist thought, as evidenced both through their numerous associations with various members of the Buddhist clergy, as well the adoption of Buddhist terminology and metaphysics in their poetry. Additionally, there are the political loyalties they apparently held in common; in truth, it seems almost certain that their personal association first came in part through the political connections that each built in the capital. Moreover, while we are unlikely to plumb the depths of that personal relationship beyond what might be revealed in the poetry they wrote to another, many have argued that their mutual admiration was genuine and that it endured to the end of Meng Haoran’s life. If this was truly the case, the two might at first seem to have made for unlikely friends given the stark differences in their personal backgrounds.

Their Lives and Association We know very little for certain of Meng Haoran’s life. Much of what scholars have attempted to glean from his poetry is largely conjectural, as he only dates a handful of poems, and the bulk of what remains of his surviving works cannot be reliably placed in any specific period. We can,  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-11

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however, locate many of these poems within the geography of Tang Dynasty China and thus also be sure that Meng Haoran hailed from Xiangyang and spent much of his adult life there. The region, located in what is now the center of northern Hubei province, in his time already boasted a rich history and varied topography that colors much of his oeuvre. Meng also left behind a legacy of his own in the cultural geography of Xiangyang, perhaps most famously at Deergate Mountain thanks to his poem “Ye gui Lumen ge” (A Song of Returning to Deergate in the Evening), though there is otherwise scant evidence that he spent any time in residence there or at his family’s home south of the Han River. Such sites serve as a powerful psychological anchor in much of his poetry that has come down to us. Meng certainly spent periods later in life away from Xiangyang travelling throughout the empire, but thoughts of returning home frequently interject themselves into the verse he wrote elsewhere. In the first decades of his life, Meng Haoran must have found occasion to make the acquaintance of prominent visitors to Xiangyang and establish some literary reputation as a result, but he does not appear to have made any serious attempt to enter public life until he had reached the age of forty. His biographies in the official histories record that Meng Haoran first visited the capital Chang’an in late 727 or early 728, though only one such history records that he did so to sit as a candidate for the esteemed jinshi (presented scholar) examination and that his attempt ultimately ended in failure. Importantly, this event as recorded in the Jiu Tangsu (Old History of the Tang) is corroborated nowhere else, though it has nevertheless become an important aspect of his life in the popular imagination.2 Given the literary reputation he came to enjoy later in life and the simple oddity of a man of his age taking the exam, much less unsuccessfully, it is unlikely that such an event would go unmentioned both in his own verse and the many pieces written to him by others.3 It would seem that while Meng Haoran might have been among the many who hoped to gain entry into a civil service that had recently grown more welcoming to educated men from the provinces, he did not intend to do so through the examination system but rather through the patronage of the already powerful. In this he would later find some success through the association he established with the future chancellor Zhang Jiuling (673–740). It was also during this sojourn in Chang’an that Meng truly began to command considerable respect as a man of letters among the many younger literary talents that he met. One of these younger devotees, another ally of Zhang Jiuling and a man with whom Meng would soon find he shared many literary interests, was the young scholar-official Wang Wei. Tracing Wang Wei’s life and his career in the bureaucracy requires far less speculation, and thus some of his poetry, namely that which he wrote in response to the complex social milieus through which he moved, can be dated with more confidence. He was, quite unlike Meng Haoran, a scion of wealth and political power for whom some degree of political success was already an expectation at birth. He was born in 701 to the prominent Wang Clan of Taiyuan, a family that could trace its history in government service back though countless governors, bureaucrats, and generals to the Han Dynasty (202 BCE—220 CE). Though in recent years the Wang Clan had not quite equaled the heights reached by their more illustrious ancestors, Wang Wei nevertheless soon found himself in the company of the powerful even before he had reached his majority. By 721, Wang Wei had entered the high society of the capital, successfully obtained his jinshi degree, and began a life in the civil service that would encounter few interruptions. He did not, however, enjoy a career without disruption, and his advancement was gradual at best. Wang Wei’s first position in the Imperial Music Office ended in controversy, the details of which will remain forever vague, and he was demoted to the provinces for several years.4 He managed to return to the capital again in 726 and not long thereafter became one of the elder Zhang Jiuling’s

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many literary proteges and, presumably, political allies. His friendship with Meng Haoran must have also begun in earnest around this time, and though traditional sources suggest that the two must have exchanged a number of poems that attest to their lasting friendship, very few have come down to us. One of the more famous such pieces, an octave penned by Meng Haoran to Wang Wei titled “Liubie Wang Wei” (Left Behind Upon Parting from Wang Wei),5 does offer some idea of their mutual admiration as well as a common reliance on natural imagery to convey their feelings for one another: Lonesome and alone, what do I await? Morn after morn, empty wishes to return. I long to go to seek out fragrant grasses, it is grievous to be parted from a friend. Those in power, who offers anything to help? Bosom friends are rare in this age.6 I should but hold to silence and quietude, and keep closed my old garden’s door. After his brief stay in the capital, Meng Haoran seems to have spent the last decade of his life alternating between intervals away travelling and living in a state of semi-reclusion at his home near Xiangyang. By this time, Meng had become something of a literary and counter-cultural icon whose blessing was fervently sought by many younger writers.7 His growing reputation as an exemplar of the quasi-eremitic poet able to remain indifferent to the body politic and thus free of worldly ambitions wielded considerable influence over his reception. In 737 Meng Haoran did, however, finally take up one position in Jingzhou at the invitation of Zhang Jiuling, who had recently himself been demoted from his position as chancellor. Though a number of poems written between the two in exchange survive from this time, the minor office he held ultimately did little to please Meng Haoran. He did not last even a year before resigning and returning home to his cherished Xiangyang, and he died not long after in 740. For his part, Wang Wei was devastated at the news of Meng Haoran’s death and soon after travelled himself to Xiangyang for a final farewell. In a well-known quatrain titled “Ku Meng Haoran” (Weeping for Meng Haoran),8 traditionally dated to this time, Wang Wei shows a remarkable economy of words. He not only finds space sufficient to vent his private grief but also to memorialize a more publicly recognizable image of Meng Haoran within the beloved local landscapes he had so often praised in verse: I will never again see my old friend, the Han’s waters daily eastward flow. I ask after that old man from Xiangyang, amidst the river and mountains, Cai’s Isle stands empty.9 Wang Wei would live another twenty years after Meng Haroan’s death, but only a portion of the time that remained to him was happy. He had been widowed at a young age, having already lost his wife some ten years earlier, and though their only child had died young, he chose not to remarry. The 740s seem to have been an era of relative quiet for him. He purchased an estate at Lantian, southeast of Chang’an, that was named Wheel River, and it was there that he penned the famed “Wangchuan ji” (Wheel River Collection) series of poems with his great friend and companion in

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letters, Pei Di. Wang Wei continued to slowly rise through the ranks of officialdom, but his career and even his life were nearly cut short by the chaos of the rebellions that plagued the 750s. Wang Wei himself was captured by An Lushan’s (703–757) forces when the capital fell, and, despite feigning sickness, he was eventually pressed into serving the rebel government. He was recaptured by imperial forces in the following year and imprisoned again. After the discovery of poetry written during his first interment that evidenced loyalty to the emperor, and through the intervention of his young brother Wang Jin (700–772), who had offered to ransom his own office to secure his brother’s release, Wang Wei was freed without further punishment. His final major appointment to the position of right assistant director of the Department of Affairs came only a year before his death in 760.

Their Nature Writing and Their Normative Critical Reception The critical receptions of Wang Wei and Meng Haoran are not easily extricated from one another, and yet, while they are so often mentioned together, their respective reputations have never been on an equal footing. Wang Wei has always been the more renowned of the pair, even in life and despite Meng Haoran’s status as something akin to an “elder statesman” among the poets of the first half of the eighth century. In fact, Wang Wei’s literary celebrity in his own time surpassed even that of Li Bai (701–762) and Du Fu (712–770), though his comparatively scant corpus of some four hundred pieces of poetry and prose was eventually reduced in rank to a position subordinate to the monolithic dyad of “Li and Du.” In the centuries that followed, Meng Haoran’s reputation slowly began to grow, from the status of a “middling poet” to one belonging on that same echelon, just below Li Bai and Du Fu,10 as it concurrently (and perhaps resultingly) became more closely associated with Wang Wei’s. Their legacies first became intertwined within the criticism of the Song Dynasty, in particular the “Shi hua” or “poetry talks” that gather critical reflections from the writings and statements of important literary figures, and it was then that the two first became the progenitors of a purported Wang-Meng shipai (Wang and Meng School of Poetry). Wang and Meng became even more firmly associated as the masters of a school of shanshui and tianyuan poetry among both specialist and general readerships through the emergence of later anthologies, especially Sun Zhu’s Tangshi sanbaishou (Three Hundred Tang Poems) and its many later imitators. For the past two centuries, some version of this anthology has served students as a first introduction to Tang verse, and the impression it leaves of Meng Haoran and Wang Wei is unambiguous. Both are very well represented and so presented to the reader as major poets; more of their poems were selected for inclusion than any other authors, with the unsurprising exceptions of Li Bai and Du Fu. More important, however, are the contents of these selections, as many of the pieces chosen from their surviving works present Wang Wei and Meng Haran to the reader as lyricists largely concerned with the depiction of natural scenery. Modern scholarship has been right to thoroughly question the degree to which our understanding of Tang lyricism has been shaped by the appetites of Song critics or late imperial bibliophiles and anthologists, but much more can be said about the profound influence that they wield over our conceptions of genre and subgenres such as the shanshui and tianyuan traditions. Around the increasingly clichéd association of Wang Wei with Meng Haoran in such anthologies, critical conceptualizations of a prosodic rhetoric distinctive to nature lyricism have emerged. Several of these pieces bear the hallmarks of the imagery and diction that many critics would later come to describe as qingdan (bland), or a poetics defined by pellucid and often affectionately disinterested depictions of natural scenery infused with ruminations on sensory or emotive problems.11 A brief examination 86

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of two well-known quatrains, here selected for much the same motivations that frequently informed premodern anthologies, should suffice to give evidence for this. Napping in spring, unaware of the dawn, on all sides are heard the chittering of birds. In the night came the calling of winds and rains, of the blossoms that fell, how much can be known? “Chun xiao” (A Spring Dawn) is not only the most enduring example of Meng Haoran’s work as a shanshui lyricist12 but perhaps the most famous of all his surviving poems. Generations of students have been made to recite it from memory and reflect on the questions this brief vignette asks concerning the reliability of their own perceptions. The author-persona catalogues imagery with dispassion before concluding that we know as little, or perhaps only as much, about the spring blossoms lost in an evening storm as we do about the world writ large. In the following, similar questions lodged in slightly more playful imagery are also put forth in one of Wang Wei’s most celebrated quatrains, “Xinyi wu” (Magnolia Glen).13 On the tree branches’ tips, lotus flowers, amidst the mountains, opening their red blossoms. This dell is silent, and without anyone, One after another they open, ready to fall. Here, Wang Wei paints an image of the fleeting life of hibiscus blossoms, which also inventively questions the trustworthiness of human vision. To our eyes, these flowers growing on the tips of tree branches are indistinguishable from the lotus that blooms on the surface of water. Wang Wei then shows us a valley full of red blossoms opening, something that cannot be seen outside the poem itself because, bar the poet, there is no one else to view them. Finally, we are shown once again that human perception is limited by our attempts to interpret what we see; once open, these flowers are set to fall, but we can never truly be sure that they have. The sense of shanshui or tianyuan lyricism that seems to unite these poets when reading such pieces together is of course not entirely deceptive. There certainly was a tradition or style that coalesced around the poetry of “Wang and Meng” and, due to the power that critics and anthologists would come to wield over their shared legacy, later poets in their own literary endeavors did indeed seek to mimic these two. Indeed, as the poetry of authors like Qian Qi (c. 722–780), Wang Changling (698–756), or Liu Changqing (c. 726–790) can attest, Wang Wei, in particular, was the favorite prosodic exemplar even during his own lifetime.

Their Nature Writing and Their Distinctive Prosodic Identities However, when reading the poems for which Wang and Meng are most widely remembered, namely those pieces most frequently collected in later anthologies, the unique personae and lyricisms of Meng Haoran and Wang Wei too easily to blend into one another. On the one hand, Wang Wei’s prosodic dexterity and topical breadth are largely absent, and there is little to give evidence to his skill as a poet of the court or the frontier, his fondness for evoking Daoist hagiography in flattery of others, nor his fascination with finding comparisons of the body politic within the historical topographies left behind by the Han Dynasty. On the other, Meng Haoran’s ability to conjure allusions and turns of phrase that harken back to the diction of the first great nature poets of the 87

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Six Dynasties, Xie Lingyun (385–433) and Tao Yuanming (365–427), are similarly absent. Paradoxically, albeit unsurprisingly given the effect that such critical clichés can have, these two poets have regularly been made to read like one another. Often selections that come from Meng Haoran’s extant corpus are those which most closely match with simple and languid diction reminiscent of Wang Wei’s best shanshui poetry, while the pieces chosen to represent Wang Wei eschew the great range of his surviving works in favor of those pieces that can be most easily read alongside other shanshui lyricists, especially Meng Haoran and to a lesser extent later admirers like Liu Changjing and Wei Yingwu (c. 737~792).14 Should a reader deign to read pieces not commonly selected for such anthologies, even those that still take the matter of “mountains and waters” as central themes, a reminiscent and yet distinct set of interests can be found waiting. At the break of dawn, I cast myself into the Ba Gorges, in late spring, I recall the Emperor’s City. On the clear river, a single washer girl, in morning sun, a throng of roosters crow. In this country of waters, a market amidst the boats, on a mountain bridge, over the tree tops I travel. Climbing high, myriad hamlets spring forth, looking far-off, two currents are illuminated. The people here talk in strange dialects, the orioles speak with voices from my old home. Merely relying on my interests in mountains and waters, Gradually undoing these feelings of separation. In his “Xiao xing Baxia” (Travelling the Ba Gorges by Dawn),15 Wang Wei asserts that entrusting sentiments to the scenery can entail more than mere appreciation of mountains and waters for their beauty, because any attempt to reflect on them demands a corresponding recollection of the history they evince. While Wang Wei begins by casting himself into the gorges that flank the upper reaches of the Yangtze on a journey by boat, thoughts of the fortress built by Gongsun Shu (d. 36 CE) cannot be dismissed. This direct tension between the natural world and the human domain that runs throughout the remainder of the piece, and ultimately remains unsolved at its closing, was a common topic in Wang Wei’s shanshui and tianyuan poetry, and one he often explored by juxtapositions in parallel couplets when writing in the jinti or “recent style.” As evidenced in this piece, he often favored a density of language in doing so; some couplets explore this tension by setting entire lines in opposition (e.g., lines 7 and 8), while others fashion contrast internally within a singular line that is then extended in the following line (e.g., lines 2 and 4). A longer piece titled “Jing Qili Xi” (Passing through Seven-league Rapids),16 also concerned with the solace that mountains and waters might bring, finds Meng Haroan employing a different prosodic style to depict the landscape from a journey by boat. I have heard the warning to avoid sitting under the eaves, a thousand gold pieces is not to be taken lightly.17 To take in more of the mountains’ and waters’ delights, I often embark on journeys by drifting boat. On the Five Marchmounts, I follow Master Shang, on the Three Xiang I grieve for Qu Ping.18 By lake I pass over Dongting’s breadth, 88

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by river I enter Xin’an’s purity.19 I have heard many times of “Yan Ling’s shallows,”20 only now they are here, by this river road. Peak piled upon peak for many hundred leagues, rushing to and fro, without a common direction. Many-hued blues shine in ethers intertwined, dividing currents clash in their rushing forward. On an outcrop for fishing, one can sit in peace, on a mossy ledge, it is slick and hard to step on. Gibbons are drinking from a pool below the rock, birds return to the trees nigh to the sun. Observing such marvels, I regret arriving late, leaning on the oars, I resent the coming dusk. Waving my hand to disturb the murmuring currents, thus making clean any “dusty ruminations.” While Meng Haoran was capable of writing with the decorum that an encounter with one of his “betters” might demand from a piece such as this, despite its being an unusual length for Meng, is far more indicative of the stylistic range, modest and yet candid diction, and subject matter that Meng Haoran restricted himself to. He also sees traces of historical significance winding through the natural environs, but these are not sites of contradictions. Rather, they are pathways to be followed by means of richly allusive imagery couched in a straightforward application of parallelism. Meng seems more than content to acknowledge that the act of enjoying the delights of the mountains and waters inevitably includes the remembrance of earlier figures who populated the eremitic tradition he has chosen to imitate, as well as the scenery he surveys. Indeed, the poem progresses much as the reader might imagine Meng Haoran himself did, with a gentle glance here and then there, each brief scene and observation suggesting more than is immediately disclosed, before ending with an almost cathartic sense of regret. Meng Haoran’s nod to washing away the residue of the “dusty world” in the final line of this piece also evokes another important, albeit problematic, aspect intertwined with the reception of Meng Haoran and Wang Wei as shanshui poets: their relationship with Buddhism. Meng Haoran’s quatrain “Chun xiao,” translated previously, has famously been described as a poetic depiction of Chan dunwu, or “sudden enlightenment,”21 and critics have been quick to notice that Wang Wei’s ming (given name) and zi (courtesy name) in combination yield Weimojie or Vimalakīrti, the titular figure in a Buddhist sutra popular among scholar-officials, to whom it offered a means of progressing towards liberation whilst maintaining more worldly positions in society. Wang Wei’s association with Buddhism became ubiquitous, so that he was dubbed the “Shifo” (Poet Buddha), affording him a sobriquet comparable to those given to Li Bai and Du Fu in acknowledgement of similarly intellectual allegiances that are alleged (with varying degrees of evidence) in their verse. To describe a poet as “Buddhist,” much less as a “devotional poet,” in the historical context of the Tang is itself already problematic, and the extent to which the lyricism of Wang Wei in particular can be described as “Buddhist” has been a matter of much justified controversy.22 Regarding this, there are two issues meriting consideration. The first is that, given the importance of poetry within the larger cultural repertoire of the Tang literatus and the social demands that were regularly placed on the act of composition, even frequent allusions to Buddhist iconography or metaphysical concepts may not be anything more than evidence of a given poet’s dexterity in 89

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adapting to the wide variety of mores and situations he moved through. Even polemicists famed for their condemnations of Buddhism, such as Han Yu (768–824), were more than capable of plundering well-known sutras in the interests of flattery when the situation called for it. The second issue is the longstanding association of Buddhism with shanshui lyricism that can be traced back to Xie Lingyun, the purported progenitor of the genre, and his legacy is instructive in this. Xie’s genuine interest and expertise in Buddhist doctrine is well documented not only through his biographies but also in his demonstrated ability to read and comment on Sanskrit sutras. However, his shanshui poetry does not frequently attest to these realties, and we can say much the same of Wang Wei, and even more so of Meng Haoran, for whom there is no compelling evidence that he practiced Buddhism at any time in his life. Wang Wei wrote prose texts on Buddhist doctrine, a number of panegyrics for important members of the Buddhist clergy and lay practitioners, and poetry that is explicitly concerned with his Buddhist convictions. Few of these latter pieces are, however, similar in style or content to the shanshui poetry for which Wang Wei is remembered. This has led some critics of Wang’s shanshui poetry to instead attempt to identify a poetic vocabulary that calls the sensory perceptions into question via imagery that has been crafted with prajñāpāramitā (perfected wisdom) techniques. Thus far, such efforts, though fascinating, have yielded little more than studies that have endeavored to understand Wang Wei’s lyrical craftmanship in relation to his renown as a painter. Meng Haoran’s poem cited previously offers perhaps the most succinct illustration of this problematic. Meng’s desire to wash himself clean of the “dusty world” was no doubt a sentiment that any practicing Buddhist could have appreciated, but that in itself does not indicate that the piece must be understood as an affirmation of Buddhist dogma.

Conclusion Meng Haoran and Wang Wei continue to enjoy positions of considerable prestige as the nature poets of the High Tang, though modern scholarship, recognizing some of the major issues in their premodern and contemporary reception, has begun to intervene in a number of the more problematic narratives discussed in the previous pages. East Asian scholarship, especially studies from Mainland China and Taiwan devoted to shanshui prosody, now consider them separately.23 While such studies still understand Wang and Meng as part of a larger history of the shanshui and tianyuan genres, when read alongside important critical recensions of the two poet’s surviving works, a far more nuanced appraisal of their status as nature writers becomes possible. They of course remain important anchors even in these new critical metanarratives, though the larger tradition of nature poetics comes into a clearer and more nuanced focus when their poetry is appreciated for the imagistic, stylistic, and syntactic resonances they share with the work of their forebears, contemporaries, and those following. The reception of these two poets in the West is sure to undergo significant change in the coming years, thanks to two monumental contributions produced by Paul Kroll and Paul Rouzer as part of the larger Library of Chinese Humanities translation project.24 Both works offer complete renditions of the surviving works of Meng Haoran and Wang Wei into English, with the latter also providing a complete translation of Wang Wei’s prose, and both translations should be afforded generous praise not only for the cogent, accurate, and pleasing renditions they provide, though that alone would have already been enough. Kroll’s critical introduction is excellent, and especially noteworthy are the histories he provides of Meng Haoran’s early reception and the transmission of his surviving works down into their modern recensions. Likewise, Rouzer’s critical introduction

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offers a far more balanced appraisal of Wang Wei’s extant corpus, and his insightful and evenhanded comments on the role of Buddhism in his poetry, alongside new and important renderings of hitherto untranslated prose, will do much to direct future discussions of this complex issue along more profitable avenues. Such lines of inquiry have in fact already been inaugurated in recent research. Nicholas Morrow Williams recently published a fascinating study that takes the imagery of flower blossoms as a hermeneutic device through which Wang Wei’s doctrinal and non-doctrinal writings become far more mutually intelligible.25 Other studies have sought to better situate some of Wang’s most renowned poetry within larger traditions that stretch back to the Chu ci26 or within the proper social contexts in which the author would most likely desire they be understood.27 Like before, the majority of scholarly attention is, perhaps rightly, given over to Wang Wei, but a similar shift in interest can also been seen in a study that treats Meng Haoran as part of a larger constellation of literary resonances pervading the landscape of his beloved Xiangyang.28 Taken in summation, these new directions in the study of Meng Haoran and Wang Wei, which promise to reach further maturation following the appearance of two complete renderings into English, are suggestive of corresponding scholarly trends that have reimagined the study of medieval nature poetry as not an elevation of a few eminent authors but rather an examination of collections of leitmotifs, complex lexicons of allusion and aesthetic ideals, and a visual rhetoric that shifted and transformed across textual, social, and ecological landscapes. Meng Haoran and Wang Wei will nevertheless remain two unassailable monuments of this tradition, though their poems may increasingly be seen as documents attesting to the heterogeneity of its practice. Their very status as the two most important shanshui and tianyuan poets in Chinese literary tradition after Tao Yuanming and Xie Lingyun is itself an important lesson in the pitfalls that await exegeses reliant on the perceived stability of generic categories. Should we conceptualize genre as fixed arrangement of aesthetic principles, compositional tropes, and artistic ideals or, perhaps worse, an economic practice employed to more efficiently produce and market literary products, we cannot say that Wang Wei and Meng Haoran were exemplarily practitioners of the same literary genre. Indeed, we cannot even say with surety their personal association sprang out of any shared interests in the poetic depiction of the natural world, much less any mutual imagination of themselves as shanshui or tianyuan poets. However, should we employ an approach more emic to medieval China that understands these genres as a collection of corresponding literary interests, aesthetic vocabulary that was both innovated and inherited, and above all a complex negotiation on the proper artistic reactions to given socio-cultural contexts, the importance of Wang Wei and Meng Haoran’s place in the development of the genre of shanshui and tianyuan poetics becomes more readily intelligible. This chapter began by questioning the very premises that informed its creation, though it is hoped that the reasoning justifying its inclusion is now also evident. As two pioneering figures in a genre of nature writing that has come to epitomize what Chinese verse, and much of East Asian poetry in general, now means on a truly global scale, the complex and often contradictory processes that have placed Meng Haoran and Wang Wei in this position are reason enough to continue reading them together. Such exercises not only promise encounters with the work of two masters that have defined this genre but also opportunities to recall how later perceptions of them have been colored by the literary practices, critical tastes and expectations, and historiographical trends they have helped to shape. In this sense, while Meng Haoran and Wang Wei are the beneficiaries of the nascent shanshui and tianyuan poetics bequeathed to them by earlier writers, it may also be said that few, if any, have contributed more to that shared inheritance than they did themselves.

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Notes 1 See: Ge Xiaoyin, Shanshui tianyuan shipai yanjiu [A Study of the Schools of Landscape and Farmstead Poetry] (Shenyang: Liaoning Daxue Chubanshe, 1993), 1–2. 2 See Jiu Tang shu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), 190b.5000. 3 A thorough study of this issue and the dating of Meng Haoran’s poetry in general can be consulted in: Xiao Lanying, “Meng Haoran ‘Ying jinshi’ zhiyi” [Questioning Meng Haoran’s “Ying jinshi”], in Meng Haoran yanjiu luncong [Collected Studies of Meng Haoran], ed. Wang Huibin (Hefei: Shidai chubanshe, 2011), 94–101. 4 The best overview of Wang’s life and career remains Zhang Qinghua’s Wang Wei nianpu [A Chronological Biography of Wang Wei] (Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 1989). 5 See: Meng Haoran shiji jianzhu [Meng Haoran’s Collected Poetry with Annotation and Collation], ed. Tong Peiji (1944–2021) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2000), 2.257. 6 Namely a friend or comrade able to truly appreciate one’s talents and ambitions; a reference to an anecdote that recounts Bo Ya’s destruction of his zither after the death of Zhong Ziqi, the only one who truly “knew the tones” of his music. 7 Not all were successful in doing so. Countless students have memorized Li Bo’s moving parting poem to Meng “Huanghe lou song Meng Haoran zhi Guangling” (Seeing-off Meng Haoran on His Way to Guangling from Yellow Crane Pavilion), but rare is the reminder that we have little evidence his admiration was returned. 8 Wang Wei ji jiao zhu [An Anthology of Wang Wei, Annotated and Collated], ed. Chen Tiemin (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1997), 2.167. 9 A former home of another of Xiangyang’s celebrities, Cai Mao, an important military officer during the famed Three Kingdoms period. 10 A very useful, succinct summary of Meng’s early reception can be found in Paul W. Kroll, The Poetry of Meng Haoran (Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2021), xvii–xx. 11 For the best available study of this aesthetic trope, see: François Jullien, In Praise of Blandness: Proceeding from Chinese Thought and Aesthetics, trans. Pasula Varsano (New York: Zone 2008). 12 Meng Haoran shiji jianzhu, 1.88. 13 Wang Wei ji jiao zhu, 5.425. 14 It would seem that Sun Zhu paid special attention to nature poets when compiling the Tangshi sanbaishou. Of the eight authors that are represented by ten selections or more, four (Wang, Meng, Wei Yingwu, and Liu Changqing) are remembered primarily for their shanshui and tianyuan poetry. However, these selections again suggest a preference for nature poetry written in a certain style reminiscent of Wang and Meng, as other luminaries who wrote beautifully in the genre, most notably Bo Juyi (772–846), are poorly represented in comparison. 15 Wang Wei ji jiao zhu, 2.93. 16 Meng Haoran shiji jianzhu, 2.215–17. The title refers to one of the more challenging reaches of the Qiantang River as it passes through Zhejiang. 17 A well-known proverb, dating back to at least the Han Dynasty (201 BCE–220 CE), warned that the heir to a family possessing one thousand pieces in gold best avoid sitting near the edge of the hall, for such an exposed position invites calamity. 18 Shang Chang, or Shang Ziping, was a famed recluse from the Han who wandered among renowned mountains, while the following lines allude to the travels of Jia Yi (c. 200–169 BCE) in exile and his identification with Qu Yuan. 19 A river well known for its pristine waters, the Xin’an is a tributary of the Qiantang. 20 Yan Guang was another Han-era recluse who inhabited this region; he gave his name to a section of the Seven-League Rapids. 21 For a recent article deals with the influence that members of the Buddhist clergy have had over the interpretation of Tang verse, see: Stephen Owen, “How Did Buddhism Matter in Tang Poetry?” TP 103, nos. 4–5 (2017): 388–406. 22 See in particular: Chou Shan, “Beginning with Images in the Nature Poetry of Wang Wei,” HJAS 42, no. 1 (1982): 117–37; Stephen Owen, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981); Yang Jingqing, The Chan Interpretation of Wang Wei’s Poetry: A Critical Review (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2007).

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Landscape and Farmstead Poets 23 While a more exhaustive list is not possible in this space, important statements can be found in Ge Xiaoyin, Shanshui tianyuan shipai yanjiu (Shenyang: Liaoning Daxue Chubanshe, 1993), 194–252; Tao Wenpeng and Wei Fengjuan, Lingjing shixin: Zhongguo gudai shanshui shi shi [The Spiritual Realm and the Poetic Mind: History of Traditional Landscape Poetry] (Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2004), 211–28. 24 See: Kroll, The Poetry of Meng Haoran, and Paul Rouzer, The Poetry and Prose of Wang Wei, ed. Christopher Nugent (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2020). 25 Nicholas Marrow Williams, “Quasi-Phantasmal Flowers: An Aspect of Wang Wei’s Mahāyāna Poetics,” CLEAR 39 (2017): 27–53. 26 Daniel Hsieh, “ ‘The Nine Songs,’ and the Structure of the ‘Wang River Collection,’” CLEAR 35 (2013): 1–30. 27 Ding Xiang Warner, “The Two Voices of Wangchuan Ji: Poetic Exchange Between Wang Wei and Pei Di,” Early Medieval China 10–11, no. 2 (2005): 57–72. 28 Wu Jie, “The Stele and the Drunkard: Two Poetic Allusions from Xiangyang,” in Southern Identity and Southern Estrangement in Medieval Chinese Poetry, 1st ed., ed. Ping Wang and Nicholas Morrow Williams (Hong Kong University Press, 2015), 165–88.

Further Reading Editions and Translations Chen Tiemin, ed. Wang Wei ji jiao zhu. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1997. Kroll, Paul W., trans. The Poetry of Meng Haoran. Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2021. Rouzer, Paul, trans. The Poetry and Prose of Wang Wei. Edited by Christopher Nugent. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2020. Tong Peiji, ed. Meng Haoran shiji jianzhu. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2000. Xu Peng. Meng Haoran ji zhu. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1989. Yu, Pauline. The Poetry of Wang Wei: New Translations and Commentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980.

Studies Chen Tiemin. Wang Wei lun gao. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2006. Iritani Sensuke. Ō I kenkyū. Sōbunsha, 1976. Kroll, Paul W. Meng Hao-jan. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1981. Kroll, Paul W. “The Quatrains of Meng Hao-jan.” Monument Serica 31 (1974–75): 344–74. Kroll, Paul W. “Wang Shih-yüan’s Preface to the Poems of Meng Hao-jan.” Monumenta Serica 34 (1979–80): 349–69. Li Liangwei. Han yong da ya: Wang Wei yu Zhongguo wenhua. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2003. Wang Huibin, ed. Meng Haoran yanjiu luncong. Hefei: Shidai chubanshe, 2011. Owen, Stephen. “The Formation of the Tang Estate Poem.” HJAS 55, no. 1 (1995): 39–59. Owen, Stephen. The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981. Yang Jingqing. The Chan Interpretation of Wang Wei’s Poetry: A Critical Review. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2007. Yang Wenxiong. Shifo Wang Wei yanjiu. Taipei: Wen shi zhe chubanshe, 1988.

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8 FRONTIER POETS Gao Shi, Cen Shen, and Others Lucas Rambo Bender

“Frontier poetry” (biansai shi) depicts scenes on the margins of the Chinese world, particularly the northern and western frontiers of China’s larger historical empires. Important precedents for this poetry survive in verse from the Han, Wei, and Western Jin, describing warfare and frontier service along the Great Wall, but the consolidation of what might be called a real genre of frontier verse occurred during the Six Dynasties and the Tang. Although poetry on the frontiers would be written continuously throughout the rest of Chinese history—up to the so-called “New Frontier Poetry” (Xin biansai shi) of the 1950s through the 1990s—the genre is often thought of as reaching an apogee during the High Tang period, in the first half of the eighth century. Several famous poets are associated with this flourishing, most prominently Gao Shi (d. 765) and Cen Shen (715?–770?), but also Wang Zhihuan (688–742), Wang Han (jinshi ca. 710), Cui Hao (d. 754), Wang Changling (d. ca. 756), Li Qi (d. 751?), Zhang Wei (jinshi 743), and Liu Wan (fl. 747). Although modern scholarship often treats these poets as belonging to a High Tang “frontier school” (biansai shi pai), this concept is of questionable historical descriptiveness. These poets do not, for instance, appear to have formed a group in any way distinct from the general social network of High Tang literati. With the partial exceptions of Gao Shi and Cen Shen, moreover, they do not seem to have specialized in writing about the frontiers; instead, most left behind only a handful of poems focusing on frontier themes, and all seem to have written frequently on other topics. These writers, finally, are not unique in having written about the frontiers, which were a common theme shared by many of their contemporaries as well. Other High Tang luminaries such as Wang Wei (ca. 699–ca. 761) and Li Bai (701–762) also left behind famous frontier poems, sometimes in greater numbers than the poets of the “frontier school.” Yet if these other poets are rarely thought of as belonging to this “school,” it is because their oeuvres were more memorable for other themes. The “frontier school,” therefore, is best understood as encompassing those poets whose output has been defined for later (primarily modern) readers by frontier verse that represents what they consider an ideal model of the form. Given that this grouping of poets is a retrospective construction, it is unsurprising that scholarship regarding the “frontier school”—which has to date been conducted almost entirely in Chinese—has frequently answered to contemporary concerns. Throughout the twentieth century, scholars debated whether these poets were appropriately “patriotic” either in condemning the Tang’s unjust militarism or in glorifying those among its wars that were justified.1 In the past two decades, similarly, DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-12 

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scholarship has explored the diversity of regional cultures visible in frontier verse and its depiction of the process of ethnocultural incorporation that is now taken to be characteristic of the historical formation of the “Chinese people” (Zhonghua minzu). Underlying these approaches has been a conviction that the poetry itself was topical in its own time: that the flourishing of frontier poetry in the High Tang reflects and offers comments on the military expansionism of the period. Much recent work has thus been devoted to documenting High Tang military history and its influence on contemporary verse. While this research has significantly deepened our understanding of High Tang frontier poetry, scholarship has only recently begun to grapple with the implications of its deeply conventional character. The genre’s maturation had taken place under the Southern Dynasties, during which period the vast majority of poets had no opportunity to visit the steppelands they were writing about, on what had been the Han’s and would become the Tang’s northern and western frontiers.2 As a result, High Tang frontier poetry had inherited a largely abstract discourse concerning the ideal character and shape of the Chinese state, its place in the cosmos and the cosmic resonances of empire, the motives and the justice of individual sacrifice for such an empire (particularly among the conscripted lower classes), and the relative priority within the empire of military and civil officials and the sometimes opposed cultures they represented. All of these themes are found in High Tang frontier poetry as well, which, if it was sometimes enriched by personal experience, was still shaped by the images and forms of previous verse. Within the context of the genre up to that point, what makes High Tang verse distinctive is thus not a pervasive topicality but rather the sharpness of its engagement with the precedent literary tradition as itself an object of discourse. Rather than simply writing their experience or reproducing the stereotyped themes and forms of past frontier poetry, the High Tang writers to be discussed in this chapter—first, four more minor poets and, second, the more famous Gao Shi and Cen Shen—wrote verse that pointedly comments upon, subverts, and expands the ways the literary tradition had previously discussed China’s geographic, ethnic, and cultural margins with the world beyond.

Wang Zhihuan, Cui Hao, Wang Changling, and Li Qi Lives, Careers, and Literary Achievements The careers of Wang Zhihuan, Cui Hao, Wang Changling, and Li Qi shared significant similarities. All were born during the relatively tumultuous reign of Wu Zetian but passed the majority of their adult lives under Emperor Xuanzong, who presided over a long period of political stability, economic expansion, and military might. They all attained office under Xuanzong, with Wang Zhihuan attaining his position through inherited (yin) privilege and the others passing the jinshi examinations. Yet despite early successes and despite their fame as poets, none ended up reaching a high post—a fact that qualified all but Wang Zhihuan for inclusion in Yin Fan’s 753 Heyue yingling ji (“A Collection of the Finest Souls of River and Alp”), an anthology of recent verse that shows a distinct preference for jinshi graduates who nonetheless remained of low degree.3 None, finally, lived long enough to write about the great rebellion that brought Xuanzong’s long and prosperous reign to its cataclysmic close. The four are thus firmly High Tang poets, and their work speaks to the styles, hopes, and frustrations of that now-legendary time. Probably the oldest poet of the group, Wang Zhihuan came from a family of minor officials. He grew up in Jinyang (modern-day Taiyuan in Shanxi) and, after entering the official ranks, seems to have held two minor local appointments in Hebei separated by an unexplained almost twenty-year period out of office. The contemporary popularity of Wang’s poetry is suggested by the inclusion 95

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of three of his poems in Rui Tingzhang’s circa-745 anthology, Guoxiu ji (“A Collection of the Outstanding Talents of the State”) and by a (historically dubious) ninth-century anecdote in which Wang Zhihuan, Wang Changling, and Gao Shi—who are said to have been “equally famous” in the Kaiyuan era (713–741)—went together to a tavern and found the performers there singing their poems.4 Wang Zhihuan’s literary collection, however, was lost quite early, and all that survives of his work are six quatrains, a mere twenty-four lines of verse. Nowadays, most of these poems are minor classics, including two on frontier themes. Going by the dates of their entry into officialdom, the next poet of the “frontier school” to have come on the scene seems to have been Cui Hao. Historical biographies of the poet identify his hometown as Bianzhou (modern-day Kaifeng in Henan), but a recently discovered tomb epitaph attributed to him suggests that he was a member of the great Boling Cui clan.5 Perhaps on account of these family connections, he seems to have run in elevated social circles in the Kaiyuan period, with surviving poems indicating that he frequented the parties of the Prince of Qi Li Fan (686–726) along with other capital poets like Wang Wei. Cui passed the jinshi exam in 723, and though he never obtained high office, of the four poets discussed in this section, his official career seems to have been the smoothest. Beyond posts in the capital, Cui also served at one point near the northeastern frontiers—an experience Yin Fan suggests changed his poetic style. In his appraisal of Cui’s work, Yin writes that when he was young, he was famous for being rather light and frivolous, but in his later years, he suddenly changed his style to involve bracing wind and bone (feng gu: roughly, vigor and starkness). Once he peeked into the frontier regions, he spoke comprehensively about the ardors of military campaign.6 Cui’s surviving work consists of forty-two poems, some seven of which deal with frontier themes. His greatest poem, “Yellow Crane Tower” (Huanghe lou), does not.7 Wang Changling passed the jinshi exam four years after Cui Hao, in 727. Wang seems to have belonged to a distant offshoot of the storied Langye Wang clan, though we know very little about his immediate forbears. Surviving evidence suggests that his hometown was in the capital region and that he probably passed his youth there, perhaps with some time spent near Luoyang as well. In the early Kaiyuan period, he seems to have pursued the common pastime of young literati in that age, traveling extensively through various regions of the empire. Critics convinced that his frontier poems must have been written based on personal experience have claimed that he visited the northwestern frontiers during these years, but our limited evidence takes him only to Fufeng (modern-day Baoji) and Jingzhou (modern-day Jingchuan county in Gansu), neither of which was a place of active defense in Wang’s time. After passing the exam, Wang served as an editor in the Imperial Library. A few years later, he passed a second exam and was given a position as constable in Sishui county (modern-day Xingyang, Henan). For reasons that are not entirely clear but may relate to his association with the former prime minister Zhang Jiuling, he was demoted sometime around 739 to Lingnan, in the far south of the empire, a banishment that seems to have lasted no more than a year, after which he was made vice-magistrate of Jiangning (modern-day Nanjing). Some ten years later, he was demoted once again to a position as constable of Longbiao county (modern-day Qianyang county, Hunan). When the An Lushan rebellion broke out in late 755, he seems to have been on the way back north when he was imprisoned and executed by Lü Qiuxiao, prefect of Haozhou, for reasons unknown. Of the four poets considered here, Wang Changling has always been the most famous. In his own time or shortly thereafter, he seems to have been accorded the title “Master of Poets,” and he 96

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is the most selected poet in Yin Fan’s Heyue yingling ji, with sixteen poems included.8 Like Wang Zhihuan’s and Cui Hao’s, Wang Changling’s collection was lost in later ages, but fully 190 of his poems survive today. Of these, some twenty-five contain frontier themes. Wang is also famous for poetry written to the theme of the lonely or abandoned woman, and together with his mastery of the quatrain, these two largely non-occasional genres have defined his oeuvre for later readers, who have therefore often linked him together with his friend Li Bai, another poet who specialized in yuefu (poems written to musical titles, often about stereotyped or imagined topoi). Wang Changling is also the attributed author of two surviving critical works on poetry. His authorship of these works is dubious, but the attribution suggests the degree to which he was thought of in his time and in the decades after as one of the premier poets of the age. Li Qi, the final poet of the group, was probably the youngest. Li was a native of Yingyang county (modern-day Dengfeng, Henan). After passing the jinshi exam in 735, he was made sheriff of Xinxiang, in Henan, a position he stayed in for an undetermined period before apparently giving up office to return to Yingyang county as a “recluse.” Despite his never attaining any capital post, Li seems to have been friendly with a number of the poets of his age, and his poetic fame by the end of the Tianbao was sufficient to make him the fourth most-selected poet in the Heyue yingling ji and the second best-represented poet in the anthology in terms of total lines.9 Stylistically, Li Qi is the most daring of the four poets discussed here, a fact that has been attributed to his relatively late entrance on the poetic scene and the possibility that he was influenced by Li Bai, whose often less-decorous and more-dramatic verse sparked a shift in the Tianbao years away from the restrained capital styles characteristic of the Kaiyuan.10 Li Qi is also the only poet of these four whose collection appears to have survived relatively intact. It contains 124 poems (plus 7 transmitted elsewhere), and though his frontier verse is his most famous, he seems to have written fewer than 10 such poems. Since none of these are occasional, there is no evidence he ever spent time on the frontiers.

Four Masterpieces of High Tang Frontier Poetry As mentioned, most Southern Dynasties poets were unable to visit the regions that had been the northern and western frontiers of the Han; as a result, the genre of frontier poetry had come under their brushes to be defined by the elaboration of imagery of army service in the steppelands derived from Han sources rather than by fresh, first-hand observations of those regions’ contemporary character. With the reunification of the Han’s old territories during the Sui and Tang periods, it became possible for more poets to gain experience of the lands that were the characteristic subject of frontier poetry. In the Early Tang, however, only a few poets did so. Most writers, instead, continued to produce frontier poetry on the basis of the stereotyped situations and images of the genre. The following poem by Shen Quanqi (ca. 650–729) is a representative example. Shen Quanqi, “Unclassified Poem” I’ve heard that in the garrison at Yellow Dragon, they haven’t taken off their armor for years. How sad, the moon from within her chamber lingers always at the camps of the House of Han. The young wife’s mood this spring; her husband’s feelings last night. Who can take our banners and drums and capture Dragonfort once and for all?11 97

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Dragonfort was a site sacred to the Xiongnu, the nomadic peoples who had represented the predominant power on the steppes during the Han. In Shen’s time, this same area was actively contested against the peoples of the north and northeast, but Shen does not claim to be speaking of present wars; instead, the garrison at Yellow Dragon (possibly referring here to modern-day Chaoyang, Liaoning) is a “camp of the House of Han.” Indeed, the remarkable third couplet of the poem pointedly presumes that readers will recognize its characters’ situation as an old topic of poetry: that because they have read many frontier poems describing similar situations, they will know what the young wife’s mood is “this spring,” separated in the season of love from her husband on campaign, and they will know what her husband felt “last night.” In effect, this third couplet acknowledges the poem’s place in a tradition of frontier verse and identifies its novelty as lying not in its content but rather in its form: the elegant simplicity of its language and the precision of its adherence to the rules of the new poetic genre (possibly codified by Shen himself) of “regulated verse” (lüshi), with its complex parallelisms in the middle couplets and its prescribed patterns of tonal variation.12 This poem offers a useful contrastive context for appreciating the distinctiveness of much High Tang frontier poetry. Partly the contrast is formal: although the poets discussed in this chapter did sometimes write frontier poetry in regulated verse, they more frequently avoided or varied this “modern” form to aspire towards the “wind and bone” of the so-called “ancient” poetry of the Han through Jin periods. More significant than this formal contrast, however, is the tendency of High Tang frontier poetry to complicate the traditional topoi of the genre. Whereas Shen’s poem simply identifies its “young wife” and “soldier husband” as timeless archetypes, High Tang frontier verse tends to comment upon, to problematize, or to break dramatically with the established patterns of the genre in ways that create moments of surprise. A clear example of this sort of surprise can be found in one of Wang Zhihuan’s “Liangzhou Lyrics,” a quatrain written to music recently submitted to the court from the Tang’s northwest frontier. Wang Zhihuan, “Liangzhou Lyrics” The Yellow River far off climbs into the white clouds; lonely fortress, a single fleck on a ten-thousand-yard cliff. Why should the Tibetan flute here resent willows? spring’s glow does not cross Jade Gate Pass.13 This poem depends upon its readers’ familiarity with poetry written to the flute (hengchui) tune, “Breaking a Willow Branch.” This tune supposedly originated from the northern regions, and as a result, many earlier poems with this title depict frontier scenes of barbarians, soldiers, and horses— themes apparently congruous for the frontier setting of this quatrain. Somewhat later, however, because breaking a willow branch was part of rituals of parting—on account of “willow” being a homophone for “stay”—poets also began to write lyrics for the tune that depict feelings of separation, especially the feelings of women yearning in the lushness of springtime for their absent lovers on campaign.14 By repatriating these latter themes into the stereotypically barren frontier landscape described in the first couplet, Wang emphasizes the polar heterogeneity of the frontier genre. If soldiers in these regions are playing “Breaking a Willow Branch,” they are doing so not because there are any willows at this fort that might call the tune to mind but rather for the connotations it has picked up in the Chinese heartland and the way it reminds them—and the speaker, who bitterly protests their playing it—of their estranged loved ones far away. In its imagination of soldiers themselves engaging with one of the tunes to which frontier poetry was written, this poem is characteristic of the reflexivity of the frontier genre in the High Tang. A similar play with traditional precedents is also found in the following poem by Li Qi, which, 98

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however, trades the brilliant pithiness of Wang Zhihuan’s quatrain for an interesting break with the general monometer of Tang poetry. Here, the first six lines are in compact and powerful five-syllable verse, while the second six, following a rhyme change, are in the more expansive, more emotive seven-syllable line. Li Qi, “Ancient Mood” This fellow serving on the long campaign was when young a bravo of You-Yan. He vies for victory beneath horses’ hooves; he’s always treated his life lightly. A killer, none dare advance against him; his whiskers bristle like hedgehog spines. Brown clouds below Long, white clouds above; unable to take care of his parents, he cannot return home. East of the Liao, his young wife, a girl of fifteen, is practiced on the pipa and skilled at song and dance. But now he plays his Tibetan flute to “Going Out the Passes,” making the whole army cry tears like rain.15 The impact of this poem depends upon its juxtaposition of two different subtypes of frontier poetry: poetry that revels in the warlike (but equivocally barbarized) virtues of soldiers in the imperial army and poetry that depicts their sufferings. Generally, these two subtypes were kept distinct, though individual poets could write them ambidextrously from poem to poem. By bringing the two different subtypes together here at the junction of this poem’s meters, therefore, Li Qi encourages his audience to reflect upon the frontier genre itself, a reflection he also undertakes in the final couplet, where the bravo soldier plays another tune to which frontier poetry was commonly set. Poems written to “Going Out the Passes” could emphasize either the adventure of frontier service or its hardships; Li does not specify which sort of narrative his soldier’s playing suggests. The effect on his comrades in the army, however, hints that one subtype comes closer to the truth: that given the realities of campaign, even a swashbuckling depiction of their service might make them want to weep. Another surprising moment of Li Qi’s poem, unusual within the tradition of frontier poetry before the High Tang, is its recognition that the soldiers of “Chinese” empires were not necessarily members of what is now referred to as the “Han” ethnocultural group. In “Ancient Mood,” this observation is embodied in the bravo’s bristling beard—a common marker in the Tang for non-Han ethnicity—as well as, potentially, in an interestingly inverted allusion within the final line. That the army should weep at hearing the Tibetan flute may recall a story from the History of the Jin Dynasty (Jin shu) wherein barbarians besieging a Chinese fort were so moved by a Turkic oboe played from the ramparts that they wept and departed.16 This story suggested commonalities between the Chinese and their ethnocultural others, commonalities that may also be intimated here in the fourth couplet’s suggestion that its ambiguously “barbarian” hero nonetheless regrets his inability to fulfill that most “Chinese” of cultural virtues, filial piety. In this sense, just as the generically distinct emotional registers of bravo heroism and soldier suffering merge in this poem, so too do implicit divisions between the Chinese and the barbarians appear to break down, potentially with implications for the justice of Tang militarism. The willingness of High Tang poets like Li Qi to play with and to break from the stereotyped content of earlier frontier poetry can thus offer some justification to scholarship that has mined the 99

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High Tang genre for topical significance. Among the works of the four poets under consideration here, the most forthcoming in this regard is the following poem by Cui Hao, which trades timeless archetypes of the “barbarian” for a depiction of the current mores of the populations the Tang had recently incorporated. Cui Hao, “Song of the Hu People at Wildgoose Gate” Among tall mountains, from Dai commandery in the east all the way to Yan, the homes of the Hu people of Wildgoose Gate come close to the border. They know how to loose Hu hawks to chase frontier birds, and they are capable of taking Dai horses to hunt in autumn fields. On the mountaintops wildfires often burn in the cold; in the rain lonely peaks give off smoke when wet. Yet hearing that in West-of-the-Liao there are no battles to fight, they can often be found drunk in alehouses, dozing off.17 Whereas readers of the frontier genre would have expected the Hu (a historical ethnonym for the Xiongnu then in general use for several foreign ethnicities) to approach the border from the outside, it becomes clear over the course of this poem that these Hu people have been incorporated into the empire. Their residence in the Tang seems, moreover, to be sapping some of their ethnocultural distinctiveness, as it now has to be noted that they “know how” to practice falconry and remain “capable” of hunting on horseback. And since the empire’s strength has meant that the only smoke visible on the mountaintops of the region derives not from beacon fires announcing enemy incursions of the frontier but rather from mere wildfires, these previously warlike Hu—who, it is implied, would revel in the chance to fight in the Tang’s armies—have given themselves over to their other stereotyped vice, drinking. There is, of course, room to doubt whether this poem in fact represents an unbiased observation of the current situation on the northeastern frontier; certainly its details seem selected to emphasize these Hu people’s divergence from the stereotypical “Xiongnu” of previous frontier poetry and the way this divergence both glorifies the Tang’s ability to incorporate populations beyond the heartland and questions the real possibility of their integration. Ambiguity of this sort regarding the precise proportions of topical comment and engagement with tradition is a common feature of much High Tang frontier verse and was, in some cases, the means by which poets created the surprising twist that was increasingly required of successful new entries in the genre. In the following poem by Wang Changling, for instance, the intersection of timeless themes and apparent exigency has made the poem an endlessly compelling challenge for readers, who, partly for this reason, have long considered it one of the greatest frontier verses and one of the greatest quatrains of the Chinese tradition. Wang Changling, “Going Out the Passes” In the moonlight of Qin times, through the passes of the Han, from long campaigns of ten-thousand miles no man has ever returned. If only the Flying General of Dragonfort were still around, he would not let Hu horsemen cross the Shadow Mountains.18 By invoking the campaigns of the Qin and Han dynasties, this poem simultaneously suggests the timeless futility of China’s wars against the barbarians and also historicizes it so that an apparently topical point can be made. It is not clear, however, exactly what that point is. Though Wang depicts such far-flung campaigns as tragically useless, he nonetheless intimates that the barbarians remain 100

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an implacable threat, streaming endlessly down the slopes of the Shadow Mountains into Chinese lands. And the Tang has no talented generals like the Han’s “Flying General”—usually identified as Li Guang (d. 119 BCE), though he, adding to the poem’s puzzles, had no connection with Dragonfort—who could successfully maintain a more defensive posture.19 Whatever comment upon contemporary frontier policy Wang Changling might have intended in this poem, if any, its impact for generations of readers has lain more in the suggestion of critique than in its particulars. In contradistinction to the simple timelessness of Shen Quanqi’s stereotypical frontier tableau, Wang’s poem suggests that the genre’s topoi are somehow applicable right now. It thus assumes that shading of moral seriousness High Tang writers and critics thought had been lost in the obviously non-topical frontier verse of the Six Dynasties and Early Tang, thereby echoing, in a different register, the reflexivity upon tradition that characterized the poems we read by Wang Zhihuan, Cui Hao, and Li Qi. Wang Changling, however, accomplishes this twisting of inherited tropes with a deftness that has made this poem seem almost the prototype of the genre and his predecessors the imitators.

Gao Shi and Cen Shen Lives and Careers Even more definitive of what frontier poetry “should be,” in the opinion of later critics, is the work of Gao Shi and Cen Shen, commonly considered the greatest frontier poets of the Tang dynasty and perhaps the entire Chinese tradition. Unlike Wang Zhihuan, Cui Hao, Li Qi, and Wang Changling, both Gao Shi and Cen Shen had significant military experience on the frontiers. During the periods they spent in these posts, they wrote verse that is remarkable for the way it transforms the frontier genre into a space for strikingly vivid observations of the unfamiliar world of the steppes and of the Chinese armies stationed there. Where previous frontier poets were largely writing for readers in the heartland—even in the case of those few poets, such as Luo Binwang (d. ca. 684), who had extensive experience in the military—Gao and Cen wrote much of their most compelling frontier poetry for friends, colleagues, and acquaintances who themselves were serving on the steppes. As a result, they often brought their literary training to bear on scenes that they and their interlocutors had witnessed first-hand or heard about from others who had. That literary training still constituted the primary value their poetry added to these interactions, and as a result, inherited topoi continued to exert a shaping influence on their poetry and their perception of the region. Yet as Gao and Cen sought connections between real frontier experiences and the weighty archetypes of the tradition, they also expanded what that tradition could encompass. Scholars disagree about the year of Gao Shi’s birth, with dates ranging from 696 to 707 having been proposed. He derived from the eminent (originally Xianbei) Gao clan of Tiao county in Bohai (modern-day Jing county in Hebei). His grandfather Gao Kan was a general under Tang Emperor Gaozong (r. 649–683), and his father Gao Congwen (or perhaps Chongwen) served as an administrator in Shaozhou (modern-day Shaoguan, Guangdong), among other lowly postings in the far south. It is unclear how Gao’s father might have ended up with such unenviable positions, but the result seems to have been that Gao passed his youth without much circulation in elite society— potentially accounting for the moralistic seriousness of his early verse, which lacks the light social graces of contemporary capital poetry.20 Gao did travel to the capital seeking patronage in the mid-720s, but he apparently met with no success and soon returned to what he considered his hometown, the area around Mengzhu (near Suiyang, modern-day Henan). Little is known about his movements over the following years, 101

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though at some point in the 730s, he visited the northeastern frontier regions around and beyond Jimen (modern-day Jizhou, Tianjin). Some of Gao’s earliest frontier poems derive from this excursion, which may have represented another unsuccessful attempt to procure patronage, this time from the military officials of the region. Gao also seems to have traveled in the 730s to Chang’an to take the imperial exams, which he failed at least once and possibly repeatedly. Eventually, perhaps as late as 749, he ended up passing a decree examination and being assigned the post of Commandant at Fengqiu (Henan). In the course of his duties for this office, he once again paid a brief visit the northeastern frontiers as an escort of the Tang’s Qingyi Army. Gao, however, was unsatisfied with the lowliness of his post and seems to have resigned it after about two years, after which he returned to Chang’an. Finally, in 753, he was given a recommendation letter addressed to the general Geshu Han, who was then serving as the military governor of the Longyou Circuit. Gao would spend most of the next three years on the frontier, where he wrote the remainder of his datable frontier verse. In early 756, Geshu Han was called back to the capital region to defend it against An Lushan. The defense was a failure, and Geshu was himself captured and eventually killed by the rebels. Gao Shi, however, escaped and, after offering a spirited defense of Geshu to Emperor Xuanzong at his court-in-exile, was appointed attendant censor. When Suzong claimed the throne a few months later, Gao was credited for his foresight in opposing Xuanzong’s decision to delegate military affairs to imperial princes and was given charge of suppressing a southern rebellion by one of them. From this point forward, Gao’s career was primarily defined by a series of significant provincial posts in what is now Sichuan. These responsibilities appear to have left him either little time or little use for poetry, and only some 15 out of his surviving roughly 250 poems can be dated to the years following the outbreak of the rebellion.21 Gao was finally recalled to the capital after failing to prevent the Tibetans, aggressive in the face of Tang weakness, from capturing several prefectures in Western Sichuan. Upon arriving in the capital, he was enfeoffed and given the honorary title of cavalier attendant-in-ordinary. He died in 765, having been (as the historians of the Old Tang History remark) “the only Tang poet up to that time to have had an eminent official career.”22 Though it wound up slightly less eminent, Cen Shen’s career had remarkable similarities to Gao’s. Cen too was the scion of a prominent clan, the Nanyang Cen family, and his great-grandfather Cen Wenben (595–645) had served as prime minister under Tang Taizong. Like Gao Shi’s father, moreover, Cen’s father Cen Zhi had served in provincial administration, albeit in a more desirable position closer to the capital. Despite the execution of a prominent cousin in 713, Cen Zhi seems to have been serving as the prefect of Xianzhou (modern-day Henan) when Cen Shen was born. The family would transfer to Jinzhou (Hebei) a few years later, and a few years after that, Cen Zhi passed away, leaving Cen Shen in the care of his elder brothers. He seems to have passed much of his youth from around 729 onwards in Yingyang county (modern-day Yingyang zhen in Henan), and in the poetry that survives from this period, he often strikes the pose of a recluse, hiding away from society to maintain his purity. Cen seems to have made his first attempts to attain office around 734, when he traveled to Luoyang and submitted his literary writings to the emperor. Over the next ten years, he traveled frequently to Chang’an, Luoyang, and other regions seeking patronage and expanding his social network. In 744, he finally passed the jinshi exam and was given the post of administrator with the Inner Guard Command in the retinue of the heir apparent. After around five years in Chang’an, Cen was transferred in 749 onto the staff of Gao Xianzhi, the ethnically Korean general who was then military commissioner of the Anxi region and the Four Garrisons in Central Asia. This posting offered him his first taste of the frontiers and is the source 102

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of much of his most famous verse. Cen would remain with Gao Xianzhi until the latter’s historic defeat against the Abbasids at the Battle of Talas in 751, after which point Cen seems to have returned with his commander to Chang’an. He would head back out to the frontiers in 754, this time to Beiting and Luntai (modern-day Xinjiang), where he served as fiscal administrative assistant under the command of Feng Changqing. Cen’s frontier service came to an end not long after the outbreak of the An Lushan rebellion. In 757, when the new emperor Suzong was forming his court-in-exile, Cen was recommended by his close friend Du Fu (712–770) to the post of rectifier of omissions, a central government office nominally close to the emperor but without much actual power. Alongside Du Fu, Cen accompanied the emperor when he returned to the recaptured the capital late that same year, and like Du Fu, he was purged just over a year later and sent to a provincial post in modern-day Henan. Unlike Du Fu, however, who abandoned his post shortly after this demotion, Cen held on until 762, when he was rehabilitated and made companion for the heir apparent and attendant censor. From this point forward, Cen received a series of minor promotions at court, and around the end of 765, he was made prefect of Jiazhou (modern-day Leshan in Sichuan), not far from where Gao Shi had recently been serving. After having been delayed by a local rebellion in the area, Cen finally arrived at his new post in the summer of 767, and he stayed there until resigning in 768. Most scholars think he died in 769 or early 770 in Chengdu, after his homeward journey was stymied by another local rebellion.23

Literary Achievements and Selected Masterpieces Gao Shi and Cen Shen are commonly placed in the second tier of High Tang poets, just below the all-time greats of Du Fu, Li Bai, and (sometimes) Wang Wei. This high appraisal dates back to their own time. Gao Shi appears in both of the anthologies that survive from the High Tang, with one poem in Rui Tingzhang’s Guoxiu ji of around 745 and thirteen poems (tied for fifth most) in Yin Fan’s 753 Heyue yingling ji.24 As might be expected of a member of the younger generation, Cen Shen is somewhat less well represented in these anthologies, but seven of his poems made it into the Heyue yingling ji. Neither poet is defined in these anthologies (which were compiled before or only shortly after Gao and Cen went to the northwest) primarily as a frontier poet. For Yin Fan, Gao Shi represented a poet possessed of the “wind and bone” of the Jian’an and Wei, while Cen Shen, whose “poetry had striking phrases and a lofty style,” was an “uninhibited talent” skilled at writing about the pleasures of natural beauty and seclusion.25 In keeping with these characterizations, only three of the thirteen poems Yin chose to represent Gao Shi and none of the poems he chose for Cen Shen concern frontier themes. Du Fu, the first writer to link their names together in the now-standard compound “Gao-Cen,” seems likewise to have seen them as quite distinct literary personalities, as the poem in which he makes this link does not juxtapose them for their frontier poetry and moreover appears to recognize a significant contrast between their styles.26 The pairing of their names for their frontier poetry specifically was a considerably later development, one traceable to the Southern Song critic Yan Yu (d. ca. 1245) and the Ming writers he influenced. After Yan summarized their work as “characterized by brave sadness (bei-zhuang, a particular attribute of frontier poetry), such that reading it makes one feel vehement emotion,” most of the non-frontier works in their oeuvres received comparatively muted critical interest.27 The pairing of Gao and Cen has, of course, not entirely effaced their difference, even for critics who focus on their frontier verse. In brief, Gao Shi’s poetry has generally been recognized as more austere and weighty than Shen’s, while Shen’s is both more striking in its imagery and more graceful in its lyricism. Throughout his work, Gao sought to break with what some considered the 103

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frivolous poetic tendencies of the recent past to return to the seriousness of “ancient” poetry. He thus tended to eschew the precisely balanced forms that were ascendent in the capital in preference for verse characterized by an awkward, off-kilter directness or a dense allusiveness. Cen Shen, by contrast, was a more genial talent. Where Gao can be one of the most difficult poets of the High Tang, Cen is one of the easiest, rarely employing allusions, elevated periphrases, or complex syntactic structures. And though Cen displays the taste for striking, sometimes exaggerated imagery that began to permeate Tianbao-era poetry in the wake of Li Bai, he tended to fold such imagery into ultimately conventional lyric sentiments. For Cen Shen, therefore, the alien landscapes of Central Asia offered the opportunity to add moments of surprise and intensity to poems of praise, parting, and homesickness. Gao Shi, by comparison, was much more interested in the moral qualities of the frontier’s violence. This violence appears to have made Gao interested in frontier poetry even before he served in positions that brought him to the border regions. His most famous poem, “Ballad of Yan” (“Yan ge xing”), was written in 738 to harmonize with another such “Ballad of Yan” by a friend who had served on the northeast frontier under the recently disgraced Zhang Shougui. The poem consists almost entirely of the stock imagery of the tradition but achieves an unusual forcefulness by focusing both on the brutal deaths of Chinese soldiers and on the callousness of the generals leading them, who continue to enjoy wine and dancing girls even as their troops are being slaughtered.28 Another famous verse that could likewise have been written before Gao’s service on the frontier also shows his tendency to moralize. Gao Shi, “To the Tune of ‘Beneath the Passes’” I bridled my “Floating Cloud” steed and winged out to serve in the army. I relied on the emperor’s wrath, and trusted the general’s greatness. A myriad drums, thunder rumbling the earth; a thousand banners, fires creating wind. The wheel of the sun was stopped by our frosty pikes; the ghost of the moon hung on our figured bows. At Blue Lake, we were encircled by battle clouds; the Black Mountains were scoured by war’s aura. When the battle was at its height, lucifer rose high; when the battle ended, the barbarian star had proved useless. Over ten-thousand leagues, I did not begrudge death if one morning I could accomplish some merit. I will be painted in Unicorn Pavilion and pay court at Brightglow Palace. I laugh heartily at literary men: what good is knowing exhaustively some one Classic? The ancients did not know of my way and so they mostly became old codgers.29 This poem, in the well-worn persona of the frontier bravo, is composed largely of stock imagery from the precedent tradition. Readers would have known, for instance, that Han Emperor Wen (r. 180–157 BCE) had brought “Floating Cloud” horses back from a triumphant trip to the northern

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frontier, that lucifer’s (Venus’s) rise presaged Chinese victory while the “barbarian star” (a lunar lodging composed of seven stars of the Pleiades) was associated with barbarian strength, and that the Han dynasty had painted its most meritorious subjects in Unicorn Pavilion. Beyond the skillful deployment of these allusions and the dramatic mise-en-scène of the depicted battle, what would have made the poem interesting to contemporary readers was its ironic ending, wherein Gao’s frontier bravo laughs at literary men (wen shi) for wasting their time studying the founding documents of the very literary tradition from which the poem is drawn. If we have enjoyed the poem’s swashbuckling, this ending suggests, we have been seduced by an ultimately untenable, uncivilized set of values—values that seem to have seduced the court as well, for it is not rewarding those scholars who devote themselves to the arts of civilization (wen) in the way it is men of military (wu) virtues. We probably should not take the criticism of the military class this poem evinces as a settled position of Gao’s; more likely, the stance appealed to him as a way to lend a moral weight to the frontier genre. He seems, at any rate, to have dropped any opposition he might have felt as soon as he was recommended to Geshu Han. In the following poem from early 753, Gao introduces himself to Geshu’s staff by praising their martial virtues and aspiring to emulate them himself. Gao Shi, “From Wuwei Heading to Luntai to Meet the Lord [Geshu Han], I Arrive Too Late and Thus Write this Account of My Experience to Be Sent to the Various Officials in the Military Headquarters of Hexi and Longyou” Through a vast expanse, I left my home county to gaze at these flags and pennants, fluttering in the breeze. Raising my whip, I set out from Wuwei, and as the sun set, I reached Lintao. Since I had not yet met my host here, this traveler’s heart was not at ease. Yet happening to see the army returning from campaign, I began to understand the boldness of his troops and cavalry. Their glaives and spears glinted like vast cliffs; their drummed-up morale was like windblown breakers. And those within this magnificent, mighty army vied to praise each other’s worthy achievements. Each documented their merit by presenting the heads they’d taken as the troops were feasted on boiled suovetaurilia. Captives were driven on with their hands tied behind, old and young in order of their age. Their felts and furs, how bushy they were! as blood-eaters, of course they stunk. Truly, Han generals played children’s games, and the men of Qin labored without issue. I halt my horse and gaze at the surging river; a startling wind blows the whitened weeds. Clouds mass, their cold colors harsh; snows merge over the many lofty mountains. Distant garrisons reach to heaven’s end; beacon fires stretch to enemy trenches. I am originally a wanderer of rivers and seas,

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and had vowed to flee profit and ambition. One morning, though, moved by being recommended, I came ten-thousand miles to follow a hero. He soars above, not of any common kind; looking up and down, I am ashamed to be among his officers. I know he welcomes men with martial physiognomies and that he only wields Excaliburs. Gauging myself, I am ashamed to enter the tents, and yet I admire the worthy, and want to share your greatcoats. Loftily you brandish flywhisks like the imperturbable Wang Yan; in the heights of drink, you hold crab claws insouciant like Bi Zhuo. This opportunity I’ve been given is not easy to repay; my deep feelings are welling within. If I cannot manage a small contribution, I will forever give up wearing a sword.30 This poem was lost at some point from Gao’s transmitted collection and was recovered in the twentieth century from the sealed library cave at Dunhuang, which contained several manuscripts of his poetry (perhaps signaling its popularity in the frontier regions).31 Like “To the Tune of ‘Beneath the Passes’,” the poem is a loose “extended regulated verse” (pailü), a sort of amalgamation of the age’s highest-register form with the disdain for formal constraint characteristic of “ancient-style” verse. It is also highly allusive, displaying Gao’s learning and the cultural capital that attended such learning in the Tang. Yet despite this allusiveness, there is a vivid ambivalence to Gao’s description of the returning army—who follow ritual propriety in separating captives according to age yet toss about severed heads amidst their boiled meat—and their prisoners of war—simultaneously disgusting in their “blood-eating” stench and also pitiable, insofar as some of the bound seem to have been children and the elderly—that suggests Gao was so struck by the scene he observed that he momentarily let slip the more conventional message of flattery the poem as a whole is written to convey. This fascination with the violence committed by Chinese armies against their Central Asian enemies is also visible in other poems by Gao from the same period, and it is his exploration of the moral complexity of this violence as a concrete and present reality that often renders his frontier verse a striking development upon the more abstract precedents of the Six Dynasties and Early Tang. Though Cen Shen does not entirely overlook the violence of the frontier, he was more interested in its landscapes, and when he depicts the suffering of Chinese soldiers (and their horses), he often attributes that suffering not to their enemies so much as to the hyperbolic harshness of the region. Of course, hyperbolically imagined landscapes had been a feature of frontier poetry since the tradition’s inception. In contrast to much previous frontier verse, however, Cen’s inflated descriptions are put to use for the social occasions that presented themselves on the frontier and are grounded in the knowledge of Central Asia he and his interlocutors had gained by being posted there. This poem about Lake Issyk-kul, in modern-day Kyrgyzstan, is a clear example. Cen Shen, “Ballad of the Hot Sea: Sending Censor Cui Off to Return to the Capital” I overheard a Hu boy from the Shadow Mountains talking about a hot sea in the west whose waters are as if boiling. Over the sea birds dare not fly, so in the lake the carp get long and fat. 106

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On its banks, the green grasses never wither; in the sky above it, white snow melts before it gets close. Smoking sands and molten rock burn the barbarians’ clouds; boiling waves and flaming breakers simmer the Han moon. Dark fires blaze secretly at the forge of heaven and earth; why is it they especially roast this western corner of the world? Surging, it swallows the moon’s lair and soaks lucifer with vapors stretching to Red Slope and reaching Xiongnu lands. Seeing you off, drunk by these walls in the Heaven Mountains, we watch now the evening sun sink at the sea’s side. But since the frosty aura of the Censorate sticks close to its officers, the hot sea’s flaming vapors are weakened here.32 The grain of truth in this poem is the fact that Issyk-kul (“Warm Lake” in Kyrgyz) is both saline and fed by hot springs, ensuring that it does not freeze in the harsh winters of the region. Cen’s imagination, however, transforms the lake into a vast, boiling ocean. This combination of hyperbole and fact—equally visible elsewhere in Cen’s work, as when he visited the (arid but not truly fiery) Flaming Mountains (Huoyan shan)—lent itself to occasional poetry as a means of emphasizing the alien character of the setting where he and his immediate audience find themselves.33 In this poem of parting, Cen suggests that the only reason this inhospitable landscape is bearable at all is that his interlocutor has brought with him the cooling qi of the central court. Once Censor Cui leaves, Cen will be beset not only by the traditional sadness of separation but also by the inherent antipathy of this foreign land. This poem, like many of Cen’s most famous works, represents both an expansion of the frontier genre to encompass wonders and horrors beyond the stereotypical aridity and cold of previous verse and also a folding of these foreign landscapes into the traditional sentiments of occasional genres such as the parting poem. This procedure was fairly novel within the largely non-occasional frontier genre, and it reflects the increased literati traffic seen by the frontiers in the mid-eighth century. In writing for these literati, Cen commonly sought bridges between their experience of the steppes beyond China and China’s elite literary and cultural tradition. Cen Shen, “In Beiting, Given to Academician Zong on Parting” The world is full of unexpected things, and I sigh you’ve wound up in the army. Your reading has worn out ten-thousand scrolls, so why have you come out here on campaign? You’ve accompanied Swift-Chariot Li marching west all the way to Sun’s-Rest; you’ve shouldered a pike beyond the moon’s lair and worn a helmet on the east slopes of Kunlun. Twice you’ve smashed the Hu, but the court little values your achievements in war. Ten years you’ve had just this single post, a drifting tumbleweed ten-thousand miles from home. Your face has grown old in the Hu dust, your robes and cape become brittle in the frontier wind. Suddenly you arrived here at Luntai, 107

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and meeting again, we shared what’s on our minds. We drank ale among the spring plants and playing chess, we heard the night bells. Now, though, you return to Kucha, from your shoulder hangs a bow of horn. Over flat sands towards tonight’s hostel your lone horse follows the winging geese. A solitary fort beside a vast desert; lake vapors towering up into the frontier sky. In early summer it is still cold, the Mountains of Heaven blurred with snow. Yet you serve a worthy general, so this cannot be called weeping at road’s end. Soon you will arrange your pinions and in a single flight soar to the blue vault.34 Few of the details this poem gives regarding Academician Zong’s frontier service are intended to be accurate: neither had he served under the Han general Li Cai (d. 118 BCE), nor had he visited the legendary places where the sun sets and the moon rises. It is, however, precisely because Academician Zong was a learned man that he would have enjoyed seeing his frontier service, whatever it actually entailed, depicted in these traditional images. Thus, though there are parts of this poem that are believable—Zong’s aging, his lonely trip across the level sands, maybe even his horn bow—these details should be understood less as describing frontier experience as it was and more as providing a transitus between that experience and the more luminous world that poetry created and sustained for High Tang literati. What Cen was giving Academician Zong, in other words, was a way to imagine his service in Central Asia as something more heroic than the dead end he seems to have thought it was. And insofar as work by a famous poet could conceivably make its way back to the capital, Cen might even have been adding some slight impulse to Zong’s ascent to the court that he envisions in the final line. As was partly the case with Gao Shi as well, then, what seems to have pushed Cen beyond the limitations of the frontier verse that was currently being produced back in the heartland by even great poets like Wang Changling was the necessity of writing for friends, colleagues, and acquaintances here on the margins of the empire, for whom Central Asia could not be—as it had previously been in most such poetry—the purely imaginary antithesis of China. Instead, the frontier becomes in Cen’s verse a paradoxical space: simultaneously alien and yet part of the Chinese world, cultureless and yet everywhere connected to the tropes and precedents of Chinese culture, defined by illiterate warfare (wu) and yet deeply literary (wen). These paradoxes animate the following famous quatrain. Cen Shen, “Meeting an Envoy on His Way to the Capital” Towards my old gardens I gaze east, the road without end; my sleeves are soaked with tears that do not dry. I meet you now on horseback without paper or brush; please pass a message for me: tell them I am fine.35 This is one of the most successful of High Tang frontier quatrains: direct, moving, and timelessly human. Its apparent simplicity, however, conceals a complex reflection on the question of just how 108

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much can be reported home about the frontier. Ostensibly, Cen sends so limited a message to his family because the frontier, a space of war conventionally antithetical to civil culture, has none of the literary implements that would allow him to write at length; he also does not want to give them any inkling of the truth, how much he is suffering here. Yet if the message home is thus a lie conditioned by war, the poem itself is a literary lie. If we are reading it, it is because he did have brush and paper with him, and because, moreover, he was not as averse to others knowing his sufferings as the poem suggests. Once again, we see in this poem a blending of convention and observation that is impossible to tease apart. Rather than reading it as either a record of a real experience or a mere traditional fiction, we should see it, like much of Cen’s frontier verse, as working to encompass within the elite literary tradition a reality depicted as lying beyond its boundaries.

Notes 1 For a concise discussion of twentieth-century scholarship, see Hu Dajun and Ma Lanhua, “Qishi nian biansai shi yanjiu zongshu” [An Overview of Seventy Years of Scholarship on Frontier Poetry], Zhongguo wenxue yanjiu 3 (2000): 88–92. 2 See Wang Wenjin, Nanchao biansai shi xinlun [A New Discussion of Frontier Poetry in the Southern Dynasties] (Taipei: Liren shuju, 2000). 3 See Fu Xuancong, ed., Tangren xuan Tangshi xinbian [Tang Anthologies of Tang Verse] (Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin jiaoyu chubanshe, 1996), 99–206. 4 This anecdote is preserved in Xue Yongruo’s ninth-century Jiyi ji [Record of Oddities], in Gu Shenzi and Xue Yongruo, Boyi zhi, Jiyi ji [Broad Notation of Oddities and Record of Oddities], Gu xiaoshuo congkan (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980), 2.11–12. 5 See Hu Kexian and Wei Na, “Tangdai shiren shiji xinzheng” [New Evidence for the Affairs of Tang Poets], Zhejiang daxue xuebao 40, no. 5 (2010): 27–35. 6 See Fu, Tang Anthologies, 161. 7 See Cui Hao shi zhu, Cui Guofu shi zhu [Annotated Poems of Cui Hao and Cui Guofu], annot. Wan Jingjun (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1982), 42. 8 For this appellation, see Fu Xuancong, ed., Tang caizi zhuan jiaojian [Notes on the Biographies of Tang Talents], 5 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1995), 5.51. Scholars have debated whether the title should be “Master of Poets” or “Emperor of Poets.” 9 See Paul W. Kroll, “Heyue yingling ji and the Attributes of High Tang Poetry,” in Reading Medieval Chinese Poetry, ed. Paul W. Kroll (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 169–201. 10 Stephen Owen, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 103. 11 Shen Quanqi Song Zhiwen ji jiaozhu [The Collections of Shen Quanqi and Song Zhiwen, Collated and Annotated] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2001), 4.233. 12 See Jia Jinhua, “The ‘Pearl Scholars’ and the Final Establishment of Regulated Verse,” T’ang Studies 14 (1996): 1–20. 13 Quan Tang shi [The Complete Poetry of the Tang] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1960), 253.2849. 14 See Guo Maoqian, comp., Yuefu shi ji [Collection of Yuefu Poems] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979), 22.328–33. 15 Li Qi shige jiaozhu [The Poetry of Li Qi, Collated and Annotated], annot. Wang Xijiu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2018), 2.447. 16 Jin shu [History of the Jin Dynasty], by Fang Xuanling et al. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974), 62.1690. 17 Annotated Poems of Cui Hao, 19. 18 Wang Changling ji biannian jiaozhu [Wang Changling’s Collection, Arranged in Chronological Order, Collated, and Annotated], ed. Hu Wentao and Luo Qin (Chengdu: BaShu shushe, 2000), 20. 19 For a discussion of the Li Guang problem, see Li Feiyue, “Wang Changling ‘Chusai’ shi de lishi huwen yu wenben changyu” [Mixing of Historical Allusions in Wang Changling’s ‘Going Out the Passes’ and the Textual Field], Wenxue pinglun 3 (2020): 120–29. 20 See Owen, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry, 149. 21 The count is uncertain because it is doubtful whether a number of the poems attributed to Gao are his.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 2 2 Jiu Tang shu [Old History of Tang] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), 111.3331. 23 There is one Song-dynasty anecdote (of questionable historical veracity) that has Cen alive and serving in the capital in 777; see Wang Dang, Tang yulin jiaozheng [Forest of Tang Anecdotes], ed. Zhou Xunchu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1987), 3.193. 24 See Fu, Tang Anthologies, 152–61, 287. 25 Fu, Tang Anthologies, 152, 158. 26 See Xiao Difei et al., Du Fu quanji jiaozhu [Complete Works of Du Fu, Collated and Annotated], 12 vols. (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2014), 6.1630. 27 Yan Yu, Canglang shihua jiaoshi [Canglang Poetry Chats], ed. Guo Shaoyu (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1961), 4.166. 28 See Gao Shi’s Poetry Collection, 97. For a useful discussion of the poem’s stock imagery—and skepticism regarding claims that it represents topical criticism—see Wang Lizeng, “Lun Gao Shi ‘Yangexing’ wei mofang zhi zuo” [Gao Shi’s ‘Yangexing’ Is a Work of Imitation], Bohai daxue xuebao 2 (2007): 68–71. 29 Gao Shi’s Poetry Collection, 269. 30 Gao Shi’s Poetry Collection, 253. 31 See Zhang Xihou, “Dunhuang ben ‘Gao Shi shiji’ kaoshu” [A Study of the Dunhuang Editions of Gao Shi’s Poetry Collection], Dunhuang yanjiu 1 (1996): 83–97. For editions of Gao’s collection, see Gao Shi’s Collection, Collated and Annotated, ed. Sun Qinshan (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1984), 401–11. 32 See Cen Jiazhou shi jianzhu [The Poetry of Cen Jiazhou, Annotated], annot. Liao Li (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004), 2.321. Note that the identification of the “hot sea” as Issyk-kul has been disputed. See Xia Guoqiang, Tang Tianbao shiqi junzheng shidi congkao: yi Cen Shen xiyu shi wei zhongxin [Collected Research on the Historical Locations of Military Administrations in the Tianbao Period of the Tang, with Cen Shen’s Poetry of the Western Regions as the Focus] (Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2017), 190. 33 For Cen’s visit to the Flaming Mountains, see The Poetry of Cen Jiazhou, 1.261. 34 The Poetry of Cen Jiazhou, 1.39–40. 35 The Poetry of Cen Jiazhou, 7.764.

Further Reading Chan, Marie. Cen Shen. Boston: Twayne, 1983. Chan, Marie. “The Frontier Poems of Ts’en Shen.” JAOS 98, no. 4 (1978): 420–37. Chan, Marie. Kao Shih. Boston: Twayne, 1978. Lee, Joseph J. Wang Ch’ang-ling. Boston: Twayne, 1982. Miao, Ronald. “T’ang Frontier Poetry: An Exercise in Archetypal Criticism.” Tsinghua Journal of Chinese Studies 10, no. 2 (1974): 125–27. Owen, Stephen. The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981. Waley, Arthur. “A Chinese Poet in Central Asia.” In The Secret History of the Mongols, 40–46. London: Allen & Unwin, 1963.

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9 CHAN POETRY OF HANSHAN Chi-chiang Huang

It has been argued that Hanshan, meaning “Cold Mountain” in English, and the poems attributed to Hanshan as “a poet” became popular in Japan and the West because of the Chan character and spirit in the collection of poems titled Hanshanzi shiji. The makeup of the book’s Chan leitmotifs has appealed to many Japanese and Westerners, in particular artists of the past generation, for this reason. Originally viewed as an individual poet who was well versed in Chan poetics, Hanshan was hailed as someone who pioneered Chan poetry in Tang times and who impacted Chan poetry in the post-Tang era, or in Song times. Given that the Hanshan poems (hereafter the HSP) were not regarded by major critics of Tang and later dynasties as comparable with mainstream poems authored by such celebrated poets as Wang Wei (699–759), Li Bai (701–762), Du Fu (721–770), and many others in Tang times,1 the appeal of Chan can explain the puzzlingly disproportional attention paid to the HSP from 1950s until the present time, as indicated subsequently.2 Many if not all Hanshan admirers in the sixties and seventies in America were captivated by the HSP. The prominent poet Gary Snyder, among others, even wrote poems in emulation of those of Hanshan.3 Early translators of the HSP engaged in an autobiographical reading of the work. Burton Watson, for instance, believes that the individual poet Hanshan was active in the late eighth century and early ninth century and was the sole author of some 300 poems in the Hanshanzi shiji.4 Despite his reliance on the annotation of the HSP done by Iriya Yoshitak, an erudite Japanese scholar contemporaneous with Yoshikawa Kōjirō and Ogawa Tamaki, Watson disagrees with the notion that Hanshan was a carefree, enlightened Chan layman and considers the Japanese reading of the “sitting” in the HSP “zazen” is inappropriate.

Hanshan and the Hanshan Poems Neither Watson’s view on Hanshan as an individual poet nor his denial of “sitting” as zazen is agreed upon. Regarding the authorship of the HSP, E. G. Pulleyblank was the first to argue that there were two groups of Hanshan, that is, “Hanshan I” and “Hanshan II.”5 The former was active in early Tang or late Sui (early seventh century or late sixth century) and the latter in late Tang. He believes that the former penned larger portions of the HSP and was active before the spread of Chan, whereas the latter was merely influenced by Chan; thus its poems read like dry “didactic sermons.”6 While the characterization of “didactic sermons” remains a moot point, the two-period  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-13

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HSP inspired Hanshan scholars to reaffirm the theory of composite authorship of the HSP. The identification of “real Hanshan” as what existed in the late Sui and early Tang versus “authors disguised as Hanshan” writing later emerged in the mid-Tang or late Tang.7 A more robust theory of “multiple authors, but Hanshan remains a mystery” or “three Hanshan poets, with a real, historical Hanshan,” also proved credible.8 The efforts made to identify the authorship of the HSP clearly gave impetus to further studies and translations of the HSP. The renewed interest in contemporary Hanshan study owes much to the emergence of translations of and scholarly essays on the HSP since the 1980s, during which many translations of the HSP in multiple languages emerged around the world. The increased publications encouraged more monographs on the HSP, and at least five books in non-Chinese languages were dedicated to translating some or all of the HSP.9 The trend to more in-depth study of the HSP in 1990s led to the English translation of the entire collection of the Hanshanzi shiji by Robert G. Henricks and critiques of it.10 To a large extent, these translations, along with a number of journal articles and book chapters on the HSP, were due to translators’ and writers’ image of Hanshan as a recluse and the perceived Chan ethos in the HSP. Henricks, for instance, views poets of the “Hanshan II” group as a Buddhist recluse or “Chan Buddhist recluse” rather than an ordained monk, who favored Chan but also delighted in “criticizing, making fun of, satirizing establishment clergy” (Henricks 1990, 7–20). This image of Hanshan continued to influence English translations that appeared in the 2000s, including a revised and expanded version of Red Pine’s earlier translation done in 1980s11 and at least six translations of some or all HSP.12 No serious scholar seems to have considered that Hanshan was a single individual anymore. In the 2010s, two translations of the complete HSP began to circulate.13 Paul Rouzer, who authored a complete translation of the HSP in 2017, had previously put out a book that prescribed a Buddhist reading of the HSP, which promises a “close reading from a Buddhist perspective.”14 Rejecting Hanshan as a single individual poet, this approach was unprecedented, given its assertion that two or more authors engaged in writing the HSP in multiple themes. Tanahashi argues in his translation that the original Hanshan was a Daoist practitioner, and the second-period Hanshan poet, or the “Hanshan II” poet, was certainly a Buddhist under the considerable influence of the Chan School that then figured prominently (Tanahashi and Levitt, 239–41). Introducing in his proposal that a third Hanshan group existed between Pulleyblank’s “Hanshan I” and “Hanshan II,” Tanahashi may be right in his reading of Chan into some of the HSP. Granted that many “Hanshan II” poems are clearly concerned with Buddhism,15 how many of them can be labeled “Chan poems” remains a question because of the absence of a commonly agreed-upon definition of the term. Nevertheless, thanks to the diverse genres and mindsets found in the HSP, Thomas J. Mazanec’s hypothesis that Hanshan “was most likely a poetic persona adopted by several, perhaps even dozens of individuals at different times—a character, like Batman, that allowed for great variation with each retelling” (Mazance, 681) may not be too far-fetched. After all, among many diverse voices found in the HSP, some enunciating Chan moods or sentiments were most likely penned by Chan monks or adepts. They may be regarded as plausible Chan poems.

Chan Poems of Hanshan Essentially, whereas the Hanshanzi shiji consists of many poems that convey Buddhist tenets, probably not many of them can be identified as Chan poems, because the majority of these are didactic at best. On the other hand, it is not easy to find many poems with clearly expressed Chan zest or flavor. The scarcity of poems infused with Chan ethos, however, does not deter the HSP from being impactful. The small number of Chan poems actually exerted considerable impact on the

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composition of Chan verses, or more accurately Chan gāthā, or jisong, in the late Tang, the Five Dynasties, and the Song. Arguably the most popular Chan poem from the collection of some 300 HSP is “My Mind Resembles the Autumn Moon,”16 given that it was repeatedly cited by Chan masters of the Song Dynasty.17 The poem reads: My mind resembles the autumn moon, Or a pool of blue water, clear and pure. But nothing is really comparable to it— What can I say to explain it to you?18 A poem in simple and vernacular language, it is widely interpreted as expressing the Chan idea of one’s ineffable innate Buddha nature, which is simply incomparable. Despite some sort of metaphorical comparisons like autumn moon or clear and pure water, there is no way to explain a Chan mind without personal understanding. Similarly, one can only understand one’s Buddha nature by self-discovery through self-experience. This is analogous to understanding how warm or cold the water is by tasting or drinking it: other people cannot make the person understand, which is what the last line means. Likewise, none but the wearer of the shoe knows where the shoe pinches. One should note that there is no Buddhist term embedded in the poem, yet it epitomizes Chan poetry because the tropes used in it are intended to direct the reader’s attention to an indescribable Chan awareness. This Chan poem is more like a pentasyllabic ancient-style poem, which constitutes the majority of the HSP. However, some Chan poems adhere more or less to the parallelism and tonal prosody required for regulated verses in the heptasyllabic octet but still express Chan feeling. For instance, “Up I Climb the Cold Mountain Road” is a lighthearted Chan verse that airs the poet’s common human feelings when traversing a long and winding road, yet with some kind of hope: Up I climb the Cold Mountain Road, Yet, the road to Cold Mountain has no end. The stream there is long and boulders pile up, The ravine is broad where thicket sprawls along. Moss is slippery—not due to the rain; Pines’ rustling—not caused by wind. Who can transcend the bonds of the world, And sit [meditating] with me amid the white clouds?19 While no words here are related specifically to Buddhism, the poem tells of the endless bumpy path that humans have to pass along, even though no rain or wind aggravates one’s troubles. It is wiser to release oneself from the shackles of the world than to succumb to them. The poet hopes to see someone seeking an unfettered life after many vain attempts to find the right path. This man is encouraged to join him in seated meditation to wipe out all afflictions.20 The poem “All the Stars Form Their Ranks, Furthering the Brightness of the Night” intertwines the moon and the mind to form another example of a Chan poem: All the stars form their ranks, furthering the brightness of the night, A single lamp was lit on the cliff—the moon is still there before it sets.

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The perfect radiance [of the moon] is beyond polishing, Hanging in the azure night sky, it truly is my Mind.21 This seems to be a nature poem that describes the crystal-bright stars and moon, deep in the night. It, however, attempts to identify the moon with the poet’s mind. The poet’s mind, like the moon with its unpolished radiance, is beyond human-made efforts to polish. This mind is the Buddha’s mind or nature inherent in all humans. A Chan poem of this sort implies Chan’s understanding of non-duality. Upholding the idea of “polishing” one’s mind, or innate Buddha nature, with effort posed a problem to the Fifth Chan patriarch, Hongren (601–675), who presided over the East Mountain Monastery (Dongshan shi) in the Tang Dynasty. The head monk of his monastery, Shenxiu (606–706), composed the gāthā, “The Body Is the Bodhi Tree,” at the behest of his master, who was seeking among his disciples someone whose enlightening verse could qualify him as a reliable successor. Shenxiu’s gāthā reads as follows: The body is the Bodhi tree. The mind resembles a clear mirror with a stand. Wipe it often and diligently, Let no dust gather.22 The gist of this verse is that one should not forget to “wipe,” to polish, one’s mind lest it collect “dust,” just as a bright or clean mirror does. The emphasis on “polishing” one’s mind, however, was contested by the newly arrived acolyte Huineng (638–713) in his “Originally Bodhi Has No Tree” verse that reads:23 Originally Bodhi has no tree, The mirror is no stand either. There is nothing after all, Whereon the dust will fall?24 Arguing that “nothing” is there for the dust to fall on and gather, Huineng’s gāthā denies the necessity of “wiping” to polish one’s polluted mind. Essentially, the mind is as formless as the bodhi tree and bright mirror, so no dust can fall on it. The effort of “wiping” the mind or the Buddha nature is thus pointless. While the use of the word bodhi in the two gāthā verses makes them sound like “Buddhist” poems, the name of the tree is used primarily as a trope rather than for making an unambiguous point of religious persuasion. On the other hand, while “nothing” used in Huineng’s gāthā alternatively reads as “Buddha nature” in the Dunhuang edition of the Platform Sutra, its inherent impeccability rather than its religious purpose is evoked. Both gāthā, as much as the aforementioned HSP, can be regarded as Chan poems in which tropes were used to create an oblique metaphoric message that was not always immediately intelligible. The following two poems can further explain the characteristics of Chan poems that stand out from the Hanshanzi shiji: Layers upon layers of mountains and waters—so graceful; Mist and rosy clouds enclose the bluish-green hill slope. Fog brushes, dampening my silken scarf; 114

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Dew soaks my straw raincoat. My feet tiptoe in my peripatetic sandals, My hand holds an old rattan staff. When looking beyond this dusty world [from here], I see nothing in this realm of dream is worth doing! (Rouzer 2015, 117) The poem begins with a portrayal of an itinerant’s, or perhaps a spiritual seeker’s, wandering around in multiple layers of beautiful landscapes, in which he is soaked in the mist, fog, and dew. Wearing a rambler’s sandals and holding an old rattan staff, he reaches a place where he can look beyond the dusty world and contemplate his future. At that juncture, he comes to a realization that the world he lives in is nothing but an elusive dream. What may happen next is not said in the poem, but its underlying message is not easy to miss. Seeking spirituality via personal experience can result in successful self-awakening. No Buddhist text or instruction given by a Chan master is needed to achieve this goal. In this light, it is only natural that we see no Buddhist or Chan nomenclature used in the poem. Here is another poem that does not rely on Buddhist or Chan phraseology: Cloudy mountains, range on range, stretch their emerald to the sky; Road remote, forest deep: no travelers wander here. Afar I gaze at the solitary moon, bright and gleaming white;25 Nearby I hear the flocks of birds that twitter and chatter. I, an old man, sit alone, resting atop a green hill; Like living leisurely in the Mount Shaoshi, I yield to my hoary hair. Regrettably, in the years gone by until today, My “no-mind” meditation is still like water flowing east. (Rouzer 2015, 135)26 This poem reads like a short story that narrates the poet’s reclusive life. It starts with an introduction to a scenic and isolated locale where an old man, clearly the poet himself, oftentimes sits, rests, and probably meditates. The place is at the top of some mountain ranges, richly green like emerald stretching to the sky. The road leading to the place is so remote and the place is so deep in the forest that visitors are nowhere to be seen. There he can gaze at the shiningly bright moon from afar and hear flocks of birds twitter and chatter nearby. Although this sounds as if he is not entirely lonely, even though as solitary as the moon, he feels much more comfortable secluding himself, whiling away his time in a far-off place like the Shaoshi Mountain regardless of his old age. Despite this, he still feels it regrettable to see that, both in the past and the present, his “no-mind” meditation passes as quickly as water flows spontaneously eastward. The last two lines give the poem a twist, highlighting an old man’s lamentation over the fleeting of time rather than his solitude. The brevity of human life makes it hard for an old man like the poet himself to attain enlightenment, which, even with his “no-mind” Chan meditation, proves unsuccessful.27 A similar poem about meditation and the transience of life, which is not always associated with Chan but is also a recurring theme of Chan poems, is “Sitting Alone, I Sometimes Feel Lost”: Sitting alone, I sometimes feel lost, So much so, my mind is far away! Clouds trail and turn, on halfway up the mountain, And the wind whistles at the mouth of the valley. Gibbons come—the trees sway back and forth; 115

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Birds enter in—the forest echoes their tweet. Time hastens my grey temples: my hairs rustling. The year ends, an old man remains disconsolate. (Rouzer 2015, 159) The poem is delicately artistic, with juxtapositions of alliterations all the way to the last line. The first two lines highlight the scene in which the poet, sitting alone in the mountain, probably intending to meditate, is feeling lost and cannot collect his thoughts. While he still can hear the sounds of nature, they evoke his feeling of aging. Toward the end of the year, he becomes disconsolate when seeing his quickly-turned-grey temples and rustling hairs. The change of seasons may remain the same as times go by, but he becomes old quickly in the flux of time. This sense of fleeting time, although it is also common in literati poetry, is nonetheless full of Chan spirit in that it is a result of self-awakening after living a reclusive life. The following poem, “Amid a Thousand Clouds and a Myriad Waters,” is tinged with a similar sentiment, but it turns the air of melancholy into a state of joy because of the poet’s feeling of emancipation. Amid a thousand clouds and a myriad waters, There is a gentleman living a life of leisure. In daytime he roves about the green hills, Returning at night, sleeping in the hill cave under the cliff. In a flash, spring and autumn pass; Enjoying the serenity, he is unencumbered by dusty ties. So delightful, he has nothing on which he wants to depend; So tranquil, he is like the still water of an autumn river. (Rouzer 2015, 307)28 The poem describes a reclusive gentleman who dwells under a cliff surrounded by clouds and water, who roams about the green hills in daylight and sleeps in a hill cave at night. Free from the daily encumbrance of city life, he relishes his tranquil life amidst the serenity of nature, even though he also senses the quick passing of time. This is an expression of the dual feeling of ubi sunt and carpe diem, which is typical of Chan poems. That everything will fade away and perish with the passage of time is a recurrent theme in Chinese poetry. The loss of time or life is widely known to cause misery or grief, as demonstrated in many classical poems. The transcendence of despair and depression is what makes Chan poems special. The poem “On Rocks of a Thousand Years, the Trace of the Ancient Remains” begins with the sentiment of ubi sunt, but it soon shifts to informing us of the existence of a truth that still can be found effortlessly: On rocks of a thousand years, the trace of the Ancient remains; Before a cliff a myriad zhang high, a single spot of void it forms. When the bright moon shines, the spot is always glistening white— So don’t bother seeking and retrieving it by asking its whereabouts. (Rouzer 2015, 215) The “Ancient” may be interpreted as a sage or, more likely, the Buddha. If this is accepted, the “trace” that has survived the passing of the “Ancient” for a thousand years may be interpreted as the “Dharma” or “Buddha nature,” which is represented by an illuminating spot of emptiness that is only visible when one gazes at the bright moon. The Dharma is right there for one to find, and the “Buddha nature” is innate. Therefore, searching for either of them is totally irrelevant. The gist 116

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of the poem is that one’s enlightenment does not rely on fertile efforts but on one’s self-discovery or self-realization. There are other Chan poems in the collection of the HSP that are beyond the scope of this brief introduction. Suffice it to say that the previous examples can help readers understand the nature of Chan poems composed by the poets who were long perceived as being one individual, Hanshan. Their creations certainly do not show any sign of being “dry didactic sermons”!

Notes 1 See Mazance Thomas’s review of Paul Rouzer’s “On Cold Mountain: A Buddhist Reading of the Hanshan Poems,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 138, no. 3 (July–September 2018): 679–82, in which he says that “An indigenous Chinese tendency to place Buddhism outside of orthodox culture (traceable to at least the eleventh century), combined with the separation of ‘sinology’ from ‘Buddhology’ in the modern academy, has meant few serious treatments of Buddhist literature.” To some extent, this remark can be said of academic study of Hanshan before this century. There is, however, a caveat in making this claim. Although Hanshan’s poems are not included in most of the major Chinese poetry anthologies prior to China’s Republican period, such as the Tangshi sanbai shou [Three Hundred Tang Poems], some of the HSP are included in the Shicang lidai shixuan, a poetry anthology compiled by Cao Xuequan of the Ming Dynasty, and the Tiantai qianji compiled by Li Geng and Lin Shidian of the Song Dynasty. As many as 39 poems are included in the former, which is very unusual, and 12 poems are in the latter. Poetry anthologies compiled by the Chan monk Shimian consist of 37 of the HSP. In the West, The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature, ed. Victor Mair (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), includes 13 Hanshan poems translated by Bill Porter. John Minford and S. M. Law include 14 Hanshan poems translated by Gary Snyder in their Classical Chinese Literature: An Anthology of Translations, Vol. 1: From Antiquity to the Tang Dynasty (New York: Columbia University; Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2000). Stephen Owen includes five Hanshan poems in his An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996). 2 Victor H. Mair, “Script and Word in Mediaeval Vernacular Sinitic,” JAOS 112, no. 2 (1992): 269–78. The author’s explanation of the appeal of the HSP from 1950s to 1990s may still apply today. Aspects of the HSP such as vernacular language, Chan sentiment, and reclusive life may have led to continuing study of the HSP. 3 See Gary Snyder, Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems (Washington, DC: Shoemaker and Hoard, 2003). 4 Burton Watson, trans., Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the T’ang Poet Han-shan (New York: Grove Press, 1962; New York: Columbia University Press, 1970). 5 E. G. Pulleyblank, “Linguistic Evidence for the Date of Han-shan,” in Studies in Chinese Poetry and Poetics, Vol. I, ed. R. Miao (San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, 1978): 163–95. In the article, the author identifies two poet groups known as “Hanshan I” and “Hanshan II” whose poems constituted the collection of the HSP. 6 Pulleyblank, “Linguistic Evidence for the Date of Han-shan.” 7 Robert G. Henrick, The Poetry of Han-shan: A Complete, Annotated Translation of Cold Mountain (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990). 8 See Paul Rouzer, On Cold Mountain: A Buddhist Reading of the Hanshan Poems (Boston and Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 2015); Paul Rouzer, The Poetry of Hanshan (Cold Mountain), Shide, and Fenggan (Boston and Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, Inc., 2017); Kazuaki Tanahashi and Peter Levitt, The Complete Cold Mountain: Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan (Boston: Shambhala, 2018). 9 They are James Kirkup and Hiroyuki Matsumoto, Cold Mountain Poems: 25 Poems by Han-shan (London: Kyoto Editions; Osaka: Distributed by Union Services, 1980), an e-book; Arthur Tobias, James Sanford, and J. P. Seaton, trans. View from Cold Mountain: Poems of Han-Shan and Shih-Te (Buffalo: White Pine Press, 1983); Hervé Collet and Cheng Wing Fan, Han Shan: 108 Poemes (Millemont: Moundarren, 1985); Paul Kahn, Han-shan in English (Buffalo: White Pine Press, 1989); Chae-hyŏn Kim, Cold Mountain: 301 Poems by Han-shan (Seoul: Hanshin Publ. Co. 1989). 10 Translation of the entire collection of HSP is exemplified by Robert G. Henricks, The Poetry of Han-shan: A Complete, Annotated Translation of Cold Mountain (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990). Critiques of the book include Stephen R. Bokenkamp, “Review of Robert G. Henricks, The Poetry of

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Seaton, trans., Cold Mountain Poems: Chan Poems of Han Shan, Shih Te, and Wang Fan-chih (Boston: Shambhala, 2009); Joan Qionglin Tan, Han Shan, Chan Buddhism and Gary Snyder’s Ecopoetic Way (Eastbourne: The Sussex Academic Press, 2009). 13 They are Paul Rouzer, trans., The Poetry of Hanshan (Cold Mountain), Shide, and Fenggan (Boston and Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, Inc., 2017); Tanahashi and Levitt, “The Complete Cold Mountain.” 14 Rouzer, On Cold Mountain, “Introduction,” ix. 15 Henrick, The Poetry of Han-shan lists in “Appendix III” some Buddhist themes among 25 themes he identifies in the collection of the HSP, such as karma, those who foolishly fail to follow Buddha’s way, veiled/ direct attacks on corrupt/insincere Buddhists, Chan symbols and themes, etc. 16 Note that all Hanshan poems, which were originally untitled, are now titled by editors or translators of the HSP collection. 17 See, for example, Hongzhi chanshi guanglu [The Expanded Collection of Chan Master Hongzhi’s Recorded Sayings], Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō 48 (2021): 59c21; Jiatai pudeng lu [The Universal Transmission Lamp Produced in the Jiatai Period], CBETA 79 (1559): 326c64–327a01, 332a19–20, 349c24–350a01, 366c20– 21; Xu guzunsu yuyao [The Continued Collection of Old Chan Masters’ Essential Sayings], CBETA 68 (1318): 409c20, 435c14, 477b17–18, 514a09–10. 18 There are various translations of this poem. Mine is based on Mary M. Y. Fung and David Lunde, A Full Load of Moonlight: Chinese Chan Buddhist Poems (Hong Kong: Musical Stone Culture Ltd., 2014) with some modification. See A Full Load of Moonlight, 32. 19 Translation is based on Rouzer, On Cold Mountain, 100, and Rouzer, The Poetry of Hanshan (Cold Mountain), Shide, and Fenggan, 39, with some modification. 20 Note that when the monks said “sit among the white clouds,” they implied “sit and meditate.” 21 My translation is adapted from Rouzer’s. See Rouzer, On Cold Mountain, 215. 22 C.f. Yampolskey’s translation based on the Dunhuang edition, whereas McRae’s translation is based on the edition expanded by Zongbao of the Yuan Dynasty on the basis of Qisong’s redacted edition, produced in the Northern Song and known as Liuzu dashi fabao tanjing [The Platform Sūtra of the Dharma Treasure of the Great Master, the Six Patriarch]. The two editions have slight differences in wording. My translation is based on Zongbao’s edition. 23 For these two famous verses and their background story, see Philip B. Yampolskey, trans., The Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 130–32. Cf. John McRae, trans., The Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch (Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2000), 31–33. Again, my translation is based on Zongbao’s edition. 24 See Yampolskey, The Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch. Cf. McRae’s translation based on Zongbao’s edition, which provides an alternative Chinese text. 25 Chinese term guchan is literally “solitary toad,” as Rouzer translated and explained. Using guchan instead of guyue (lonely moon) makes a couplet that takes into account the parallelism required for a regulated verse, in which lines 3 and 4 should be antithetical throughout, in both tones and names of these entities. In the case of this poem, guchan contrasts with qunniao (a flock of birds) in both tones and the names of animals, including their quantities. 26 Note that Shaoshi normally refers to Mount Shaoshi, a branch mountain separated from Mount Song. The term has no reference to “little room.” 27 “No-mind” (wuxin) may also be understood as “no-thought” (wunian), which is translated as “no-mind” in McRae, The Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch, 21. The text used for McRae’s translation is Qisong’s “Liuzu fabao tanjing ji” [Encomium of the Platform Sutra of the Dharma Treasure of the Great Master, the Six Patriarch], Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō 48 (2008): 304a19. 28 The last line of the poem is the poet’s adaptation of the line “I quietly watch the water of an autumn river” in one of the 100 “Untilted Poems Composed while Roaming a River” by Qian Qi (722?–780) of the Tang Dynasty. See Qian Kaogong ji [Collected Works of Qian Qi, the Court Gentleman of Evaluations] (Shanghai: Commercial Press, Sibu congkan chubian, reprint, 1932), 8a.

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Further Reading Bokenkamp, Stephen R. “Review of Robert G. Henricks, The Poetry of Han-shan.” CLEAR 13 (1991): 137–45. Borgen, Robert. “The Legend of Hanshan: A Neglected Source.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 111, no. 3 (July–September 1991): 575–79. Collet, Hervé, and Cheng Wing Fan. Han Shan: 108 poèmes. Millemont, Fr.: Moundarren, 1985. Egan, Charles. Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown: Poems by Chan Monks of China. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Fung, Mary M. Y., and David Lunde. A Full Load of Moonlight: Chinese Chan Buddhist Poems. Hong Kong: Musical Stone Culture Ltd., 2014 (4 poems translated, pp. 30–33). Henricks, Robert G. The Poetry of Han-shan: A Complete, Annotated Translation of Cold Mountain. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990. Huang Chi-chiang. “Yaoyao Hanshandao—Yingyu wenhuaquan ‘Hanshan yanjiu’ de lishi huigu yu jianping” [So Remote, the Road to Cold Mountain—A Review of the “Hanshan Studies” over the Past Decades by Anglophone Cultures, with a Brief Comment]. Zhengda zhongwen xuebao 36 (2021): 5–68. Huang, Jingjia. Hanshan shi zai Song Yuan chanlin de chuanbo yanjiu [A Study of the Dissemination of the Image and Poetry of Hanshan in Chan Monasteries During the Song and Yuan Periods]. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju, 2016. Idema, Wilt, trans., The Poetry of Hanshan (Cold Mountain), Shide, and Fenggan. Boston and Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, Inc., 2017. Mair, Victor H. “Script and Word in Mediaeval Vernacular Sinitic” (Review of Henricks). JAOS 112, no. 2 (1992): 269–78. Mazanec, Thomas J. “Review of Rouzer’s On Cold Mountain: A Buddhist Reading of the Hanshan Poems.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 138 (July–September 2018): 679–82. Porter, Bill (Red Pine), trans. The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain. Revised and expanded ed. Port Townsend: Copper Canyon Press, 2000. John Blofeld’s introduction reprinted from the 1983 edition is included. Pulleyblank, E. G. “Linguistic Evidence for the Date of Han-shan.” In Studies in Chinese Poetry and Poetics. Vol. I, edited by R. Mia, 163–95. San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, 1978. Rouzer, Paul. On Cold Mountain: A Buddhist Reading of the Hanshan Poems. Boston and Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 2015. Tanahashi, Kazuaki, and Peter Levitt. The Complete Cold Mountain: Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan. Shambhala, June 26, 2018. Watson, Burton, trans. Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the T’ang Poet Han-shan. New York: Grove Press, 1962; Columbia University Press, 1970. Xiang Chu. Hanshan shizhu [Hanshan’s Poems with Annotations]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2000. Ye Zhuhong. Hanshan shiji zhi liuchuan yu yingxiang [The Dissemination and Influence of Hanshan’s Poems]. Taipei: Huamulan chubanshe, 2015.

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SECTION IV

Poetry of High Tang B

10 LI BAI The Poet-Transcendent Timothy W. K. Chan

Li Bai (also romanized as Li Bo or Li Po, 701–762) lived in the heyday of the Tang Dynasty (618–907) and engraved his name in the history of Chinese poetry as its most innovative and charismatic figure. The theme of transcendence dominated his writing, particularly as a counterbalance to his frustrated ambition of achieving a successful political career. This unique idiosyncrasy won him the retrospective appellation “poet-transcendent,” an antonomasia that matches Du Fu’s (712–770) “poet-sage” and “poet-historian.” The “Li Du” duo represents the highest achievement of the golden age of Chinese poetry.

Early Life and Thought The transcendence theme that informs Li Bai’s legacy begins with his birth myth. His byname, Taibai, a Chinese term for the planet Venus (also called Changgeng, then regarded by Chinese astronomers as a star), was said to have been bestowed because his mother dreamed about the planet before labor. Li was consequently regarded as a mortal incarnation of the astronomical object and its associated folk deity. This contributed to Li’s confidence and high aspiration, as revealed in several traits: (1) his emulation of historical figures regarded as star incarnations who shared intimacy with an emperor, such as Dongfang Shuo (d. 93 BC; more subsequently) and Yan Guang (39 BC–41 CE);1 (2) his acquisition of the sobriquet “banished transcendent” (zhexian); and (3) his fondness for the Taibai Mountains.2 Li spent his youth in Shu (modern Sichuan province), where Daoism originated, and was exposed to that religion. Its pantheon, myths, philosophy, and rituals shaped his thought on transcendence and reclusion and influenced his writing throughout his life. Here is a representative poem written when the poet was young, in Shu: “Upon Calling on the Daoist Adept of Mount Daitian and Failing to Meet Him” Dog barks penetrate the sound of water. Dense are the dewy peach blossoms. In deep trees, deer sometimes appear; By the creek at noon, the bell is not heard. Wild bamboos divide the thin blue mist;  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-15

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The flying spring is hung on the cyan peak. No one knows where he has gone. Sorrowfully, I lean against two or three pines. (LBJ, 23.1355) Despite the strict compliance with tonal pattern and parallelism prescribed for regulated verse, Li Bai is not considered a representative practitioner of this form.3 We look elsewhere for the poem’s value. The poem embodies borrowings from Tao Yuanming’s (365–427) thought and diction. The dog barking is “simple but aggressively brilliant.”4 The line is adapted from Tao’s reclusive poem, “Dogs bark from the depth of the alleys.” The dog and the peach blossoms construct a setting for a kind of Peach Blossom Spring adventure.5 This explorative motif, combined with the underlying Daoist lore, foreshadows the poet’s continuing absorption in his unsuccessful search for transcendence. Li Bai’s family background and character shaped his poetic style. According to Li Yangbing (mid-eighth c.), Li Bai’s family ended generations of émigré life in inner Asia when they moved back to Shu in 705 when Li Bai was five years old (LBJ, 1789). Li Bai’s life and works occasionally invoke elements of Inner Asian culture. In his research some fifty years ago, Elling O. Eide discusses the Inner Asian influences in Li’s “manipulation of meter, tone, and rhyme to tighten the structure and reinforce the imagery and literary allusion.”6 Li’s association with the Turkish culture, continues Eide, is evident in the names of Li’s son (Poli), his own given name Taibai (Appaq in Turkish), and his father’s name, Ke (kök, meaning “blue” in Turkish). Li’s passion for the moon also bolsters the claim: the moon image is mentioned approximately 403 times in his about 1,000 extant poems.7 We may also observe the nickname Mingyuenu (Slave of the Bright Moon) for Li’s son and Yueyuan (Full Moon) for Li’s younger sister. These Inner Asian elements support Eide’s exegesis of Li’s poems such as “Song of the Heavenly Horse” and “Take Wine.” Eide also observes that Inner Asian music theory and practice inform Li Bai’s poems’ unusual music (especially tonal patterns and rhythm).8 Li Bai’s thought is complex and synthetic. His Confucian education determined his dedication to serving the Tang empire, but he extols men who sought retreat after serving their state, such as Lu Zhonglian (late third c. BC), Zhang Liang (d. 186 BC), Xie An (320–385), and others. Li’s early exposure to statecraft (termed zongheng) and swordsmanship accounts for his admiration for knights-errant (xia, men of principle and aspiration).9 One other attribute of this Banished Transcendent living in the mortal world is his “sojournism,” a term proposed by Matsuura Tomohisa.10 When confronted with career setbacks, Li’s poetics focus on drinking and complex presentations of transcendence.

The Decade of Sojourns in Anlu At the age of twenty-five, Li Bai left Shu to pursue his career. Unlike most intellectuals of Tang times, this confident young man of high aspirations did not pursue success through the civil service examination. After marrying the granddaughter of Xu Yushi (d. 679), an early Tang minister, Li first settled in Anlu (in modern Hubei province). In ca. 727, in response to reprimands from local officials, Li wrote in the voice of Mount Shou to defend the nobility of his goals (Kroll 1998, 93–94).11 Under the pressure of continued criticism, Li’s reclusive life in Anlu ended upon his first visit to Chang’an in 731. This trip failed to promote Li’s career. Princess Yuzhen, the younger sister of Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–756), is recorded as having recommended Li Bai, but she did not seem to be of help on this occasion. In Chang’an, arrangements were made to lodge Li in the Princess’ villa by Zhang Ji, son of Zhang Yue (667–731) and likely husband of the princess.12 124

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Although his trip was not politically successful, it served as the occasion for a literary tour de force. Li wrote some of his representative works during this time, such as “Bring in the Wine,” “The Road to Shu Is Hard,” “Hard Is Travel,” and “Lasting Longings,” to vent his frustration via allegory. These works demonstrate mastery in their adaptation of old Music Bureau (yuefu) tune-titles.13 Bao Zhao (d. 466) served as Li’s model in the tradition of “Hard Is Travel,” but, as Owen argues, “while Li Po (Bai) might begin a poem in the Pao Chao (Bao Zhao) mode, he quickly turned off in a direction entirely his own” and ends his poem with “his hyperbolic frenzy”: “But there shall come a time when winds will smash the waves./I’ll just hoist my cloud of a sail.”14 We shall return to “The Road to Shu Is Hard” below. On his return from Chang’an to Anlu, Li Bai composed on various topics such as friendship, landscape, and Daoism. Li visited his Daoist friend Yuan Danqiu on Mount Song and at other historic sites in Henan. In “The Liang Garden” and “Song of Liangfu,” Li expresses disillusionment through his ironic depiction of talented people in history who secured their fortune, in contrast to Li Bai’s relative failure. In Luoyang, he drank and reveled with Yuan Yan; Yuan later joined Li in Anlu, and they traveled together with Yuan Danqiu to Suizhou (Hubei) to visit the Daoist prelate Hu Ziyang.15 These two occasions, plus a third one on Li’s visit to Taiyuan to meet Yuan and his father, served as the setting for Li’s lyrical poem, “Remembering Our Former Travels, Sent to Yuan of Qiaojun, Aide-de-Camp.”16 Water imagery frequently occurs in Li Bai’s poetry. In addition to serving as a backdrop to his farewell sentiments and underscoring the poet’s attachment to places and friendship,17 it symbolizes his regret for the passage of time and loss of political favor18 upon his failure in the capital: Milord, can you not see that the water of the Yellow River came from heaven? It rushes and runs to the sea and will never come back? Milord, can you not see the lamentable white hair before the clear mirror in the high hall? In the morning it is like blue silk threads but at dusk it turns to snow. (“Qiang jin jiu,” LBJ, 3.225) The poem adopts the yuefu title “Bring in the Wine” and assumes a highly personalized lyricism: the carpe diem topos ironically stresses the enjoyment of carnal pleasure over the pursuit of the renown of “sages and the worthies of antiquity.” Li Bai was attached to the environment in Anlu, his own Peach Blossom Spring. In his response to a certain “secular person” who asks why Li stays in the mountains, he writes: “The currents carry peach blossoms into the depths;/To an otherworldly heaven on earth, not of the human realm.”19 This reminiscence of “heaven on earth” invokes the grotto-heavens in Tao Yuanming’s “Record of the Peach Blossom Spring” and depicts Li’s hermitage in Anlu, called Peach Blossom Cave. We find a kind of solace fantasy in the following poem, written after he returned from Chang’an, “Peach Blossom Cave, Mount Baizhao, Anlu: A Poem Sent to Palace Censor Liu Wan”: Reclining among clouds for thirty years, I enjoy leisure and cherish transcendence. Although Mount Penglai is obscure and cut off, The simurgh and crane are my heart’s yearnings. As I have returned to Peach Blossom Cave, I can now rest and nap by the cloud windows. . . . Going deep inside I build up the stone grotto; 125

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At a secluded spot, I cultivate an elevated field. Under the groves, only this feeling Of dim detachment from the human realm. I shall bid farewell forever to those strangers at Frost Terrace,20 And have just come to roam here for a thousand years.21 Li’s turn to reclusion and transcendence in the poem responds to his career failure. The realm Penglai (symbolizing a successful career) is unattainable. Two phrases in the third couplet, guilai (return) and taohua (peach blossom) are borrowed from Tao Yuanming and emphasize, through allusion, his transition from the pursuit of official life to the embrace of an otherworldly realm.22 Borrowing a line from Xie Lingyun (285–433), Li expresses his wish to stay away from “the human realm” and imitates Xie’s indulgence in hiking and reclusion after failures in official life.23 Li Bai’s continuous travels after he returned to Anlu served some practical goals. After seeking patronage from Princess Yuzhen in Chang’an in 734, Li approached Han Chaozong (d. ca. 750), the governor of Jingzhou (in modern Xiangyang, Hubei province).24 He must have learned that Han recently promoted Meng Haoran (689–740) in Chang’an. In 739, Li visited Meng in reclusion in Xiangyang and wrote him a poem to express his admiration and respect.25 Li was planning a second attempt at career success.

Pursuing and Attaining “Transcendence” in Chang’an The notion of transcendence in Li Bai’s thinking and writing carries two levels of meaning. On one level, he wished to assume the status of a “banished transcendent,” implying an embrace of the mystical and detachment from worldly concerns. On another level, transcendence refers to the opposite of detachment: the successful pursuit of high official status. An example of the latter is his poem for Liu Wan (previously), in which Penglai symbolizes a kind of heavenly officialdom. These opposing connotations alternated in Li’s poetics, especially during his second visit to Chang’an. The image of the Peng bird in Li’s works yields hints to the nature of the transcendence Li sought. Adapted from the Zhuangzi, this mythological bird has been identified as Li’s personalized totem. It appears as a self-reference in poems throughout his life.26 Li wrote his “Rhapsody on the Great Peng Bird” in 727 when he met the Daoist prelate Sima Chengzhen (647–735) in Jiangling (in modern Hubei), who is quoted praising Li as possessing “the air of a Transcendent and the osseous embodiment of the Tao” (xianfeng daogu).27 This endorsement became a source of pride and, as such, influenced Li’s life. In the poem, the Peng bird is given its usual presentation as a magical creature with unusual talents and abilities, but the poem ends with Li turning his attention toward a different bird as he expresses a wish to follow the Rarely Held Bird, which here stands for Sima Chengzhen. Li Bai revised this poem at the beginning of the 740s,28 likely for the purpose of winning renown during his second Chang’an adventure. Wei Hao, a friend of Li, relates: “At that time, each household kept a copy of the ‘Rhapsody on the Great Peng Bird’.”29 In the same period, Li wrote the poem “A Morning Gaze at Mount Tiantai,” in which he depicts the Peng bird flying to Mount Penglai, a metaphor for Li’s own hopes to secure an official appointment. He hoped the time was right, given his proficiency in Daoism, which Xuanzong was earnestly embracing.30 Sima Chengzhen’s invitation to the imperial court to become a teacher of three Tang emperors would have, no doubt, inspired Li’s emulation.31 Li Bai moved to Shandong in 740, likely to prepare for his second journey to Chang’an. As he writes in “Moving to Eastern Lu in the Fifth Month, a Poem in Response to Elders of the Wen

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River” (“Wuyue dong Lu xing da Wen shang weng”), this move was a result of having achieved little in Anlu. In this piece, he expresses the wish to emulate Lu Zhonglian, a local (Qi) hero.32 In Shandong, he became known as one of the so-called Six Unrestrained Recluses of Bamboo Creek (zhuxi liuyi) who lived in Mount Culai. Since the Early Tang, reclusion had become a hopeful shortcut to promotion in a political career.33 As Paul Kroll points out, most scholars misread Li Bai when they view the poet’s so-called “Taoist” sentiments . . . as indications of Li Po’s “escapist” or “satirical” tendencies, or else they regard as the only “Taoist” statements worth examining the poet’s use of allusions to the Lao tzu and Chuang tzu texts or to supposedly philosophical concepts contained in those works. As a result, “much T’ang poetry has in consequence been misread, misapprehended, and mistranslated, or—when the difficulties of interpretation seem too great—simply ignored altogether.”34 The path to avoiding such misapprehensions is to pay closer attention to Daoist sources when we read Li Bai. Kroll approaches Li Bai’s “transcendent diction” through careful examination of Daoist scriptures, especially of the Shangqing and Lingbao schools. In another article, Kroll analyzes Li Bai’s six-poem suite, “Roaming Mount Tai,” by observing evidence of the Daoist meditative methods called cunsi (translated as “visualization” or “actualization”) in these poems. One source of this meditative approach that informs “Roaming Mount Tai” is the Realized Scripture of the Great Grotto (Dadong zhenjing).35 Juxtaposed against relevant Daoist scriptures, the image of Mount Jade Capital (Yujing shan) in Li Bai’s works carries more than a single layer of meaning. This mythological mountain is on top of Mount Kunlun and is the destination of a monthly pilgrimage by deities seeking an audience with the highest gods. This myth becomes the archetype of the secular ritual, “pacing the void” (buxu), performed by Daoist adepts. In Chen Ziang’s (661–702) poetry, the Jade Capital becomes a figure for his pursuit of a political career.36 For his part, Li Bai employs this mythological mountain in three ways: (1) to depict the “pacing the void” ritual, (2) as a metaphor for career success, and (3) as a reminiscence of his early studies of Daoism. For example, his valedictory poem, “On the Phoenix Panpipe” may be read without recourse to Daoist metaphor. Still, some commentators assign a metaphorical meaning to his reference to Mount Jade Capital. Here, Li compares a friend leaving for the capital with the mythical Wangzi Jin (Zhou dyn.), who successfully “journeyed to the Jade Capital in heaven.” He encourages his friend to remember to return after achieving success in the capital: “Do not act like the panpipe player Wangzi Jin/Who, after meeting Fuqiu, never again returned.”37 Although a metaphorical reading is warranted here, one must, of course, be cautious about universally asserting metaphorical readings of Daoist references in Li’s poetry. For example, while Li might have intended the use of metaphor in his “Roaming Mount Tai” poems, scholars have not found references to support specific metaphorical interpretations. We are left with the simple assertion that Li’s references to learning the Dao during this period reveal his craving to achieve a successful career before it was too late. Allegorical readings of Li’s poems might be encouraged by his advocacy of the “Airs” of the Book of Odes and the Sao tradition.38 One principal rhetorical device found in those traditions is bixing (“analogue and stimulus”), pointing to an allegorical meaning in a poem. Li Bai’s “The Road to Shu Is Hard” is a classic case.39 An allegorical reading relies, in part, on the correct dating of the poem. This poem is usually dated to the time soon after Li’s first visit to Chang’an (in 731) when Li

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sent off a friend to Shu and expressed his profound frustration on his failure to be recognized and promoted (Yu Xianhao 2015, 2.201–2). This dating of the piece makes it plausible to read the poem as a source for the formation of Li Bai’s sobriquet, “Banished Transcendent.” The legend goes: When Li Bai first arrived in Chang’an, he presented this poem to He Zhizhang (659–744), who, upon reading it, heaved several sighs in praise and regarded Li as “not a mortal in the world but an incarnated spirit of Venus” and called him Banished Transcendent.40 As Kroll notes, however, this poem could not have been written any time before 753 when Yin Fan anthologized it in his Heyue yingling ji; its reference to Xuanzong’s flight to Shu in 756 becomes anachronistic.41 Yin Fan’s comments on the poem are relevant to our allegorical reading. He remarks: “The Road to Shu Is Hard” is “even more unordinary than what is unordinary” (qizhi youqi).” He continues: “So it is that from the sao-poet (i.e., Qu Yuan, reputed author of ‘Li sao’) to now, scarcely has there been this kind of lyric style.”42 Translating Yin Fan’s phrase tidiao as “lyric style,” Kroll construes the reason Yin compares Li to Qu Yuan: “he [Li Bai] did not learn his craft in the study-room like everyone else. Perhaps we also recall that it was when Qu Yuan left the bounds of normal society that he is said to have found his own voice.”43 Alternatively, the phrase tidiao may be understood as a compound composed of parallel nouns, “style and tone.” In his preface, Yin categorizes various ti, such as “decorous style, the low, and the popular” and “in lyric tone there is higher and lower.” Yin Fan also categorizes a “far-reaching lyrical tone.”44 Regardless which rendering we give in English, what characterizes Li Bai’s tidiao such that it is a worthy descendent of Qu Yuan’s? Li’s drinking and reclusion, in Yin’s words, define his “self-willed and uninhibited” style. But the key point of similarity between Qu Yuan and Li Bai is encapsulated in the word sao (sorrow). Like Qu Yuan’s, the “unordinary” works of Li are inspired by political setbacks. The old yuefu tradition of “The Road to Shu Is Hard” has long embodied the theme of career failure, allegorically presented in the guise of a dangerous road.45 In his enlarged version, Li adds mythological elements to convey his “hard” feelings, just as Qu Yuan did when expressing his frustration. Qu Yuan starts his celestial flight from his home state Chu, while Li Bai starts from his home in Shu; both poets are dislocated and now look back with nostalgia and melancholy. The sorrowful tidiao of Qu Yuan’s work becomes even more prominent in Li’s works dated after his second visit to Chang’an.46 Mainly through the recommendation of Princess Yuzhen, Li Bai’s dream of transcendence (in the sense of achieving a successful career) finally came true.47 The autumn of 742 through the spring of 744 represents the summit of his career. In this period of transient glory, some transcendent images in his poetry are read as metaphors. For example, in 742, when he enjoyed imperial favor, he told a friend (Mountain-dweller Yang): “Suddenly I receive the favor of the white sun’s whirling rays/And go straight upwards to the blue sky with feathered wings on my back.”48 In the first song of the three-piece suite on Yang Yuhuan (719–756), “Qingping diao ci,” Li takes the perspective of a transcendent to compare this lady of divine beauty cosseted by Xuanzong with the Queen Mother of the West receiving Emperor Wudi of the Han (r. 141–87 BC): “If she is not the one revealing her presence in the Jade Mountains,/She must be the one met under the moonlight at Carnelian Terrace” (LBJ, 5.389). In this honeymoon period, Li composed poems on the resplendence of Xuanzong, set against the background of encounters with transcendents.49 References to transcendence in his works of this period signify his (fleeting) career success. A prominent feature of Li Bai’s works is his assumption of a persona who can freely visit the transcendent realm. Widely known as a drinker, Li once refused to board the boat to the palace in response to an imperial summons because he was a “transcendent of the wine.”50 Drinking was a source of inspiration for his writing but also got him into trouble.51 When he deemed his talent was not being put to proper use and that he was becoming a mere court poet for general entertainment 128

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and was, moreover, being slandered by enemies such as Zhang Ji and Gao Lishi, he reminisced about his former status as a “banished transcendent”: “Some suspect that she came from heaven,” “I want to rely upon the three blue birds,/Telling them that I have long thought of them.”52 Here, the “three blue birds” refer to the messengers of the Queen Mother of the West, and the implication is that Li Bai is nostalgic about his earlier years as a “recluse” and student of Daoism, a time he correlates with the heavenly realm of the mythological goddess. In his “Song of the Jade Spittoon,” he identifies himself as Dongfang Shuo. Both men are said to be incarnations of Venus, and both serve under a great emperor: one under Emperor Wudi of the Han and the other under Xuanzong. Li writes: “People of the world do not recognize Dongfang Shuo,/He is a banished transcendent living in Great Reclusion at the Gold Horse Portal.” In the guise of his Han idol, the poet laments his mishaps. And, as Li Bai’s career cannot compare with that of Dongfang’s, he again alludes to Qu Yuan: “Although the lord-king loves the beauty of the moth eyebrows,/I have attracted extreme envy in the palace” (LBJ, 7.484).

The Poet-Transcendent Between Heaven and Earth Li Bai’s second stay in Chang’an greatly impacted him and formed a keynote of his writing thereafter. If service at the imperial court may be seen as transcendence, departure from it means banishment. This adds another layer of meaning to Li’s sobriquet, “Banished Transcendent.” After departing Chang’an in spring 744, Li Bai attempted to continue his quest for transcendence. The most remarkable measure was to become a Daoist adept through the bestowal of registers (lu) by Gai Huan and Gao Rugui.53,54 This ordination did not mean that Li thereafter would live at an abbey and forget his mundane troubles. Rather, in his subsequent wanderings, he continued to search for solace, employment opportunities, and various forms of transcendence. His association with Du Fu and Gao Shi (d. 765) began in Luoyang in 744 and lasted until 745. During this period, they roamed together in the areas of modern Henan and Shandong. This formed a beautiful episode in the transcendence of these three men, the greatest Chinese poets: Gao Shi enjoyed great success in both career and poetry, while Li and Du transcended all others to become the greatest of all Chinese poets. Li Bai’s fondness for famous mountains manifests in a dream fantasy about visiting Mount Tianmu (in modern Zhejiang). His poem, “Roaming Mount Tianmu in a Dream, a Valedictory Poem” was written in 746 as a farewell gift to his friends in Lu. The poem shows mastery in Li Bai’s “playing with levels of meaning” and “with the real and unreal worlds,” as Eide put it.55 The “unreal world” is based on the cult of grotto-heavens as recorded in, for example, the Tiandi gongfu tu by Sima Chengzhen.56 As for the “real world,” it requires allegorical reading of this dream of an otherworldly adventure. Our reading of the poem as a representation of Li Bai’s Chang’an adventure is based, in part, on the following lines:57 A thousand precipices and myriad turns, but the roads cannot be tracked; Charmed by flowers, I lean against a boulder as the sky turns suddenly dark. Bear growls and dragon snarls shake the springs poised on ledges. I feel startled in the deep forest and fearful on tiered ridges. Blue on blue are the clouds—it is about to rain. Ripple on ripple is the river—mists rise from the surface. Lightning and thunderclaps— Hills and ridges collapse and crumble. The stone gates of the Grotto Heavens 129

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In a boom are crushed open. The blue-dark sky is immense and infinite with no bottom in sight; The sun and moon illuminate and irradiate Silver-gold Terrace. Rainbows are their clothing, and the winds are their horses— The Lords of the Clouds descend in abundance. Tigers strum zithers and simurghs turn their chariots around. The transcendent beings are arrayed like rows of hemp. Suddenly my ethereal soul throbbed and my carnal soul was agitated; Dazed and scared, I rise and heave a long sigh. Upon waking, I only find the pillow and mat; And I have lost the auroral hazes that were here just now. (LBJ, 15.898–99) The fantasy is disrupted at its climactic presentation of the scene of deities, where it turns to the poet-persona’s reflection on reality when he is left with the experience of absence. Since the souring of his transcendent career dream in Chang’an, Li Bai has become pessimistic. Thus, he ends the poem: “How could I ever bend my back and crush my eyebrows to flatter the nobility in power?/ This would prevent me from easing my mind and brightening my face.” The couplet echoes Tao Yuanming’s claim: “I cannot bend my back for the five pecks of grains and condescend to serve the petty countrymen.”58 Both men’s refusal to bend their backs marks a criticism of the corrupt world in which talented men are made to grovel. Li Bai’s social criticism grew more strident as the Tang regime deteriorated. An indignant voice is heard in a poem written in 749, “In Response to Wang the Twelfth Drinking Alone on a Cold River.” Here, Li Bai attacks the sycophants of Xuanzong for currying favor by means of rooster fights, Geshu Han’s (d. 757) high rank won at the cost of the unethical killing of Tufan people, and Li Linfu’s (683–753) persecution and killing of two upright officials, Li Yong (674–747) and Pei Dunfu (d. 747).59 His concerns about the Tang empire and its people are revealed in a poem dated 756, which reads as a transcendent seeking fantasy on the summit of Mount Hua, but the poem turns from this fantasy and bemoans non-Chinese soldiers killing people in Luoyang and their leaders usurping Tang sovereignty.60 This scene is a reminiscence of the Qu Yuan protagonist who, at the end of his poem, is enjoying his celestial flight but is saddened upon seeing the corrupt condition of his home state of Chu below.61 Li Bai’s lingering desire to serve the Tang empire got him into trouble in the last years of his life. Like other poets living through the An Lushan rebellion, Li frequently refers to the empire’s biggest crisis as a period of “chaos and separation” (luanli). Li joined the military camp of Li Lin (d. 757), Prince of Yong, with a wish to devote himself again to the recovery of the empire. However, his patron-prince conspired to fight for the throne, which had been claimed by his brother Li Heng (posth., Emperor Suzong [r. 756–762]), following Xuanzong’s flight to Shu. In 757, Lin lost to Heng and was executed. As Lin’s adherent, Li Bai was sentenced to exile to Yelang (in modern Guizhou province). The exile was meant to begin in 758, but Li Bai was set free en route after an amnesty was announced. Two poems from this time are representative: the first is “A Morning Departure from Baidi City,” a travel poem filled with his excitement to be undertaking a hyperbolic voyage: “My light boat has passed through myriad layers of mountains” (LBJ, 22.1280). The second is the longest of Li’s poems, “After the Chaos and Separation I Was Exiled to Yelang by the Heavenly Favor. Remembering the Past and Writing about My Thoughts, I Present This Poem to Wei Liangzai, Governor of Jiangxia.” The poem is an autobiographic presentation from a realistic

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perspective and in a highly lyrical tone, which contains his famous couplet, atypical of his transcendent style but close to Du Fu’s: “White bones are piled into hills and mounds;/What on earth are the common people punished for?” The poem ends with a wish to be recommended to serve the empire (LBJ, 11.726–35), although he was fifty-nine years old (an impressively old age in Tang times). In 760, Li Bai wrote his “Song of Mount Lu, presented to Palace Censor Lu Xuzhou,” a poem that reflects a mixture of tones and views. In the guise of the madman of Chu, a figure in the Analects who warns Confucius away from the dangerous politics of the day, Li sings his own “Song of the Phoenix” to dissuade not Confucius but Lu Xuzhou from involvement in politics. (LBJ, 14.863. Eide, “On Li Po,” 385–86. The Analects, 18/5). Lu Xuzhou is also represented in this poem by Lu Ao (275–195 BC), who is said to have transcended his mortal body. Li Bai says: “I hope to take along Lu Ao to roam Grand Purity,” thereby getting Lu Xuzhou out of political trouble. The poem contains wonderful descriptions of the landscape around Mount Lu, especially the “heavenly purple haze.” His description recalls Li Bai’s early works on Mount Lu, probably written a quarter of a century earlier.62 In “Song of Mount Lu,” we observe a nostalgia that marks his happiness upon his return to the sacred site and the transcending of mundane concerns after his recent sufferings. The image of Xie Lingyun in this poem (and in the aforementioned Mount Tianmu poem) conveys that Li not only admires Xie’s landscape poetry, but, most significantly, he draws out this poet-friend from the pages of history and reunites with him in the exact geographic locations frequented by Xie, finding that they share a similar political background, as they both underwent slander, expulsion, persecution, and exile. The poetic style and aesthetic contributions of Li Bai may be summarized by a word: “pure” (qing). This notion of purity reflects a literary ideal sought during the High Tang, as reflected in Li Bai’s term qingzhen (“pure and perfected”) in his “Ancient Air” (Gufeng) #1.63 His poetry may be as “pure and fresh” (qingxin) as Bao Zhao or as “pure and bursting” (qingfa) as Xie Tiao (464–499) (LBJ, 11.732).64 In a couplet in praise of Wei Liangzai’s poem, Li expresses his pursuit of this pure aesthetic: “In the clear water there is a blooming lily;/So naturally growing, without carving and decoration.”65 In practice, he pursues limpid and vivid imagery and fills it with his strong feelings and sometimes hyperbolic rhetoric. As Owen puts it, “Li’s art was perfectly natural, uncontrollable, almost divinely inspired.”66 He achieves this unique aesthetic appeal in various forms, from the quatrain (jueju),67 to long song-ballads (gexing), though his approach to purity is achieved differently in each form. Despite (or because of) the mishaps Li Bai experienced, living as a banished transcendent throughout most of his life, Li Bai maintained his purity in poetry, thereby achieving immortality in literary history.

Notes 1 After Liu Xiu (posth., Emperor Guangwu of the Han, r. 25–57) ascended the throne, he summoned Yan Guang, a confidant since an early age. That night they slept together, and Yan laid his thigh on top of Liu’s abdomen. The astrologist-officials reported a guest star encroaching on the emperor’s star. Yan’s refusal of the proposed imperial appointment and subsequent reclusion earned Li Bai’s great admiration. See, for example, “Gufeng” [Ancient Air], #12, “Hanlin dushu yanhuai cheng jixian zhu xueshi” [On My Thoughts, Written While Reading at the Hanlin Academy, Presented to the Jixian Academicians], in Li Bai ji jiaozhu [Collated and Commentated Works of Li Bai], eds. and comms. Qu Tuiyuan and Zhu Jincheng (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1984; hereafter, LBJ), 2.114, 24.1398. 2 See Paul W. Kroll, “Li Po’s Transcendent Diction,” JAOS 106, no. 1 (1986): 113–17; “Lexical Landscapes and Textual Mountains in the High T’ang,” TP 84, nos. 1–3 (1998): 94–95. 3 Owen, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 118.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 4 Owen, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry, 110–11. 5 See Tao, “Gui yuantian ju” [Returning to My Pastoral Dwelling] #1, “Taohuayuan ji bingshi” [The Peach Blossom Spring, with a Poem], in Tao Yuanming ji [Collected Works of Tao Yuanming], ed. and comm. Lu Qinli (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979), 2.40, 6.165–68. 6 Eide, “On Li Po,” in Perspectives on the T’ang, ed. Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), 377. 7 Eide, “On Li Po,” 388–91. 8 Eide, “On Li Po,” passim. 9 Zongheng (lit., “perpendicular” and “horizontal”) originated in the Warring States periods: zong refers to the north-south alliance of six states with Qi as leader against Qin; heng in the east-west direction with Qin as leader. Li Bai once studied under Zhao Rui, a zongheng master who authored the Changduan jing [Classic of Long and Short]. See Ji Yougong (twelfth c.), Tangshi jishi [Recorded Occasions in Tang Poetry] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1987), 18.271. 10 My English rendering. See Matsuura, Ri Haku denki ron: kakugū no shisō [Discussion of Li Bai’s Biography: His Sojourn Poetics] (Tokyo: Kenbun shuppan, 1994), 19, 228. 11 See note 2 for Kroll 1998. See also Li, “Shang Anzhou Pei zhangshi shu” [A Letter Presented to Administrator Pei of Anzhou], LTB, 26.1544–53. 12 See Yu Xianhao, Tianshang zhexianren de mimi: Li Bai kaolun ji [The Secrets of the Banished Transcendent from Heaven: Essays on Li Bai] (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1997), 35–42, 235–54. 13 Ge Xiaoyin, “Lun Li Bai yuefu de fu yu bian” [Retroism and Innovation in Li Bai’s Yuefu Poetry], in her Shiguo gaochao yu sheng Tang wenhua [The Empire of Poetry’s Heydays and the Culture of the High Tang] (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1998), 163–70; Matsuura Tomohisa, Chūgoku shiika genron: hikaku shigaku no shudai ni sokushite [Chinese Poetic Theory: The Theme of Comparative Poetics] (Tokyo: Taishūkan shoten, 1986), 326–28. 14 Owen, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry, 141–42. 15 See Li, “Ti Suizhou Ziyang xiansheng bi” [A Poem Inscribed on the Walls of Mr. Ziyang of Suizhou], LBJ, 25.1437. For exegeses of this poem in light of Daoism, see Sunayama Minoru, “Ri Haku to Tōdai no Dōkyō: retoro to modan no aida” [Li Bai and Daoism of the Tang Dynasty: Between Retro and Modern], in Gengo to bunka, bungaku no shosō: Okada Hitoshi kyōju Sasao Michiko kyōju tainin kinen ronbunshū [Aspects of Language, Culture, and Literature: A Collection of Essays Commemorating the Retirements of Professor Hitoshi Okada and Professor Michiko Sasao], ed. Matsubayashi Kunihiro (Morioka: Iwate daigaku jinbun shakai kagakubu ōbei kenkyū kōza, 2008), 247–48; Tsuchiya Masaaki, Shinsen gensō: Dōkyō teki seikatsu [Fantasy for Transcendence: Daoist Life] (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 2005), 186–92. The most recent and definitive study of Li’s association with Hu is Paul W. Kroll, “Li Bo and Hu Ziyang: Companion of the Way,” in Religion and Poetry in Medieval China: The Way and the Words, ed. Gil Raz and Anna M. Shields (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023), 41–61. 16 LBJ, 13.844–48. This poem has been dated to 732, 735, or 739. See Paul W. Kroll, “Heyue yingling ji and the Attributes of High Tang Poetry,” in Reading Medieval Chinese Poetry: Text, Context, and Culture, ed. Paul W. Kroll (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 191, n. 27. Yu Xianhao dates it to 746. See Yu Xianhao, ed. and comm., Li Taibai quanji jiaozhu [Collated and Commentated Complete Works of Li Bai] (Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2015), 11.1619. 17 See, for example, “Du Jingmen songbie” [A Farewell Poem Written when Passing Mount Jingmen], “Jinling jiusi liubie” [Parting to at a Wine-shop in Jinling], “Zeng Wang Lun” [To Wang Lun], LBJ, 15.941, 15.928, 12.820. 18 This theme becomes Li’s main concern, as seen in his “Richuru xing” (Ballad on Sunrise and Sunset) (LBJ, 3.267). See Chan, “Engulfing and Embracing the Vast Earth: Li Bai’s Cosmology in His ‘Ballad on the Sun Rising and Setting,’” Tang Studies 37, no. 1 (2019): 30–58. 19 “Shanzhong dawen” [Replying a Question in the Mountains], LBJ, 19.1095. The phrase suren is in a variant title. See note op. cit. 20 A term for the Censorate (Yushi tai). 21 LBJ, 13.823. 22 Tao, “Taohuayuan ji bing shi” and “Guiqulaixi ci bing xu” [Returning Home, with a Preface], Tao Yuanming ji [Collected Works of Tao Yuanming], 6.165–68; 5.159–61. 23 Alluding to Xie’s line in Xie, “Deng Jiangzhong guyu” [Ascending a Solitary Islet in the River], Wenxuan [An Anthology of Refined Literature] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979), 26.27a. 24 Victor Mair, “Li Po’s Letters in Pursuit of Political Patronage,” HJAS 44, no. 1 (1984): 129–34.

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Li Bai 2 5 Li, “Zeng Meng Haoran” [To Meng Haoran], LBJ, 9.593. 26 Kroll, “Li Po’s Rhapsody on the Great P’eng-bird,” Journal of Chinese Religions 12 (1984): 2–3, n. 7. 27 Kroll, “Li Po’s Rhapsody on the Great P’eng-bird,” 4. 28 In his fu, Li calls Zhuangzi “Nanhua laoxian” (Nanhua the Old Transcedent), corresponding to a title given to Zhuangzi (Nanhua zhenren) in 742 by an imperial edict. This is the earliest dating of Li’s revision. See Yu Xianhao, 2015, 24.2527. 29 Wei, “Li Hanlin ji xu” [Preface to Collected Works of Hanlin Academician Li], LBJ, “fulu 3,” 1790. 30 Chan, “The Transcendent of Poetry’s Quest for Transcendence: Li Bai on Mount Tiantai,” in Thomas Jülch, ed., Buddhism and Daoism on the Holy Mountains of China (Leiden: Peeters Publishers, 2022), 216–17. 31 Kroll, “Ssu-ma Ch’eng-chen in T’ang Verse,” Society of the Studies of Chinese Religion Bulletin 6 (1978): 16–17. Chen Yixin unravels the fame- and honor-pursuing intent of Sima Chengzhen. See Chen, Tangshi luncong [Discussions of Tang Poetry] (Changsha: Hu’nan renmin chubanshe, 1982), 164. 32 See “Gufeng,” #10, LBJ, 2.111–12. 33 Shih Feng-yu’s terminology “Reclusive thought” denotes this kind of reclusion with such practical goals. See Shih, “Tangdai Daojiaotu shi yinshi de jueqi: lun Li Bai yinyi qiuxian huodong de zhengzhi shehui beijing” [The Rise of the Daoist Recluses in the Tang Dynasty: The Political and Social Backgrounds of Li Bai’s Reclusive and Transcendence-Seeking Activities], Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 16, nos. 1–2 (1984): 42–47. 34 Kroll, “Li Po’s Transcendent Diction,” 99–100. 35 Kroll, “Verses from on High: The Ascent of T’ai Shan,” in The Vitality of the Lyric Voice: Shih Poetry from the Late Han to the T’ang, ed. Shuen-fu Lin and Stephen Owen (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 207–8. In a recent article, I supplement with these points: (1) that the hand-copying and chanting of the Dadong zhenjing enable one to transcend, and (2) that the image of “a host of spirits guarding one’s form” is another important borrowing from Shangqing meditative texts. See Chan, “Zhongshen huxing, buxu Yujing: Li Bai de Zhexian shixue” [‘Gods Protecting My Physical Form’ and Pacing the Void in Jade Capital: Li Bai’s Poetics of the Banished Transcendent], Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 52, no. 4 (2022): 686–91. 36 Chan, “Yujingshan chaohui: cong Liuchao buxuyi dao chu Tang youxianshi” [A Levee on Mount Jade Capital: From Six-Dynasties Rituals of Pacing the Void to Early Tang Poetry on Roaming in Transcendence], Journal of Chinese Studies 72 (2021): 18–23. 37 LBJ, 5.359–60 (Wang Qi’s commentary on 5.361). 38 “Gufeng” #1, LBJ, 2.91. 39 Tangshi jishi, 18.270–71. 40 “Duijiu yi He jian” [Facing Wine, Remembering Director He], #1, LBJ, 23.1363. 41 Kroll, “The Road to Shu, from Zhang Zai to Li Bo,” EMC 10–11, no. 1 (2004): 227–54. 42 Kroll, “Heyue yingling ji, and the Attributes of High Tang Poetry,” 188. 43 Kroll, “Heyue yingling ji,” 188. 44 Kroll, “Heyue yingling ji,” 199–200, my italics. 45 See Inui Mototoshi, Seisei suru Ri Haku zou [The Generated Image of Li Bai] (Tokyo: Kenbun suppan, 2020), 89–95. 46 See, for example, “Yuan bieli” [Distant Separation] and “Minggao ge song Cen Zhengjun” [A Song of Mount Minggao, Sending off Recluse Cen], LBJ, 3.191, 7.506–7. 47 See Wei Hao, “Li Hanlin ji xu,” LBJ, 1790. 48 “Jia qu Wenquan gong hou zeng Yang shanren” [A Poem to Yang Shanren, Written After the Emperor Left the Warm Spring Palace], LBJ, 9.625. 49 See, for example, “Chunri xing” [Ballad on the Spring Day], “Shangyun yue” [Music that Ascends the Clouds], “Feilong yin” [Prelude to the Flying Dragon], LBJ, 3.249, 3.258–59, 3.231–32. 50 Du Fu, “Yinzhong baxian ge” [Songs of the Eight Drinker-Transcendents], LBJ, “fulu 4,” 1834. 51 In addition to his offense to Gao Lishi (684–762), one reason for Li not being trusted by the emperor was that Li might leak confidential information from the palace during his drinking bouts. See Yue Shi (930–1007), “Li Hanlin bieji xu” [Preface to A Separate Anthology of Hanlin Academician Li], Fan Chuanzheng (jinshi 794), “Tang Zuoshiyi Hanlin xueshi Li gong xinmubei bing xu” [A New Epitaph for Left Reminder of the Tang, Hanlin Academician Li, with a Preface], LBJ, “fulu 3,” 1792; “fulu 2,” 1781. 52 “Xiangfeng xing” [Ballad on the Encounter], LBJ, 6.425. 53 See “Fengjian Gao Zunshi Rugui Daoshi chuan daolu bi gui Beihai” [Sending off Reverent Master Gao Rugui on His Return to Beihai after He Transmitted the Daoist Register], “Fangdao Anling yu Gai Huan

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Further Reading Bokenkamp, Stephen R. “Li Bai, Huangshan, and Alchemy.” TS 25 (2007): 29–55. Hargett, James M. “Li Bo (701–762) and Mount Emei.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 8 (1995): 67–85. Kroll, Paul W. “Li Bo and the Zan.” TP 108, nos. 1–2 (2022): 98–125. Kroll, Paul W. Studies in Medieval Taoism and the Poetry of Li Po. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009. Kroll, Paul W. Translations of Li Bo’s Works. Library of Chinese Humanities Series. Berlin and Boston: DeGruyter, Work in progress. Liscomb, Kathlyn. “Iconic Events Illuminating the Immortality of Li Bai.” MS 54 (2006): 75–118. Varsano, Paula M. Tracking the Banished Immortal: The Poetry of Li Bo and Its Critical Reception. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2003. Waley, Arthur. The Poetry and Career of Li Po, 701–762 A.D. London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1950. Williams, Nicholas Morrow. “Li Bai’s ‘Rhapsody on the Hall of Light’: A Singular Vision of Cosmic Order.” TP 105 (2015): 35–97.

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11 DU FU The Poet–Historian Lucas Rambo Bender

Life and Career Du Fu (712–770) was born in the first year of the long and prosperous reign of Tang Emperor Xuanzong (Li Longji, 685–762, r. 712–756), often remembered, with an elegiac twinge, as the Tang’s “Brilliant Emperor.” He thus grew up in an era of relative stability, when men of civil virtues (wen) seemed ascendent over the military (wu), and he could imagine that his talent, diligence in learning, and commitment to the common weal would guarantee him a glorious career in government. As a young man studying for the imperial examinations, moreover, Du Fu could look back on proud family traditions of official service, scholarship, and poetry running back through his grandfather Du Shenyan (ca. 645–708), one of the great court poets serving Tang Emperor Gaozong (r. 649— 683) and Empress Wu Zetian (r. 690–705). His first attempt at the official examinations in 735 resulted, however, in failure, and after a few years of pleasurable wandering in the northeast, Du Fu settled himself in the capital, seeking patrons whose influence might gain him entry to the official ranks.1 Disappointed again by exam failure in 747, he began to worry seriously both about his own prospects and, on a larger scale, about the health of the state. From the mid-730s, Xuanzong had increasingly entrusted the business of governance to prime ministers later historians would look on with opprobrium and, according to the legend that would grow up around these events in the following decades, began to indulge himself with his consort Yang Yuhuan (719–756, also known as Yang Guifei), who leveraged Xuanzong’s infatuation to enrich herself and obtain prominent posts for her family. Du Fu seems to have been critical of the Yangs and their faction, but he was apparently not above seeking their patronage after his 751 submission to the emperor of three fu-rhapsodies again failed to win him an official post. Increasingly desperate, he submitted more fu-rhapsodies to the emperor in 754, and in November of 755, perhaps as a result of these submissions, he was finally offered a minor office. In December 755, Du Fu traveled north to collect his wife and children, who had been lodging in Fengxian county (modern-day Pucheng, Shaanxi) to avoid high prices in the capital attendant upon a bad harvest in 754. Up to this point, he had been a virtuosic but nonetheless conventional poet, primarily using his verse to lubricate social interactions and seek patronage through displays of the cultural learning shared by the literati elite. The great poem he wrote about “Going from the Capital to Fengxian,” however, represents the beginning of a new relationship with the poetic  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-16

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art.2 Searingly personal, the poem expresses Du Fu’s feelings upon arriving at his family’s place of refuge to find that his infant son had starved to death. Looking back at the decisions that led him to this point, Du Fu is conflicted. Was he right to spend the past twenty years impoverishing his family in idealistic hopes of serving the state? Or should he have recognized that the state had grown so corrupt that Crimson gates reek of wine and meat while on the roads are the bones of the frozen dead, and avoided official life in favor of a “reclusion” that could have insulated him and his children from the collapse he now senses is coming? In the end, he cannot decide which course would have been more moral or what to do next, and this indecision forces him to reflect on the wealth of cultural learning he spent his youth amassing, which now seems insufficient to the enormity of the dilemmas facing him. Within days of Du Fu’s composing this poem, the Tang frontier general An Lushan rebelled against the dynasty, turning his troops around against the capitals and setting the Brilliant Emperor to flight. Fearing that they would be caught in the fighting, Du Fu lodged his family further north in Fuzhou (modern-day Fu county, Shaanxi) but seems himself to have been captured by the rebels and brought to rebel-occupied Chang’an. He remained there until the summer of 757, when he made a daring escape through enemy lines to join the court-in-exile at Fengxiang (modern-day Baoji, Shaanxi), earning himself the (nominally lofty but practically impotent) office of Reminder of the Right. Almost immediately, Du Fu angered the newly crowned Suzong (r. 756–762) by remonstrating on behalf of a disgraced patron. As a result, while he remained in the office of Reminder when the imperial army recaptured first Chang’an and then Luoyang, he was demoted in the summer of 758 to a local post in Huazhou (modern-day Weinan, Shaanxi), between the capitals. Apparently demoralized that his prospects were no better under the new administration than they had been in the corrupt final years of the previous and worried that the rebels were again about to overrun Luoyang and advance on Chang’an, Du Fu made the momentous decision in the autumn of 759 to abandon his post. He took his family and fled to the western extreme of the empire, Qinzhou (modern-day Tianshui, Gansu), where he sought to establish a hermitage insulated from the vicissitudes of dynastic fortune. Qinzhou, however, proved inhospitable, and within a few months, the family decided to embark on an arduous journey southwards, first to Tonggu (modern-day Cheng county, Gansu), and then finally to the provincial metropolis of Chengdu. There Du Fu succeeded in prevailing upon local officials to provide him with funds and materials to establish a small thatched cottage outside the city wall. Though he remained deeply troubled by the ongoing warfare and instability that defined the imperial situation throughout the years the family spent in this cottage, this period also afforded him some real pleasures—interrupted, however, by nearly two years of displacement and wandering owing to local rebellions in the Sichuan era. In 765, his friend and local patron Yan Wu died, and Du Fu decided to begin a journey downstream on the Yangzi river, with the plan of returning north via the grand canal that linked the southeast with the capital corridor. He would never complete this journey, his return home constantly delayed by local rebellions, flareups of ill-health, and his tendency to be seduced by new possibilities of friendship and patronage. After leaving Chengdu, he spent nearly three years in Kuizhou (modern-day Fengjie county, Chongqing) providing unofficial literary services to the local prefect.

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Finally, in 768, he left Kuizhou to continue his travels in the southeast. He died in 770, apparently of fever, between Tanzhou (modern-day Changsha, Hunan) and Yuezhou (modern-day Yueyang). Although many of Du Fu’s best-known poems were written about his experiences in the north during the early days of the rebellion, most of his surviving verse actually dates from his wanderings in the west and south. Partly because he had by then effectively given up his youthful goal of serving in government, poetry seems to have become for him—in contrast to most poets of his time and earlier—not merely an avocation but something close to a vocation. He seems to have partially provided for himself and his family through poetry, which he used to request donations from local officials and help from old friends, and he also wrote much more non-social poetry than was common in his time. This verse documented his daily activities; expressed his feelings regarding his life and the traumatic history through which he was living; and provided a space for him to think about topics such as empire, the nature and function of the cultural tradition, and the possibilities of poetry. Much of his work is highly innovative and experimental, sometimes inventing new forms and considering topics—from mundane matters to moral problems like slavery—that were not part of the established map of the poetic art. All told, Du Fu left behind a greater quantity of verse, over 1400 poems, than survives from any earlier writer, and the indications are that a significant proportion of his work was in fact lost before it was finally gathered and printed in the eleventh century.

Literary Achievement Du Fu was not a literary celebrity in his own time or in the decades following his death. He was first singled out for particular praise by the luminaries of the Yuanhe generation, including Han Yu (768–824), Bai Juyi (772–846), and Yuan Zhen (779–831), who saw in his poetry models for their own verse of social conscience and for their oversized literary personalities. It was not, however, until the Song that he began to be widely considered not just one good poet among many but rather the greatest poet in the entire tradition. That judgment, though it has not gone unquestioned, has largely stood the test of time since (sometimes with Du Fu’s friend Li Bai [d. 762] sharing the honor). The values grounding Du Fu’s elevation to the pinnacle of the poetic pantheon have, unsurprisingly, changed many times over the course of history. For influential writers in the Song, his greatness lay in his vast learning in the precedent literary tradition; during the Yuan and early Ming, he was treated as the preeminent teacher of poetic technique; after the fall of the Ming to the Manchus, critics extolled his loyalty to the failing Tang state; during the Sino-Japanese War, he was lauded as a Chinese nationalist; and in the mid-twentieth century, he was regarded as a proto-Maoist, writing out his deep sympathy for the Chinese folk suffering at the hands of foreign invaders and an oppressive ruling class.3 That Du Fu’s reputation has been able to endure such profound changes in literary, moral, and political values suggests the breadth and complexity of his work. This breadth and complexity has itself been a topic of critical comment since the Tang. Yuan Zhen, for instance, marveled that Du Fu possessed all the forms and force of all poets from antiquity to today and combined what other writers had monopolized singly. Though Confucius [in compiling the Classic of Poetry] chose only poems with the most essential import, should we not know to value sheer multiplicity? When it comes to being capable of what no one is capable of, to having no fixed preferences for or against anything, from the time of the ancient poets onward, there has never been anyone like Du Fu.4

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Over the centuries, many critics would echo this claim, suggesting that Du Fu “compiled the great completion” (ji da cheng) of the poetic art by adapting his style to match the inherent contours of all the diverse topics he wrote about.5 His famous works include poetry of social protest and heartfelt elegies for emperors; they express intimate feelings for family and the transcendence of selfish concerns; and they take as their subjects the business of government and the joys of reclusion, the tragedies of war and the beauties of nature, the moral quandaries of the domestic sphere and vast visions of the cosmos.6 They emulate the rougher styles of ancient verse and refine the figured architectures of recently developed forms.7 They are unusually long and extremely short, excruciatingly difficult and transparent, loosely colloquial and elaborately high-register, hyperbolic and movingly restrained.8 Some are among the bleakest poems in the language, others the most evocative of joy, and others laugh-out-loud funny.9 And even within individual poems, Du Fu frequently switches between topics, tones, and registers, leading recent critics to highlight his penchant for unexpected juxtapositions and to describe his writing as characterized by a “shifting style.”10 This last description may be intended to partially translate the longstanding cliché that his poetry was “chenyu duncuo,” a phrase Du Fu himself invented in the preface to one of his rhapsodies to describe the literary achievement to which he aspired.11 The phrase is, like many traditional Chinese critical terms, evocative and susceptible to a range of interpretations. The first compound, “chenyu,” suggests that the mood and thought of his poetry is deep and rich but also downcast and pent-up, reserved rather than forthright. The second, “duncuo,” suggests that his style is characterized by sudden shifts of topic, thought, or tone; that it expresses frustration; or that it holds back in fully expressing what he felt. The following famous poem, written in the spring of 757 when Du Fu was being held in the rebel-occupied capital, offers a compact example of the sorts of textual features critics have identified by this phrase. “Gazing in Spring” The state shattered, the mountains and rivers remain; the city turns spring, thick with plants and trees. Feeling for the time: flowers spatter tears; hating separation: birds suddenly startle. War’s fires have spanned spring’s three moons; letters from family trade for ten-thousand gold. My white hair I’ve scratched even thinner, almost to the point it will not hold a hatpin.12 The opening words of this poem offer a bleak assessment of the current political situation. Yet rather than emoting directly about this human crisis, Du Fu turns immediately to the rejuvenation of the natural world. Over the following three couplets, his perspective shifts unexpectedly from subjective to objective, communal to personal, probing from several different angles the complex juxtaposition of human suffering and nature’s indifference he sees in spring’s return. The tone and technique of the poem also shift from couplet to couplet, moving from the apparently dissociative disorientation of the second couplet through the virtuosic character-by-character meaning-rhymes of the third to the self-aware humor of the fourth, wherein Du Fu jokes that the rebellion will wreck his health and thus, no doubt far more important, his prospects for wearing the headdress of a government official. The poem thus avoids directly describing the grief Du Fu feels at the brokenness of the empire and his separation from his loved ones. Yet that grief is movingly suggested, and explored from multiple angles, precisely in this avoidance. 138

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Despite the internal variety and complexity of Du Fu’s oeuvre, he was nonetheless understood as having a distinctive orientation within the wider possibilities of the poetic art, and his preeminence in the canon has influenced both the production and the interpretation of Chinese poetry in certain directions rather than others. In particular, Du Fu’s interest in exploring the contours of his personal experience during a period of significant social upheaval encouraged his readers to think of him as a “Poet–Historian” (shi-shi) recording the tumultuous history to which he was witness. In keeping with this sense, scholars over the past millennium have worked diligently to pin down the biographical and historical circumstances of every poem in Du Fu’s collection, writing those circumstances into most editions of his collection by rearranging it in chronological order, including “year charts” (nianpu) to track his verse against historical events, and providing historically informative commentary. Though this project was at the outset unprecedented in the tradition of Chinese poetic criticism, as Du Fu’s poetry increasingly came to define excellence in the poetic art, the historical concern he showed began to present a standard to which other poets both held themselves and were held by critics. As a result, these critical practices eventually became commonly applied to most significant premodern Chinese poets, in keeping with what is now understood as the poetic tradition’s core features of autobiographicality and non-fictionality. Part of the reason Du Fu’s attention to the history through which he was living has proved so influential has to do with the moral stances critics have seen in it. Though some of these stances have changed along with the values of his readers, other consistently appealing traits—including his profound concern for family and friends, for the suffering folk, and for his country—have made Du Fu a powerful ethical example, a “Poet–Sage” (shi-sheng) exemplifying proper moral commitments and sensitivities through his verse. At the same time as he has been seen as the tradition’s greatest craftsman, therefore, he has also been seen as a poet—for some, the only poet in the tradition—whose work thoroughly transcends craft to speak to values more important than (what was increasingly understood as) mere poetry.

Two Masterpieces Du Fu has too many famous poems, too diverse among themselves, for any small selection to represent his oeuvre as a whole. Among his great works, however, the two to be discussed in the following—one from near the beginning and one from near the end of his career—can illustrate the breadth of his output, his formal innovativeness, his meticulous craftsmanship, his unprecedented attention to the details of his experience, his concern for the state and its people, and his reflectiveness about the poetic art. Both of these works are so complex and have such extensive interpretative traditions that they have been the subject of dissertations and monographs all on their own. Here the complexities of their interpretation are elided so as to render them accessible to non-specialists. The earlier poem was written late in 757, when the capitals were still under rebel occupation and Du Fu held the office of Reminder at Suzong’s court-in-exile in Fengxiang. Du Fu had recently received a letter from his family, which he previously feared had been massacred along with much of the local population in Fuzhou. He had also incurred Suzong’s anger by remonstrating against the demotion of a patron. The leave the emperor had granted him to visit his family may thus have doubled as a temporary dismissal from office. “Traveling North”13 In the autumn of our august emperor’s second year, on the first day of the intercalary eighth month, a son of the Du clan was about to travel north, 139

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through a vast blur to see my family. At present we have met with difficulty and worry; idle days are few in court and countryside. I am ashamed to have received this special grace, by edict allowed to return to my thatch and brambles. I bowed in parting before the palace gates, fearful and concerned, long I could not leave. Though I lack the talent for offering remonstrance, I feared there might be something the ruler would miss. Our ruler, though, is truly an Emperor of Restoration, and of course is precise and thorough in managing the state. The rebellion of the eastern barbarians has not yet ended, and your subject Fu is stung with fury. Wiping away tears, my heart was with the court-in-exile; the road ahead remained an uncertain blur. Heaven and Earth bore wounds and gashes: worry and troubles, when would they cease? With slow steps I traversed the fieldpaths, smoke from hearths infrequent in the gloom. Of those I met, many had been injured; they moaned and continued streaming blood. I turned my head back towards Fengxiang County; in the twilight, its banners flashed and hid from view. Ahead I climbed layers of cold mountains, often finding pools where warhorses watered. Near what once was Bin I entered the lowlands; the Jing’s waters churned through their midst. A fierce tiger stood before me, the gray cliffs riven by its roars; but chrysanthemums hung autumn’s blooms, and the rocks bore ruts of ancient carts. The skies there stirred my inspiration: beauty could still cause some joy. Mountain berries, many, scattered, and tiny, grew there everywhere, interspersed with oaks and chestnuts. Some were red like pebbles of cinnabar, some black like spots of lacquer. Wherever rain and dew wets the ground, sweet and bitter, all will form their fruits. Far off, I think on Peach Blossom Spring, sighing over how clumsy I’ve been all my life. From the hills I gazed towards the site of Fu’s ancient altar, which emerged and disappeared through cliff and valley; when I was already at the waters’ edge, my servant was still in the tips of the trees. Owls screeched in withered mulberries, ground squirrels bowed to me by their scattered dens. 140

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In the depths of night I passed through a battlefield, where the cold moon shone on white bones. Our million-strong army at Tong Pass— that day how suddenly they fled! This left half the folk of the Qin region maimed, injured, and made non-human things. And I, moreover, fell into the barbarian dust; by the time I returned home, my hair was streaked with grey. A full year had passed when I reached my thatched cottage; my wife and children’s clothes were but a hundred stitches. Our weeping echoed in the sound of pines; the mournful stream joined our deep sobs. The son whom back then I doted on, a complexion whiter than snow. Seeing his dad, he turned his back and wept, filthy and grimy, with no socks on his feet. By the bed my two young daughters wore patched skirts that barely passed their knees. An image of the ocean, its waves ripped; old embroidery, its details moved around: Tianwu and the Purple Phoenix inverted on their coarse homespun. Though this old fellow was feeling bad and lay up several days with vomiting and diarrhea, how could I not have money in my purse to save you all from shivering with cold? I also untied packets of powder and mascara, and laid out a few sheets and blankets. My wife’s gaunt face glowed anew, and my silly girls combed their hair. They imitated their mother, doing all she did, morning makeup liberally smeared, and later, they applied rouge, wildly drawing their eyebrows wide. Returning home alive, to face these children, I might almost forget our hunger and thirst. They ask me questions, scrambling to pull my whiskers, and how could I bear to scold them? Thinking back on my worries when I was among the rebels, I gladly accept all this chaos and noise. Yet though my recent return comforts me the while, how could I bring up the question of our livelihood? His Majesty is still covered in exile’s dust, and there’s no telling when we can rest our troops. Yet I see above that Heaven’s color is changing, and everywhere I feel inauspicious vapors clearing. A cold wind comes from the northwest, 141

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gloomily following the Uighurs. Their king wishes to help and follow; their customs are to excel in the cavalry charge. They have sent us five thousand men, and driven along ten thousand horses. Among them, youth is honored; the four directions submit to their valor and decisiveness. Their every move is like a hawk in flight; they smash the enemy swifter than an arrow. Our Sage’s mind is quite free of prejudice, and arguments in court are losing their vigor. Luoyang can be taken as easily as pointing at the palm, the Western Capital is barely worth seizing. The imperial army requests to penetrate deeply, its stored force can be unleashed at once. In one move we can liberate Qingzhou and Xuzhou, then turn our gaze to seizing Mts. Heng and Jie. Frosty dew gathers in the august heavens; this timely atmosphere harbors a killing rigor. Disaster revolves toward the year of the barbarians’ destruction; the situation promises a barbarian-capturing month. How could the barbarians’ power last long? it is not yet meet that imperial rule should end. I remember back when the panic first began, what happened was different from all precedent. The treacherous ministers ended up minced and pickled, and their evil partners were subsequently scattered. We would never have heard that Xia or Shang declined had they executed Bao and Da midway. Zhou and Han, by contrast, attained a second flourishing when King Xuan and Emperor Guangwu proved themselves wise. Martial and brave was General Chen Xuanli, grasping the commander’s axe, he roused his troops’ loyal ardor. Without you, the people would be no longer, but as of today, the state still survives. Cold and dreary may be Datong Palace and desolate and silent White Beast Gate, yet the people of the capital watch for the kingfisher standards and auspicious aethers move towards the golden towers. The imperial tombs still have their numinous power: the rites there have never lacked. Glorious is the legacy of Tang Taizong— what he established remains vast and enduring. This poem stands out from the general background of contemporary verse not merely in its exceptional length but also in the capaciousness that length enables, with Du Fu shifting from an elaborate courtly rhetoric to an unprecedentedly naturalistic presentation of his journey and homecoming 142

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and an allusive but remarkably specific account of recent political and military events. Beyond attempts to reconstruct those recent events and Du Fu’s attitudes towards them, critical discussion of the poem has often centered on how its apparently disparate concerns fit together, with some critics praising the poet for the resoluteness with which he turns away from the parochial concerns of his family towards the larger situation of the empire and others arguing that his attention to his family is a morally appropriate condensation of his larger concern for the empire.14 This disagreement exemplifies the tendency of Du Fu’s critics to focus in on specifying the (assumedly laudable) moral stances his verse expresses vis-à-vis his historical experience. It also highlights the tensions that animate this poem and make it a compelling document both of a moment in Du Fu’s life and in the history of the Tang dynasty. Throughout the opening section, Du Fu vacillates between his sense of responsibility to the tottering state and his desire to reunite with his family after more than a year of traumatic separation. Presented in these terms, the conflict might seem merely temporary. Yet in calling his family’s dwelling in Fuzhou “thatch and brambles,” a standard depiction of a reclusive hermitage, Du Fu makes it clear that he is thinking about leaving government service entirely, whether through his own choice or on account of the emperor’s displeasure. Further indications to this effect are scattered throughout the narrative of his journey and homecoming, not merely in his appreciation of nature’s beauty and the joys of family—both of which had strong associations with reclusion—but also in the ways details of this journey subtly intimate discontent with the government. When Du Fu notes, for instance, that rain and dew nurture fruits both sweet and bitter, he seems to be thinking of the “beneficent moisture” that emperors conventionally bestowed on their subjects but that in recent years—with Xuanzong’s doting on Yang Guifei, her family, and even An Lushan himself— had brought the bitterest consequences. This reflection causes Du Fu to fantasize about Peach Blossom Spring, a legendary site of reclusion protected from the vicissitudes of imperial history, and when he observes ground squirrels bowing to him in a village whose inhabitants have been massacred, he is reflecting that the natural world inhabited by recluses may preserve what is valuable in civilization better than an empire that has recently turned half of its inhabitants into “non-human things.” When he reaches Fuzhou, finally, he sees the topsy-turvy state of the world reflected on his children’s patchwork clothing, where the image of a sea-monster from an old brocade is ascendent over the phoenix, symbol of the imperial house.15 In an age characterized by this sort of chaos— very different from the loving “chaos” of his children happy to have him home—reclusion seems like it might be the wiser course, and Du Fu ends the narrative of his return thinking about plans for “our livelihood,” apparently without a court salary. Yet if Du Fu, unlike his daughters, has no illusion that the sachets of makeup he has brought with him presage a return to the family’s pre-rebellion life in the capital, he still has hope the Tang may be restored. To further convince himself of this possibility, he turns, in the final section of the poem, to consider current military affairs and recent events at court with an explicitness rare in poetry up to his time. Perhaps the most startling detail, for Du Fu’s contemporaries, would have been his praise of Chen Xuanli, who had forced Xuanzong to execute Yang Guifei and her cousin Yang Guozhong, the prime minister, as the imperial party fled from An Lushan’s troops. This is the earliest surviving poem to mention this incident, and in general such political intrigues had previously registered only obliquely, if at all, in the decorous and subgenerically constrained art of Tang poetry. Du Fu, however, claims that he cannot refer to the event obliquely, through decorous allusions, since the execution of Yang Guifei “differed from all precedent.” Previous empires doomed by their benighted rulers’ doting on femmes fatales—such as King You of Zhou and his lover Bao Si, King Zhow of Shang and Da Ji, and King Jie of Xia and Mo Xi—had not managed to correct their courses before it was too late. As a result, the future is not certain: neither these precedents nor 143

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those of the Zhou and Han dynasties restoring themselves under King Xuan and Emperor Guangwu are an exact fit. In suggesting that the present situation is novel, Du Fu offers an implicit justification for the ambiguity of his feelings and for the attention the poem pays to the many disparate facets of his experience—particularly those that were not part of the poetic art in his time, such as travelers’ diarrhea, the disorderly joys of family life, and the particulars of troop movements. His contemporaries, writing much more conventional verse about the war (when they wrote about it at all), generally claimed to know how it would play out: it would follow one of the established scripts of the tradition.16 Du Fu, however, could only hope; by this point, he had learned that he did not know. And while he hoped, he had to make choices for himself and his family, choices that he could make only by observing the history he was living through as carefully as he could. If “Journey North” exemplifies Du Fu’s poetry at its most discursive, the second masterpiece we will consider represents the opposite pole of his achievement. “Journey North” is an “old-style” poem, meaning that, beyond the requirements that each line be five characters and that each couplet rhyme, the poem’s form is relatively free. Du Fu was, however, one of the Tang’s greatest masters of the metrically restrictive and architecturally demanding “regulated verse” (lüshi) as well, producing both virtuoso examples of the form (such as “Gazing in Spring”) and a number of novel innovations on its basis. The following late series, for instance, consists of eight “regulated” poems with eight lines each, projecting some of the formal constraints that are normally internal to the eight lines of a single “regulated verse” onto the relationship between the eight poems of the set. The series thus represents a sort of “regulated verse squared,” a structure of intense internal complexity.17 “Autumn Stirrings, Eight Poems” I. Jade dew withers, wounds the groves of maple trees; by Witch Mount and Witch Gorge, the air turns bleak and drear. On the river, waves and billows surge to meet the sky; over the passes, the windblown clouds are dark, touching the earth. Clustered chrysanthemums a second time bloom tears of another day; my lonely boat ever tied up a heart set on old gardens. Making cold-weather clothes, everywhere they speed their shears, and high up on White Emperor Fort, twilight fulling urgent. This first poem of the series illustrates the requirements of the “regulated” form. Though certain of these requirements do not survive translation, including a prescribed tonal patterning and end-rhyme on every even-numbered line (plus the first), other features can. One such requirement is that the middle couplets of the poem should be parallel: that is, that each character or compound in the first line of the couplet should be of the same class as its counterpart in the same position of the second line, forming with it some interesting comparison or contrast. In the third couplet here, for instance, Du Fu draws a contrast between the “clustering” of the chrysanthemums and the “loneliness” of his boat—“chrysanthemums” and “boat” themselves representing a good pairing because both objects were commonly associated with recluses. The chrysanthemums, moreover, have now bloomed “twice” over the two years of Du Fu’s stay in Kuizhou, thus reminding him of the tears he shed here last year, but to his dismay, his boat has remained “at one” in being tied up the whole

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time, and he has not yet been able to follow his longstanding plan to return to his lost hometown back north, which he had to leave so long ago. As Du Fu practiced the art, regulated verse also prescribed at least a loose relationship between the four couplets of an eight-line poem. Characteristically, beyond broaching images that will recur throughout, the first couplet also initiates two contrasting themes that are then taken up in the two middle couplets and finally reconciled in the last. In this poem, this structure depends upon on allusions to ancient poetry from the Kuizhou region. The first line here recalls the springtime maple groves evoked in a lament for Qu Yuan (legendarily fl. ca. 300 BCE), who was exiled from his troubled homeland of Chu, much as Du Fu here, in the third couplet, finds himself far from his own hometown. The second line, similarly, invokes a rhapsody wherein the goddess of Witch Mountain tells the king of Chu that, after their tryst, he can find her again in the “dawncloud and running rain”—another springtime image that Du Fu transposes to autumn, with cloud and rain becoming in the second line and the second couplet an all-encompassing atmosphere of stormy bleakness.18 Put schematically, then, the first line and the third couplet emphasize separation, while the second line and the second couplet provide images of totalization. These themes are ultimately reconciled in the final couplet’s depiction of women making cold-weather clothes to send to their menfolk serving in distant armies. Separation, it turns out, is general in the present age, and the empire is in danger of fragmenting totally, much as it did when Gongsun Shu (d. 36 CE) established White Emperor Fort upon the collapse of the Western Han. All the same structural and architectural requirements hold for the series’ second poem as well. II. As on the lonely walls of Kui prefecture falling sunlight slants, always by the Southern Dipper I gaze towards the capital. Hearing the gibbons, it’s true I shed third-cry tears; undertaking a mission, in vain I followed the eighth-month raft. The muralled ministry’s fragrant censers elude the pillow where I lie; in my mountain tower, whitewashed battlements mute reed pipes’ grief. But look now, the wisteria moon upon the cliffs: it shines already by the sandbars, on the flowers of the reeds. In this poem, the contrasting themes announced by the first couplet are what Du Fu can see for himself and what he cannot. The sunlit walls of the first line circumscribe his experience, which has recently proved the old saying that three cries of Kuizhou’s gibbons make the homesick traveler weep and disproved the old legend that following the Yangzi leads to the stars (or even the figurative heaven of the capital). Here in the south, beneath the Southern Dipper, he can only imagine the painted walls of the Secretariat, and he is insulated from some of the more visceral griefs occasioned by a collapsing empire (such as those, he imagines, of soldiers playing sad music he cannot hear). Yet as in the previous poem he began to recognize that fragmentation may at certain moments speak to the whole, here he comes to suspect that what he experiences first hand may give him some insight into what he does not. As the darkened river is gradually illuminated by moonlight, it turns out that the previously visible autumn flowers on the cliffsides are repeated in the flowers by the water. Taken together, these first two poems serve as the “opening couplet” for the eight-poem series, outlining two themes that will be taken up in turn by the “middle couplets.” Put schematically, these themes are, first, Du Fu’s reclusive exile and what it says about the empire and, second, his personal

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experience and what he can imagine or infer on its basis. The first of the middle “meta-couplets” will concentrate on the first theme, and the second on the second. III. A thousand homes within these mountain walls, quiet in dawn’s glow; all day in my river tower, I sit in halcyon haze. Passing their nights on the water, the fishermen drift along still; throughout clear autumn, the swallows fly on as ever. Slight, my fame for sending up memorials like Kuang Heng; gone awry, my heart’s aim of transmitting the Classics like Liu Xiang. Yet the men I studied with when young are mostly not of low degree; by Five Barrows their clothes are light and their horses plump. IV. I hear in Chang’an it’s like a game of chess; a lifetime of worldly affairs, more grief than I can take. Counts’ and princes’ manors and mansions all have new lords; civil and army, those in robes and caps differ from back then. On passes and mountains straight north metal drums stir; to wagons and horses campaigning west feathered dispatches arrive late. Here, watery dragons are silent and still, the autumn river cold, yet in my old homeland and my past life there is that for which I yearn. The extraordinary craft of this series is most obvious in the way the middle “meta-couplets” of this “regulated poem squared” follow something like the parallelism that is usually required in regulated poems between the lines of the middle couplets. Not only do these two poems take up the two sides of the topic announced by poem I, with poem III focusing on Du Fu’s reclusive exile and poem IV considering the state-level circumstances that led to it. More impressively, each line in poem III forms a thematic parallel to its counterpart in poem IV. In the first lines, for instance, the quietness of the smaller, mountainous town of Kuizhou is compared to the constant shuffle of the flat, gridded landscape of the capital. In the second lines, Du Fu compares the calm of what he currently does “all day” to the political turmoil that has defined his life as a whole. The middle couplets then continue this pattern by contrasting, in the second couplet, the changing grandees of Chang’an with the constancy of Kuizhou’s fishermen and swallows, and highlighting, in the third couplet, Du Fu’s failure as a civil (wen) official in an age that demands military (wu) virtues. Finally, the fourth couplets of each poem virtuosically switch their foci, with poem III turning to Chang’an and poem IV turning to Du Fu in reclusion—a state conventionally compared to dragons hibernating through the cold season—but yearning for home. The same sort of parallelism obtains in the second “meta-couplet” of the series as well, which now turns to the second topic announced in the opening: Du Fu’s first-hand experience and what he can imagine. V. The palace towers of Penglai faced South Mountain; the metal columns to catch the dew were in the Cloudy River. Gazing west to Jasper Pool, he brought down the Queen Mother, then from the east came purple vapors filling Han Pass. Clouds shifted, pheasant tails, the opening of palace fans; 146

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the sun circled, dragon scales, I knew the Sage’s face. Having once lain down by the grey river, I startle the year’s grown late, though a few times, by the blue locks, I was mustered to the court’s dawn ranks. VI. From the mouth of Qutang Gorge to the Winding River’s side, ten-thousand miles of wind and fog, touching pale autumn. The walled passage to Calyx still lets through the royal aura, but into the small park of Lotuses enter frontier sorrows. Pearled curtains and figured pillars surround brown swans, as brocade cables and ivory masts startle up white gulls. Turning my head to that beloved land of song and of dance: Qin naturally is a province sending forth emperors. In the first couplet of poem V, Du Fu begins where he left off at the end of poem IV: yearning for his old homeland, the capital, before the rebellion. Back then, Du Fu had no access to the palace— conventionally figured as heaven, the river of stars—and so he could only imagine that it contained the sort of dew-collecting columns he had read about in the history of the disastrously militaristic and esoterically inclined Emperor Wu of the Han (r. 141–87 BCE), who set them up in his palace for the purpose of crafting the elixir of immortality. Nor did Du Fu personally witness Xuanzong’s catastrophic infatuation with the onetime Daoist priestess Yang Guifei or their flight from the rebels, so he can only envision these happenings on the basis of old legends: first, the banquet of the immortal Queen Mother of the West and Zhou King Mu, and, second, Xuanzong’s (purported) ancestor Laozi’s leaving the heartland region west through the Han Pass. When the clouds of the rebellion cleared a bit, however, Du Fu did personally serve at court with Xuanzong’s successor, Suzong, the “Sage” of the third couplet. So, despite his current reclusion in the south, he does have some first-hand experience of the age’s history. In poem VI, that personal experience begins to blend with imagination, allowing Du Fu to picture the present situation in Chang’an under the current emperor, Daizong (r. 762–779). In the emperor’s pleasure parks, the autumn waters and the luxurious boats probably mirror, to some degree, what he sees here in Kuizhou, watching the Yangzi river. He can also imagine that in Chang’an, the ongoing frontier warfare with the Tibetans mentioned first in poem IV has probably disturbed the imperial parties at Calyx Manor and Lotus Park. Unfortunately, it has apparently failed to focus imperial attention sufficiently to end those parties entirely or, more important, to prevent the recent Tibetan sack of Chang’an that sent Daizong fleeing east as Xuanzong had fled west just eight years before. Du Fu has thus begun to understand why it is that the capital region, site of imperial luxury, is a place emperors have to keep fleeing, generation after generation. The final “meta-couplet” of the eight-poem metapoem, in keeping with general “regulated” form for a single poem, is not line-by-line parallel in the way the middle “couplets” were. Yet, as expected, it brings together the foci that they developed singly, reconciling the series’ structuring themes by means of a meditation on the way Du Fu’s experience of exile epitomizes the Tang’s collapse and on that collapse’s recapitulation of the history of the Han dynasty, which he has read about and can imagine. VII. Kunming Pool’s waters were an achievement of the Han, but Emperor Wu’s pennons and banners are there before my eyes. Loom-threads of the Weaver Girl were supple on moonlit nights; 147

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the fins and scales of the stone whale stirred in the autumn wind. Now wave-tossed wild rice sinks the clouds’ black, and dew-chilled lotus pods drop their powder’s red. Barrier passes reach the heavens: a path only for birds, but lakes and rivers fill the earth, and everywhere, old fishermen. VIII. From Kunwu, Emperor’s-Rest winds off into the distance, and on the shaded side of Purple Tower Peak, enters Meipi. The grains of fragrant rice-paddies are left over from parrots’ pecking; the branches of sapphire wutong trees, grown old with phoenixes perching. Lovely women gathered kingfisher plumes, paying their calls in spring; immortal friends shared boats, still moving on in evening. My colored brush on such former travels ventured against the scene, but white-haired now, I chant and gaze, then bitterly hang my head. Kunming Pool, Kunwu Pavilion, and Emperor’s-Rest Stream are all landmarks associated with Han Emperor Wu, whose glories Du Fu did not, of course, witness personally. Yet since those glories also recall the splendor of Du Fu’s “old homeland and his past life” during Xuanzong’s reign before the rebellion, he can see the occasion of Wudi’s visit to Kunming Pool in his mind’s eye, the marvelous stone statues of the immortal Weaver Girl asterism and a leviathan glistening in the moonlight. In the same way, his own youthful revels he recalls in poem VIII echo famous texts and stories from the Han dynasty.19 There is, these two final poems thus suggest, a rhyme in history, one that allows Du Fu simultaneously to imagine and to know by experience the aftermath of imperial glory: pecked-over rice-paddies and empty old wutongs, and Kunming Pool overgrown with wild rice and withering lotuses. What this final “meta-couplet” suggests, in other words, is that there is no incompatibility between the two themes that have animated the series as a whole. Both Du Fu’s time in the capital and his current situation as an old recluse fisherman in Kuizhou, both what he has experienced first hand and what he has been forced to imagine—all contribute to his understanding of the history he has lived through, an understanding that is richer and more attuned to transhistorical patterns than what could be embodied in poetry that merely captured present scenes amidst the glories of the capital region. The more conventional poetry of his youth, written along those lines, may have hewed closer to what his contemporaries would have expected from a literary “talent”—conventionally denoted by the spiritual endowment of a five-colored writing brush.20 But Du Fu’s late poetry, the product both of observing his experience in Kuizhou and gazing off abstractedly in memory and imagination, still captures reality. Here it may not be a mere coincidence that this set as a whole contains 64 lines, the number of hexagrams in the Classic of Changes, the textual embodiment of reality par excellence. Despite its formal difference from “Journey North,” therefore, this series represents another reflection on some of the same questions: how individual experience is related to state-level history and how the events of one moment are related to other times. These were old problematics in the Chinese tradition, going all the way back to the first surviving commentaries on the Classic of Poetry. Yet the Tang’s sudden collapse made these questions urgent for Du Fu, and he thought about them progressively throughout his life, inventing new forms and dramatically expanding the scope of the poetic art in the process. Alongside its craftsmanship, innovativeness, and inherent beauty, the profound perspectives Du Fu developed with regard to these questions continue to make his work worth reading and help to explain why he remains the tradition’s preeminent “Poet–Historian.” 148

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Notes 1 For a detailed biography, see Chen Yixin, Du Fu pingzhuan [Critical Biography of Du Fu], 3 vols. (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2009). 2 See Xiao Difei et al., Du Fu quanji jiaozhu [Complete Works of Du Fu, Collated and Annotated] [hereafter CWDF], 12 vols. (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2014), 3.668–70. All of Du Fu’s poetry has been translated into English in Stephen Owen, The Poetry of Du Fu [hereafter TPDF], 6 vols. (Boston: De Gruyter, 2016). For this poem, see 1.209–17. 3 The reception history of Du Fu’s poetry represents a substantial field in its own right. For a listing of major studies recently published in Chinese, see Liu Ning and Jue Chen, “Du Fu Studies, 2000–2019,” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 7, no. 2 (2020): 411–69, 438–44. 4 Yuan Zhen ji [Yuan Zhen’s Collection], annot. Ji Qin (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982), 16.601. 5 See for instance Qin Guan, Huihai ji [Hui Sea Collection], Yinying Wenyuange Siku quanshu (Taibei: Taiwan shangwu yinshu guan, 1985), 22.4b. 6 See for instance CWDF, 1.229–31, 3.760–61, 3.733, 8.2345–46, 4.1021–22, 7.1965–66, 5.1349–50, 8.2125, 15.4350, and 19.5673. For English translations, see TPDF, 1.76–83, 1.266–69, 1.246–249, 3.40–43, 2.4–7, 2.304–307, 2.112–15, 3.4–5, 5.28–31, and 6.42–45. 7 See e.g. CWDF, 5.1280–1324, 13.3789–841; TPDF, 2.82–99, 4.353–61. 8 See e.g. CWDF, 4.943–72, 20.5993–94, 14.3955–4083, 17.5092, 4.934–43, 16.4834–92, 2.295–96, and 19.5575; TPDF, 1.332–45, 6.192–93, 4.238–85, 5.272–73, 1.328–33, 5.192–213, 1.70–73, and 6.152–53. 9 See e.g. CWDF, 3.748–9, 8.2219–32, and 15.4501–2; TPDF, 1.256–57, 3.24–29, and 5.54–57. 10 Stephen Owen, The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High Tang (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 184; Eva Shan Chou, Reconsidering Tu Fu: Literary Greatness and Cultural Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 11 CWDF, 21.6271. 12 CWDF, 3.779. 13 Authorial note: “Composed after I had returned to service at Fengxiang, and a personal edict from the emperor released me to go to Fuzhou.” I follow the text of this poem preserved in the Songben Du Gongbu ji [Song Editions of Du Fu’s Collection], Xu guyi congshu facsimile ed., ed. Wang Zhu (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshu guan, 1957), 2.4a–6a. For variants and useful annotations, see CWDF, 4.943–72. 14 For a representative modern discussion of this poem that considers previous scholarship, see Mo Lifeng, Du Fu shige jiangyan lu [Lectures on Du Fu’s Poetry] (Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe), 247–83. 15 This observation was made by David Lattimore in “From the Capital to Feng-hsien” (Unpublished paper, 1981). 16 See Lucas Rambo Bender, “Other Poetry on the An Lushan Rebellion: Notes on Time and Transcendence in Tang Verse,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 79, nos. 1–2 (2019): 1–48. 17 For a discussion of the series along these lines, see Joseph R. Allen, The Chinese Lyric Sequence: Poems, Paintings, Anthologies (Amherst: Cambria Press, 2020), 221–61. For a comprehensive treatment of the series and its commentary tradition, see Ye Jiaying, Du Fu Qiuxing ba shou jishuo [Collected Commentary on Du Fu’s “Autumn Stirrings, Eight Poems”] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1988). The text of the series followed here is that of the Song Editions, 15.22a–23a; for a critical text and annotations, see CWDF, 13.3789–841. 18 These poems are “Zhao hun” [The Summons of the Soul] and “Gaotang fu” [The Gaotang Rhapsody]; see Wen xuan [Selections of Refined Literature], comp. Xiao Tong, annot. Li Shan (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1986), 33.1540–51 and 19.875–882. 19 See Wen xuan, 19.899, and Fan Ye, Hou Han shu [History of the Latter Han] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1965), 618.2225. 20 Li Yanshou, Nan shi [History of the Southern Dynasties] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), 59.1451.

Further Reading Bender, Lucas Rambo. Du Fu Transforms: Tradition and Ethics amid Societal Collapse. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2021. Chou, Eva Shan. Reconsidering Tu Fu: Literary Greatness and Cultural Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Hung, William. Tu Fu: China’s Greatest Poet. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952.

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12 BAI JUYI AND YUAN ZHEN* Mei Ah Tan

Bai Juyi (772–846) and Yuan Zhen (779–831), pivotal officials who enjoyed a similar degree of literary fame in China, are also a celebrated pair of friends. Of the two, Bai has been more widely recognized, especially in Japan, where he is known as Haku Rakuten. Despite being seven years older than his friend, Bai outlived him by fifteen years, composing over three thousand poems and leaving behind a larger corpus of work. Because of their close personal relationship, the inspiration each found in the other in literary composition, and their matching fame and influence in Tang China, they are often introduced together in literary history.

Lives and Careers Bai Juyi came from a literary family. His ancestral province was Taiyuan (in modern Shanxi), but his great-grandfather moved to Xiagui (in modern Shaanxi), so he should be considered a native of that place. Both his grandfather, Bai Huang (dates unknown), and his father, Bai Jigeng (d. 794), were “Canonical Expert” (Mingjing) graduates, well-versed in the Confucian classics. His father had a successful career, enjoying the privilege of wearing cinnabar-colored robes and a fish-tablet bag decorated with silver, normally granted to high officials at the fifth rank or above.1 Bai had the support of his father until the latter died when Bai was twenty-two. Yuan was a descendent of the Northern Wei (386–534) royal house,2 but the influence of his clan declined upon their losing the kingship. His mother was from the aristocratic Zheng family of Xingyang (in modern Henan). Since the Northern Wei shifted its capital from Pingcheng (in modern Shanxi) to Luoyang (in modern Henan) during Emperor Xiaowen’s reign (471–499), Yuan considered himself a native of Henan. He lost his father at a much younger age than did Bai; Yuan Kuan (d. 786) died when Yuan Zhen was just seven, and the boy had to depend on his mother’s family for support. Bai and Yuan’s paths crossed when they both took the Shupan bacui (Preeminence in Calligraphy and Decision Writing) examination in 802 and passed in 803. At this point, Bai had a higher qualification than Yuan: Bai was already a “Presented Scholar” (Jinshi),3 whereas Yuan was simply a “Canonical Expert.” Nonetheless, both were then appointed editor (rank 9a1) of the Palace Library.4

 DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-17

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Bai and Yuan became colleagues. They enjoyed each other’s company, so much so that they spent months together preparing for the special examination on current affairs in 806 that was personally supervised by Xianzong (r. 805–820). For the discipline of “Thriving in Ability and Insight; Conversant in Theory and Implementation” (Caishi jianmao, mingyu tiyongke), Yuan scored the highest among the sixteen successful candidates, followed by Bai.5 Yuan was therefore appointed left remonstrator (8b1; Tang liudian, 8.247)6 at the exceptionally young age of twenty-seven, whereas Bai was appointed commandant (9a2) of Zhouzhi District (in modern Shaanxi). In the same year, however, Yuan was demoted to commandant of Henan (Tang liudian, 30.751), because he had offended powerful officials. In any case, he soon had to relinquish his position to serve the three-year mourning period (actually twenty-seven months). During this period, Bai was made academician in 807, which allowed him to participate in rescript writing until 811; in 808, he was also made left remonstrator, a position he held until 810. Yuan’s career took a turn for the better after his mourning period was completed. He was promoted to supervising censor (8a1; Tang liudian, 13.381) in 809, upon the recommendation of Chief Minister Pei Ji (d. 811), who likely saw in him the personal qualities and skills necessary in carrying out a censor’s various duties, such as overseeing other officials. Yuan performed these tasks dutifully and enthusiastically. In less than two months’ time, however, he was relocated to the East Censorate in Luoyang, away from the central administration in Chang’an. The official histories attribute it to the revenge of high officials who had been close to Yan Li, a military governor whom Yuan had rightly accused of corruption (JTS, 166.4331; XTS, 174.5227). Eager to make a change in the administration, Yuan overstepped his authority in handling the offense of Fang Shi (d. 812), governor (yin) of Henan Superior Prefecture (in modern Henan). On his way back to Chang’an for the case in 810, he was forced out of his suite at an official hostel by a group of eunuchs who physically abused him and threatened his life. No punishment was meted out to the eunuchs; Yuan was instead expelled from his post to become the administrator of the Levied Service Section of Jiangling Prefecture (in modern Hubei, 7b1; Tang liudian, 30.744). In defense of Yuan, Bai presented three memorials in his position as a left remonstrator, but to no avail.7 Within two months, Bai was released from the Remonstrance Office and instead assumed the post of administrator of the Revenue Section at the Capital (7a2; Tang liudian, 30.742). Yuan had headed to Jiangling, and the two kept in touch through letters and poetry. In 811, Bai renounced his position to mourn his mother. In 814, he was made left grand master remonstrator for the heir apparent (5a1; Tang liudian, 26.671). In 815, Bai and Yuan met briefly in Chang’an before Yuan was appointed adjutant of Tongzhou (in modern Sichuan, 5b2; Tang liudian, 30.745). In the same year, Chief Minister Wu Yuanheng (758–815) was brutally killed on an open street.8 Bai immediately presented a memorial urging the arrest of the criminals. Since he was serving in the East Palace at the time, it was considered a form of misconduct to speak up, especially before those in the cabinet, and thus he was demoted to adjutant of Jiangzhou (in modern Hubei, 6a2; Tang liudian, 30.746), a position he held until 818. In 819, with the support of Chief Minister Cui Qun (772–832), he was promoted to be prefect of Zhongzhou (in modern Chongqing, 4a2; Tang liudian, 30.746). Towards the end of Xianzong’s reign, Yuan was made vice director of the Catering Bureau (6b1; Tang liudian, 4.127), within the Department of State Affairs in 819, thus returning to Chang’an. Under Muzong (r. 820–824), both Yuan and Bai received significant promotions. The rise of Yuan was particularly noteworthy. He became the vice director of the Section for Sacrifices (6b1; Tang liudian, 4.120) and tentative “participant in the drafting of proclamations” in 820.9 In three months’ time, he was promoted to director of the Bureau of Sacrifices (5b1; Tang liudian, 4.120)

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and put in charge of rescript writing as a regular “participant in the drafting of proclamations,” with the privilege of wearing cinnabar-colored robes and hanging a fish-tablet bag decorated with silver from his belt. His speedy promotion was generally attributed to eunuch Cui Tanjun (fl. 820), the eunuch-leader who aided Muzong’s ascendence to the throne.10 As Yuan became a key figure in the central administration, Bai was recalled to the capital. He was appointed vice director of gatekeeping in the Department of State Affairs (6b1; Tang liudian, 6.195) in 820 and subsequently director of the Bureau of Receptions (5b1; Tang liudian, 4.129) and “participant in the drafting of proclamations.” In 821, Yuan was made a secretariat drafter (5a1; Tang liudian, 9.275), a position reserved for only the most talented literary men,11 and Hanlin academician recipient of edicts, while also enjoying the privilege of wearing purple-colored robes and hanging a fish-tablet bag decorated with gold from his belt; this was normally granted to officials at the third rank or above (Shiwu jiyuan, 3.156). These appointments laid the path for him to be promoted to chief minister.12 Only eight months later, however, he was removed from these positions because of Chief Minister Pei Du’s (765–839) accusation that his military campaign against the rebel Wang Tingcou (d. 834) was being undermined by Yuan and his accomplice Wei Hongjian (fl. 820). Bai was thus appointed secretariat drafter in place of Yuan. Although Muzong was forced to demote Yuan, he made Yuan vice minister of works (4a2; Tang liudian, 7.215) and eventually chief minister in 822.13 However, in three months’ time Yuan was driven out of Chang’an to be prefect of Tongzhou (in modern Shaanxi, 3b; Tang liudian, 30.745) as a punishment for allowing the fabrication of documents. Yuan had done this with the good intention of rescuing the loyal subject Niu Yuanyi (fl. 821) from the siege of Wang Tingcou, but in doing so he opened himself up to implication in a slander that he was making an attempt on Pei Du’s life. Soon after Yuan was demoted, Bai was also sent away to be prefect of Hangzhou (in modern Zhejiang, 3b; Tang liudian, 30.745). Yuan spent two years in Tongzhou, until 823, when he was made prefect of Yuezhou (in modern Zhejiang, 3b; Tang liudian, 30.745), where he ended up spending seven years, holding the concurrent positions of censor-in-chief (3b; Tang liudian, 13.377) and surveillance commissioner of Zhedong (in modern Zhejiang). When Jingzong (r. 824–827) ascended the throne, Bai was made left cadet of the heir apparent (4a1; Tang liudian, 26.663) in Luoyang. Within three months’ time, he was made prefect of Suzhou (in modern Jiangsu, 3b; Tang liudian, 30.745). When Wenzong (r. 827–840) came to the throne, both Yuan and Bai received a promotion. In 827, Yuan served as acting minister of rites (3a; Tang liudian, 4.108) concurrently with his other positions, while Bai was made director of the Palace Library (3b; Tang liudian, 10.295), enjoying the privilege of wearing purple-colored robes and hanging a fish-tablet bag decorated with gold from his belt. In the next year, Bai was made vice director of the Ministry of Justice (4a2; Tang liudian, 6.179) and enfeoffed as baron of Jinyang District, receiving taxes from three hundred households there. In 829, he was made advisor to the heir apparent (3a; Tang liudian, 26.661), taking up duties in Luoyang, while Yuan was appointed left assistant director of the Department of State Affairs (4a1; Tang liudian, 1.7), returning to the capital in 830. Later in that same year, Bai was made administrator of Henan Superior Prefecture (3b; Tang liudian, 30.741). In 831, Yuan was appointed acting minister of revenue (3a; Tang liudian, 3.63) while holding the concurrent positions of prefect of E’zhou (in modern Hubei), censor-in-chief, and military governor of the Wuchang Army (a garrison covering parts of modern Hubei, Henan, and Hunan). Once again, he had to leave the capital and headed to Wuchang (in modern Hubei). He soon died of acute disease at the age of fifty-three and was given the posthumous title right vice director of Department of State Affairs (2b; Tang liudian, 1.6).

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In 833, Bai again assumed the position of advisor to the heir apparent, taking up duties in Luoyang. In 835, he was appointed junior mentor of the heir apparent (2a; Tang liudian, 26.661). In 842, he retired from the position of director of Ministry of Justice (3a; Tang liudian, 6.179) at the age of seventy, and he passed away four years later. Literary Achievements The mid-Tang (roughly 791–825) is considered the end of the “Middle Ages” of China.14 During this time, the Tang Empire was beleaguered by insubordinate military governors, scheming eunuchs, cliques, and foreign powers after one of the worst conflicts of Chinese history—a revolt initiated by the emperor’s own trusted military governor An Lushan (d. 757). The rebellion lasted eight years (755–763) and caused the central government to lose control over many regions, especially the northeast. This division of power eventually led to the annihilation of the Tang house, and it was also the trigger for the exclusive control imposed on military officials by the court during the Song dynasty (960–1279). One of the immediate effects of the rebellion on the literary arena was that literati were prompted to contemplate the function of literature and its relation to governance. The most significant change closely related to governance was the revolutionizing of imperial documents, mainly by switching the language of such documents from parallel prose to ancient-style prose and their primary function from making official announcements to promoting principles of governance. This transformation was initiated by Yuan when he was put in charge of rescript writing during Muzong’s reign. He discarded the convention of writing in parallel prose and purposely incorporated precepts of rule, making full use of imperial documents as a tool of political rhetoric. Yuan was made chief minister for the literary and political skills he thus displayed (BJYJJ, 6:70.3736; JTS, 166.4333). Bai emulated his example and was his faithful follower. The revolution was thus a combined effort of the two friends. Yuan and Bai also experimented with various literary genres. The most notable of these collaborations were the Yuanhe-style poetry and the New Music Bureau poetry. The former was named after the Yuanhe reign era (806–820), in which Yuan and Bai composed their most famous works; the fact that their works are considered to represent the literary compositions of that era reveals how influential they were. The latter genre was highly celebrated for the social concern and criticism expressed in the poems and often praised for demonstrating the principles of realism; it will be discussed in a separate section. Yuanhe-style poetry refers to the response poetry that Yuan and Bai wrote to each other using the same rhymes in composing long regulated poems that could run up to five hundred or a thousand words; it also includes the short regulated poetry Yuan wrote for entertainment.15 The most representative pieces are perhaps Bai’s “Daishu shi yibaiyun ji Weizhi” (A hundred couplets in place of a letter for Weizhi; BJYJJ, 2:13.703–706) and Yuan’s response poem “Chou Hanlin Bai Xueshi daishu yibaiyun” (Acknowledging the hundred couplets in place of a letter from Bai, the Hanlin Academician; YZJJZ, 1:10.302–305). Bai composed the poem in 810 after Yuan was demoted to Jiangling (BJYJJ, 2: 13.706). In it he recounted his friendship with Yuan, detailing Yuan’s personality and career, and ending with his sadness over the loss of his friend in the capital. Yuan also recounted their friendship and his demotion, ending with a lamentation over his own fate. This pair of poems demonstrates the main features of extended regulated verse. Each poem is made up of a hundred couplets; there is syntactic parallelism except for the first and the last couplets, and even-tone rhymes from the zhi category are used with no repetition. Yuan’s response poem is written in the strictest form; known as ciyun, it employs the exact same words for the rhymes in the exact same order.16 Yuan further used the same prosodic pattern beginning from the oblique tone with no rhyme in the first line. 154

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Besides extended regulated verse, Yuan and Bai also composed pentasyllabic poetry that runs up to seventy to a hundred couplets and could be seen as the transition to the formulation of what Yuan considered Yuanhe-style poetry. The representative pair, also composed in 810, is Yuan’s “Meng youchun shi qishiyun” (Seventy couplets of a dream of roaming in spring; YZJJZ, addendum, 3:1.1428) and Bai’s response poem “He Meng youchun shi yibaiyun” (A hundred couplets in response to “Seventy couplets of a dream of roaming in spring”; BJYJJ, 2:14.866). These poems are well known because of Yuan’s “Yingying zhuan” (The Tale of Yingying), an influential Tang story that provided a basis for Dong Jieyuan’s (1189–1208) Xixiang ji zhugongdiao (Various tunes of the “Western Chamber”) and a famous Yuan (1260–1368) drama Xixiang ji (Western Chamber) by Wang Shifu (1295–1307). The tale is believed to contain autobiographical elements, and Yuan’s “Meng youchun shi qishiyun” is often used to support this interpretation. In this poem, Yuan described his dream of encountering a beautiful lady, his marriage, and his career. There is not much of a plot, but the romance corresponds to the tale. Various lines suggest “The Tale of Yingying.” The couplet “Wulong made no sound; I was once in love with a maiden of humble origin” implies a rendezvous, as Wulong refers to the dog that protected his master from a servant who had an affair with his wife.17 The couplet “the curtain withdrawn and the attendant standing, beckoning me from afar” echoes the story of Zhang slipping into the western chamber to meet Yingying. The couplet “the soul in dream is indeed easily startled, and a spiritual place is hard to reside for long” resonates with their rendezvous. The couplets “When I come to view flowers, all I can write are lines reminiscing about the goddess” and “I recently wrote a poem on encountering a goddess, knowing that it was heart-consuming” echo Zhang’s perception of the relationship, whereas the allusions to various neglected women in history match the fate of Yingying, who was cast away. In response, Bai expanded the length to a hundred couplets, echoing the narration of Yuan’s poem and presenting further details of Yuan’s experience while consoling him by referring to the Buddhist idea of transcendence (BJYJJ, 2:14.864). He uses allusions similar to Wulong and the goddess of clouds and rain, concluding that “gorgeous beauty is just like empty flowers, a drifting life is like a burnt husk.” He further points out that a fine marriage and the pursuit of a brilliant career both yield nothing, that greed is the source of bitterness, and that love is the origin of sorrow. While the pairs relate in content, Bai’s response poem does not even use the same rhyme category as Yuan’s. Moreover, both poems use rhyme words of uneven tones, the prosodic pattern does not follow that of regulated verse, and there is no strict syntactic parallelism throughout. Each of the two poems, however, does use rhyme words from the same rhyming category or its neighboring one throughout, and each is pentasyllabic. Perhaps it is for this reason that Bai’s compilation categorized this response poem as regulated verse (BJYJJ, 2:14.863–66), although this poem does not fit the features that are commonly associated with that genre. Both Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen made remarkable literary achievements. Bai was also particularly successful in compiling his compositions into personal collections, which accounts for the better preservation of his works and their circulation. He classified his poetry into four types, satire, sentiment, leisure, and poems of various rules and forms. One of the most popular anthology selections is “Changhen ge” (Song of everlasting regret), a long narrative poem that elaborates Xuanzong’s romance with Consort Yang, whom he sacrificed to prevent mutiny on his flight to Sichuan when An Lushan rebelled. This poem demonstrates another use of the extended form of poetry in creating a narrative. It also serves as a counterpart to “Changhen ge zhuan” (Tale of the song of everlasting regret), a renowned Tang tale by Chen Hong (fl. 805–806) that recounted the same story. 155

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New Music Bureau Poetry and Social Criticism The New Music Bureau Poetry (Xin Yuefu) was a poetic genre that was initiated by Yuan Zhen and Bai Juyi’s mutual friend Li Shen (772–846), editor in the Palace Library.18 Li composed twenty poems to comment on contemporary affairs, which he called “Music Bureau poems with new titles,” but these poems are no longer extant. Yuan composed twelve response poems, and Bai wrote fifty poems, including response poems and new titles he created himself. New Music Bureau poetry was thus not confined to the ancient titles and themes of the Music Bureau poems that had been composed in imitation of the Han-dynasty originals by later literati. In Yuan’s eyes, their close predecessor was Du Fu (712–770), whose poems with new titles and criticism of contemporary affairs seemed to Yuan an ideal use of Music Bureau poems; they pictured the life of commoners from the perspective of a court official. Yuan concluded that he and his friends, Li Shen and Bai Juyi, all approved of this innovation, and thus they ceased borrowing ancient titles and composed New Music Bureau poems, treating it as a new poetic genre.19 These poems emerged in response to a combination of factors. On the one hand, there had been efforts to use poetry to show social consciousness since Chen Zi’ang (661–702), an early Tang scholar generally considered a pivotal figure in transforming the literary atmosphere passed down from the Six Dynasties (XTS, 107.4078). On the other, there was a perceived need to reform literary practices to make them beneficial to governance. Last, there was also a personal need on the part of some poets to recommend themselves to the emperor; this was especially true in the case of Yuan Zhen, although not of the more established Bai Juyi. By gaining the emperor’s attention, they could exercise their talents and skills to realize their goal of assisting in governance. New Music Bureau poetry was thus part of the literati’s quest to transform politics and society through literature. This poetic genre is termed “new,” as opposed to the traditional Music Bureau poetry that could be traced to the Han dynasty. The Music Bureau was an institution reoriented and reformed by Emperor Wu of Han (r. 140 BCE–87 BCE) to encompass the emperor’s personal preference for popular secular music;20 presumably folk songs were thus collected for performance at sacrificial ceremonies.21 These songs were ultimately perceived as a reflection of the commoners’ lives and emotions that could be used as a reference for governance, as their content concerned ordinary people. Music Bureau poetry thus had a tradition of being treated as an indicator of the performance of the ruling house (Han shu, 30.1756). In literary history, the anonymous Music Bureau poems were traditionally treated as folk songs put to music, often described as “ballads,” with irregular length and simple language. Charles H. Egan has argued forcefully against the idea that they were composed in performance by unlettered folk using formulaic language.22 He challenged their folk song provenance, pointing out that poems that were orally transmitted were not necessarily composed orally and that the stylistic difference between some anonymous and most authored Music Bureau poems was a result of differing functions of poetry, one performative and the other written.23 Music Bureau poetry eventually became a poetic genre between the fourth and sixth centuries, fully four hundred years after the end of the Music Bureau in the Han (Allen, 50). From that point, written works by literati became the mainstream. Literati made changes to the original format and themes of Music Bureau poetry when they wrote imitation pieces, causing the poetic genre to change diachronically. While the imitation poems that were not used in ritual ceremonies were almost never tied to music, they were still classified as Music Bureau poetry so long as they were written using the same titles, content, or even style of the presumed folk songs. The most perplexing question that revolves around Music Bureau poetry is its connection to music. Since the music that accompanied the poems can no longer be reconstructed, titles and 156

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content have become the major standard for scholars to determine whether a poem was a Music Bureau poem or not. However, the diachronic changes within the genre described previously again cause problems in using these as classifiers. Joseph Allen thus proposed the use of intra-texts as a method for differentiating Music Bureau poems. He suggested that a Music Bureau poem should either draw basic materials (such as language or images) from the previous corpus of Music Bureau poetry or should be recognized as joining that corpus as literati of later generations imitated it. He therefore identifies Music Bureau poetry as a genre that is centered on poems of thematic imitation or intratextuality (Allen, 37–68). This resonance with the previous corpus of Music Bureau poems was precisely what confined the development of the genre. Yuan Zhen criticized this trend of hewing closely to the original Music Bureau poems without any new creation. He pointed out that Music Bureau poetry was similar to the airs and odes of the Songs that indirectly criticized contemporary affairs and evoked feelings towards them for people of later generations. In the best imitation poems, even though poets might write on the ancient titles, these new creations would contain commentary on current issues. The poems thus still demonstrated the principle of using ancient events to indirectly evaluate the present. He held that only some poems of Cao Cao (155–220), Liu Zhen (d. 217), Shen Yue (441–513), and Bao Zhao (ca. 414–466) reached this standard. In Tang times, only Du Fu was able to devise new titles for Music Bureau poems and imbue them with the idea of “indirect social criticism” (feng). All the ballads that he wrote were named after events he encountered and no longer referred to ancient titles (YZJJZ, 2:23.674). The resemblance of Yuan and Bai’s New Music Bureau poetry to the original Han and immediate post-Han corpus lies solely in the poets’ intent to make it a thermometer of society and Tang people. Both Yuan and Bai claimed that they intended to address contemporary affairs in hopes that the emperor and their superiors would heed them and make changes to their policies accordingly. While Yuan pointed out that New Music Bureau poetry contained similar political values as had the Songs, Bai went a step further to format his poems according to the received edition of the text.24 Bai Juyi’s New Music Bureau poems are celebrated for their simple and direct style, to the point that even the elderly and women could understand them. His poems are also composed of lines of different lengths, with a change of rhyme category within a single poem and a repeated use of certain rhyme words between poems, showing signs of influence from folk songs that circulated orally and a possible connection to music.25 In contrast, Yuan’s poems are considered abstruse and diffuse, overloaded with historical and literary allusions.26 The poems are pentasyllabic and use the rhyme words from the same or neighboring rhyme categories within a single poem, with no repeated use of rhyme words between poems. Their different styles are indicative of their different goals of writing. Bai used plain language to encourage circulation and so create social pressure for those with power to take heed of the poems’ critique. Yuan, however, used erudite language to present his advice on state affairs, with the target reader being the emperor or the ministers. Yuan’s “Shangyang baifaren” (The white-haired women of Shangyang Palace), for example, demonstrates how he seamlessly incorporates various apparently unconnected ideas by using the central idea of “seclusion.” While this poem has been criticized as incoherent, it is a deliberate, two-pronged argument for the enfeoffment of princes.27 Its unique features stand out when compared with Bai’s poem of the same title, which focuses on “sympathy towards unwanted women” (BJYJJJ, 1:3.156). Likewise, both men wrote poems entitled “Yinshan dao” (Yin Mountain Route) to comment on the causes of the shortage of silk. Different from Bai, who wrote his poem “to express his aversion to avaricious barbarians” (BJYJJJ, 1:4.231), whom he held responsible for manipulating the horse-silk trade, Yuan pointed to the political, social, and economic problems of 157

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the mid-Tang. He argued that the shortage was primarily caused by the corrupt bureaucracy rather than the Uighurs.28 These examples show that Yuan often went deeper, to discuss the background of a contemporary affair and/or to offer his views on administration. This supports his declaration that he chose to respond only to issues of pressing concern (YZJJZ, 2:24.717–18), that is, issues that directly concerned the central government. Yuan’s poems are widely believed to have been written in 809, but according to Shizunaga Takeshi’s study, they were likely written sometime between the twelfth month of 808 and the first month of 809 as a form of self-promotion, not long before Yuan was appointed supervising censor.29 Although this set of poems was written in response to Li Shen, Yuan was using them not simply as response poems but rather as memorials to the throne and a call for recognition. Yuan carefully selected titles that were beneficial for presenting his views on governance, thus paving a path for his return to court after observing the three-year mourning rite. In comparison, Bai was already serving as an academician between 807 and 811 and so taking part in the writing of imperial documents, which means that he already had close contact with the emperor. There was thus no urgent need for him to use these poems to impress the emperor with his literary talent. Rather, he used them as a means to speak up for commoners, sounding the alarm for the emperor to improve his rule. The different features between the works of Yuan and Bai show that the “New Music Bureau Poetry Movement,” as literary history has called it, is probably a misnomer; there was no single guiding set of principles for composition. In literary history, Bai’s poems have had a larger impact and been received more favorably. Each focuses on one theme that clearly stands out, concluding with a key message that often evokes the reader’s sympathy regarding the unreasonable phenomenon described. The poem “Xinfeng zhebi weng” (An old man with a broken arm) criticizes the engagement in battles. It narrates the story of an eighty-eight-year-old man who confessed that he had broken his arm on purpose sixty-four years ago to avoid being enlisted. Even though he had suffered gravely since then, he regretted nothing. “Hongxian tan” (A red-thread carpet) calls attention to the exploitation of weavers, who were forced to weave carpets instead of clothing, causing many to suffer from cold. The concluding couplet states, “The floor does not feel the cold but people need warmth; snatch no more the clothes of people to make clothing for the floor.” “Maitan weng” (An old man selling coal) criticizes palace marketing, which refers to the eunuchs who seized merchandise in the name of the emperor and gave only symbolic payment. This poem focuses on the psychology of the old man who relied on charcoal making to earn a living and how he wished for cold weather even though he did not have enough warm attire. But in the end, his coal was taken away by the eunuchs with slim payment. These three poems are representative examples concerning the lives of commoners; the injustice they describe still strikes a chord regardless of time and space. This probably accounts for their long-lasting impact, as well as their incorporation into textbooks, where they serve to remind the next generations of the importance of proper governance and of cultivating a humane spirit. Bai and Yuan were collaborators in literary innovation; they challenged each other to achieve new heights in a range of textual forms, from official documents to literary compositions, changing the literary landscape of their time and showcasing the aesthetic and political effects of the pen. Their lifelong friendship has left us many paired works and much correspondence that are considered fine literature. Their sympathy in art and politics nurtured their friendship and found its way into their compositions, although in their literary practice each displayed distinct features of his own; their individual greatness was increased by their creative synergy. As Bai Juyi wrote in his poem “Zeng Yuan Zhen” (For Yuan Zhen), “What we converge in is that of the heart; our disposition does not differ” (BJYJJJ, 1:1.20–21). 158

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Notes 1 See Gao Cheng (fl. 1078), Shiwu jiyuan (Records of the Origins of Things), ed. Li Guo (Ming dynasty), punc. and coll. Jin Yuan and Xu Peizao (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1989), 3.156. Fish-shaped tablets or tallies were a sign of office or status and a form of identification used to gain entrance to the palace. The bags in which they were contained likewise differed with rank. 2 “Yuan Zhen zhuan” [Biography of Yuan Zhen], in Liu Xu (887–946) et al., comp., Jiu Tang shu [Old History of the Tang] (1975; rpt., Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2002), 166.4327 (hereafter JTS); “Yuan Zhen zhuan,” in Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) and Song Qi (998–1061), comp., Xin Tang shu [New History of the Tang] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), 174.5223 (hereafter XTS); Bian Xiaoxuan, Yuan Zhen nianpu [Chronology of the life of Yuan Zhen] (Ji’nan: Qi-Lu shushe, 1980), 3. 3 The JTS suggests that he began attempting the “Presented Scholar” examination in 798, but he only passed it in 800. See “Bai Juyi zhuan” [Biography of Bai Juyi], in JTS, 166.4340; Hanabusa Hideki, “Haku Kyo’i nenpu kō” [A Draft Chronology of the Life of Bai Juyi], The Scientific Report of Kyoto Prefectural University (Humanities) 14 (October 1962): 27–41; 30. 4 From post-Han regimes to the end of Qing, a system of gradations called the Nine Ranks was used to designate official appointments. In English-language scholarship, these are often indicated by numbers (1 being the highest and 9 the lowest), with each divided into two grades, classes, or degrees, upper and lower, rendered as a and b respectively. For one further level of gradation, numbers 1 and 2 are used after a and b. See Charles O. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1985), 5. For the ranking, see Li Linfu (d. 752), Tang liudian [Six Canons of the Tang], punc. and coll. Chen Zhongfu (1992; rpt., Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2008), 10.302. 5 The JTS mentions eighteen candidates who passed. The Tang huiyao [Institutions and Regulations of the Tang Dynasty], however, only has sixteen. “Yuan Zhen zhuan,” in JTS, 166.4327; Wang Fu (922–982), Tang huiyao (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1955), 76.1389–90. 6 The JTS mentions that he was appointed right remonstrator, while the XTS says that he was appointed left remonstrator. “Yuan Zhen zhuan,” in JTS, 166.4327; “Yuan Zhen zhuan,” in XTS, 174.5223. According to Yuan, he was appointed left remonstrator. Yuan, “Tongzhou Cishi xieshang biao” [Memorial Expressing Gratitude to the Emperor by the Prefect of Tongzhou], in Zhou Xianglu, coll. and annot., Yuan Zhen ji jiaozhu [Collected Works of Yuan Zhen with Collation and Annotations], 3 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai shiji chuban and Shanghai guji, 2011), Vol. 2, 33.914 (hereafter YZJJZ). 7 Bai, “Lun Yuan Zhen disanzhuang” [The Third Complaint Concerning Yuan Zhen’s Case], in Zhu Jincheng, annot., Bai Juyi ji jianjiao [Collected Works of Yuan Zhen with Commentaries and Collation] (1988; rpt., Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2003), Vol. 6, 59.3360–61 (hereafter BJYJJJ). 8 The assassins were sent by Li Shidao (d. 819), military governor of Pinglu (covering parts of modern Hebei and Liaoning). Sima Guang (1019–1086), Zizhi tongjian [Historical Events Retold as a Mirror of Government], annot. Hu Sanxing (1230–1302) (1956; rpt., Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2005), 239.7713–15. 9 Yuan’s appointment as vice director of the Section for Sacrifices and his probational period as “participant in the drafting of proclamations” are detailed by Zhou Xianglu, Yuan Zhen nianpu xinbian [New Chronology of the Life of Yuan Zhen] (Shanghai: Shiji chuban jituan and Shanghai guji, 2004), 179–80. 10 For Yuan’s relationship with the group of eunuchs led by Cui Tanjun, see Fu Shaolei, “Lun huanguan neizheng yu Yuan Zhen jiqi zhigao gaige” [On the Power Struggle of Eunuchs and the Revolution of Yuan Zhen’s Imperial Documents], Xinan jiaotong daxue xuebao (shehui kexue ban) 10, no. 5 (October 2009): 52–60. 11 “Zhi guan” [Official Positions], in Du You (735–812), Tong dian [Complete Canons], Vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2003), 21.564. 12 From Xianzong’s establishment of the title of Hanlin academician recipient of edicts until Yizong’s reign (859–73), 58 percent of the recipients eventually became chief minister. See Cen Zhongmian, Langguan shizhu timing xinkaoding [New Textual Research into Name Inscriptions on the Stone Tablets of Directors of Department of State Affairs] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1984), 483. 13 Lai Swee Fo points out that chief minister was a kind of commissioner appointed by the emperor, which explains the flexibility in the use of various official titles to designate it. See Lai Swee Fo, “Tangdai zaixiang de shizhi tezheng he minghao” [The Chief Ministers in Tang China: Their Nature as Commissioners and Their Official Titles], Zhonghua wenshi luncong 3 (2014): 229–54; abstract in 395–96. 14 See this expression in Stephen Owen, The End of the Chinese “Middle Ages”: Essays in Mid-Tang Literary Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996).

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 15 For Yuan’s comment on Yuanhe-style poetry, see “Shang Linghu Xianggong shi qi” [Preface on Presenting Poetry to Chief Minister Linghu], in juan 2 of the extended addendum in YZJJZ, 3, 1450–51. Li Zhao (fl. 813) treats it as the general term for the composite literature of the Yuanhe era; see his Xinjiao Tang guoshi bu [Supplement to the National History of the Tang with New Collation] (Taipei: Shijie shuju, 1962), 57. As Shields points out, the term is used solely in the post-Tang era to describe the poetry of Yuan and Bai, as it is inadequate to fully encompass the many styles, forms, and writers found in the Yuanhe period. See Anna M. Shields, “From Literati Gossip to Intellectual History: Shifting Views on Yuanhe Culture in Tang Anecdote Collections,” Studies in Chinese History (Chūgoku shigaku) 20 (2011): 1–27; 6–9. 16 There are three rhyme words that do not match exactly with the extant version of Bai’s poem. The 37th couplet has kui 闚 (to catch a glimpse of) instead of kui 窺 (to catch a glimpse of), but this is likely a variant. The 59th couplet has si 斯 instead of zi 茲, and the 87th couplet has zi 茲 instead of si 斯. Since both words carry the same meaning here, the mismatch in order is likely due to textual transmission. 17 See Soushen houji [Supplement to in Search of the Supernatural], comm. Wang Shaoying, in Soushen ji [In Search of the Supernatural] and Soushen houji (Taipei: Muduo chubanshe, 1985), 59. Biyu was the Prince of Runan’s concubine, who had a humble origin. See “Biyu ge” [Songs of Biyu], in Guo Maoqian (fl. 1084), Yuefu shiji [Collection of Music Bureau Poetry], 4 vols. (1979; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998), 45.663–64. 18 See BJYJJ, Vol. 1, 3.156; Wang Shiyi, “Yuan Zhen zhuyao jiaoyoukao (shang)” [Examination on Yuan Zhen’s Main Circle of Friends (first section)], Ningxia daxue xuebao (shehui kexue ban), 1 (1983): 41–51, 42–43. 19 It was not until 817 that Yuan wrote Ancient Music Bureau poetry in response to the related works of Liu Meng (fl. 817) and Li Yu (fl. 817), which he considered innovative in meaning and language. See his preface to “Yuefu,” in YZJJZ, Vol. 2, 23.673–74. For the definition of New Music Bureau poems, see Ge Xiaoyin, 161–73. 20 See Anne Birrell, “Balladry and Popular Song,” in The Columbia History of Chinese Literature, ed. Victor H. Mair (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 953–63, 953. Wang Yunxi proposes that this musical institution was established in 117 BCE. See Wang Yunxi, “Han Wu shi li Yuefu shuo” [On the Saying that It Was Emperor Wu of Han Who Established the Music Bureau], in Wang Yunxi, Yuefu shi shulun [Discussion on Music Bureau Poetry] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2006), 192–94. 21 “Liyue zhi,” in Ban Gu (32–92), Han shu, 12 vols. (1962; rpt. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2002), 22.1045; Wang Rubi suggests that Emperor Wu had the Music Bureau established to provide the court with folk songs to enjoy. Wang Rubi, Yuefu sanlun [Essays on Music Bureau Poetry] (Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1984), 4. 22 See Charles Egan, “Were Yüeh-fu Ever Folk Songs? Reconsidering the Relevance of Oral Theory and Balladry Analogies,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 22 (December 2000): 31–66. 23 See Charles Egan, “Reconsidering the Role of Folk Songs in Pre-T’ang ‘Yüeh-fu’ Development,” T’oung Pao, 2nd series, 86, Fasc. 1/3 (2000): 47–99. 24 Chen Yinke noted that the manner in which Bai titled his New Music Bureau poems with the beginning words of his poem is an imitation of the Songs. See Chen Yinke, Yuan Bai shi jianzheng gao [Draft Commentaries and Collation of Yuan and Bai Poetry] (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2001), 124. 25 For the argument about how Bai’s New Music Bureau poems are connected to music, see Wong Yiu Kwan, “Yinyue yu fengci—Xin Yuefu kao (qi yi)” [Music and Satire—A Study of New Music Bureau Poetry], Tangdai wenxue yanjiu (October 1994): 630–42. 26 Chen Yinke disparages Yuan’s poems for their lack of a centripetal theme, especially in comparison with Bai’s more direct and focused poems. See Chen, Yuan Bai shi jianzheng gao, 121–308. 27 Mei Ah Tan, “New Music Bureau Poetry as Memorial: The True Significance of Yuan Zhen’s ‘Shangyang baifa ren,’” Tang Studies 35, no. 1 (December 2017): 87–108. 28 Mei Ah Tan, “Exonerating the Horse Trade for the Shortage of Silk: Yuan Zhen’s ‘Yin Mountain Route,’” Journal of Chinese Studies 57 (July 2013): 49–96. 29 See Shizunaga Takeshi, Haku Kyo’i “fūyushi” no kenkyū [A Study of Bai Juyi’s ‘Satirical Poems’] (Tokyo: Bensei shuppan, 2000), 136.

Further Reading Allen, Joseph R. In the Voice of Others: Chinese Music Bureau Poetry. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, 1992.

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Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen Chen Yinke. Yuan Bai shi jianzheng gao [Draft Commentaries and Collation of Yuan and Bai Poetry]. Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2001. DeBlasi, Anthony. Reform in the Balance: The Defense of Literary Culture in Mid-Tang China. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Egan, Charles H. “Reconsidering the Role of Folk Songs in Pre-T’ang ‘Yüeh-fu’ Development.” T’oung Pao, 2nd series, 86, Fasc. 1/3 (2000): 47–99. Egan, Charles H. “Were Yüeh-fu Ever Folk Songs? Reconsidering the Relevance of Oral Theory and Balladry Analogies.” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 22 (December 2000): 31–66. Fan Shufen. Yuan Zhen ji qi Yuefu shi yanjiu [A Study of Yuan Zhen and His Yuefu Poetry]. Taipei: Wenjin chubanshe, 1984. Frankle, Hans H. “Yueh-fu Poetry.” In Studies in Chinese Literary Genres, edited by Cyril Birch, 69–107. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1974. Ge Xiaoyin. “Xin Yuefu de yuanqi he jieding” [The Origin and Definition of New Music Bureau Poetry]. Zhongguo shehui kexue, no. 3 (1993): 161–73. Guo Maoqian (fl. 1084). Yuefu shiji [Collection of Music Bureau Poetry]. 4 vols. 1979; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998. Hanabusa Hideki and Maegawa Yukio. Gen Shin kenkyū [A Study of Yuan Zhen]. Kyoto: Ibundō shoten, 1977. Liao Meiyun. Yuan Bai Xin Yuefu yanjiu [A Study of Yuan and Bai’s New Yuefu Poetry]. Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1989. Shields, Anna M. One Who Knows Me: Friendship and Literary Culture in Mid-Tang China. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2015. Shizunaga Takeshi. Haku Kyo’i “fūyushi” no kenkyū [A Study of Bai Juyi’s “Satirical Poetry”]. Tokyo: Bensei shuppan, 2000. Tan Mei Ah. “Exonerating the Horse Trade for the Shortage of Silk: Yuan Zhen’s ‘Yin Mountain Route.’” Journal of Chinese Studies 57 (July 2013): 49–96. Tan Mei Ah. “New Music Bureau Poetry as Memorial: The True Significance of Yuan Zhen’s ‘Shangyang baifa ren.’” Tang Studies 35, no. 1 (December 2017): 87–108. Wang Ao. “The Fashioning of a Poetic Genius: Yuan Zhen and Mid-Tang Imperial Culture.” PhD diss., Yale University, 2008. Wong Yiu Kwan. “Yinyue yu fengci—Xin Yuefu kao (qi yi)” [Music and Irony—An investigation of the New Music Bureau Poetry (I)]. Tangdai wenxue yanjiu (October 1994): 630–42. Zhang Yu. Xin Yuefu ci yanjiu [A Study of the New Music Bureau Poetry]. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2009.

*This research was funded by the Faculty Development Scheme of the HKSAR government as part of the project, “Yuan Zhen’s New Music Bureau Poetry as Memorial to the Throne: Music and Ritual as Means of Governance” (UGC/FDS14/H06/19).

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SECTION V

Poetry of Late Tang

13 LI HE Lucas Klein and Kexin Tang

Canonical literature stands, we like to tell ourselves, the test of time. But there is no test of time, just different tests in different times and places, and few poets demonstrate this as well as late Tang poet Li He (c. 790–c. 816). In his life he had been sponsored by no less a figure than Han Yu (768–824); some of the earliest writings about him were by late Tang luminaries Du Mu (803–852) and Li Shangyin (813–858), and, according to his friend Shen Yazhi (781–832), after his death “later learned men strove to imitate Li He, stitching and unstitching his phrases so they could sell their copies at a good price.”1 But not a single poem of his was included in the famous anthology The Three Hundred Tang Poems (1763), the primer that by the twentieth century had come to define the canon of Tang poetry in China and around the world. More recently, however, he has regained prominence, in large part a testament to the power of translation targeting audiences with tastes very different from what had become standard in China in the dynasties after Li He. Li He already represented a divergent style in his own life: “Li He was known from his own age onwards,” Robert Ashmore writes, “as a writer who pressed language to, and at times beyond, its conventional limits.”2 J. D. Frodsham has noted that much of premodern Chinese literature is what Nietzsche would have called Apollonian, rather than Dionysian—but even within China’s Dionysian tradition, Li He was hard to make sense of.3 In his preface, the first attempt to place Li He’s poetry in literary history, Du Mu compares Li He to Qu Yuan (c. 300 bce), the bronze-age poet who took hallucinogenic drugs and wrote The Elegies of Chu (Chu ci).4 But the comparison does not work in Li He’s favor: He is in the tradition of the Li Sao. Even though he does not come up to it in high seriousness he sometimes surpasses it in expression. The Li Sao is full of resentment and criticism of the rule and misrule of princes and ministers. Often it goads men into thought; though this quality is sometimes lacking in He’s work.5 Li He was hard to quantify, so best to qualify him as “novel,” “unconventional,” “strange” (qi).6 But then, how do we read that strangeness?

 DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-19

Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature

Premodern Chinese Receptions of Li He The strangeness made him hard to place in Tang and Song China’s efforts to anthologize, and therefore canonize, Tang poetry. He has only one poem in the extant Tang anthologies, in Wei Hu’s Tones of Genius (Caidiao ji; compiled during the Later Shu dynasty, 934–966)—where he is one of about seventy poets represented by but one poem in over 1000 in the anthology, in contrast to dozens of poems by the now-canonical late Tang poets Du Mu, Li Shangyin, Wen Tingyun (c. 812–866), and Wei Zhuang (c. 836–910). He was included in two Song anthologies, Blossoms in the Garden of Literature (Wenyuan yinghua, 986) and Essential Tang Writing (Tang wencui; comp. Yao Xuan, 967–1020), yet his poems were not selected in Song anthologies that collected poems of Li He’s contemporaries, such as Selections of Poems by A Hundred Tang Poets (Tang baijia shixuan; Wang Anshi (1021–1086)). A few Ming anthologies, such as Assorted Collection of Tang Poetry (Tangshi pinhui; Gao Bing, 1350–1423) and Tang Poetry as a Mirror (Tangshi jing; Lu Shiyong, c.1588–c.1640), did include his poems, but his style was still criticized harshly by other Ming poets. Even the compiler of Tang Poetry as a Mirror, Lu Shiyong, complained that Li He was an enchanting spirit (yao) who had not “entered the Great Way.”7 This defines Li He’s reputation for most of imperial China. One of the most authoritative Qing anthologies, Another Cut of Tang Poetry (Tangshi biecai ji; Shen Deqian, 1673–1769), includes ten of his poems, out of the nearly 2000 poems by roughly 270 poets total (roughly 400 are by Li Bai and Du Fu alone). Circulation was also a problem for Li He’s poetry. The New History of the Tang notes that “there were dozens of yuefu [‘music bureau’] poems . . . but his fellow travelers Quan Qu, Yang Jingzhi, and Wang Gongyuan would often take his poems for themselves as soon as he had composed them. And Li He died young, so not many of his songs and poems were transmitted.”8 Then again, Southern Song poet Liu Kezhuang (1187–1269) argued, Li He’s are the best among yuefu . . . but his complete works fill only one small volume, and it was said that his cousin was so jealous of his fame that he threw his collection into a pigpen—so what has been passed down is extremely limited. I for one think differently. The truly magnificent in heaven and earth is hard to come by, not to mention fine lines. If Li He’s collection hadn’t met with the misfortune of being thrown into a pigpen, it could never have been so exquisite as what we have now. I think the selection of Li He’s works was done by his own hand.9 Either way, however, the accepted notion was that only a portion of his works survived. So Li He was never written out of the canon completely, but he seems to haunt it rather than to be fully present in it. We count at least nine annotated editions of Li He’s poetry put together in imperial China: scholars couldn’t stop paying attention, trying to figure him out.10 Because of a common preoccupation in his poetry with ghosts, Li He’s strangeness became associated with the ghostly—a particularly non-Confucian association (“The Master said, ‘While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve their spirits?’”), Song critics Qian Yi (968–1026) and Song Qi (998–1061) called him a “ghostly genius” (guicai), contrasting him with Li Bai, the “immortal” (xiancai) or “heavenly genius” (tiancai).11 Yan Yu (1191–c. 1248) revised this to state that Li He wrote “the words of a ghostly immortal” (guixian zhici), while Li Bai’s were the “words of a heavenly immortal” (tianxian zhici).12 He was even more Dionysian than the Dionysians. He wasn’t excluded from The Three Hundred Tang Poems because he was unknown but “because you didn’t want your kids to read him,” Paul Rouzer explains; “he was a disreputable model, a poet who was somehow unhealthy.”13

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Narrations of Li He's Life He was, in fact, unhealthy. He died at only twenty-six (twenty-seven by the old Chinese way of counting). He was a distant descendant of the Tang imperial family, and his father, Li Jinsu, had once served as the Shaan district magistrate (shanxianling). His father died before Li He reached adulthood at the age of twenty, however, so Li He, as the eldest son, traveled to the eastern capital of Luoyang in 808, eager to make a name for himself. There he met Han Yu and Huangfu Shi (777–835), who would become his sponsors. He passed the Henan provincial examination the following year, but when he was about to take the jinshi examination, he was slandered by claims that his earning such a degree would violate the taboo against using his father’s name, because of the homophony between the jin of jinshi and that in Jinsu. Han Yu wrote an essay to defend Li He, “Clarifying Taboo Names” (huibian), but it was no use: Li He was not allowed to take the exam. Via yin privilege, or legacy or hereditary right, Li He was granted a position as supervisor of ritual (fengli lang) in the Court of Imperial Sacrifices (Zongmiao) at the ninth degree, third class—but he resigned three years later, possibly due to illness and presumably to dissatisfaction as well. He returned home to Changgu, then tried to restart an official career in military service in Luzhou, but he gained no significant recognition there, either. After three years, he fell ill again, returned to Changgu, and died shortly after. It is unclear whether he was married, but he did not have any sons.14 The most revered biography, Li Shangyin’s, emphasizes Li He’s misfortunes, ending with a heavenly appeal for more fairness in the world: Li He lived for twenty-four [sic.] years, his rank never passing that of supervisor of ritual in the Court of Imperial Sacrifices. He was rejected, slandered, and excluded by the men of his day. Then why is it that for those with talent and genius, only the Heavenly Emperor values them, while they get scorned by humanity? How could people see better than the Heavenly Emperor?15 As Margaret Tudor South has noticed, such accounts give us “what may be called a ‘romantic image’ of the poet,” which “conforms in almost every particular to a favorite Western tradition that poets are poor, unrecognized and die in garrets.”16 She herself has written “an ‘unromantic image’ . . . relate[d] more to his milieu and his place in it than to the man himself,” but the coherence with Western romantic images is important to the vicissitudes of Li He’s reputation. Where the biography is more “Chinese,” from our point of view today, it is no less involved in border-crossings. His death is narrated in the supernatural terms of Daoism. Li Shangyin, again: When Li He was about to die, he saw a man wearing dark red in broad daylight, his carriage drawn by scarlet dragons, carrying a tablet on which was written a summons in ancient seal script, or else in thunderstone calligraphy—at any rate Li He could not read it. Abruptly he got out of bed and kowtowed, saying, “My mother is old and sick; I won’t leave her.” The man in dark red laughed, replying, “The Heavenly Emperor has completed the White Jade Pavilion. He is summoning you to compose an account, immediately. In heaven work is delightful, not arduous.” Li He wept, and everyone around him saw it. Not long after, his breathing stopped. In the windows of his room a fine mist rose, and the sounds of a carriage and harmonious flutes could be heard. His mother tried to keep everyone from crying, but in the time that it would take to steam five pecks of millet, Li He finally died.17

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Li Shangyin’s account of Li He’s early death resonates with the Daoism-infused mysticism of Li He’s own poetry, with its striking depictions of the celestial realm and contemplation of immortality-seeking emperors (and its motifs of the search for immortality more generally).18

Alignments of Li He and His Style More interesting and relevant than Li He’s title and whether he was robbed of a chance to take the imperial exams, or even than his death, is what Li Shangyin’s biography says of his personality and approach to poetry. He would never write a poem according to a pre-assigned topic, the way others—contem‑ plating connections and following prescribed forms. He was always followed by a young slave on a large donkey, an old brocade sack slung over his shoulder. Whenever he came upon something of value, he’d write it down and toss it in the sack. Returning home in the evening, his mother would send a maid to retrieve the sack. She would take out the writings, see how much he’d written, and say, “My son won’t stop until he’s puked his heart out!” With the lamp lit and food before him, Li He would take his writings from the maid, then grind enough ink and fold enough paper to finish them—only to toss them in another bag. Unless he were really drunk or in mourning, this was basically how it went. And once he had finished something, he’d never revisit it.19 Michael B. Fish points out that this “fable” of how Li He composed his poems, “fed by the seeming disjointedness” of his verses, suggesting “that they are no more than strung together because they are too good to throw away,” “either originated or was formalized here by Li Shang-yin.”20 Stephen Owen says Li Shangyin’s passage “reflects the values of the 830s,” where “poetry is not a consequence of experience of the world” (in contrast, per Owen, with most other periods in premodern China).21 Paul Rouzer has described the sensation as realizing “that these mysterious poems are not concealing a secret narrative; rather, mystery itself is the narrative.”22 Readers of contemporary Chinese literature will recognize a similar trait in the work of Duo Duo (b. 1951) or Can Xue (b. 1953). Of course, that is also what John Keats called “Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being both in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”23 What strikes us today is Li He’s uniqueness, his expressivity, his cavalier romantic aestheticism. The intonations of the “ ‘romantic image’ of the poet,” mentioned by South, are relevant here. Li He’s short life reminds many of Keats himself, the English Romantic poet who died of tuberculosis at twenty-five. Li He’s bag of scraps of poems sounds like James Joyce carrying “dozens of small slips of paper in his wallet and loose in his pockets to make small notes,” as his biographer Richard Ellmann has explained. “When he had filled up the front and back of these, he continued to write on them diagonally. At home he would decipher his notes with a magnifying glass, a hint of what he had written being usually enough.”24 (At one point, “Joyce announced proudly that the unused notes [to Ulysses] weighed twelve kilos”).25 In fact, the comparative impulse is behind much of Li He’s twentieth-century canonization via translation: in the last century substantial and influential translations of his work into English have appeared by scholars A. C. Graham (1965), J. D. Frodsham (1970, 1983), and Robert Ashmore (2023), as well as second-degree translations by American poet David Young (1990) and New Zealand poet Mike Johnson (2006), all following an initial batch of translations by a Ho Chih-yuan in Robert Payne’s anthology White Pony (1947).26 Nearly everyone mentions some figure from nineteenth- or twentieth-century European and/or American poetry whom they think might be helpful in placing Li He for the reader in translation—and 168

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in translating him toward them. Paul Kroll has called him the “Chinese [Stéphane] Mallarmé.”27 Graham compares him to Charles Baudelaire, Frodsham to the French Symbolists.28 Ho says he “had something of Baudelaire’s satanism and talked to ghosts.”29 Johnson says “Li He’s poems have the density of Emily Dickinson, the searing sarcasm of Bob Dylan, the sensitivity of John Keats, the decadence of Baudelaire and the hermetic mysticism of W. B. Yeats—and yet can be defined by none of these comparisons.”30 Rouzer mentions that he first fell in love with Li He’s “anguish, his visionary nihilism, and, above all, his tragic early death (probably from that most romantic illness, tuberculosis)” at a time in his life when he was “drunk on [Arthur] Rimbaud and Patti Smith”—and he later compares him to the figure of the “doomed young artist like [Ernest] Dowson or Rimbaud or [Georg] Trakl (or [Jimi] Hendrix or [Kurt] Cobain).”31 Ashmore refrains from overt comparisons, but, reading Li He in terms of the song lyric (ci) tradition, contextualizes the comparisons of his fellow translators by noting that “when Ezra Pound wanted to illustrate his theory of Chinese and Japanese poetry as ‘imagistic,’ the poem he chose to make the point was a yuefu composition” by Li Bai.32 Of course, readers of Chinese literature in the Anglophone context once could be expected to be better versed in Euro-American poetry than they might be today, but only David Young, of all people, seems to call these comparisons into question: “it may well be Western tastes and interests that have helped to promote a greater admiration for Li Ho’s work in this century.”33 Whether Western taste is responsible for a rise in interest in Li He, the translators have indeed adopted more recent Euro-American literary techniques for the translation of his work. Ho notes that “Chinese critics are fond of comparing him with Keats,” but instead of Romanticism, most translators have taken advantage of Modernism and Postmodernism for bringing him into English—the techniques Paul Hoover describes as involving “a poetics standoff . . . between the ghost (the human figure, myth, and song) and the machine (structure, method, and wit).”34 Consider the translations of the first stanza of this striking poem: Ho Chih-yuan:

A. C. Graham:

長平箭頭歌

Song of The Arrowhead35

漆灰骨末丹 水沙

An Arrowhead Song of an Arrowhead from the ancient from Chang-ping37 Battlefield of Ch’ang-p’ing36 Lacquer dust and Flakes of lacquer, dust powdered bone of bones, and red cinnabar Red cinnabar, grains:

The arrowhead mingled with black ash, brown powdered bones, watery reddish stains; And cold is the From the spurt of ancient blood that ancient blood resembles green the bronze has flowers flowered. The white feather on White feathers and the rigid stem has gilt shaft have rotted in the rain. melted away in the rain, There is only the Leaving only this wedge-shaped triple-cornered arrowhead like a broken wolf’s wolf’s tooth tooth.

淒淒古血生 銅花

白翎金簳雨 中盡

直餘三脊殘 狼牙

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J. D. Frodsham:

Robert Ashmore: Song of an Arrowhead at Changping38 Laquer [sic.] ash, bone powder, cinnabar grain:

The ancient blood once in chilly gloom, ancient spurted forth blood has flowered in And bore bronze the bronze. flowers. White feathers and its White plumes and metal metal stem shaft have vanished in Have rotted in the rain. the rain, Only the three spines leaving just this threestill remain, spined broken-off Broken teeth of a wolf. wolf-fang.

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The dramatic diction (“rigid stem,” “gilt shaft,” or “metal stem” that have “rotted” or “melted,” the “wedge-shaped,” “triple-cornered,” or “three spines” of the “broken-off wolf-fang” or “broken teeth of a wolf”) could be from Hart Crane or Basil Bunting; the quick cuts and sharp juxtapositions mimic what was introduced to literature with motion pictures in the early twentieth century. Romanticism returns only with the second-degree translations by poets David Young and Mike Johnson, who give a more legible closure to the end of the poem. Compare Ho Chih-yuan:

A. C. Graham:

J. D. Frodsham:

Robert Ashmore:

訪古汍瀾 收斷鏃

A long while ago I held up the iron arrowhead with tears.

In tears, seeker of ancient things, I picked up this broken barb

In tears I sought this ancient field, Picked up a broken arrow,

折鋒赤璺 曾刲肉

The once-red broken head had once pierced someone’s flesh.

Its shattered point, scarlet and cracked, Once drove through flesh.

南陌東城 馬上兒

In the south village east of the city a boy on horseback

勸我將金 換簝竹

Begged me to buy fresh bamboos and furnish him with this arrowhead

With snapped point and russet flaws, which once pierced through flesh. In the east quarter on South Street a pedlar on horseback Talked me into bartering the metal for a votive basket.

My call paid on antiquity, streaming with tears I kept this snapped off barb: broken edges and red fissures that once clove flesh.

In South Street, by the eastern wall, A lad on horseback Urged me to exchange the metal For a votive-basket.

to Young:39 I like to find old things and I picked up that arrowhead in tears, that broken point that buried itself once, in human flesh but I traded it later to a boy on horseback in the southeast quarter who begged me to have it and gave me a new bamboo basket or Johnson:40 always seeking old things, face screwed up with tears I scored this severed barb on a battlefield crooked point crimson splintered once shafted human flesh later, on South Street, some sharp kid 170

On the southern lane in the eastern city a youngster on horseback urged me to take gold to buy bamboo for a shaft.

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tries to trade it for the simple votive baskets the pious weave to pay homage to fallen warriors Mike Johnson has written, “So far Li He has been translated primarily for scholarly purposes” (9). This is not only not true, it is strikingly wrong: not only are Young’s translations, like Johnson’s own, for literary rather than scholarly purposes (to the limited extent that such a distinction can be drawn in the first place), but Graham’s and Frodsham’s translations as well were widely read by general English-language poetry-reading audiences (consider their multiple reprints).41 Demonstration of these translations’ targeting readers with preference for the experimentalist or at any rate the non-realistic, will be found also in the remnants of the translations. Lines from Graham’s translation of a couplet from Li He’s “Don’t Go Out of the Door” (Gong wu chumen), about Qu Yuan, “Plain though it is, I fear that you still doubt me./Witness the man who raved at the wall as he wrote his questions to Heaven,” show up in the lyrics to Pink Floyd’s song “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,” on the 1968 album A Saucerful of Secrets: the lines “Witness the man who raves at the wall/Making the shape of his question to heaven” are from Graham’s translation.42 In translation and quotation, the lines went from being allusive to surreal to psychedelic. Is the shift in meaning that happens from Li He’s Chinese to these various styles of English an example of bastardization and expropriation, or should we rather say that in translation into twentieth- and twenty-first–century English, Li He found his element? The answer depends in part on how we understand Li He in his original context—and that, too, hinges upon translation.

The Role of Translation in Debates About Li He Nearly everyone who has read Li He has agreed that he is difficult, but there has been debate about why. What Rouzer referred to as Li He’s being “somehow unhealthy” was expressed in literary criticism as concern over the lack of li in Li He’s poetry. Owen explains li as “the ‘order of things’ and ‘order’ (as ‘good government,’ a standard Tang usage) . . . roughly what a modern reader of literature would call ‘significance.’”43 In Neo-Confucianism, li is the underlying principle or pattern of all metaphysics (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz understood it as “the primary matter as the substance of things,” as the venation within [li] jade [yu]).44 Du Mu started the trend of criticizing Li He for want of li, in the aforementioned quotation about not matching the Li Sao’s “high seriousness” but sometimes surpassing it “in expression.” He ends by stating that “if he had added a little more high seriousness [li] to his work and had not died when he did, he could have treated the Li Sao itself as his servant.”45 (That is Frodsham’s translation; Fish renders li as “moral discipline”).46 Five Dynasties poet Sun Guangxian (896–968) said, “I tried to read Li He’s Songs and Poems. I admired his exceptional and unconventional talent, but sometimes I wondered about the li behind his works. I didn’t dare tell my contemporaries, but . . . then I came across Du Mu’s remark, that ‘If Li He had had a bit more li, he could have made the Li Sao his servant,’ and I realized that this was quite a discerning critique, not far off at all.”47 The fact that Sun was afraid to tell his contemporaries his opinion indicates the high regard in which Li He was viewed at the time, yet it likewise hints at a reputation on the brink. By the Song, even defenders such as Liu Chenweng (1232–1297) would lament that “The only way to know the poet’s mind is to set your brush to writing while reading carefully. I suspect that no one else can see this, which is why for a thousand years no one will truly know Li He.”48 His reputation would enjoy an uptick in the Yuan, when Yang Weizhen (1296–1370), the renowned Yuan poet who admired and imitated Li He’s style, would state the two inheritors of the great literary tradition beginning with the Shijing were Li Bai and Li He.49 But this 171

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statement was not accepted by later literary critics, who continued to prioritize li in determining poets’ placement in literary history. What is at stake in these arguments about Li He is how, or whether, he can be placed in the normative lineage of Chinese literature, in which claims of li have dominated at important times. The hinge of the question traces back to Du Mu, where he not only puts Li He in the lineage of the Elegies of Chu but, as Fish points out, even describes Li He’s poetic language in a style that alludes to the Elegies.50 Yet despite Du Mu’s attempts to integrate Li He’s poetry into the convention established by Qu Yuan, in his concluding comments he refers to Li He’s “wildness and absurd fantasy” (xuhuang tanhuan), calling his imagery into question. Whereas Frodsham, quoted previously, translates nai He suo wei, wu de you shi as, “though this quality is sometimes lacking in He’s work,” Owen translates it as, “in what Li He wrote, however, there is none of this.”51 For Owen, Du Mu denies Li He’s having any li at all. For the poetry to be worth reading, it will have to create, or else find, new standards in which appreciation of the poetry can be built. Such a view—which would be supported by Tang technical poetics, where, in Owen’s words, “the poem begins with a quest for trouvaille, a lucky find”—encourages translation into the terms of other literary norms and conventions.52 Fish, on the other hand, follows a variant printing of the quotation, de wu you shi, and translates the phrase as, “As for that which Ho has written, does it not have this?”53 The translation coheres with his argument that the purpose of Du Mu’s preface was “was to explain a politically outspoken poet [Li He] to the upholders of a basically conservative tradition and to lessen the impact of his poetry’s political content while in the presence of those who were its targets” (Fish, 231). As “part of a purposeful attempt at image-building or reinforcing,” Du Mu emphasized Li He’s “shortcomings and strangeness” to “negate the political nature and seriousness of the poetry and thereby enhance its chances for survival” (Fish, 249, 269). In Fish’s reading, Du Mu sees Li He as a qualified successor to Sao convention, despite sometimes lacking the seriousness of the Elegies of Chu. Fish’s argument resonates with critics such as Yao Wenxie (1628–1692), who searched for political allegories in Li He’s poetry.54 It also played a role in a tiff that would foreshadow a debate in the following decades over the possibility of allegory in premodern Chinese literature.55 In a review, Fish faulted Kuo-ch’ing Tu’s Li Ho (1979) for overlooking the allegorical aspects of Li He’s poems: “throughout the book the great majority of Li Ho’s poems are dealt with for their surface levels only, and the question of what else might be involved is not even asked.”56 In a rejoinder published the following year, Tu countered, “Mr. Fish cannot handle Li Ho’s poetry as poetry and instead attempts to attribute political allegories to a poet who has been recognized from the start by Chinese and Japanese fellow poets and scholars as ‘the ghostly/demonic genius’.”57 The spat foreshadowed the more famous debate about the monistic nature of classical Chinese poetry but did not prefigure it exactly. “The question is not whether Li Ho’s poems can be allegorically interpreted,” according to Tu, but how an allegorical interpretation can be justified. Allegorical reading of poems has a long tradition in China. The best-known example may be the Confucianist socio-political commentaries of the Book of Poetry; these, nevertheless, have been discredited by many modern scholars as farfetched and highly dubious. An allegorical reading can be justified, only when it can deepen the meaning of the entire poem in a consistent and logical manner. (159) In a surrejoinder in the same issue, Fish pointed out that modern scholars’ attempts to discredit the Shijing commentaries was “a devastating observation in its own right,” but “the fact remains what modern scholars decide in this regard is of no earthly concern to the poets of traditional China, 172

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who learned the commentaries along with the songs.”58 He concluded with an olive branch: “How much allegory is there in the poetry of Li Ho? In T’ang poetry? Certainly more than Professor Tu imagines, and less than I expect” (Fish, 161). Olive branch notwithstanding, however, the stakes of the argument not only play out in the disagreements over how to understand Du Mu’s framing of Li He, but they do so in a way that is embodied in different approaches to translating Chinese, as well. In Fish’s view, the task of the translator would be to clarify and even rescue the poet’s true concerns out of his recondite language: the translator must be aware that Li He is not against conventions so much as playing with them, with the goal of illustrating his playfulness with those conventions. Owen’s argument, in contrast, advocates a reading of Li He’s poetry as a celebration of mystery, irrationality, sensuality, and incoherence, implying that a translation should be aimed at conveying those feelings.

Conclusion So what is the best way to read Li He, whether in Chinese or in translation? Does Li He reject li entirely, or does he subvert some of its shibboleths while ultimately demonstrating a more authentic version of it? Does he write from—and for—a position inside the Chinese tradition, or is he best understood as wholly unfettered by it? Should his poems be understood as allegories, or “as poetry,” as Tu says? Does such a thing as “poetry as poetry” even exist, when we talk of different poetic traditions, eras, and languages? Can translation answer any of these questions, or can it only exacerbate them? There is in fact a correspondence between the Chinese tradition’s concern about Li He’s lack of li and assertions of his ghost aesthetics: if li is a metaphysical grounding, and Li He’s talent mostly a matter of expression or rhetoric (Paul Kroll says his poems exhibit “a nearly impenetrable screen of language”), then his poems are effectively empty, apparitions without substance—ghosts.59 This is the opposite of the idea of “ghost” in English expressions such as “the ghost in the machine,” where ghost means “spirit” or “soul” (or the English title of the 1995 Japanese anime film Ghost in the Shell (Kōkaku Kidōtai; gongkejidongdui)—in the case of Li He’s poetry, the empty shell is the ghost). But it nevertheless indicates a metaphysics of presence in the Chinese literary and intellectual tradition, against which standard Li He’s writings were evaluated.60 This substanceless ghostliness is either heightened, or else resolved, in translation. Differences between translations of the same text are only differences of rhetoric, not of underlying principle or meaning. All translations are, from this perspective, ghostly—with what Owen refers to as the “significance” of the poem getting deferred, if not endlessly, then at least to another time and place. Meanwhile, the translations of Li He’s poetry into English appeared at a time in which much of anglophone poetics was exploring what Jacques Derrida has called “the concepts of play, interpretation, and sign (sign without present truth).”61 In such poetics, significance yields to signification. But though such poetics had made room for translations of Li He, and though translators took advantage of certain Modernist and Postmodernist textual strategies such as juxtaposition and dramatic diction, as translations they could never stand fully within anglophone poetry—rather, they haunt it, a ghostly presence. Which is just what Li He’s poems do to the Chinese tradition, as well.

Notes 1 Shen Yazhi, “Xushi Song Li Jiao Xiucai” [Narrating Poetry to Send Off Scholar Li Jiao], in Shen Xiaxian ji jiaozhu [The Annotated Writings of Shen Yazhi] (Tianjin: Nankai daxue chuban she, 2003), 176–77.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 2 Robert Ashmore, “Introduction,” in The Poetry of Li He, ed. Sarah M. Allen, Christopher M. B. Nugent, and Xiaofei Tian, Library of Chinese Humanities (Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2023), xlv. 3 J. D. Frodsham, trans., The Collected Poems of Li He, Calligrams (New York: New York Review Books, 2017), 28. See Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music, ed. Michael Tanner, trans. Shaun Whiteside (New York: Penguin Classics, 1994). 4 Fan Pen Li Chen, “Hallucinogen Use in China,” Sino-Platonic Papers 318 (October 2021): 10–16. 5 Frodsham, The Collected Poems of Li He, xxv; Wu Zaiqing, ed., Du Mu ji xinian jiaozhu [The Annotated Annals of Du Mu’s Works] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2016), 774. Relevantly, one critical edition records the last phrase 無得有是 as de wu you shi 得無有是. See Wang Qi, Yao Wenxie, and Fang Fu’nan, eds., Sanjia pingzhu Li Changji ge shi [Three Annotations of Li He’s Songs and Poetry] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959), 12. 6 Kōzō Kawai, Shūnanzan no henyō: Chū-tō bungaku ronshū [The Transformations of the Zhongnan Mountains: Essays on Mid-Tang Literature] (Tokyo: Kenbun Shuppan, 1999), 81–131. In contrast, Robert Ashmore writes: “Understanding Li He’s relation to yuefu traditions allows us to see him not as doing something radically different from anyone before him, but rather as pushing the boundaries of compositional possibilities that the tradition made available” (“Introduction,” xx). 7 Lu Shiyong, Shijing zonglun [Overview of Poems as Mirrors] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2014), 226–27. 8 Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu [The New History of the Tang] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), 5788. 9 Liu Kezhuang, “Houshan xiansheng da quanji” [The Complete Works of Master Houshan], in Sibu Congkan [The Four Branches of Literature], 100.2b. 10 Wang, Yao, and Fang, Sanjia pingzhu Li Changji ge shi, 2. 11 Wu Qiming, ed., Li He ziliao huibian [The Compiled Resources for Li He] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1994), 20–21. 12 Yan Yu, Canglang shihua [Canglang’s Remarks on Poetry] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), 37. 13 Paul Rouzer, “Preface to the Calligrams Edition,” in The Collected Poems of Li He, trans. J. D. Frodsham, Calligrams (New York: New York Review Books, 2017), xviii–xix. 14 Details here come from Xu Chuanwu’s preface in Wu Zhengzi, Liu Chenweng, and Xu Chuanwu, eds., Li He Shiji [The Poetry of Li He] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2015). All the introductions of the translations of Li He into English include some version of his biography, the most thorough of which is in Ashmore, “Introduction,” xxvii–xxxiv; Ashmore reads Li He’s occasional poems to “better understand what happened in” his career, “to better understand what it was like to be there, for a young member of the class whose fate was tied up with that of the Tang empire” (xxvii). See also Michael B. Fish, “The Tu Mu and Li Shang-Yin Prefaces to the Collected Poems of Li Ho,” in Studies in Chinese Poetry and Poetics, Vol. 1, Asian Library Series 8 (San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, Inc., 1978), 232–34. For Li He’s biographical annals (nianpu), see Qian Zhonglian, “Li He nianpu huijian” [Li He’s Biographical Annals, Annotated], in Mengshaoan Zhuanzhu Liangzhong [Two Treatises from Mengshao Studio] (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1984), 1–64; Zhu Ziqing, “Li He nianpu” [Li He’s Biographical Annals], in Zhu Ziqing Quanji [The Complete Works of Zhu Ziqing], Vol. 8 (Nanjing: Jiangsu jiaoyu chubanshe, 1993), 225–61; Wu Qiming, “Li He nianpu xinbian” [The Revised Biographical Annals of Li He], in Li Changji geshi biannian jianzhu [The Annotated Annals of Li He’s Song Poetry], ed. Wu Qiming (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2012), 761–916. 15 Liu Xuekai and Yu Shucheng, eds., Li Shangyin wen biannian jiaozhu [The Chronologically Annotated Prose of Li Shangyin] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2002), 2366. 16 Margaret Tudor South, Li Ho: A Scholar-Official of the Yüan-Ho Period, Occasional Papers in Asian and Pacific Studies 1 (Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia, 1967), 1. 17 Liu and Yu, Li Shangyin wen biannian jiaozhu, 2366. 18 In contrast, on Li He and Buddhism, see Frodsham, The Collected Poems of Li He, 36–41, 69. 19 Liu and Yu, Li Shangyin wen biannian jiaozhu, 2365. 20 Fish, “The Tu Mu and Li Shang-Yin Prefaces,” 280. 21 Stephen Owen, The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827–860), Harvard East Asian Monographs 264 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), 162. 22 Rouzer, “Preface to the Calligrams Edition,” xviii. 23 John Keats, The Complete Poetical Works and Letters of John Keats, ed. Horace Elisha Scudder (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1899), 277. 24 Richard Ellmann, James Joyce, New and rev. ed. with corrections (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 439.

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Li He 2 5 Ellmann, James Joyce, 545. 26 A.C. Graham, Poems of the Late T’ang (London: Penguin, 1965) [rprnt. New York Review Books, 2008]; J. D. Frodsham, trans., The Poems of Li Ho (791–817), The Oxford Library of East Asian Literatures (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970) [revised as Goddesses, Ghosts and Demons: The Collected Poems of Li He (London: Anvil, 1983) [rprnt: NYRB, 2017]; Robert Ashmore, trans., The Poetry of Li He, Library of Chinese Humanities (Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2023); David Young, trans., Five T’ang Poets, FIELD Translation Series 15 (S.l.) (Oberlin, Ohio: Oberlin College Press, 1990); Mike Johnson, trans., The Vertical Harp: Selected Poems of Li He (Auckland: Titus Books, 2006); Robert Payne, ed., The White Pony: An Anthology of Chinese Poetry from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Newly Translated (New York: New American Library, 1947). 27 Paul W. Kroll, “Poetry of the T’ang Dynasty,” in The Columbia History of Chinese Literature, ed. Victor H. Mair (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 310. 28 Graham, Poems of the Late T’ang, 1965, 91; Frodsham, The Collected Poems of Li He, 53. 29 In Payne, The White Pony, 251. 30 Johnson, The Vertical Harp, 9. 31 Rouzer, “Preface to the Calligrams Edition,” xiii, xix. 32 Ashmore, “Introduction,” xix. 33 Young, Five T’ang Poets, 121. 34 In Payne, The White Pony, 252; Paul Hoover, ed., “Introduction,” in Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology, 1st ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994), xxxi. Paul Rouzer also points out that there is more than one kind of modernism. “The translation of classical Chinese poetry in the English-speaking world is intimately connected to the history of modernism (especially through the efforts of Ezra Pound and Kenneth Rexroth as well as the Bloomsbury scholar Arthur Waley),” he writes. But while some, such as Burton Watson, operate “in the tradition of American verse defined by William Carlos Williams—.  .  . straightforward, allusion-free poetry that conveys its charms directly,” others, especially in the UK and the Commonwealth, have “been attracted by more difficult aspects of modernism” and “turned to denser and more allusive texts” (“Preface to the Calligrams Edition,” xi), including Li He. It is these “more difficult aspects of modernism” that are on display here. 35 Chih-yuan Ho, trans., “Song of the Arrowhead,” in The White Pony: An Anthology of Chinese Poetry from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Newly Translated, by Robert Payne (New York: New American Library, 1947), 258. 36 Graham, Poems of the Late T’ang, 1965, 99. 37 Frodsham, The Collected Poems of Li He, 234–35. 38 Ashmore, The Poetry of Li He, 291–93. 39 Young, Five T’ang Poets, 150–51. 40 Johnson, The Vertical Harp, 59. 41 Only Ashmore, published after Johnson, frames his translation as being for scholarly purposes, as having “the aim of giving English renderings that remain sufficiently close to the actual wording of the original to be useful as crib texts for readers learning to read classical Chinese poetry” (“Introduction,” xlvi). On the dubious separation of literary and scholarly purposes in translating Chinese poetry, see James J. Y. Liu, “The Critic as Translator,” in The Interlingual Critic: Interpreting Chinese Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), 37–49. 42 Graham, Poems of the Late T’ang, 1965, 117–18; Pink Floyd, A Saucerful of Secrets (London: EMI, 1968). 43 Owen, The Late Tang, 158. 44 Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz, Writings on China, ed. Daniel J. Cook and Henry Rosemont (Chicago: Open Court, 1994), 68, 87 n30. 45 Frodsham, The Collected Poems of Li He, xxv. 46 Fish, “The Tu Mu and Li Shang-Yin Prefaces,” 247–48. 47 Sun Guangxian, Beimeng suoyan [Scattered Notes from a Dream of the North] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2002), 166. 48 Wu, Liu, and Xu, Li He Shiji, 3. 49 Yang Weizhen, Dong weizi wenji [Collection of Master Dongwei’s Literature], in Sibu Congkan, 7.1b. 50 Fish, “The Tu Mu and Li Shang-Yin Prefaces,” 253–54. 51 Owen, The Late Tang, 157.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 52 Stephen Owen, The End of the Chinese “Middle Ages”: Essays in Mid-Tang Literary Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 111. 53 Fish, “The Tu Mu and Li Shang-Yin Prefaces,” 247. 54 See Wang, Yao, and Fang, Sanjia pingzhu Li Changji ge shi. 55 See, primarily, Stephen Owen, Traditional Chinese Poetry and Poetics: Omen of the World (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985); Pauline Yu, The Reading of Imagery in the Chinese Poetic Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987); Stephen R. Bokenkamp, “Chinese Metaphor Again: Reading—and Understanding—Imagery in the Chinese Poetic Tradition,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 109, no. 2 (1989): 211–21, https://doi.org/10.2307/604426; Haun Saussy, The Problem of a Chinese Aesthetic, Meridian, Crossing Aesthetics (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993); Longxi Zhang, Allegoresis: Reading Canonical Literature East and West (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005). For a synopsis, see Lucas Klein, “Mediation Is Our Authenticity: Dagong Poetry and the Shijing in Translation,” in Chinese Poetry and Translation: Rights and Wrongs, ed. Maghiel van Crevel and Lucas Klein (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019), 207–9. 56 Michael B. Fish, review of Li Ho, by Kuo-ch’ing Tu, Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) 3, no. 1 (1981): 174, https://doi.org/10.2307/495350. 57 Kuo-ch’ing Tu, “Rejoinder,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) 4, no. 1 (1982): 158, https://doi.org/10.2307/495617. 58 Michael B. Fish, “Surrejoinder,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) 4, no. 1 (1982): 161, https://doi.org/10.2307/495618. 59 Kroll, “Poetry of the T’ang Dynasty,” 310. 60 Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978). See Lucas Klein, “Decentering Sinas: Poststructuralism and Sinology,” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 9, no. 1 (April 2022): 79–104, https://doi.org/10.1215/23290048–9681163. 61 Derrida, Writing and Difference, 280. Li may not be identical to what Derrida calls “Being and truth,” but it has played a similar grounding or structuring role in Chinese poetics.

Further Reading Editions, Reference, and Translations Ashmore, Robert, trans. The Poetry of Li He. Library of Chinese Humanities. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2023. Frodsham, J. D., trans. The Collected Poems of Li He. Calligrams. New York: New York Review Books, 2017. Wang Qi, Yao Wenxie, and Fang Funan, eds. Sanjia pingzhu Li Changji ge shi [Three Annotations of Li He’s Songs and Poetry]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959. Wu Qiming, ed. Li Changji geshi biannian jianzhu [The Annotated Annals of Li He’s Song Poetry]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2012. Wu Qiming, ed. Li He ziliao huibian [The Compiled Resources for Li He]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1994.

Critical Studies Fish, Michael B. “The Tu Mu and Li Shang-Yin Prefaces to the Collected Poems of Li Ho.” In Studies in Chinese Poetry and Poetics. Vol. 1, 231–86. Asian Library Series 8. San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, Inc., 1978. Owen, Stephen. “The Legacy of Li He.” In The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827–860), 156–82. Harvard East Asian Monographs 264. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006. South, Margaret Tudor. Li Ho: A  Scholar-Official of the Yüan-Ho Period. Occasional Papers in Asian and Pacific Studies 1. Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia, 1967. Tu, Kuo-ch’ing. Li Ho. Twayne’s World Authors Series, TWAS 537: China. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979.

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14 DU MU Ji Hao

A poet may craft different personas in poetry. Some of them are well remembered, some are less popular, and some are relegated to obscurity, if not oblivion. In the case of Du Mu (803–852), his best-remembered self can be found in a poem entitled “On Yangzhou”:1 Unrestrained in the southland, I wandered with ale. Chu girls with slim and delicate waists, light in the palm.2 After ten years, I woke from the Yangzhou dream–– won the reputation of being fickle in the blue mansions. From 833 to 835, Du Mu stayed in Yangzhou and served as a member of the staff of Niu Sengru (ca. 799–848). The phrase “ten years” (shi nian) in the couplet may be read in various ways: it could be a poetic exaggeration; it could be a textual variant and the presumably more accurate version would be “three years” (san nian);3 it could be a phrase used by Du Mu to conveniently refer to the time when he served at military headquarters in various regions from 825 to 835. Similarly, the tone of this couplet is also open to different interpretations. How did Du Mu feel about his Yangzhou dream and his reputation earned in the blue mansions (i.e., brothels)? What did he want his readers to feel about him by making such a self-depiction? There is no way for us to ask Du Mu for further clarifications, but we do know how this poem (and Du Mu’s poems in general) has been received by readers of later periods and how the image of the poet has been constructed based on his poems and other related writings (especially anecdotal sources about his romantic adventures). Although Du Mu was traditionally known as a libertine poet with a penchant for indulging in sensual pleasures, modern scholars tend to highlight a different image of him by turning to his other poems and writings to show his serious concerns with state affairs and social issues. In addition, some scholars have raised doubts about the authenticity of certain writings (including the poem “On Yangzhou”) that played a role in associating Du Mu with his traditional image as a libertine. These two seemingly conflicting images of Du Mu do not necessarily exclude each other. As Stephen Owen indicates in his discussion of Du Mu, “the obvious contrast in his writing between his public and private personas embodies contrary desires, namely, to advance in his career and to enjoy himself.”4 He further connects these two aspects through a poetics of personality which “contains significant internal distinctions” and simultaneously encompasses “public-minded  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-20

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seriousness” and “various negations of this version of public-minded seriousness” (Owen, 255–56). At the same time, the boundary between these two aspects is by no means clear-cut. In Heidegger’s words, “A boundary is not that at which something stops, but . . . that from which something begins its presencing.”5 In order to better understand dynamic interactions between these two aspects associated with Du Mu, we need to look at both and connect them to different stages of his life, with particular attention to how they speak to each other in a meaningful manner.

Life and Career During the Tang dynasty there was a popular saying in the capital, Chang’an: “The Wei and Du families in the south of the city are only five chi away from Heaven.”6 Du Mu came from the illustrious Du clan, and he was very proud of his family background. In a poem to his nephew, Du writes: I come from a family of ducal ministers, Sword-pendants once making tinkling sounds. The old residence opens its vermillion gates At the center of the Chang’an city. Inside the residence there was nothing, Except that ten thousands of books fill the hall. A family collection consists of two hundred chapters; Up and down in history, it roams among the sovereigns. (DMJ, 41) By Du Mu’s time, the Du clan had already produced a few ministers, including Du Mu’s grandfather Du You (735–812), who was also known for his compilation of Tongdian (Comprehensive Institutional Compendium). The last two lines of Du Mu’s poem here clearly refer to this encyclopedic work, “a family collection,” in Du Mu’s eyes, that consists of two hundred chapters and examines the development of institutions from the beginning of the history to the Tang dynasty. Despite a strong sense of pride in his distinguished clan, Du Mu didn’t seem to enjoy much privilege in making his political career. Both Du You and Du Mu’s father Du Congyu (?) died when Du Mu was still young. According to Du Mu, at that time he and his younger brother Du Yi (807–851) “ate wild vegetables and were too poor to have candles at night” (DMJ, 566). Unlike his father, who received an official post due to the yin privilege of his grandfather, Du Mu and his brother, just like the many scholars from low-status families, had to take the jinshi examination in order to embark on a promising political career. In 828, Du Mu passed the jinshi examination and secured the fifth place. During the Tang dynasty, it was common for the candidates to circulate their writings among influential patrons before the examination to attract their attention and receive their recommendations. One anecdote associates Du Mu’s exam success with his poetic exposition “Rhapsody on the E-Pang Palace,” which was said to have greatly impressed the chief examiner.7 This essay criticizes Qin Shihuang (r. 221–210 BCE), the first emperor of the imperial Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE), who conquered the other six states of his time and unified China, for his lavish construction of the E-Pang Palace, which he connects to the downfall of the Qin. Sad indeed! It was the Six Domains themselves and not Qin that destroyed the Six Domains; Qin itself and not the whole world exterminated the house of Qin. Had each of the Six Domains loved its own people, it would have been enough to resist Qin; had Qin loved the people of the Six Domains, then after three generations they might have gone on to be rulers for ten thousand generations. No one could have wiped out the entire ruling house. The 178

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people of Qin did not have the chance to lament themselves, yet later people lament them. Yet if later people lament them but do not make them their mirror, then these later people will be lamented by people still later. (DMJ, 10; Owen, 259) The essay was also intended by Du Mu as a contemporary critique of Emperor Jingzong (r. 825–27) for his indulgence in building extravagant palaces and pursuing sensual pleasures such as music and women.8 Du Mu lived in the aftermath of the An Lushan Rebellion (755–763). During his time, the power and authority of the Tang court was drastically undermined: military commissioners held the real power over their regions outside, and factional strife became intensified in the court as well, where the eunuchs also wielded considerable power. In addition, the nomads posed a constant threat on the Tang borders in the north. If the Tang regime at that time could be compared to a garment, it must be an old garment torn in many places. A similar metaphor must have flashed across Du Mu’s mind when he articulated his political aspirations in the following lines: All my life I have had five-color threads, Aspiring to mend the garments for Shun.9 (DMJ, 32) Many of Du Mu’s own writings portray him as a person endowed with military and political talent. Nevertheless, his political career didn’t run smoothly, and he didn’t have much opportunity to show such talent in real life. After he passed the jinshi examination and a following placement examination, Du Mu was appointed collator at the Institute for the Advancement of Literature. Despite its relatively low rank, such a position was prestigious in the Tang dynasty since it was closely connected to the court and played a vital role in the construction and preservation of the court’s cultural identity. It usually made a promising start to the new jinshi degree holders’ political careers and helped them take advantage of the opportunities in the capital, Chang’an. After a short service in this position and then in the position of the administrator of military services in the Left Militant Guard, Du Mu, for unknown reasons, decided to leave the capital and join Shen Chuanshi’s (769–827) entourage, from 828 to 833, first in Hongzhou (modern Nanchang) and then in Xuanzhou (modern Xuancheng in Anhui Province). When Shen left for the capital to take his new post there in 833, Du Mu joined the staff of Niu Sengru in Yangzhou. In 833 and 834, Du Mu composed a series of prose writings to express his opinions about contemporary military affairs. After three years in Yangzhou, he went to the capital Chang’an in 835 for his new appointment as investigating censor. In December of 835, the Sweet Dew Incident took place in Chang’an, and many officials were killed by the eunuchs, after Emperor Wenzong’s (r. 827–40) plot against the eunuchs failed. Under the pretext of sickness, Du Mu asked to be transferred to the branch office in Luoyang in order to stay away from political turmoil in the capital. Nevertheless, as his political career took him to several positions both in different prefectures and in the capital for the rest of his life, he continued to express in his writings serious concerns about state affairs. In 842, when the Uighur invaded the northern border, Emperor Wuzong (r. 840–46) mobilized troops from various places to respond to the attack. At that time, Du Mu was prefect of Huangzhou (in modern Hubei province), a small and remote prefecture far away from the political center. But he was eager to share with the court his political ambition and military acumen: Northern enemies ravaged the frontier garrison posts. I heard that our troops encamped a thousand li away. 179

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If it were delayed for a long time without solution, I fear that other bandits might spy from aside. I truly have a “long whip”;10 They can be flogged slowly. If I were to receive a summon for discussion, we could eat their flesh and sleep in their pelt. (DMJ, 57) We don’t know whether or not his plan would have worked if he were given an opportunity to carry it out, but in the following year Du Mu made some suggestions regarding how to deal with the Uighurs in his letter to Grand Councilor Li Deyu, who thought highly of them (DMJ, 541–43).11 On another occasion, Li adopted his suggestions on military situations in Zelu (in modern Shanxi province) and put them into practice with successful outcomes. However, Du Mu was caught up in the factional struggle between the Niu faction (headed by Niu Sengru) and the Li faction (headed by Li Deyu). Du Mu had connections with the leaders of both parties and at the same time was not considered a core member of either one. As the two factions took turns dominating the court for decades, this might partly explain why Du Mu never received a position that would have allowed him to fulfill his political ambitions. After the end of the Niu–Li factional strife, Zhou Chi (793–851) served as grand councilor in 848. With his support, Du Mu returned to Chang’an and was appointed vice director of the Bureau of Merit Titles and Compiler of the Historiography Institute. He presented his commentary on the Sunzi (a masterpiece on military methods) to Zhou Chi and tried to demonstrate that he was not only a Confucian scholar but also a military strategist (DMJ, 453–54). In 852, Du Mu received his last important official appointment as secretariat drafter. His life came to an end during the same year, leaving no opportunity to fulfill his military talent and political ambition.

The Making of a Libertine A knowledge of Du Mu’s life and especially the discrepancy between his lofty political aspiration expressed in many of his writings and his not very successful political career in real life is important to understand the other major facet of his persona which is closely associated with his more popular image as a libertine. In premodern China, there were different ways for an official to cope with political frustrations and seek solace in pursuit of affairs outside the public realm of politics: admiring nature, writing poetry, listening to music, drinking ale, and/or enjoying other sensual delights, just to name a few. Such a tendency clearly occurs in some of Du Mu’s poems. For example, in the aforementioned poem on the attack of the Uighur, after the proud announcement that his long-term plan could decisively defeat the enemy, Du Mu immediately realized that it was impossible for him to be summoned by the court, so he tried to find solace in ale: Soon, however, the twelfth month will end, ale-brewing cannot be postponed. For the moment I fancy springtime’s warmth and pour a goblet from the jug. (DMJ, 57; Owen, 291) Du Mu’s indulgence in wine drinking and especially his romantic entanglements represented in other writings can be interpreted as a form of political disengagement––“the search for sensual

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pleasures is depicted as an alternative to a life spent in service to the state,” a cultural ideal which was particularly appealing to some of his contemporaries.12 It should be stressed, however, that the power of such an alternative is, to a considerable extent, inseparable from its relations to the vicissitude of political events, including one’s political career. A few of the most famous poems written by Du Mu on women speak to such connections. His poem on Zhang Haohao is preceded by the following preface: In the third year of the Taihe Reign [829] I had a position in the Jiangxi headquarters of His Excellency Shen Chuanshi, formerly of the Ministry of Personnel. Haohao was thirteen years of age and had just been registered as a musician for her skill in singing. A year later His Excellency was transferred to the command of Xuancheng, and he also had Haohao listed in the Xuancheng registry. Two years thereafter, Shen Shushi, the editorial director, took her into his household as a “double haircoil” [a personal entertainer]. Two years thereafter I got to see Haohao again in the eastern part of Luoyang. Touched by the past, I felt pain, and thus I wrote this poem for her. (DMJ, 36; Owen, 272) The poem articulates Du Mu’s pain through a contrast between past and present: Haohao’s exceptional singing skills and the unusual favor she received from Shen Chuanshi in earlier times, and her present life as a public entertainer at a bar in Luoyang. While lavishly depicting Haohao’s time in Jiangxi, the poem says little about her present life and especially how she ended up working at the bar after she was taken by Shen Shushi as a concubine. Instead, it turns to Du Mu and shows the contrasting images of the poet through the eyes of Haohao: You marvel at what has caused me such grief that in youth my beard hangs white. “Are your companions surviving or not? can you still be as unrestrained as you were?” (DMJ, 36; Owen, 274) The poet and Haohao become each other’s mirror. They both saw the other’s happy and promising youth under the patronage of Shen Chuanshi, but when their lives crossed in Luoyang several years later, Du Mu had experienced political frustrations and Haohao no longer enjoyed special favor. The sensual pleasure from their shared past was evoked by the poet to highlight current losses and the vicissitude of life. Nevertheless, when Du Mu’s public persona came to define his writings, he tended to stress the dangers of sensual indulgence (especially associated with women) imposed upon the state. When Du Mu passed by Huangqing Palace, a resort for Emperor Xuanzong’s (685–762) and Prized Consort Yang, he composed a famous poetic series “Passing by Huangqing Palace, Three Quatrains” and connected the outbreak of the An Lushan Rebellion to Xuanzong’s sensual pursuits, and especially his fascination with Prized Consort Yang. I I gazed back from Chang’an: embroideries in folds.13 On the peak, a thousand gates open, one after another. One horseman in red dust; the consort smiles; No one else knows that it is the lychees have arrived.

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II Mid the green trees at Xinfeng a brown dust stirs; Several riders from Yuyang; investigators return. One song––“The Rainbow Robe”––across a thousand peaks; She’d dance to bits the central plain and only then come down. III In every land, pipes and songs were intoxicated with peace; Palace and court against the sky, the moon clear and bright. Mid clouds, a frenzied drumming as Lushan dances; Wind crosses the piled-up peaks, carrying down the sound of laughter. (DMJ, 115–16) On another occasion, Du Mu criticized Chen Shubao (553–604), the last ruler of the Chen Dynasty (557–589), whose indulgence in sensual experience allegedly led to the collapse of his state. Mooring on the Qinhuai Mist shrouds the cold waters, moonlight shrouds the sand; At night I moor on the Qinhuai, near the wineshops. The singing girl knows nothing about the pain of a fallen state; Across the river still she sings “Rear-Court Blossom.” (DMJ, 256) The “Rear-Court Blossom” refers to “A Jade Tree’s Rear-Court Blossom” (Yushu houtinghua), a song tune regarded as “the sound of a doomed state” due to its association with Chen Shubao, who once wrote lyrics to that tune. While the singing girl was presumably oblivious to such association, Du Mu was able to hear its political overtone. But would lacking such knowledge necessarily be bad? Upon closer scrutiny, the poet’s attitude in the poem seems to be a bit ambiguous. Although traditional interpretations tend to read the poem as a criticism of the singing girl’s neglect of the devastation associated with sensual indulgence, an equally plausible reading would find the entwinement of sensual experience and grave political concerns in Du Mu’s own ears. Those concerns might take a higher moral ground on the surface, but such serious thoughts couldn’t completely exclude sensual enjoyment. After all, a few centuries after the fall of the kingdom, the song had persisted and was still entertaining people. As Du Mu points out elsewhere, the problem was caused by a ruler’s sensual indulgence, not by the sensual pleasure itself. It is the crime of being excessively dissipated by itself; There is no harm for it to serve as the imperial capital. (DMJ, 170) The couplet comes from the last poem in Du Mu’s poetic series entitled “Yangzhou, Three Poems.” The poetic series focuses on sensual attractions of the city of Yangzhou and its connections to Emperor Yang (569–618), the last emperor of the Sui dynasty, who was well known for his obsession with extravagance and overindulgence in sensual enjoyment. Emperor Yang made a few major trips to Yangzhou, and during his last stay in Yangzhou, he planned to make Yangzhou the capital of his empire. Before that plan could be accomplished, however, he was murdered, and his empire came to an end. 182

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The distinction drawn here by Du Mu also speaks to his own embrace of sensual pleasures in Yangzhou, which are evoked in some of his most memorable poems. Presented at Parting Charming and lithe, just over thirteen, the tip of a cardamom branch in the beginning of the second month. Ten leagues of spring breeze on the roads of Yangzhou, they roll up beaded curtains, and no one is her match. (DMJ, 299; Owen, 269) To Han Chuo, Administrative Assistant of Yangzhou Green mountains indistinct, waters far off; Autumn comes to an end in the southland, grass and trees withered. Twenty-four bridges in the bright moonlit night, where would you have the fair one play the flute? (DMJ, 266) The construction of his self-image, closely tied as it is to the sensual pleasures depicted in some of Du Mu’s poems, opens up a space for popular imagination and contributes to the formation of his image as a libertine. Some popular literary anecdotes built around a few of those poems further helped perpetuate such an image. By coincidence, Grand Councilor Niu Sengru was sent to guard Yangzhou, and he appointed Du Mu as his Chief Secretary at headquarters. In addition to carrying out his official duties, Du Mu undertook feasting and roaming as his only tasks. Yangzhou was a place of superb beauty. Each time the walls surrounding the city were immersed in the last light of day, myriad gauze lanterns in scarlet red were hanging from the courtesan quarters, their radiant illuminated gossamer lighting up the sky. The streets of nine leagues and thirty paces were filled with pearls and bright-blue jades, which from a distance looked like a land of transcendent beings. In the midst of it was Mu, always emerging and disappearing, racing forward and chasing after, not missing a single night. And then there were also thirty foot-soldiers in plain clothes, who followed and protected him [while remaining] undercover. They were secretly instructed by Sengru. Yet Du Mu thought he succeeded in his scheme and that nobody knew about [his roaming]. He took pleasure in going to those places and found everything there to his liking. Several years passed like this.14 In a similar vein, by highlighting Du Mu’s romantic entanglements and his unrestrained character, another anecdote set in Huzhou also creates a context that shapes readers’ understanding of a different poem written by Du Mu as well as the image of the man himself.15 According to the story, when Du Mu launched a quest for beauty in Huzhou, he was struck by a young girl’s extraordinary beauty. Since the girl was too young at that time, Du Mu asked her to wait for him and reached an agreement that he would come back again and marry her within ten years. However, when Du Mu finally returned as prefect of Huzhou fourteen years later, the girl was already married to someone else and had two sons. In deep regret, Du Mu wrote the following poem: I myself came late seeking the spring, no need to be heartsore and grieve over the blossom time.

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The wild blast had brought down all the crimson color, green leaves making shades and fruits filling the branches.16 When read against this anecdote, the poem’s depiction of the spring that had elapsed is a testimonial to Du Mu’s unfulfilled romantic affair and his image as a libertine. The sensual experience depicted in the poem thus operates simultaneously on two levels–– the one in nature pointing to the lost spring in the poet’s life.

Reception in Later Periods Du Mu himself was probably aware of how his own poems might shape the reception of his image in later generations. Before his death, he burned most of his manuscripts and asked his nephew to compile the remaining writings into a collection. Fortunately, his nephew preserved many of Du Mu’s writings through the years and eventually compiled them into a collection entitled Fanchuan Literary Collection. During the Song (960–1279) dynasty, two collections of Du Mu’s other writings were compiled, but their authenticity has been open to some doubt. It should be pointed out that those two collections contain a considerable number of poems that are traditionally associated with Du Mu’s image as a libertine. The construction of Du Mu’s image has experienced a long process involving collaboration, conflict, and negotiation among multiple forces. The co-existence of these two images of Du Mu can also be understood through his poetic skills. Despite Du Mu’s efforts to moralize the depiction of the sensual in some of his poems, he nonetheless demonstrates his superb literary skills by representing the sensual in the very act of denouncing it. The following sensual depiction, in the “Rhapsody on the E-Pang Palace,” has drawn no less attention than the implied warning against the sensual indulgence that led to the collapse of the Qin dynasty: Concubines and palace serving maids,17 Princes and royal grandsons, All now quit their towers, depart their halls, And in carriages do they process to the state of Qin, There to sing in the morning, And to strum at night, As palace attendants now at the court of Qin. Like bright stars glittering shine the mirrors of the makeup boxes pulled open, Like green clouds scudding seem the combs as they go about their morning tasks. A waxy sheen is lent the surface of the Wei River’s flow by the washed-off rouge, Wafting smoke and drifting mists rise from incense of fragrant pepper and pungent orchid. And then, all of a sudden is heard the rumble of thunder as the imperial carriage passes by, The grind of its axles heard afar, none sure of its destination. Each feature, every complexion, Exquisite of winsome beauty. 184

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Standing with necks craned gazing into the distance, Always with the hope of royal visitation in mind. (DMJ, 9) Regarding poetic composition, later critics note that Du Mu’s poetry places strong emphasis on originality and often seeks new ideas in traditional topics, especially the historical past. For example, when writing on the battle at Red Cliffs that took place during the Three Kingdoms period (220–280), Du Mu’s poem “Red Cliffs” imagines another possibility and a different fate for the two Qiao sisters in that scenario: Snapped halberd sunk in the sands, the iron not yet rusted away, I take it, wash and polish it, and recognize that former dynasty. If the east wind had not worked To Zhou Yu’s advantage, spring’s depths around Copperbird Terrace, would have locked in the two Qiao sisters. (DMJ 252; Owen, 292) In its deliberation on Xiang Yu’s (232–202 BC) suicide after he was defeated by his opponent Liu Bang (256–195 BC), Du Mu’s poem “On Wujiang Pavilion” again tries to entertain a scenario that might have happened—but didn’t—in the historical past: Victory and defeat in the military field, things are hard to predict. One who can bear the shame and withstand the humiliation is a man. East of the Yangtze River, there were many talented young men. With a rolling dust, you could stage a comeback––who knows? (DMJ, 263) Such a poetic gesture is illuminating when we turn to one small yet important detail in Du Mu’s early life: while studying, he hadn’t been able to afford candles at night and had to recite in the darkness the lessons he had learned during the daytime, negatively impacting his education. Throughout his life he strove to recover from this poor start and to establish a distinguished career in the political and military realm, hoping to restore the past glory created by his grandfather. But this alternative course didn’t happen. Similarly, he tried to exercise control over his writing so as to draw attention to the public persona he aspired to be, but, just like Xiang Yu, he lost his battle, as “more readers were convinced by his poetic role as a sensualist” (Owen, 267). However, in the field of poetry, Du Mu did stage a comeback. He and the poet Li Shangyin (813–858), as two major poets of the late Tang, came to be referred to as “Li-Du Junior” (xiao Li-Du), so named to be both reminiscent of and distinguished from the other pair of poets of the High Tang period: Li Bai (701–762) and Du Fu (712–770). Notably, the latter came from the same clan as Du Mu.

Notes 1 Caidiao ji (Collection of the Gifted the Talented], in Fu Xuancong, ed., Tangren xuan Tangshi xinbian (A New Compilation of Tang Poetry Anthologies by Tang People] (Xi’an: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1996), 4.789. In addition to some textual variants, this poem also has a different title “Getting Things off My Chest” (qian huai). See Wu Zaiqing, Du Mu ji xinian jiaozhu (Collected Works of Du Mu, Chronologically

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature Arranged with Commentary] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2013; hereafter DMJ), 695. Unless otherwise indicated, all English translations are mine. 2 This alludes to King Ling of Chu’s (r. 540–529 BCE) fascination with slender waists. 3 The length of three years is based on Du Mu’s stay in Yangzhou from 833 to 835. 4 Stephen Owen, The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827–860) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Asia Center, 2006), 286. 5 Martin Heidegger, “Building, Dwelling, Thinking,” in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper Colophon, 1971), 154. 6 In the Tang dynasty, there were two kinds of chi: a big chi was roughly equal to 29.4 cm and a small chi 24.6 cm. For a discussion of the origin of this saying, see “Chengnan weidu yu Duling yelao shizheng” (An Explanation of “Wei and Du families in the South of the City” and “An Old Rustic from Duling”] in Hu Kexian, Fudan xuebao 56, no. 5 (2014): 81–88. 7 Wang Dingbao, Tang Zhiyan (Gleaned Expressions from the Tang] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959), 63. 8 Du’s essay “Rhapsody on the E-Pang Palace” was composed in 825, the first year of the emperor Jingzong’s reign. 9 Shun is a legendary sage ruler of antiquity in Chinese culture. 10 Changce literally means “long whip.” Here it stands for a long-term plan. 11 According to the biography of Du Mu in Jiu Tang shu and Xin Tang shu, Li Deyu thought highly of Du Mu’s strategies toward the Uighurs. 12 Hong Yue, “Celebrating Sensual Indulgence: Du Mu (803–852), His Readers, and the Making of a New fengliu Ideal,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 139, no. 1 (2019): 144. 13 Here I use Paul Rouzer’s English translations with some minor modifications. See Paul F. Rouzer, Writing Another’s Dream: The Poetry of Wen Tingyun (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), 36–37. 14 Li Fang et al., Taiping guanji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961), 273.2151. For an English translation, see Hong Yue, “Celebrating Sensual Indulgence,” 155–56. 15 “Du sheren mu Huzhou” (Drafter Du as Prefect of Huzhou), in Ding Ruming, ed., Tang Wudai biji xiaoshuo daguan (A Magnificent Spectacle of biji Stories of Tang and the Five Dynasties] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2000), 1340. 16 Gao Yanxiu, Tang queshi, in Ding Ruming, Tang Wudai biji xiaoshuo daguan, 1340. Zi, translated here as fruits, also means sons and corresponds to the sons in the anecdote. 17 For an English translation, see Duncan M. Campbell, “A Past of Words Not of Stone: Du Mu’s ‘Rhapsody on the Epang Palace,’” New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 21, no. 1 (2019): 15.

Further Reading Campbell, Duncan M. “A Past of Words Not of Stone: Du Mu’s ‘Rhapsody on the E-pang Palace.’” New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 21, no. 1 (2019): 1–18. Hong Yue. “Celebrating Sensual Indulgence: Du Mu 杜牧 (803–852), His Readers, and the Making of a New Fengliu 風流 Ideal.” JAOS 139, no. 1 (2019): 143–64. Kung Wenkai. Tu Mu (803–852): His Life and Poetry. San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, 1990. Miao Yue. Du Mu zhuan Du Mu nianpu (Biography of Du Mu and Biographical Chronicles of Du Mu). Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 1999. Owen, Stephen. The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827–860). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center. Wu Zaiqing. Du Mu ji xinian jiaozhu (Du Mu’s collection, chronologically arranged with annotations). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2013. Zheng Wen. Myth and Reality: A Reconsideration of Du Mu (803–852). Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 2015.

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15 LI SHANGYIN Zhenjun Zhang

Li Shangyin (811?–859), courtesy name Yishan and literary names Scholar Yuxi and Fannan, was a native of Henei (present-day cities of Qinyang and Bo’ai, Henan) and one of the most famous poets of late Tang. Although his poems are known as “incomprehensible,” they have been well received, and many of the lines have become idioms in the Chinese language. It seems also that the features of some of Li Shangyin’s poems are similar to those of the poetry of aestheticism in the West, though his poems appeared much earlier.

Life and Career In the sixth year of the Yuanhe reign period (811), Li Shangyin was born into a scholar-official family,1 when his father, Li Si, was serving as the magistrate of Huojia (in Henan). His grandfather, Li Shuheng, had passed the imperial examination at the age of nineteen, but died ten years later in the position of the magistrate of Anyang. Not long after his birth, Shangyin’s father accepted the invitation of a military governor in Zhejiang to become one of his staff but died there a few years later, when Shangyin was about ten years old. Following his mother, Shangyin returned home to Xingyang and studied with his uncle. Three years later, he moved with his family to Luoyang, where he became known for his talent in writing. Linghu Chu (766–837), the prior prime minister, invited him to study with his nephew and two sons. Li Shangyin took his first imperial examination together with Chu’s son Linghu Tao in 830 when he was twenty years old but failed while Linghu Tao passed and went on to become an official. Afterward, Li took the exam three times in 833, 835, and 836, yet was unsuccessful each time. In the second year of the Kaicheng period (837), twenty-seven-year-old Li Shangyin finally passed the imperial examination at Chang’an and became an advanced scholar. He was invited by Linghu Chu to work under him, but Linghu died soon after. Li then accepted an invitation from Wang Maoyuan, the military governor of Jingyuan, and became his son-in-law. Unexpectedly, in the notorious strife between the Niu group and the Li group in the late Tang government, Linghu Chu belonged to the Niu group, while Wang Maoyuan was considered by some to be in the Li group. As a result, Li Shangyin was criticized as “ungrateful” to the Linghu family, and his name was even removed from the examinee list of the personnel ministry.2 One year later, he took the examination again and was appointed editor of the Imperial Library (jiaoshulang), but soon  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-21

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afterward he was demoted to the post of county defender (xianwei) of Hongnong. Later, he was reprimanded for commuting a prisoner’s sentence, and he became disillusioned with official service. In 840, he decided to leave his post. In 842, Li Shangyin served in the Imperial Library again with an even lower official title, but the subsequent year his mother died, so he quitted his post again to mourn for the required three years. In 843, his father-in-law, Wang Maoyuan, died, so his situation became even worse. In the spring of the next year, he moved to Yongle and lived an idle life. By the end of 845, however, he was back serving in the Imperial Library. Li Shangyin joined the staff of Zheng Ya, the governor of Guizhou, in 847. He held that position for a year, until Zheng was demoted. In 849, Li Shangyin joined Lu Hongzhi, the military governor of the Wuning army at Xuzhou, and served under him for more than a year until Lu passed away. After his wife died in the summer of 851, Li Shangyin joined Liu Zhongying (d. 864), the governor of Xichuan, and spent four years in Sichuan, where he became interested in Buddhism and even intended to become a monk. In 855, Li Shangyin returned to Chang’an with Liu Zhongying. About three years later, when his term was done, he returned home. In the thirteenth year of Dazhong reign (859), he passed away at Zhengzhou. Li Shangyin’s political career was not at all successful, but his experience as a lowly official ironically helped make him one of the best poets of late Tang. Li Shangyin’s literary works include parallel prose and poetry, but he is known principally as a poet who composed many melancholy and sensuous poems. His poetry can be divided into four main categories: untitled poems, poems on occasions, poems on history, and poems on things. This chapter will focus on the first three and their artistic features.

Poems of Love and the “Untitled” Among Li Shangyin’s 590 or so poems, almost 100 are about love. The noted ones in the old style include “Terrace of Yan, in Four Poems” (Yantai sishou), “Heyang,” “He’nei,” and others; those in the modern style—regulated poems—include “The Emerald Walls, in Three Poems” (Bicheng sanshou), “Yesterday” (Zuori), “Tomorrow” (Mingri), and the “Spring Rain” (Chunyu). The latter is as follows: Wearing a white jacket, I lie sadly in early spring, The deserted white gate goes against my will. The red chamber through misty drizzle makes me feel chilly, In flickering light, under raindrops resembling pearl curtains, I return alone. From afar, you should also grieve over such a spring dusk, Yet late at night, we can still vaguely meet in our dreams. How can my jade earrings and letter reach you? A wild goose is flying in the patterned clouds stretching ten thousand li away. This poem is subtle, beautiful, and poignant. It brings together a mournful mood, beautiful imagery, and rhetoric expressive of complex emotions. The hazy thoughts and feelings in the poet’s heart are transformed into a trance-like blur of images that exude a subtle and tortuous emotion. The images of the red chamber, the spring rain, and the flickering lamp light, together with the confused state of mind and vague dreaminess, make the poem beautiful and serene.

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Of the poems on his love for his wife, “Night Thoughts” (yeyi), written in Guilin, is especially touching: The window curtain is lowered and the mosquito net half-rolled, The pillow is cold but the quilt still fragrant. Merely by thinking of me, how could Your dream soul cross the rivers of Xiao and Xiang. The first couplet indicates that he has just met his wife in a dream, and her fragrance is still found on the quilt. In the second couplet, by asking his wife why her soul visited him from afar (ancient Chinese believed a dream is the action of one’s soul), he portrays how dearly he missed his wife. In considering Li Shangyin’s poems on love, one cannot avoid discussing the fourteen “Untitled” poems, especially the six septasyllabic regulated verses, the most famous among all of Li’s verses.3 Some scholars advocate expanding what is considered an untitled poem by adding those that use words in the first line for a title instead of presenting any context. That would include about 100 poems with a title and various themes, creating another way to discuss Li’s poetry beyond these fourteen “Untitled.”4 Western readers will easily see that the content of the fourteen “Untitled” poems is mainly about parting and lovesickness, especially the disappointment, resentment, sentimentality, and disillusion of love. As the poet’s life and career were full of hardship and frustration, however, many Chinese scholars since the Ming dynasty have viewed them as figurative. Feng Hao (1719–1801), for example, holds that most of Li Shangyin’s “Untitled” poems were written for his friend and patron, Linghu Tao, and the sexual intimacy and blocked passion in the poems are all related to Linghu. Zhang Caitian (1874–1945) follows Feng’s approach and offers a more detailed analysis (Liu Xuekai, 699–707). But Zhang’s reading is merely a hypothesis without any evidence. Such poems would have been regarded as strange by contemporaries, as Stephen Owen observes: “To present such a poem to a patron would, quite frankly, have been bizarre” (364). Contrary to Feng and Zhang, modern scholar Su Xuelin (1897–1999) believes that, in Li Shangyin’s poems “The Shine of the Holy Maiden” (Shengnü ci) and “Walls of Sapphire,” there is an indication of love with a Daoist priestess, so Su considers all the “Untitled” poems love songs.5 But her effort to unveil the “real” love affair behind the poems by making assumptions based on a few subtle words is not very persuasive. As an extension of her efforts, Chen Yixin published a long thesis6 linking the “Untitled” poems with other poems such as “The Shrine of the Holy Maiden” and “Sister Huayang Re-delivered on a Moonlit Night” (Yueye chongji Song Huayang jiemei), examining in detail the love story of Li Shangyin and Song Huayang, a Daoist nun from the Lingdu Nunnery on Yuyang Mountain in Huaizhou. These studies are to a certain extent helpful to our understanding of Li Shangyin’s poems, though, due to a lack of first-hand information and the vagueness of descriptions in Li’s poetry, it is difficult to ascertain the “biographical truth” enough to form a consensus opinion. However, most modern scholars believe that Li Shangyin’s “Untitled” poems are all love songs regarding an especially intimate love affair that would have been difficult to voice publicly.7 The first of “Untitled, Two Poems,” for example, is one of his most famous: Last night’s stars, last night’s wind, West to the painted chamber, east of the cassia hall. Our bodies lack colorful phoenix wings to fly in pair, Our hearts are threaded like the point running through a magic rhino horn.

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The hook was passed across seats, the spring wine warm, Broken in teams, we guessed what was covered, the candle shone red. Alas, I heard the drum and must leave for my official duties, I galloped my horse to the Orchid Terrace,8 resembling a rolling tumbleweed. This poem recalls a merry party the previous night in a rich family’s yard and expresses sadness over a hopeless love. The first couplet indicates the time and place of the gathering: on a starry night with a gentle wind blowing, the party being held between two splendid towers. The second couplet portrays the poet’s tension in having fallen in love with a girl though unable even to hold her hand. The third couplet depicts the merry atmosphere in playing games and drinking wine; the last couplet expresses his helplessness in having to attend to his duties as an official and lamenting that he is unable to be with the girl he loves—likely a maid in the household of a rich family. The following “Untitled” poem is another famous poem of love: Seeing each other is hard, parting is hard too, The east wind lacks force, a hundred flowers fade. A spring silkworm stops spinning only when it dies, A candle’s tears dry out only when it becomes ash. Looking in the mirror at dawn, she cares only for the change of her cloud-like temples, Chanting poems at night, she should be aware of the chill in the moonlight. The road to Mount Penglai from here is not long, Bluebird, please visit her earnestly on behalf of me. The first couplet points out the topic of the poem—the separation between lovers—and the time— late spring; the second couplet includes two very moving metaphors for dedicated lovers—just like the silkworm and candle, their yearning for each other will never stop until their death; the third and fourth couplets depict the poet’s lover in imagination and shows his deep concern for her. It is said that when Li Shangyin was fifteen or sixteen years old, his family sent him to Xiyuyang Mountain to study Daoism. During this period, he met and fell in love with Song Huayang, the daughter of the Lingdu Abbey, but the relationship between the two could not be known to outsiders. While the poet’s heart was surging with uncontrollable love, he could only use poetry to pour out his feelings. He made the poems hazy, euphemistic, and infinitely affectionate; the poems were called “Untitled” and mostly described their love. If this interpretation is true, the following poem should be a record of the Daoist nun’s longing for the poet. The first of “Untitled, Four Poems” is a noted love poem: Coming is an empty word, you left with no trace, The moon slants on the tower when the fifth watch rings. Dreaming of our distant parting, my tears couldn’t call you back, A letter is hastily written, though the ink is not yet thick. The candlelight half encloses the golden kingfishers; The musk fragrance passes faintly through embroidered lotuses. Mr. Liu already hated that Mount Penglai was far, Yet is now separated further by ten thousand Mount Penglais. This poem depicts a woman’s yearning at dawn for her lover, who left and never returned. She awoke from a dream of their parting, in which she cried bitterly but still failed to call him back. 190

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After waking, her room had no trace of him; she could only see the hazy crescent moon on the tower and hear the desolate sound of the dawn bell. She hurriedly finished a letter even before the ink was fully ready, showing her strong feelings of longing. The depiction of the atmosphere of the indoor environment in the third couplet is symbolic and suggestive: when the letter was completed, the residual light of the candle half shone on the drapery embroidered with emerald birds with gold thread, and the fragrance of musk still passed through the mattress with embroidered lotuses; the dream had just vanished, and the interior scene she saw in front of her was blurred in hazy light and shadows. She couldn’t tell whether it was a dream or reality. Once her vision sharpens, what follows is the emptiness and loneliness. The last couplet borrows Liu Chen’s failed effort to achieve a reunion with an immortal to express the lovers’ inability to overcome the barrier between them, highlighting their frustration and helplessness. The next poem in the set laments the spring: The east wind rustles, the fine rain comes, Beyond the lotus pond, the sound of faint thunder. A gold toad gnaws the lock, allowing burning incense to enter, A Jade tiger pulls the string, drawing water up from the well. Lady Jia peeped through the certain because Han the clerk was young, Consort Fu left her pillow for Prince of Wei because of his talent. Never open your passionate heart together with flowers, One inch of yearning is one inch of ash. The first couplet depicts the surroundings of a woman, vaguely conveying the budding spring atmosphere of life with a bleak and gray tone. The second couplet portrays the solitude of the woman’s dwelling: whether indoors or out, all she can see are the toad-shaped incense burners and the water winch decorated with a jade tiger, underscoring the lonely scene of the woman in her seclusion and the melancholy of daily boredom. The third couplet talks about two love stories: the daughter of a Jin dynasty official, Jia Chong, who fell in love with the handsome Han Shou, a clerk under Jia, then had an affair with him; Empress Zhen of Wei left her pillow for the Prince of Dong’e (Cao Zhi) in a dream, and the latter then composed the “Rhapsody on the Goddess of River Luo,” in which the “goddess” referring to Empress Zhen. Both stories show a young woman’s strong and unrestrained desire to pursue love. The woman in this poem is not so lucky, however: what she experiences is nothing but disappointment. Thus the last couplet is her painful cry. The following “Untitled” poem is considered figurative by many, but it does not differ significantly from the previous three poems: Layers of curtains hang deep in the Mochou Hall, After lying down, she feels the clear night drag on. The goddess’s affair was merely a dream, Aunt Qingxi’s residence has simply no man. Wind and waves disbelieve the water chestnut stalks are so frail, Who’ll make the cinnamon leaf fragrant in the moonlight and dew? Even if lovesickness is useless, My melancholy heart can be regarded as infatuation. This poem is about a woman lamenting her hard life and hopeless lovesickness in the still of the night. The second couplet says that she longed for love, just as when the goddess of Mount Wu 191

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had an affair with the King of Chu, but it was merely a dream; like Aunt Qingxi in the Han yuefu poem, she lives alone without a man. The third couplet uses two metaphors: she is like a weak water chestnut stalk, repeatedly devastated by storms; she is also like a cinnamon leaf, but there is no moonlight and dew to make it fragrant. Both refer to her frustration in love and are not necessarily metaphors for the frustrated life of the poet, as has been stated by commentators (Liu Xuekai, 497–98).

Poems on Occasion and History Besides “Untitled” and (other) poems of love, Li Shangyin composed many poems on occasion, on history, and on objects as well. His poems on occasion include personal and social poems in a much more straightforward style, including on public and private events, such as attending a feast or gathering, seeing off a friend, or lamenting the death of a friend or family member. Among Li Shangyin’s poems in association with friends, “Night Rain, Sent North” (Yeyu jibei) is a famous one: You ask the date of my return, but no date is yet set; Mount Ba’s night rains are flooding the autumn pools. When shall we trim the candle by the western window, While talking about the time of night rains on Mount Ba? This poem reads like it was written to his wife, so Hong Mai of the Song dynasty entitled it “Sent to My Wife” and included it in a collection of Tang poetry he compiled. However, this is problematic. When Li Shangyin was serving under Liu Zhongying in the Mount Ba area without a given date to return home (in 851, the fifth year of Dazhong period), his wife had already passed away. In an attempt to retain the title “Sent to My Wife,” Feng Hao and Zhang Caitian speculated that Li visited Ba in the second year of Dazhong period before his wife’s death, but a problem arises here, too: if Li made a visit to Ba, why was there no date set for his return? Thus a reasonable interpretation is that this poem was written to a friend instead of his wife, though the latter seems a more fitting recipient based on the content of the poem. The following poem, “To Secretary Linghu,” is about his friendship with Linghu Tao: For so long we live apart, one by Mount Song clouds, one by Qin’s trees, A letter came afar with the paired carp. Ask not of me, an old retainer of Liang Garden, Now a sickened Xiangru in Maoling’s autumn rain. Of Li Shangyin’s poems of “Singing My Cares” (yonghuai), the following two are probably the most touching: “Watch Tower of Anding” The lofty city wall stretches, a hundred-foot-high watch tower; Beyond green willow branches are only sandy islets. Scholar Jia Yi shed vain tears when he was young,9 And Wang Can traveled afar in the spring.10

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Constantly I longed to return to the rivers and lakes with white hair, Entering my small boat after changing the world. I didn’t expect a rotten rat to become a delicacy for those men: They keep thinking that a phoenix would grab it and eat it.11 This poem was written in 838, after Li Shangyin was labeled as being “ungrateful” to the Linghu family. In the second couplet, he likens himself to Jia Yi (200–168 BCE) from the Han dynasty, whose essay was denied by Emperor Wen, and to Wang Can, who traveled to Jingzhou to join Liu Biao—just as he had joined Wang Maoyuan. In the third couplet, he says that his ideal is to follow the example of Fan Li, who helped Yue to defeat the powerful Wu and then withdrew, wandering in a small boat on the many lakes there. In the last couplet, he uses a story in Zhuangzi to refute those who thought he was coveting power. “Leyou Heights” was written when the poet visited the famed resort situated to the south of Chang’an and overlooking the capital. It reads: Toward the end of day, I feel sullen; Driving my carriage, I ascend to the old heights. The setting sun is immeasurably gorgeous, Only, dusk is approaching. There are two different interpretations of this poem: lamenting the decline of the Tang dynasty, with the sun symbolizing the emperor, or a lament for himself, because the setting sun symbolizes his declining years. But James J. Y. Liu sidesteps both to focus on the emotive quality of the poem: “The poet has captured, in a flash of perception, a moment in the natural world, which is the perfect symbol of an emotional mood, no matter what induced the mood.”12 Li Shangyin wrote more than sixty poems on history, much more than those by his contemporaries, even Du Mu (803–852). Based on Liu Xuekai’s observations, late Tang was the most prosperous period of historical poetry; Li Shangyin reached the artistic pinnacle of the genre, and, generally speaking, nobody in later times surpassed him (Liu Xuekai, 470). Prior poems on history mainly praise historical figures (such as Tao Qian’s “On Jing Ke”), give voice to one’s thoughts (such as Ruan Ji’s “Singing My Cares”), or criticize historical figures and events (such as Bai Juyi’s “Long Lasting Regret”). Differing from previous works, a prominent feature of Li Shangyin’s poems on history is satire. He often enhances his satirical poems through historical analogy. As James J. Y. Liu and William Nienhauser. Jr. point out, “His sarcasm concerning high officials and even the emperor is biting and witty, and his use of historical analogies is both ingenious and innovative.”13 For example: “Scholar Jia” Seeking worthies, the audience hall had the banished subject visit it, Scholar Jia’s talent and demeanor were matchless. What a pity! In vain the emperor moved forward on the mat at midnight, He asked not about the people but ghosts and spirits. This poem describes the occasion on which Emperor Wen of Han (r. 180–157 BCE) gave an audience to Jia Yi, a banished political commentator and writer. The emperor looked like a dedicated ruler as he sought wisdom from this worthy scholar, and even scooted forward on his mat to

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listen to him speak, despite the late hour. Ironically, however, what enchanted him was spirits rather than principles of governing.    “Qi Palace Lyrics” When soldiers came at night, the Yongshou Palace was left unlocked; Golden lotuses would never again leave prints in the courtyard. Songs and pipes from the Liang Terrace stopped at the third watch, the breeze was still ringing the nine-seed bell. This poem was written in 857, when Li Shangyin traveled as a clerk to the prosperous land of the Six Dynasties. The first couplet depicts the demise of Qi through two minor historical events. The first was the reason the Qi court fell: when the Liang army arrived at the capital, the Yongshou Palace of Qi was unexpectedly left unlocked, indicating the Qi army was unprepared at all to defend it. The second was an indirect but still more deadly cause: Emperor Fei of Qi once fashioned lotus flowers out of gold and embedded them into the ground of the palace and asked Lady Pan to walk on them, saying, “This is how lotus flowers are born by each step.” The golden lotuses are evidence that the emperor was fonder of women than governing the state; they “would never again leave prints in the courtyard” after the demise of Qi. The second couplet turns to the Liang court: they enjoyed music and revelry until late in the night, which was no different than Qi. The nine-seed bell originally belonged to the Zhuangyan Monastery and was taken by Emperor Fei of Qi to decorate Lady Pan’s chamber. Consequently, it is a symbol of a kingdom in ruin. In the line “the breeze was still ringing the nine-seed bell,” the poet indicates that Liang was still on the same path that Qi followed.14 “The Sui Palace” On impulse he traveled south without declaring martial law, In the nine-layered palace, who cared about the letters of remonstration? As the spring wind blew, people throughout the country were cutting palace brocade, Half to be used as mudguards, half as sails. This poem portrays Emperor Yang of Sui’s willful behavior, traveling to the south without preparation or listening to any remonstrations—in fact, according to the History of Sui, he executed those who submitted remonstrations. As a consequence, nobody dared send any more. It was truly ridiculous that the entire country was cutting fine palace brocade and wasting half of it as mudguards. Li Shangyin also composed poems on current events in contemporary history. The “Dragon Pool” is a good example: The emperor offers wine at the Dragon Pool, with mica screens open, The jie drum sounds loudly while the other music stops. Returning from a feast at midnight, the palace clepsydra drips long, The Prince of Xue is heavily drunk, but the Prince of Shou is sober.15 This poem satirizes Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, who took Lady Yang, the wife of his son, the Prince of Shou, as his own consort. Supposedly, Lady Yang attended the feast, and that was the reason why Prince of Shou was sleepless while the Prince of Xue was drunk. Even though the poet does not criticize Xuanzong, his sarcasm concerning the emperor is obvious.

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Poetic Feature: Aestheticism? Regarding the artistic achievements and aesthetic features of Li Shangyin’s poetry, You Guo’en, et al., offers a fair and accurate summary: His highest achievement is in regulated poetry, especially the heptasyllabic regulated verse. In this regard, he inherits the characteristics of Du Fu’s heptasyllabic regulated verse, which are meticulous and melancholy. He also combines the rich color of Qi and Liang’s poems and the fantasy and symbolism in Li He’s poems, forming a unique style: ‘being soulful’ (shenqing mianmiao) as well as ‘beautiful and meticulous’ (qili jinggong).16 The characteristic of being soulful refers to content full of lingering passion. For instance, “A spring silkworm stops spinning only when it dies/A candle’s tears dry out only when it becomes ash,” and “Even if lovesickness is useless/Still my melancholy heart can be regarded as infatuation.” The characteristic of being beautiful and meticulous refers to his artistry. His poems are full of colorful words and meticulous antithetical parallelism, such as “Our bodies lack colorful phoenix wings to fly in pair/Our hearts are threaded like the point running through a magic rhino horn,” or “The candle light half encloses the golden kingfishers/The musk fragrance passes faintly through embroidered lotuses,” or even “The purple phoenix displays its charm, holding a Chu pendant in mouth;/the crimson dragon dances wildly, plucking the Xiang strings” (No. 2 of “Sapphire Walls”). Vague beauty is a prominent and unique feature of Li Shangyin’s poetry that has been given increased attention in research. “Brocade Zither” is a good example: For no reason, the brocade zither has fifty strings, Each string and each peg recalling the flourishing years. In a dawn dream Scholar Zhuang confused himself with a butterfly,17 Emperor Wang entrusted his passionate heart to the cuckoo.18 On the vast sea the moon is bright, where pearls shed tears; On Indigo Field the sun is warm, as jade emits a mist. Can I wait until this feeling becomes a memory? It’s just that, right then, I was already bewildered. It is unclear why the title of the poem is “Brocade Zither.” Since the Song dynasty, scholars have offered various interpretations, including a love song written for a maid in Linghu Chu’s household, a poem on playing the zither, a poem mourning his wife, and a poem lamenting the life of the poet himself.19 None of these explanations is completely convincing. For each of them, there is at least one line that does not fit with the explanation.20 However, this has never reduced the interest of the reader in this poem. Liang Qichao says, “I don’t understand what Yishan’s poems ‘Brocade Zither,’ ‘Sapphire Walls,’ and ‘Holy Maiden Temple’ are about. . . . but I find they are beautiful and reading them gives me a fresh pleasure.”21 It seems that what arouses readers’ interest in the poem is not its unclear message; rather, it is the fascinating imagery in it. Those images, such as Master Zhuang’s butterfly dream, Emperor Wang becoming a cuckoo, tearful pearls on the moonlight vast sea, and misty jade in the sunny Indigo Field, all give readers an ethereal and dreamlike impression, leading them to experience the beautiful, melancholy mood in the poems and reminding them of experiences they have had. This is probably what Gu Sui meant by “dreamlike, hazy beauty” (meng de menglong mei).22

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As many scholars have noticed, this poem is like the symbolic works of nineteenth-century Europe, which emphasized subjectivity and individuality. These works create a type of magical scene with hints and symbols, express one’s own ideas and inner spiritual world through the synthesis of specific images, and make the reader vaguely understand and finally realize profound meanings there. Therefore, Li Shangyin should probably be considered one of the pioneers of symbolism or aestheticism. Gu Sui thinks there is nothing wrong with labeling Li Shangyin’s poems “aesthetical,” but, compared with Western “aesthetic” poems (such as the Flowers of Evil by Baudelaire), which were mainly about extraordinary things that transcend reality, Li Shangyin’s “Brocade Zither” is much more grounded in reality. It depicts scenes from daily life and is, therefore, closer to human emotion (Gu, 178–79). It should be added here that the daily life and human emotion in Li Shangyin’s poem are demonstrated by the highly symbolic images of traditional Chinese allusions, spanning literature, philosophy, and myth. Master Zhuang’s butterfly dream symbolizes confusion, Emperor Wang’s transformation into a cuckoo symbolizes long-lasting regret, the tears on pearls symbolize bitter grief, and the jade in mist symbolizes a dream-like experience. All indicate the bewilderment of what the poet experienced in the past. This feature is true for many others of Li’s poems. For example, “The red chamber through misty drizzle made me feel cold and solitary/In flickering light under raindrops resembling pearl curtains, I return alone” (“Spring Rain”); “In solitude she has waited until the light went dim/But still there is no news, and the pomegranate flowers have turned crimson” (“Untitled”); “Throughout the spring, the dream-like drizzle often sprinkles onto the tiles/All day long, the divine breeze could not blow the flag up” (“Revisiting the Holy Maiden Temple”). Everything is sad, hazy, and dreamlike. Another prominent feature of Li Shangyin’s poetry is that of appealing to multiple senses (visual, tactile, thermal)23 and even sensations of synesthesia. Just as Western aesthetic poets gave attention to the impressions evoked by the stimulation of color, smell, and sound to the human senses,24 Li Shangyin’s poetry also possesses such features: Our bodies lack colorful phoenix wings to fly in a pair; Our hearts are threaded like the point running through a magic rhino horn. The hook was passed across seats, the spring wine warm, Broken in teams, we guessed. The candle shone red. (“Untitled”) The red chamber through misty drizzle made me feel chilly, In flickering light under raindrops like pearl curtains, I return alone. (“Spring Rain”) The candlelight half encloses the golden kingfishers, The musk fragrance passes faintly through embroidered lotuses.    (No. 1 of “Untitled, Four Poems”) See again “Untitled”: Never open your passionate heart together with flowers, One inch of yearning is one inch of ash. (Untitled) Here the formless desire for love blossoms together with spring flowers, and lovesickness becomes the ash of a burned-out fire, which can be seen and touched, even measured.

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Just as Chloe Garcia Roberts observes in the “Editor’s Introduction” to her 2018 book, Li Shangyin, sensuality is not just the subject of his poetry—it is also a driver of his form. In other words, the convoluted experiences that Li Shangyin renders in his work are literally sensual in that they are painted with senses. Sight, touch, smell, hearing, and even taste are employed freely and almost incorporeally, thereby making his obscure and unexplainable images, allusions, and symbols tangible for the reader. And it is ultimately this unique marriage of sensuality and symbolism that allows the contemporary reader entry into Li’s poetic landscape, by allowing that reader to concretely feel what she does not, and cannot, know.25

Notes 1 Li Shangyin’s birth year is unsettled. Some claim 812, while others 813. The year here is based on Dong Naibin, Li Shangyin zhuan [Biography of Li Shangyin] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2012), 3–7. 2 Stephen Owen doubts this: “Li Shangyin was probably too insignificant politically to be ‘punished’ in consequence of the factional feuds of the age.” See his The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827–860) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Asia Center, 2006), 355. 3 It appears there had previously been only one poem named “Untitled” (by Lu Lun [739–799]). Six more poems attributed to Li Shangyin using this title are not considered reliable. See Liu Xuekai, Li Shangyin zhuanlun [Comments on the Biography of Li Shangyin], 2 vols. (Wuhu: Anhui shifandaxue chubanshe, 2020), 493. 4 Stephen Owen, for example, discusses these as Li Shangyin’s “Hermetic poems,” including the “Untitled.” See his The Late Tang, 357–411. 5 Su Xuelin, Li Yishan lian’ai shiji kao [A Study of Li Shangyin’s Love Affairs] (Taiwan: Beixin shuju, 1927). 6 Chen Yixin, “Li Shangyin aiqing shiji kaobian” [Textual Research on Li Shangyin’s Love Affairs], Wenshi 6 (1979). 7 As Stephen Owen says in his The Late Tang, 356, “In a larger sense, the enterprise of finding the ‘biographical truth’ behind Li Shangyin’s poems is not only futile but does not matter. . . . Reading these poems as a group, it is hard not to be seduced by the idea of some illicit love affair.” 8 The palace library. 9 Jia Yi’s “Essay on Governance and Peace” (Zhi’an ce) says: “Personally, I think that of the current issues, one of them is worth weeping over.” As his ideas were not accepted by Emperor Wen, the poet feels he shed his tears in vain. 10 To avoid the turbulence in Chang’an, Wang Can traveled to faraway Jingzhou to join Liu Biao when he was seventeen years old. 11 An allusion to a passage in Zhuangzi: Somebody said to Master Hui, “Master Zhuang is coming, and he wants to replace you as prime minister.” Zhuang went to see Hui and told him a story, in which he likens himself to a yellow phoenix: “it won’t stop on any other tree but the kola nut; won’t eat anything but bamboo seeds; won’t drink anything but sweet spring water,” and likens the position of prime minister to a putrid rat that only an owl likes. 12 James J. Y. Liu, The Poetry of Li Shang-yin (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1969), 160. 13 William Nienhauser Jr., ed., Biographical Dictionary of Tang Dynasty Literati (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2022), 195. 14 Stephen Owen mentions that there might be another possible interpretation—by listening to the nine-seed bell as a warning, Liang was trying to stop excess, though such a reading does not seem to support his argument that the poem is “ambivalent” (see The Late Tang, 416–17). 15 The eighteenth son of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Li Mao (720–775), was given the title Prince of Shou at the age of five. When his sister Princess Xianyi held a wedding in Luoyang, fourteen-year-old Li Mao met fifteen-year-old Yang Yuhuan and fell in love with her at first sight. He asked his mother, Consort Hui of

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Further Reading Bonmarchand, Georges. Li Yishan. Paris: Gallimard, 1992 (rpt. of Tokyo: Maison Franco-Japonaise, 1955). Chan Kwan-Hung. The Purple Phoenix: Poems of Li Shangyin. West Conshohocken: Infinity, 2012. Dong Naibin. Li Shangyin de xinling shijie [The Spiritual World of Li Shangyin]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2012. Dong Naibin. Li Shangyin zhuan [Biography of Li Shangyin]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2012. Feng Hao (1719–1801), ed. Yuxi sheng shiji jianzhu [Annotated Collection of Scholar Yuxi’s Poetry]. 1780. Rpt. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1979. Liu, James J. Y. The Poetry of Li Shang-yin. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1969. Liu Xuekai. Li Shangyin zhuanlun [Comments on the Biography of Li Shangyin]. 2 vols. Wuhu: Anhui shifandaxue chubanshe, 2020. Liu Xuekai and Yu Shucheng, eds. Li Shangyin shige jijie [The Collected and Explicated Poems of Li Shangyin]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004. Liu Xuekai, Yu Shucheng, and Huang Shizhong, eds. Li Shangyin ziliao huibian [A Collection of Materials on Li Shangyin]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2001. Owen, Stephen. Chapter 10–14. The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827–860), 335–526. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006. Ye Congqi. Li Shangyin shiji shuzhu [A Collection of Li Shangyin’s Poems with Annotations and Sub-commentaries]. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1985.

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16 WEN TINGYUN Thomas J. Mazanec

Wen Tingyun (801?–867?) is widely considered one of the leading poets of the late Tang, a reputation he shares with Li Shangyin (813–858) and Du Mu (803–852). His importance to literary history rests on his achievements in two areas. First, he developed a sumptuous personal style that he applied across a wide range of poetic themes and genres. This style combined trends from two distinct time periods: lavish description of beautiful things, reminiscent of the palace-style poetry (gongti shi) in vogue in the sixth century, and intricately crafted parallel couplets similar to the “painstaking composition” (kuyin) poets that dominated the ninth century. The result is a highly refined approach to verse that later readers understood to be the fullest embodiment of the late Tang style, often seen negatively as reflecting the artificiality and decadence of his age. Second, Wen Tingyun is remembered as the first literatus to leave behind a significant body of ci poetry (“song lyrics”). In doing so, he is seen as elevating the genre from the realm of popular entertainment into that of elite literature, establishing a model for generations to come. In particular, his sixty-six verses included in the foundational tenth-century anthology Among the Flowers (Huajian ji) are the most numerous of any poet, and one can read many of the ci by later poets in the anthology as imitations of Wen. Wen’s ci, especially the series “Bodhisattva Barbarian” (Pusa man), carry many elements of his signature style, such as detailed description of refined objects, precisely juxtaposed parallels, and detached, voyeuristic depictions of boudoir scenes. In addition to these achievements, the case of Wen Tingyun’s collection also highlights textual difficulties facing any historian of ninth-century Chinese poetry. Wen’s reconstructed collection survives in twelve fascicles, composed of unusually bold yuefu (“music-bureau”) poems in fascicles 1–2; occasional verse and more stylistically conservative poetry in fascicles 3–7; poetry surviving from other sources in fascicles 8–9; ci in fascicle 10; and other genres, including prose, in fascicles 11–12. Each of these sections comes from separate manuscripts that were collated and combined at different points in their textual history, revealing just how different our image of Wen Tingyun would be if one of these sections had not survived. Finally, related to the transmission of his collection and the kinds of poems it contains, Wen Ting‑ yun is often remembered as a libertine. This reputation should be regarded with great suspicion, as it chiefly rests on anecdotes first recorded decades or even centuries after Wen’s death and seems to have been generated as a convenient means for explaining the voyeuristic, sensual poetry found in Wen’s collection. Reliable biographical information on Wen Tingyun is scant: meager (perhaps  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-22

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biased) accounts in the two official histories of the Tang, a pair of Wen’s autobiographical poems, several of his letters, and incidental information found in his and others’ exchange poetry. This, however, has not prevented scholarly speculation, and proposed reconstructions of his life are both numerous and controversial.1

Biographical Sketch Proposed birth dates for Wen Tingyun range from 798 to 827. For several decades, Xia Chengtao’s proposed year of 812 was accepted, but it is merely a speculation based upon a difficult reference in one of Wen’s obscure autobiographical poems. More recent scholarship has favored dates closer to the beginning of this range, such as 798 or 801.2 Wen came from an aristocratic family, claiming himself to be a descendent of Wen Yanbo (575–637), a lofty official who helped stabilize the Tang during its early years. Anecdotes describe him as a precocious child, gifted in music and ambivalent toward potential patrons. He likely married and established a family by 837, around the same time that he served in the retinue of the Crown Prince. By 839, he had taken and failed the civil service examinations at least once. One or two years later, he traveled to Huainan circuit (modern Anhui) to seek patronage from one of the ascendant officials surnamed Li, either Li Shen (772–846) or Li Deyu (787–850). He was also reportedly familiar with Linghu Tao, prime minister under Emperor Xuanzong (r. 846–59). One anecdote claims that Linghu attempted to present to the emperor some of Wen’s compositions to the tune “Bodhisattva Barbarian” as his own and later blocked Wen’s official career when the true authorship was revealed.3 Based on these connections and stories, some scholars believe that Wen’s lack of official success was due to his association with Li Deyu’s political faction and his angering of Linghu Tao in the opposed Niu Sengru faction. In 855, Wen was found to have been the ghostwriter for examination candidates on several occasions, resulting in a series of scandals. One involved the son of the governor of the capital, who had procured the topic for the exam’s rhapsody (fu) composition in advance and had asked Wen to write it for him. An investigation led to the demotion or dismissal of several officials. Another scandal involved Wen’s disqualification from the exams because he had been helping other examinees for money (Rouzer, 14). Apparently as a result of these scandals, Wen was sent away from the capital the following year to serve in Suizhou (modern Hubei). From about 857 to 860, Wen Tingyun lived in nearby Xiangyang. Some of his writings from this period, including some truly bizarre pieces, are preserved in a collection of literary exchanges among Xiangyang-based literati, compiled by Duan Chengshi (d. 863) as Written on the Breast, Upon the Han River (Hanshang tijin ji).4 Wen Tingyun then moved to the southeast, where he reportedly spent much time in the pleasure quarters. In Yangzhou, where Linghu Tao now served as military governor, Wen ignored his former associate. This worked against him when one night, likely in 863, Wen Tingyun was severely beaten by a city guard for violating curfew, with several of his teeth knocked out. Wen complained of this mistreatment to Linghu, and the latter found the guard justified, enraging Wen, who wrote to various officials trying to clear his name.5 Fortunately for Wen, one of his associates from his Xiangyang days, Xu Shang, was elevated to a high position in the government of Emperor Yizong (r. 859–873) and was able to secure for Wen a post as a professor in the Imperial Academy in the mid-860s. In this capacity, Wen served as the chief examiner for the 866 examinations. It was also around this time that Wen exchanged poems with the female poet-priestess Yu Xuanji (ca. 843–868), though it is unlikely that they were ever lovers, as some have speculated.6 Wen’s good fortune, however, did not last, and he was sent into

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exile near the end of the year. He likely died soon thereafter, since there survives an epitaph for him written by his brother, Tinghao, who himself died in 868. It is difficult to judge Wen Tingyun’s reputation immediately after his death. On the one hand, Wen Tingyun receives scant attention in poetry manuals and other critical writings on poetry in the late ninth century, which tended to favor “painstaking composition” poets like Jia Dao. On the other hand, Wen is featured prominently in three anthologies compiled in the Shu region (modern Sichuan) in the tenth century, following the collapse of the Tang: four poems in Further Mystery (You xuan ji) compiled in 900, sixty-one poems in The Gifted and Talented (Caidiao ji) compiled in the mid-tenth century (second-most of the 178 poets included), and sixty-six ci-poems in Among the Flowers. Stephen Owen has speculated that Wen’s reputation as a playboy grew at the end of the ninth century, and, with this growth, his poetry gained cachet among the elite, especially in Shu. Anna Shields has suggested that Wen’s son and grandson living in Shu through the collapse of the Tang may have helped bolster his reputation there. In any case, the fact that Shu enjoyed a robust print culture in the tenth century meant that his work had a better chance of survival.7

Poetic Style Wen Tingyun’s poetic style is characterized by an attention to beautiful things, richly described and seemingly detached from their broader moral implications, what Rouzer has called a poetics of “surfaces” (Rouzer, 6). As mentioned, Wen arrived at this through a novel combination of the “palace style” and the “painstaking composition” style. Wen’s most famous poem, “Setting out Early from Mount Shang” (Shangshan zaoxing), illustrates the attention to the craft of parallel couplets characteristic of “painstaking composition.” 4 8

Rising at dawn and moving my carriage bells, This traveler walks, sad for his home town. Rooster sounds, the thatch inn’s moon; Human traces, the plank bridge’s frost. Oak leaves fall on the mountain path, And orange blossoms brighten a post-station wall. As I yearn for a Duling dream, Ducks and geese fill the winding pond.8

Critics since the eleventh century have singled out lines 3–4 for appreciation. In the first half of each line, we find a contrast between sound and sight, human and animal, invisible presence (rooster cries) and visible absence (people’s footprints). In the second half, white-colored natural objects are placed in relation to human-built things: the moon, still visible at early dawn, appears settled upon the roof of the inn where the speaker has just stayed, while up ahead, at the bridge that he’s about to cross, appears the frost that marks early dawn. As Rouzer has noted, what makes these lines especially productive is the relationship between the two halves of each line: in line 4, people’s footprints can be seen because of the frost. Following the logic of parallelism, we must project the same kind of relationship onto line 3 and speculate as to how the moon might make the rooster’s cries more deeply noticed, thereby blurring the senses (Rouzer, 18–19). Both lines, moreover, depict feelings of traveling without directly describing them. A similar technique is at work in lines 5–6. Such delicately juxtaposed imagery, using simple vocabulary, is a hallmark of the “painstaking composition” style in vogue throughout the ninth century.

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Wen’s other major influence, the “palace style,” first came into prominence in the literary salons associated with Xiao Gang (503–551) while he was crown prince of the Southern Liang dynasty, much of it immortalized in the anthology New Songs from a Jade Terrace (Yutai xinyong). By the late Tang, this term designated a clear set of topics and an approach to writing about them. Typically, palace-style poetry described the beautiful women and ornate objects found in a boudoir, often from an objective perspective or in the adopted voice of a female persona, described in lavish language. The mood would typically be erotic, mixed sometimes with melancholy over impermanence. This detached, feminine perspective led many critics to denounce palace-style poetry as artificial, setting it in opposition to the emotional sincerity prescribed by mainstream poetics. Despite later critics’ objections, erotic, palace-style poetry underwent a revival in the ninth century, featuring prominently in the works of major poets like Yuan Zhen (779–831), Li He (790–816), Li Shangyin, Du Mu, and Han Wo (840–923). This renewed attention to eros is likely connected to the emergence of a broader culture of romance in the ninth century, associated with literati visitations to the pleasure quarters of major Tang cities, especially the southern ones, where they would play music, sing songs, and spend the night with professional entertainers, adopting an attitude of fengliu (bold charm, sprezzatura). The following poem, “The Reflection: A Song” (Zhaoying qu), describes a palace beauty looking at herself in a pond. What makes Wen’s poem especially complex is the way it takes the palace-style theme of two women looking at each other and plays with issues of surface and depth, objectivity and subjectivity. Makeup finished in Jingyang   as the carnelian windows warm up, Desiring to see her clear and bright reflection,   her perfumed steps are slow. On a bridge, the robes multiply,   embracing the multicolored clouds. 4 Golden scales don’t move   in the full spring pond. The yellow stamp on her forehead,   she thinks is as unimportant as dust; Cyan scales and ruddy youth   both fill her brows. The peach blossom of one hundred charms   seems as if about to speak: 8 She who was once without a match   is now two bodies.9 This poem’s attention to the material details of the palace lady’s surroundings (makeup, bejeweled windows, etc.) are typical of the palace style. What distinguishes Wen’s poem is how it plays with the palace-style tendency towards women’s objectification by adopting her visual perspective, especially in the middle couplets, as she looks at her reflection in the pond, noting the blurring of her body on the surface with the reflection of clouds above and the goldfish swimming below (discussed further in Rouzer, 78–80). This hint at the women’s subjectivity through her ability to notice the blending of surfaces and depths increases the poem’s allure, drawing the reader in to the erotic world of a palace beauty.

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One of Wen Tingyun’s innovations was to take this palace style and apply it not only to typical palatial settings and themes but to other set topics, such as regulated verse on visiting an elite male’s retreat, as illustrated in “The Creekside Villa of One Who Knows the Way” (Zhidao xiju bieye):10 A thick sheen begins to release,   and the emerald flora is renewed. The phoenix-bright shining sun   surrounds finely carved wheels. Threads float from soft willows   by the flat bridge at evening; 4 Snow dots cold plums   in a small courtyard in spring. The last ruler of Chen   in a storied terrace on a screen, And her Ladyship Li   with gold and kingfisher in a mirror. Transparent dew penetrates a flower’s calyx,   and red pearls fall. 8 Butterflies fly in pairs,   defending against dust.11 The scholar’s retreat, typically depicted as rustic, is here elevated with the ornate details of palace-style verse: the first couplet describes the flora outside the villa as “emerald” and the wheels of the speaker’s approaching carriage as “finely carved.” The transformation of moisture and the framing of light are depicted with great care. In the second couplet, Wen juxtaposes scenery outside and inside the villa to imply the speaker’s entrance. Most boldly, the third couplet describes the beautiful objects inside the villa—screens and mirrors traditionally associated with the boudoir— by alluding to two historical figures with less than pristine reputations. Whether these are merely “architectural representation,” as asserted by Stephen Owen, or embody ominous undertones that hint at critique, as claimed by Fusheng Wu, is a matter of how deeply one reads into the poem. The meaning of these allusions will affect one’s reading of the poem’s conclusion, whether it contains “sexual overtones” (Owen, 548) or “vulnerability” (Wu, 127–28). Wen Tingyun brought this same union of “palace-style” and “painstaking composition” to the rhapsody. Although only two of his compositions in this genre survive, many early comments about Wen note his skill in the “regulated rhapsody” (lüfu) that was tested on the imperial examinations. The poem examined in the following, his “Rhapsody on Brocade Shoes” (Jinxie fu), was part of the collection of unusually playful poems written at Xiangyang in 857, Written on the Breast, Upon the Han River. Wen’s rhapsody was written in response to a teasing poem by Duan Chengshi which suggested that Wen might wish to imitate a rhapsody by Tao Yuanming (365–427) in which he imagines himself as silk slippers encircling his beloved’s shoe. 4

The flowers are spring-fresh within these rails, The moon is new beside these clouds.12 The wrapped feet of radiant Weaving Maid, The bundled luster of lovely Chang E.13 Emerald edging and blond hooks,

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Simurgh tail and phoenix head, Shoes called “Elegant Dance,” Sandals known as “Distant Travels.”

They are like: The golden lotuses of Donghun’s Consort Pan, Or the bejeweled clogs of Linchuan’s Concubine Jiang.14 Their stumbling and bumbling is not the strut of Shouling, 12 And their bewitching magic is truly that of Tribute of Zhuluo.15 Gauze socks with the dazzle of red lotuses, Sleek insteps with the marvel of white brocade. With wavewalking light steps, she glances at the Prince of Chen,   then prances delicately, leisurely back and forth.16 When flowery dust and fragrant footprints meet Mr. Shi, 16   she suddenly grows coy yet shows off her figure.17 She went back to the ford with a box in hand   and startled Sir Xiao at first glance.18 Though her plum patterns were clearly skilled,   she resents not having been picked by Han rulers.19 Coda: Transcendent of the Jade Pond,   Dong Shuangcheng— 20 Evening light on the curved jade   hanging from the top of the curtains—20 Lets her hands hang down   just as she’s about to ascend to the clouds, And leaves us with these feelings   as she turns to look back. I would like to be wound tight around her fragrant toes, 24 To press all around her filigree pillars.21 Grieve not at her changing clothes   and being thrown beside the bed: 26 But on the side, listen in the eastern rays of dawn   for the sound of jade pendants.22 While the norms of rhapsody require a much higher density of allusions compared to Wen’s shi-poetry, there are nonetheless stylistic continuities. The focus on the feminine object, the lavish description of their material detail, and the indulgent descriptions of alluring women all invoke the palace style. Similarly, lines are presented in tightly parallel couplets, recalling painstaking composition.

Song Lyrics (ci) and Other Writings Wen Tingyun is often hailed as the first literatus to write extensively in the ci genre, using it to complex literary effect. However, as Rouzer has shown, drawing on the work of Ren Bantang, there was likely not so great a gap between ci (song lyrics), which were sung to music and transcribed in lines of uneven length, and other types of poetry, which could also be sung to music but were transcribed in lines of even length, typically in quatrains or stanzas of seven characters per line (Rouzer, 204

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27–68). Stephen Owen has speculated that the only reason Wen Tingyun may appear to be the first major ci writer is because the norms of transcribing song lyrics were different in tenth-century Shu (where most of Wen’s lyrics were preserved in Among the Flowers) compared to ninth-century Tang (Owen, 560–63). Rouzer, and Owen following him, have argued that Wen Tingyun’s influence on the history of the development of ci has been exaggerated due to historical chance, because Wen features so prominently in Among the Flowers, which happens to be extant. While this may be true from a ninth-century perspective, Among the Flowers in fact came to be seen by later generations as a pivotal step in the development of ci, and Wen provided one of the major models for the tenth-century Shu lyricists to imitate, who in turn had a significant impact on later ci writers (Shields, 176–85). In particular, Wen used a more tightly crafted style that focused on the rapid juxtaposition of beautiful imagery from a seemingly detached perspective—what Yeh Chia-ying has called “objective” and Kang-i Sun Chang “paratactic.” This style, familiar to us from Wen’s other poetic works, served as a contrast with that of the other major Tang poet featured in Among the Flowers, Wei Zhuang (836–910), who used simpler diction, explicit narrative connections, and more direct statements of emotions—what Yeh has called “subjective” and Chang “hypotactic.”23 Wen’s style can be seen in his one ci that was copied onto a Dunhuang manuscript (in addition to being collected in Among the Flowers), written to the tune “Clepsydra” (“Genglou chang” in the manuscript; “Genglouzi” in the received version). 4

Perfume in a golden-duck case, And red wax tears Obliquely illumine autumn longings in a painted hall. Brows, cyan, have thinned, Locks, cloudlike, are disheveled: At night blanket and pillow are cold.

8 12

Paulownia tree, Midnight rain, Don’t say that feelings of separation are now bitter. Each and every leaf, Each and every sound Falls on empty stairs until dawn.24

The first stanza begins with rich boudoir imagery that indirectly describes a mournful woman whose lover has left her, focusing on the past: the candle has dripped “tears” of wax, her face is not made up, and her bedding has grown cold. The second stanza then jumps to the present, where the speaker denies the reflection of her feelings in the current scene (she does not cry like the rain) but looks instead to the future, where it is the sound of leaves falling on empty stairs that best depicts her feeling of emptiness in the absence of her lover. Feelings are only directly mentioned once in the poem, and that is to deny them. Rather than directly emoting, Wen instead focuses on quick jumps between different emotional images. Wen’s most famous ci are his series of fourteen to the tune “Bodhisattva Barbarian,” which tend to be even more difficult and paratactic than the verse for “Clepsydra” examined previously. Pistil-yellow covers her forehead   all around, 205

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In last night’s makeup, she secretly smiles,   separated by the gauze window. When they meet, it’s peony season: 4 He came for a moment, then parted. Kingfisher hairpins with stems of gold, And on the hairpins dance butterflies in pairs. Who really understands matters of the heart? 8 The moon is bright, flowers fill the branches.25 This poem is composed of a series of quick cuts which only hint at the theme of a one-night tryst. It opens with a close-up of the woman’s makeup in lines 1–2, shifts to the narrative in lines 3–4, then zooms back in with a tighter close-up on the woman’s hairpins in lines 5–6. These depictions are voyeuristic, as they take place in the woman’s private chambers, hidden behind gauze windows, where she contemplates her lover (see the analysis in Shields, 191–94). The final two lines blur interior and exterior with a pun on “understand” and “branches” (both zhi in Modern Mandarin, and the nearly homophonous trje and tsye in reconstructed Middle Chinese). We can only understand the matters of the woman’s heart by observing the branches: just as they fill with flowers, so she fills with emotion. Such clearly erotic vignettes—in the shi-poetry as well as the ci—made some moralistic Confucian readers uneasy in later generations, though they could not deny the artistry of the poems. One way to deal with this unease is to dismiss Wen’s poetry as the product of a decadent age, a symptom of all that went wrong with the Tang as it neared its end. There is certainly no shortage of critical comments to this effect. An alternative strategy is to read Wen’s poems as political allegories, in which the relationship between the female beloved and male lover is seen as figuratively representing the relationship between a minister and his ruler. Lending plausibility to this theory is the existence of a long tradition of such allegories, which find their source in the fountainheads of Chinese poetry, the Songs of Chu and the Mao Edition of the Odes (Maoshi). Most famously, the commentary of Zhang Huiyan (1761–1802), reproduced in modern editions of Wen’s works, interprets Wen’s fourteen “Bodhisattva Barbarian” verses as a coherent narrative series of a woman waking from her dreams, with occasional flashbacks, which serves as a figure for the worthy literatus lamenting being passed over for service. Recently, Huaichuan Mou has expanded Zhang’s approach, taking the series to be fragments of an autobiographical narrative where the female speaker articulates Wen’s political frustrations through the persona of a frustrated court lady. In the verse we examined previously, for example, he takes the brief union of male and female to represent the brevity of Wen’s service in the retinue of the Crown Prince in 837 (Mou, 207, 209). Unfortunately, Zhang’s and Mou’s interpretations rest so much on biographical speculation (itself built on flimsy evidence) and counterintuitive interpretations of the poems that few readers have found them convincing. If these poems did allegorically critique Wen’s political world, the context is likely forever lost to us. In addition to the kinds of works discussed previously, Wen Tingyun wrote worthy poetry on the whole gamut of standard themes in the late Tang. Paul Rouzer’s thematic study of Wen’s poetry notes his achievements in yuefu on musical themes, in “poems on history” (yongshi shi), in “contemplations of the past” (huaigu), in poems on visits to religious sites, and in occasional regulated verse. Wen was also an appropriately stylish writer of prose, reflected in his letters and narratives. To each of these, as to other genres and themes, Wen Tingyun consistently brought his distinctive voice. 206

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Notes 1 For one particularly controversial reconstruction in English, see Huaichuan Mou, Rediscovering Wen Tingyun: A Historical Key to a Poetical Labyrinth (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004). 2 Xia’s dating is based on one line in Wen’s 200-line poem, “Bingzhong shuhuai cheng youren” [Writing My Thoughts While Sick: Presented to a Friend], which suggests that Wen was around 30 when he went into reclusion in the late 830s. By contrast, Huaichuan Mou and others have focused on the identity of the recipient of another autobiographical poem, “Ganjiu chenhuai wushiyun xian Huainan Li puye” [Stirred by the Past, I Lay Out My Feelings in Fifty Rhymes: Offered to Vice Director Li of Huainan]. If “Vice Director Li” is Li Shen, as Mou has argued, then Wen’s birth year should be closer to the turn of the century [Mou, Rediscovering Wen Tingyun 35–42]. 3 See a discussion and partial translation of this story in Paul Rouzer, Writing Another’s Dream: The Poetry of Wen Tingyun (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), 13–14. 4 Portions of this collection have been painstakingly reconstructed by Jia Jinhua in Tangdai jihui zongji yu shirenqun yanjiu [Studies of Occasional Anthologies and Poetic Communities in the Tang Dynasty], 2nd ed. (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2015), 145–59, 449–64. Duan and Wen were further connected through the marriage of Wen’s daughter to Duan’s son. 5 An English translation of the official histories’ account of these events can be found in Mou, 88–89. Note, however, that Mou regards these biographies as fabrications initiated by Wen’s purported enemies, the court eunuchs. 6 On Yu Xuanji and her relationship with Wen Tingyun, see Jia Jinhua, Gender, Power, and Talent: The Journey of Daoist Priestesses in Tang China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), 165–73. 7 See Owen, The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827–860) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), 538–39, and Shields, Crafting a Collection: The Cultural Context and Poetic Practice of the Huajian ji (Collection from Among the Flowers) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), 184–85. 8 Gu Yuxian, Wen Feiqing shiji zhu [Collected Poems of Wen Feiqing, annotated] (Xiuye caotang kanben, 1697), 7.5b, accessible online via HathiTrust at https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015058663868; cf. Liu Xuekai, Wen Tingyun quanji jiaozhu [Collected Works of Wen Tingyun, collated and annotated] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007), 7.650–56. Translations are my own. All of the poems included subsequently were anthologized in The Gifted and Talented, except for the rhapsody and the ci. Mount Shang: located in modern Shaanxi, near the Hubei border, historically known as the retreat of four recluses who fled during the fall of the Qin dynasty (221–207 BCE). 9 Gu Yuxian, Wen Feiqing shiji zhu, 1.10a–b; Liu, Wen Tingyun quanji jiaozhu, 1.56–58. Jingyang: boudoir where the concubines of Emperor Wu of the Southern Qi dynasty (r. 482–493) lived. Yellow stamp: during the medieval period, it was fashionable for women to dot their foreheads with yellow makeup. Here, the lady regards it as unimportant because she exudes natural beauty. 10 In Gu’s eidition, this poem is titled “Matching a Friend’s ‘Dwelling Creekside at a Villa’” (He youren xiju bieye). 11 Gu Yuxian, Wen Feiqing shiji zhu, 4.9b; Liu, Wen Tingyun quanji jiaozhu, 4.353–57. “Last Ruler of Chen”: final ruler of the last southern dynasty prior to reunification under the Sui in 589, notorious for his decadent lifestyle and failure as a ruler. “Her Ladyship Li”: beauty who received favor from Emperor Wu of the Han (r. 141–87 BCE) for her dancing. Her brother was a general who later surrendered to the Xiongnu tribes following a military defeat, and their family was executed for treason in 90 BCE. 12 Both of these lines describe a young lady’s delicate feet (likened to flowers and a newly crescent moon) wearing shoes (likened to rails and referred to metonymically by the cloud-like design on them). 13 Weaving Maid: the star Vega. Bundled luster: esoteric Daoist name for the moon. Chang E: goddess of the moon. 14 Donghun: the notoriously hedonistic emperor of the Southern Qi (r. 499–501), known posthumously by his demoted title, Marquis of Donghun. Consort Pan: Donghun’s lover. The histories describe how Donghun carved golden lotuses for Pan to walk upon (Nanshi [Histories of the South]) [Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975], 5.154). Linchuan: Prince Jinghui of Linchuan (473–526), a handsome royal scion who doted on a concubine, giving her a pair of bejeweled clogs worth millions (Nanshi, 51.1277). 15 Strut of Shouling: chapter 17 of Zhuangzi describes a man from Shouling, who, eager to learn a new way of walking, forgets his original way and “stumbles and bumbles” home instead. Tribute of Zhuluo: famed beauty Xi Shi, whose name literally means “Western Tribute” and who was born on Mount Zhuluo.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 16 Prince of Chen: Cao Zhi (192–232), who uses similar language in his “Luoshen fu” [Rhapsody on the Luo River Goddess]. 17 Mr. Shi: the wealthy Shi Chong, who had an especially beautiful concubine named “Lüzhu” [Green Pearl]. 18 Sir Xiao: Xiao Yan (464–549). His “Hezhong zhi shui ge” [Waters in Midst of the River: A Song] describes a young beauty whose servant carried her shoebox. How this relates to “going back to the ford” is unclear, according to Liu Xuekai. 19 Plum patterns: feet, referred to metonymically by plum-patterned socks worn. According to the “Zhao Feiyan waizhuan” [Unofficial Biography of Zhao Feiyan], when Feiyan’s younger sister was recommended as an imperial consort, she prepared for her initial imperial audience by, in part, wearing plum-patterned stockings, only to be sent home by the emperor after his ministers chittered in admiration at the sound of her smooth voice. 20 Jade Pond: residence of the divine Queen Mother of the West in the Kunlun Mountains. Dong Shuangcheng: one of the Queen Mother’s attendants. 21 See Tao Yuanming’s “Xianqing fu” [Rhapsody on Stilling the Passions]: “I would like to be the silk that makes your slipper, / To press your white foot all around. / Grieving that there is a time for walking and a time for rest, / The shoes are thrown beside your bed” (trans. adapted from James Robert Hightower, “The Fu of T’ao Ch’ien,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 17, no. 1/2 [1954]: 184). 22 Dong Gao 董誥, Quan Tangwen 全唐文 (1814 ed.), 786.2a–b, accessible online via Hathitrust at https:// catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100058609, and Liu, Wen Tingyun quanji jiaozhu, 11.1042–47. 23 Yeh Chia-ying, Wen Tingyun, Wei Zhuang, Feng Yansi, Li Yu (Taipei: Da’an chubanshe, 1988), 16–17, 60–62; Kang-i Sun Chang, The Evolution of Chinese Tz’u Poetry: From Late T’ang to Northern Sung (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 33–62. 24 I have transcribed the poem as found in the Dunhuang document labeled “Pelliot chinois 3994,” available online at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8300850g, which differs slightly from the received version, found in Huajian ji 花間集 (Jiguge 汲古閣 ed.), 1.4b, accessible via Hathitrust at https://hdl.handle. net/2027/wau.39352062605639, and Liu, Wen Tingyun quanji jiaozhu, 10.965–68. 25 Huajian ji, 1.1b, and Liu, Wen Tingyun quanji jiaozhu, 10.906–09. “Pistil-yellow”: the color of the woman’s makeup. “Peony season”: late spring. “Kingfisher,” “butterflies”: ornamental designs on hairpins.

Further Reading Chang, Kang-i Sun. The Evolution of Chinese Tz’u Poetry: From Late T’ang to Northern Sung. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980. Mou, Huaichuan. Rediscovering Wen Tingyun: A Historical Key to a Poetic Labyrinth. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. Owen, Stephen. “Wen Tingyun.” In The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827–860), 527–65. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006. Rouzer, Paul F. Writing Another’s Dream: The Poetry of Wen Tingyun. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993. Shields, Anna M. Crafting a Collection: The Cultural Context and Poetic Practice of the Huajian ji (Collection from Among the Flowers). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006. Wu, Fusheng. “Wen Tingyun: The Poet Dandy.” In The Poetics of Decadence: Chinese Poetry of the Southern Dynasties and Late Tang Periods, 117–48. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Yeh Chia-ying. Wen Tingyun, Wei Zhuang, Feng Yansi, Li Yu. Taipei: Da’an chubanshe, 1988.

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SECTION VI

Poetry of the Song

17 LU YOU Wanmeng Li

Lu You (1125–1210), like other esteemed poets, enjoyed a multitude of impressive accolades. He was the most influential poet of the Southern Song (1127–1279), forming a literary triumvirate alongside Yang Wanli (1127–1206) and Fan Chengda (1126–1193). He was an extremely versatile and prolific writer, who tirelessly composed over ten thousand poems and hundreds of essays throughout his lifetime. The majority of his works were preserved in Jiannan Poetry Drafts (Jiannan shigao), Weinan Anthology (Weinan wenji), and Random Jottings from the Old Scholar Hermitage (Laoxue’an Biji), Moreover, he was known as a man of integrity, remaining devoted to his first wife even after they were forcibly separated. Above all, Lu You was revered as a patriotic figure. His writings eloquently convey the sentiments of his fellow countrymen in the face of encroaching Jurchen enemies following the loss of northern lands by the Song dynasty. However, these labels cannot sufficiently capture the multifaceted persona and the changing literary voice of Lu You. Scholarly studies, delving into his approximately 9,200 surviving poems and numerous prose pieces, have shed new light on his transformative life journey and understanding of literature. His literary expressions extended beyond the mere expression of hope for the restoration of his dilapidated homeland; he also infused his passion into documenting his experiences traveling in the cultural landscapes of his country.1 As a poet and essayist, Lu You reaffirmed the value of individual experiences in the phenomenal world and their connection to the inner world of the self, thereby offering a solution to his fellow literati who grappled with redefining the core value of their literary pursuits and identities during the first half of the Southern Song period.

The Vicissitudes of Lu You's Early Life Born upon the fall of Northern Song, Lu You spent his early years amid overwhelming sociopolitical chaos. A year after Lu You’s birth, his father Lu Zai (1088–1148) was forced to quit his post of fiscal vice-commissioner as the capital fell to the Jurchen invaders. He then fled southward with his whole family and settled in Shanyin County in Shaoxing Prefecture—the native place of the Lu family. There, Lu Zai retired and embarked on a reclusive life as a book collector. He built a library to treasure his collection and soon became one of the largest book collectors in the Yue region. This gigantic trove of books created a fertile and stable ground of knowledge for young Lu You. Lu Zai’s obsession with books inspired him to become an eager learner and writer who strove to explore and  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-24

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pass down knowledge of all kinds. Just like his father, Lu You built his own libraries in later years, one named the Easten Studio (Dongzhai) and the other Book Nest (Shuchao). Immersed in the environment of a scholarly family, Lu You was indeed precocious and could write poems and prose at the age of twelve. He traveled to the capital and participated in the Civil Service Examinations with his older cousins at just the age of fifteen. Unfortunately, the first attempt was not successful, so he tried a few more times in the following years. At around the age of twenty, Lu You married Lady Tang, but their happy marriage did not last long. Lu You’s parents were disappointed by his neglect of his studies after marriage and believed that Lady Tang hampered their son’s career advancement, so they forced the lovebirds to separate. Lu wrote repeatedly about this heartbreaking experience on many occasions in his life. The best-known piece is a ci poem he composed following the tune “Phoenix Hairpin” (Chaitou feng):2 Pink tender hand, yellow-corded wine, The city is full of spring colors, willow trees by the palace wall: east winds hateful, love fickle— a heart full of sorrow, many years of separation. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Spring is the same as before, just that people are thinner, with a red stain of tears, soaking through the raw silk made by mermaids. Peach blossoms falling, the pond pavilion idle: The mountain vows are still there, but the brocaded letter is difficult to send. Don’t! Don’t! Don’t! The Song dynasty biji (random jottings) writer Chen Hu (ca. 1174–1224) provided a story behind this ci poem. It is said that Lu You visited the Shen family garden in Shaoxing in the spring of 1155 and accidentally encountered Lady Tang.3 Because both were remarried by that time, Lu You had no choice but to express his sorrow through a heartfelt poem, mourning their past relationship. In addition to his tragic marriage, Lu You’s early adulthood was fraught with various adversities. He endured the grievous loss of his father in 1148 and faced repeated failures in his examination endeavors. Although he advanced to the palace examination in 1153, fate played him a trick, as he found himself competing against the grandson of the influential chief minister, Qin Gui. He put it about that, though he had failed, he had outperformed the minister’s grandson, which displeased that powerful official. He had no choice but to return home. Even when he finally entered the court, Lu You’s unyielding stance against the Jurchens and his outspoken temperament made him unfavored in the political arena, leading to a series of demotions. In 1166, he was removed from office after the failure of the Northern Expedition during the Longxing Era (Longxing beifa, 1163–1164), due to his support for the patriotic official Zhang Jun (1097–1164). In despair, he returned to his hometown in Shanyin.

Emerging Poetic Voice Despite the fact that Lu You endured numerous hardships in his initial four decades of life, literary studies of how these personal experiences influenced Lu You’s writings during this period remain limited. This is in part because, in forming his literary body of work, Lu You intentionally winnowed out the majority of his early poems, preserving only one out of a hundred when compiling his poetry collection, Jiannan Poetry Drafts, in the 1180s.4 This proportion might be exaggerated,

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but considering that the extant works include 109 poems composed prior to 1166, Lu potentially penned thousands of poems in roughly two decades. How did he grow to be such a prodigious writer and learn so well the literary arts? While Lu You claimed to lack systematic training in his youth, he later dedicated himself to studying under Zeng Ji (1084–1166), an influential Jiangxi school poet, starting from the age of twenty-seven.5 Interestingly, although Lu You venerated Zeng as his teacher, Zeng’s teaching of the Jiangxi style poetry, which favored highly obscure and allusive imagery, did not appear to have dominated his overall writing style.6 With the privilege of being exposed to the finest poems of the Tang dynasty in his father’s library, Lu You had cultivated his own distinct taste and artistic sensibility. His septasyllabic regulated verse “Visiting West-of-the-Mountain Village” (You shan xi cun, 1167) exemplifies this fact:7 Do not laugh at the farmers’ foggy winter rice wine, In bountiful years, they offer ample chicken and pork to entertain guests. The mountains in layers, and the streams wander: you may think there is no way through; But when willows are shaded, and the flowers are bright, another village appears. Pipes followed by drums, the spring rituals are approaching. Their clothes and hats are plain, the ancient customs linger. From now on, if you permit me to come idly in the moonlight, I would occasionally lean on my cane, and knock at your gate in the night. The poem reflects Lu You’s experience of visiting a village near his Three Mountains Villa after his dismissal in 1166. The language used is simple and devoid of abstruse allusions that hinder comprehension, leaving the impression that he was “not inheriting the Jiangxi style.”8 Nevertheless, the poem is deeply engaged with the textual tradition, as nearly every couplet contains effective allusions that represent the poet’s moral affiliation. The opening couplet portrays the villagers warmly receiving the poet with a delightful meal. “Winter” reveals the time of this trip, and the foggy rice wine, denoting unfiltered wine of inferior quality (zhuojiu), has rich poetic connotations. One of the earliest poets known for his obsession with foggy rice wine was Tao Yuanming (365 or 376–427), who used this image to express his desire for a simple and virtuous life.9 By incorporating Tao’s perspective into the context, the scene of hospitable villagers welcoming an outsider can readily evoke the “Account on Peach Blossom Spring,” the preface of which depicts a fisherman’s fortuitous encounter with a hidden village nestled behind a forest of peach trees. Lu’s usage of the “Peach Blossom Spring” allusion is more evident in the subsequent parallel couplet, one of the most celebrated lines in Lu You’s poetic repertoire. He vividly represents his own encounter, using Tao’s imagining of the fisherman’s experience, superimposing the essence of that captivating scene onto his own poetic narrative.10 The third couplet further develops the Peach Blossom Spring motif. The mention of the villagers’ traditional attire echoes the details in “Peach Blossom Spring,” where all the villagers were refugees from the Qin dynasty. In the final couplet, Lu You shifts his focus fully to the present moment. As a loyal official forsaken by his country and trapped in a tumultuous era, the disillusioned poet decides not to follow in the footsteps of the fisherman in departing from the village. Instead, he vows to seek an everlasting retreat in his utopia—his home in Shanyin. Parted from his youthful ambitions, the exhausted middle-aged poet only seeks a tranquil place where he can embrace a modest and virtuous life in the midst of poverty, akin to the ideals of Tao Yuanming.

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Although this poem was written when Lu You was forty-two, its significance extends beyond that particular moment, as it foreshadows his seclusion in the final decades of his life.

From Shanyin to Kuizhou: Transforming Heart in the Transitional Journey In 1170, Lu You embarked on his journey to his new post as the vice-prefect of Kuizhou, eastern Sichuan, after four years of staying idle at home. Despite Kuizhou being the place of his banishment, the new opportunity instilled in Lu You a newfound determination to combat the Jurchens on the frontline. The journey began in the Fifth Month and lasted for five months. Little did Lu You know that this expedition would transform not only his life but also his understanding of literature. During this journey, he wrote a collection of diaries entitled Record of a Journey into Shu (Ru Shu ji), which holds a unique position in the history of Chinese travel literature.11 Ever since Li Bai (701–762) famously chanted “The Hard Ways to Shu” (Shudao nan), the Shu landscape has been associated with challenging and difficult journeys. However, Lu You offers a fresh perspective by focusing on the water route and adopting a new approach to his writing. His diaries chronicle extensive journeys along the Yangtze River, providing descriptive accounts of scenic beauty, historical landmarks, and practical travel information. These diaries depart from earlier travel literature by offering longer entries with detailed information, combining literary language with practical observations. Together with Fan Chengda’s Register of a Boat Trip to Wu (Wu chuan lu), they became the earliest examples of river diaries, which emerged as a distinct genre form of travel literature in the Song dynasty.12 In the meantime, the sixty poems he wrote during this period provide a glimpse into his early poetic style, which may have been more evident in the poems excluded from his collection. Such a style is defined by Michael Fuller as the “inward-focused poem,” in which he focused more on his personal emotions than his surroundings.13 Even in the poems where he depicted landscapes, the purpose was to illustrate broader personal and political concerns. His poem “Huangzhou” serves as a good example of Lu You’s inward predilection in poetry:14 Ensnared, I constantly resent being like the prisoner from Chu, In exile, I am grieved to resemble the entertainers of Qi. The river’s roar can’t drown the ancient hero’s grief, Heaven’s will is impartial: as autumn withers grasses and trees. The sorrow of ten thousand miles of journey adds grey to my hair, In a boat, on a cold day, I sail past Huangzhou. Look, sir, even Red Cliff is now just ancient traces. Why expect to have a son as talented as Zhongmou? The poem begins with Lu You lamenting his banishment to Kuizhou, comparing it to being sent away as a prisoner from Chu or treated as a plaything. The focus then shifts to Huangzhou, associated with the ancient battle of Red Cliff, where Lu You indulges in historical nostalgia. He reflects on the transience of time and how it erases the traces of past heroes, leading him to believe that striving for greatness is futile, and that his own offspring can never match the brilliance of legendary commanders like Sun Quan (182–252, courtesy name Zhongmou), the king of Wu, who defeated Cao Cao (155–220) in the Red Cliff battle. Overall, Lu’s poetic voice concentrates on his inward sentiments and overlooks his personal experiences in Huangzhou. It presents him as a drifter on the river, passing by an aesthetically distanced/distant landscape that could only be conceived through historical memories. 214

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Nevertheless, Lu You did explore the local sites in Huangzhou.15 As a place marking the watershed of Su Shi’s (1037–1101) life and commemorated its most miserable period, Huangzhou was filled with Su Shi landmarks. Although he did not mention it in his poetry, Lu expresses his admiration for Su Shi by documenting his exploration of such sites in his travel diaries:16 The nineteenth day (of the eighth month): in the morning I went on an outing to East Slope. East of the city wall, hills rise and fall. But when you get to East Slope the land levels out in a wide expanse. To the east there is a high rise, on which stands a dwelling of three spans. A stele mounted on a carved tortoise head identifies it as “Pavilion of the Lay Scholar” [i.e., Su Shi]. Below the pavilion there is quite an impressive hall that faces south. Its four walls have snowscapes painted on them, and there is a statue of Master Su, with black cap and purple jacket, leaning on a Sichuanese bamboo staff. This is Snow Hall. Unlike his treatment of the previous poem, Lu You made a conscious decision to set aside his emotions and focus on his observations. The tone of the text exudes a lightness that mirrors Lu’s mindset as a curious tourist and admirer of Master Su. Moreover, the content refrains from relying on allusions, instead offering vivid details about the architecture that bore the indelible traces of Su Shi, revealing Lu’s familiarity with the local history and scenery and his avid interest in traveling. These disparities highlight Lu You’s contrasting perceptions of his journey and the roles played by two distinct literary genres. In the more formal genre of poetry, Lu You deliberately created a distance between himself and Huangzhou by paying less attention to the local features. In contrast, in the less formal genre of prose, he felt more at ease depicting connections between his persona and the world of Huangzhou as a destination for tourism and exploration. As a result, his poems were firmly grounded in his inward engagement with his emotions and the textual tradition, while his travelogues embraced the intricate interplay between the external world, the writer’s travel experiences, and the text itself. Lu You’s poetic self-estrangement from the local landscapes continued when he reached Kuizhou, a locale traditionally labeled marginal and uncivilized (man). In 1172, he arrived in Nanzheng, which was located close to the front lines, to join the army. To record his life in exile, he wrote more than three hundred poems, most of which demonstrated his distress when trapped in the border town. An example is “Feelings When Drunk” (Zuizhong ganhuai):17 In my early years, the emperor remembered my name,18 But now, I am only a haggard traveler in the border city. My blue robes were still the old regalia of the mandarin duck ranks,19 While white hair newly emerged after I went beyond Swordgate. When the ancient garrison raises banners and flags, autumn feels bleak, When the watch-kettles ring on the tall city walls, the night gets clear. My heart’s vigor has not been entrusted but now completely waned, Intoxicated, I heard the pipa chanting the frontier songs. It is noteworthy that in contrast to the previous poem, overwhelmed with negative emotion, Lu You’s portrayal of his banishment to Sichuan underwent a significant transformation in his later years. Thinking retrospectively about the same experience, he wrote the first two couplets in “Recalling the Past” (Yixi) (1197) in the following manner:20 Recalling the past, when I departed as a soldier from the Wei River’s shore, Riding the horse, we were welcomed by refugees with wine, in tears. 215

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At night, I ascended a lofty tomb, observing the constellations in the sky, By day, I ascended my chariot, gazing towards the dust raised by the enemy’s advance. Rather than acting as a demoted official suffering from the harsh frontier environment, Lu You proudly fashioned himself as an active and compassionate soldier on the battlefield. Even though a twenty-year gap separated him from his younger self, he could still recall the views and events he encountered in detail. This shift in the emphasis of the two poems reveals the poet’s transformed view of his relationship with the supposedly “uncivilized” and distant region of Sichuan. The shift occurred when the central court’s conciliatory approach towards the Jurchen enemy shattered Lu You’s hopes for realizing his political aspirations on the battlefield. No longer relying on the emperor to bestow his “heart’s vigor,” he determined to align with the local literati in Sichuan, a dissenting community that actively rejected the principles upheld by the court.21 Furthermore, after spending some time in Sichuan, Lu You developed a deeper connection with the local heritage of great Tang poets, especially Du Fu (712–770), who once lived in Sichuan in a thatched hut and left behind a treasure trove of poems.22 As memories of his early readings from his father’s library intertwined with his present connections to the Tang poets’ traces in the landscape of Sichuan, Lu You concluded that merely remaining within the textual tradition and adopting the inward and conservative style of poetry could no longer adequately help him convey his vigorous heart. Thus, he reconnected his persona to the external world of Sichuan landscapes replete with legacies by revered literati, thereby reconstructing a sense of companionship.23 In 1176, following a severe impeachment for his act of disobedience, Lu You was forced to resign from his post. To mock the criticisms charging him as being “dissolute” (fang), he adopted the sobriquet “Dissolute Old Man” (Fangweng). The concept of the “old man” not only reflects Lu You’s awareness of his own aging but also resonates with Du Fu, who frequently referred to himself as an old man in his own poetry. Two years later, he was summoned back to the capital. Leaving Sichuan, Lu composed “At Longxing Temple, Lamenting Where the Master from Shaoling Had Lodged” (Longxingsi diao Shaoling xiansheng yuju):24 The Central Plain quickly lost its peace and prosperity. The beacon fires and Tartars’ dust have reached the two capitals. Escorting the imperial carriage, the old minister traveled ten thousand li. In the freezing weather, he came here to listen to the sound of the river. Both poets, when in their fifties, found themselves lodging at Longxing Temple, confronted with national crises. The spirit of Du Fu seemed woven into the very fabric of the surrounding rivers and mountains. As Lu You immersed himself in the resounding echoes of the river, he discovered a lasting companionship with his predecessor.

Return! Shanyin and Lu You’s Unwavering Heart In 1178, Lu You was finally summoned back to the capital, but he did not tarry long. In the face of attacks from other court officials, he returned to his mountain villa in Shanyin, this time with a refreshed understanding of the same situation he had experienced at the age of forty-two. Previously viewing himself as a victim of the mundane political struggles, he now recognized his seclusion as an opportunity to reconnect his true self with the landscapes, seek inspiration from his predecessors, 216

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and freely express his vigorous heart. In this state of mind, his passion for poetry soared, leading to a diversification of his poetic themes, encompassing his life in the countryside, his battle with illness, and his wanderings in the nearby mountains. Meanwhile, he worked on compiling a collection of his poems, selecting only the ones that complied with a more mature understanding of his relationship with the text and the world. Influenced by his new vision of his life and the past, Lu was also more outspoken in criticizing the political status quo in his poems. He poured his disappointment into a regulated verse, “On My Indignation” [Shu fen] (1186):25 In my early years, I was oblivious to the hardships of the world. Gazing north to the Central Plain, my ambition soared like a mountain. On the towered galley afloat in the snowy night, I passed by Guazhou.26 On the armored horse in autumn winds, I entered Dasan Pass.27 Futile and alone, I anticipated the Great Wall appearing on the frontiers, my temples reflected in the mirror already streaked with white. The “Campaign Memorial” is indeed renowned in the world, who among the countless generations can stand as Zhuge Liang’s equal? The poem opens with the poet lamenting his youthful ambition, transitioning into a nostalgic flashback in the second couplet that presents a romanticized montage of battlefield scenes from the memories of his frontline experiences. This starkly contrasts with the third couplet, which portrays the aging poet’s despair in the face of encroaching enemies. Both couplets are intricately crafted with parallel structure, a salient feature of Lu You’s regulated verses.28 In the final couplet, Lu alludes to the model of Zhuge Liang (181–234), whose “Campaign Memorial” represents his determination to launch a northern expedition and reclaim the Central Plain, to admonish his own incompetent government. In the same spring, Emperor Xiaozong, well aware of Lu You’s outspoken dissent, made him the prefect of Yanzhou, located southwest of the capital. This was a deliberate move to divert Lu You’s attention away from issues related to the Jurchens.29 However, Lu You was not one to be easily reconciled. During his two-year appointment in Yanzhou, he completed his poetry collection, naming it Jiannan Poetry Drafts to commemorate his days in Sichuan.30 As a man of action, he took the initiative to publish his collection, signifying his desire to inspire others to continue striving for the restoration of their homeland.31 In 1188, Lu You shifted to a new appointment in Lin’an and soon faced another impeachment in the court. In the eleventh month of 1189, Lu You returned to his hometown of Shanyin. For most of the final twenty years of his life, he resided there, with the exception of a brief period in 1202 when he accepted the task of compiling historical records for the reigns of Xiaozong and Guangzong (r. 1189–1194). Having supported the minister Han Tuozhou (1152–1207), a strong advocate against the Jurchens but also the main persecutor of the Daoxue school, Lu found himself unwelcome and had to return home after completing the compilation.32 In 1207, the government signed a peace treaty with the Jurchens, and Han Tuozhou was executed. This sudden change in the political situation extinguished Lu You’s the last flame of the hope he had held firmly to his whole life. Already eighty-three years old, he knew that he could not live to witness the defeat of the Jurchens, so he decided to entrust himself wholeheartedly to the mountains and rivers of Shanyin. In idling and sickness, he wrote “When I returned from Shu in 1178, I was fifty-four years old. Now, thirty-two years have passed, yet I am still strong and healthy. I composed a short poem as a personal celebration” [Yu yi Chunxi 217

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wuxu sui zi Shu gui, shinian wushisi, jin sanshiyouer nian yi, youfu qiangjian, de xiaoshi zihe] (1209):33 I used to enter the Jade-gate Pass and arrive in Alespring, A pathway envisioned by the ancients as a stairway to Heaven. How could one foresee that the traveler going ten thousand li to the west, would return to rest in the mountains of his hometown for thirty years? The tranquil scenery of Shanyin evoked memories of the mountains the poet encountered during his journey to Sichuan. Once perceived as a trap, the mountain paths in the border town were now regarded by the old Lu You as a stairway for his younger self to ascend to “Heaven,” which may symbolize the pinnacle of military glories to which he used to aspire. Ironically, this realization only came to him in his later years, when he found himself constrained by his home mountains and his sick body. That winter, Lu You reached the end of his life. He penned his final poem, perhaps his most famous poem, “To Show to My Sons” (Shi er) on his deathbed, delivering his last message to his sons:34 On my deathbed, I know well that all things become empty, Yet I grieve that I will not see the Nine Provinces united. On the day when the imperial army marches north and pacifies the central plain, During our family sacrifice, do not forget to tell your father.

Coda Despite harboring bitter feelings about his last thirty years in Shanyin, Lu You undeniably left behind a profound poetic legacy during this period. His poetry offers readers a glimpse into the multifaceted social reality of the Southern Song era. By translating his experiences gained from the external world into poetry, he also challenged the vogue of the Jiangxi style poetry that confined poetic creation within the boundaries of the textual tradition. Moreover, poetry served as a vehicle for him to convey his understanding of the experience-based literary approach. He reached the conclusion that his later literary achievements were made possible only through the profound experiences and perspectives gained from his intense life on the border. This led him repeatedly to speak to his youngest and most talented son, Ziyu, about the significance of action. For example, in the third piece of his “A Winter Night, Reading, Eight Poems for Ziyu” [Dongye dushu shi Ziyu bashou] (1199), he wrote:35 The men of old in their learning fully exerted their strength; The effort of their youth and manhood became complete only in old age. One realizes that what can be attained on paper is ultimately shallow: To entirely know this matter, you must enact it yourself. For Lu You, engaging in external practices was crucial for cultivating inward concentration on poetry. Activities like traveling thus became invaluable sources for gaining the necessary experiences.36 Lu You’s poetic innovation served as a catalyst that injected vitality into the stagnant literary landscape, sparking a revival of poetry during the mid-Southern Song period. 218

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Notes 1 According to Qian Zhongshu’s comment, Lu You’s works “primarily encompass two aspects: on one hand, they are filled with sorrow, indignation, and fiery passion, aiming to seek vengeance for the nation, restore lost territories, and liberate the oppressed people; on the other hand, they reflect a leisurely and delicate nature, savoring the profound and everlasting essence of everyday life, and meticulously portraying the intricate emotions evoked by the present scenery.” See Qian Zhongshu, Songshi xuanzhu [Poems of the Song: An Annotated Selection] (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2002), 270. 2 Lu You, Weinan wenji, 49.1204–05, in Lu Fangweng quanji [Complete Works of Lu Fangweng] (Beijing: Zhongguo shudian, 1986). 3 See Qijiu xuwen [Extended Anecdotes of Respected Elders] in Quan Song biji [Complete Song Random Jottings] (Zhengzhou: Daxiang chubanshe, 2013), 6.5.106. 4 See “Colophon on poetry draft” (ba shigao), Weinan wenji, 27.167: “Those were ten percent of the poems I composed before the year Bingxu (1166). During my time in Yanzhou, I further edited the collection, and nine out of ten have been discarded. Therefore, out of the poems written before the year Bingxu, only one out of a hundred has been preserved.” 5 See Fuller’s discussion in Drifting among Rivers and Lakes, 245. Zeng Ji emerged as a prominent figure within the influential Jiangxi style of poetry pioneered by Huang Tingjian (1045–1105). This poetic style was characterized by its highly obscure and allusive composition, taking poetry as the means for revealing one’s inner awakening and morale achieved through one’s engagement with the textual tradition. Nonetheless, this approach imposed many constraints owing to its fixation on language, so Lü Benzhong (1084–1145), Zeng’s teacher, advocated for the concept of a “living method” (huofa) and reformed the Jiangxi style. This approach sought to employ poetic techniques more effectively without being shackled by them, thereby prioritizing the moral nature of poetry and transcending the rigid rules revered by Huang Tingjian’s followers. For more information about the Jiangxi style poetry, see Fuller, Drifting Among Rivers and Lakes: Southern Song Dynasty Poetry and the Problem of Literary History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2013), 85–181. 6 Qian Zhongshu, Songshi xuanzhu, 273. 7 Qian Zhonglian, Jiannan shigao jiaozhu [Annotated Jiannan Poetry Drafts] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1985), 1.1.102–3. 8 Qian Zhongshu, Songshi xuanzhu, 273. 9 One example is “What is there I can do to assuage this mood? Only enjoy myself drinking my unstrained wine.” See translation for “Written on the Ninth Day of the Ninth Month of the Year jiyou (A.D. 409)” (Jiyou sui jiuyue jiuri) by William Acker, in Anthology of Chinese Literature: From Early Times to the Fourteenth Century (New York: Grove, 1965), 187–88. 10 It is worth noting that Lu, probably aware of the long textual tradition, was not the first to translate this scene into a couplet, but it was not until Lu You’s version that it became widely chanted. See Qian Zhongshu, Songshi xuanzhu, 277. 11 It is collected in the Weinan wenji, in Lu Fangweng quanji, vols. 43–48. 12 About travel writing and Lu You, Weinan wenji, 107–14, in James Hargett, Jade Mountains and Cinnabar Pools: The History of Travel Literature in Imperial China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018). Ronald Egan also provides a short summary of the development of travel writing; see his “When There Is a Parallel Text in Prose: Reading Lu You’s 1170 Yangzi River Journey in Poetry and Prose,” in Reading Medieval Chinese Poetry (Brill, 2015), 221–50. Zhang Cong studies the phenomenon of elite travel from a sociohistorical perspective, and Lu You serves as an outstanding example in multiple sections of her book. See Transformative Journeys: Travel and Culture in Song China (Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 2010). 13 Fuller, Drifting Among Rivers and Lakes, 253. 14 Qian Zhonglian, Jiannan shigao jiaozhu, 1.2.141–42. See analysis by Egan, “When There Is a Parallel Text in Prose,” 232. 15 See discussion in Egan, “When There Is a Parallel Text in Prose,” 228–40. 16 Lu You, Weinan wenji, 46.1185. See translation in Egan, “When There Is a Parallel Text in Prose,” 230–31. 17 Qian Zhonglian, Jiannan shigao jiaozhu, 2.4.324. 18 It is said that Emperor Gaozong (r. 1162–1187) knew about Lu You and wanted to summon him to the court, but Lu You had offended Qin Gui, so Qin dissuaded Gaozong from appointing him. 19 “Blue robe” refers to the attire of the eighth- or ninth-rank officials. Lu You was appointed to the eighth-rank positions before he was sent to Sichuan. Yuan refers to mandarin ducks. It was a common comparison to liken officials dressed in their regalia, standing in line for the morning court session, to mandarin ducks.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 2 0 Qian Zhonglian, Jiannan shigao jiaozhu, 5.36.2352–53. 21 Fuller, Drifting Among Rivers and Lakes, 258. 22 Other Tang poets that Lu alluded to include Cen Shen (ca. 715–770) and Li Bai (701–762). In addition, he also tapped into the legacies of Zhuge Liang (181–234) and Su Shi (1037–1101). 23 Both Yoshikawa and Fuller discuss Lu You’s poetic engagement of the external world during this period. See Yoshikawa Kōjirō, Song Yuan Ming shi gaishuo, 121–22, and Fuller, Drifting Among Rivers and Lakes, 266–67. Furthermore, Yoshikawa emphasizes that Lu You was heavily influenced by Su Shi, whose optimistic outlook in the face of adversity shaped Lu You’s poetry, imbuing it with a tone that was less dejected than the style of Du Fu. 24 Qian Zhonglian, Jiannan shigao jiaozhu, 2.10.784. Shaoling was Du Fu’s sobriquet. 25 Qian Zhonglian, Jiannan shigao jiaozhu, 3.17.1346. This was the first of five poems titled “On My Indignation” that Lu You composed between 1186 and 1197. 26 Guazhou was the first stop Lu You reached on his way to Sichuan. He wrote poems and prose about this experience. See discussion in Egan, “When There Is a Parallel Text in Prose,” 226–29. 27 The Dasan Pass was controlled by the Jin and served as an entry point into Jin territory. 28 Qian Zhongshu, Songshi xuanzhu, 272. 29 The emperor declared to him, “Yanzhou is a place renowned for its scenic beauty. During your leisure time from official duties, you may engage in composing poems and find contentment.” Qian Zhonglian, Songshi xuanzhu, 4627. 30 Jiannan refers to the Southern Swordgate region (Jiannan dao), with its seat of local government located in Chengdu. 31 The first version included around 2500 poems. Later, Lu You’s youngest son Ziyu expanded the collection to include an additional 4600 poems from his late years. The expanded version was completed in 1206. In 1220, his elder son Ziju 子虡 put the whole collection, with its eighty-five columns, into print. 32 Fuller, Drifting Among Rivers and Lakes, 285–86. 33 Qian Zhonglian, Songshi xuanzhu, 8.81.4371–72. 34 Qian Zhonglian, Songshi xuanzhu, 8.85.4542. See translation by Fuller, Drifting Among Rivers and Lakes, 286–87. 35 Qian Zhonglian, Songshi xuanzhu, 5.42.2630. 36 See further discussion of Lu You’s teaching of poetics in Fuller, Drifting Among Rivers and Lakes, 269–80.

Further Reading Egan, Ronald. “When There Is a Parallel Text in Prose: Reading Lu You’s 1170 Yangzi River Journey in Poetry and Prose.” In Reading Medieval Chinese Poetry, edited by Paul W. Kroll, 221–50. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Fuller, Michael. Drifting Among Rivers and Lakes: Southern Song Dynasty Poetry and the Problem of Literary History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2013. Fuller, Michael, and Shuen-Fu Lin. “North and South: The Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.” In The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, edited by Kang-i Sun Chang and Stephen Owen, 465–556. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Hargett, James. Jade Mountains and Cinnabar Pools: The History of Travel Literature in Imperial China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018. Lu You (1125–1210). Weinan wenji [Weinan Anthology] in Lu Fangweng quanji [Complete Works of Lu Fangweng]. Beijing: Zhongguo shudian, 1986. Qian Zhonglian. Jiannan shigao jiaozhu [Annotated Jiannan Poetry Drafts]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1985. Qian Zhongshu. Songshi xuanzhu [Poems of the Song: An Annotated Selection]. Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2002. Yoshikawa Kōjirō. Song Yuan Ming shi gaishuo [Introduction to Poetry of the Song, Yuan, and Ming]. Translated by Li Qing. Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, 1999. Zhang, Cong Ellen. Transformative Journeys: Travel and Culture in Song China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2010.

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18 YANG WANLI’S “CHENGZHAI STYLE” POETRY Li E

Yang Wanli (1127–1206), style name Chengzhai (Sincerity Studio), was one of the leading poets in the Southern Song (1127–1279). He was a native of Jishui county (in present Jiangxi) and served in several local posts and in the capital of Lin’an (present Hangzhou) after obtaining his jinshi degree in 1154. The poetic critic Fang Hui (1227–1307) makes the following statement while ranking the major poets of Yang’s era: “Since the revival of the [Southern] Song, when people talk about good governance, they would mention the Qiandao and Chunxi reign periods; when talking about poetry, they would say You, Yang, Lu, and Fan.”1 Fang’s ranking of Yang Wanli as one of the four masters of poetry in the Southern Song has been followed by almost all subsequent critics. Yang’s unique poetic style was acknowledged by his contemporaries and was named the “Chengzhai Style” (Chengzhai ti) by the late Southern Song critic Yan Yu (fl. 1200).2 Chengzhai Style features nature as the source of poetic inspiration, lively and humorous language, and easy syntax, a radical departure from the dominant book-based, pedantic style of the Jiangxi School from the previous era. Because of the strong personal traits it carries, the style is hard for later poets to emulate.

The Formation of the New Poetic Style Since its rise to prominence in the late Northern Song, the Jiangxi School had dominated poetic theory and practice with its emphasis on poetic craftmanship and book learning.3 Yang Wanli started with emulating the style of the Jiangxi School but later determined to find his own voice and reportedly burned his early compositions that bore its traces.4 He had altogether nine poetry collections compiled and published in his lifetime. Fang Hui argues that each of Yang’s new poetry collections represents a stylistic change.5 Yang was self-aware regarding his poetic creativity and innovation. He himself discusses his poetic transformation in a retrospective preface, written in 1187, to the Jingxi Collection, for poems composed in 1177 and 1178 while he served as the prefect of Changzhou: On that day I composed some poems, and suddenly felt enlightened. After that I was able to bid farewell to the Tang poets, and to Wang Anshi, Chen Shidao, and other Jiangxi school poets. I no longer dared to learn from them and felt joy and at ease. . . . Since then, each afternoon when official duties were done and the yard was empty, I would take a fan, walk through the back garden, and climb the old city wall. I plucked wolfberries and chrysanthemums  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-25

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and jumped and knocked over flowers and bamboo. Myriad images came to me, all offering themselves as material for poetry. I just could not flick them away: the old ones had not yet gone but the new ones were already approaching. I no longer felt difficulty in composing poetry. (Xin Gengru, 3260) Yang reveals that composing poetry was no longer laborious when he was in close contact with nature rather than looking for writing sources from books.6 In a poem from 1189, two years after writing this preface, he reiterates this enlightenment: “Searching for lines from behind closed doors is not the way of poetry,/Poetry comes naturally when you are on the road traveling” (Xin, 1356).7 By taking nature as his main subject matter and primary source of inspiration, Yang steps outside of the shadows of the Jiangxi School and revitalizes the poetic tradition concerned with nature, pushing it to new heights.

Nature as the Source of Inspiration Yang composed a great many poems, particularly during the times when he stayed in his hometown and when he took offices outside the capital, in which nature plays a dominant role, envisioning himself as a guest of the mountains and waters. “Looking at my poems,” he writes, “you will find all kinds of sceneries—of mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas—there” (Xin, 3274). The claim is borne out by his actual compositions: of the 205 poems in the Jiangxi daoyuan ji (The Jiangxi Daoist monastery collection), written when he was traveling to a new post in Yunzhou (in present Jiangxi), for example, 90 percent are on the natural scenes he encountered on the way to his destination. In Yang’s poetic engagement with nature, he emphasizes the importance of having the eyes of a poet. “Eyes” plays such a crucial role in his poetry that it determines not only what to write but also how to write. For him, “setting eyes on” is almost simultaneous with “composing poems when the inspiration arrives” (Xin, 134). There is a direct connection between the viewing of the eyes and the obtainment of poetic lines: “I often acquire poetic lines through my eyes” (Xin, 156). Capturing the scenery for the poet, eyes act as if a camera, and poetic composition is imagined as a photographic seeing.8 Yang’s effort to visually capture the scenery involves intensive viewing, focusing on the moment of change through a kind of cinematic zoom-in, and seeing what tends to be neglected by the ordinary viewer. The following series of pentasyllabic quatrains on the haitang, the Chinese crabapple flower, is an example of the intensity of seeing, which has a strong temporal dimension embedded in it: “On the Fourteenth Day of the Second Month, I Got Up in the Early Morning to See the Haitang Flowers” (Eryue shisi ri, xiaoqi kan haitang) After the rain the sky is still wet, Once cleared, the sun feels chilly as before. I anticipate they will look good in their morning makeup, Breaking through the fog, I hurry to see them. The early morning sunshine is quite thin, The dew on the sunlit branches is heavy. A pearl makeup just applied, Immediately receives winds from the willows. Lately I have learned the secret of appreciating flowers, I have told myself to be there at the break of morning. 222

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Wait until they awaken from their drunkenness, You will definitely see their new appearance. The brightness of the flowers comes from all sides, Fragrant mist radiates red over the entire body. As if from the colorful cloud of the dawn, all of a sudden, I jumped down into a brocade city. The thick blossoms are in countless layers. I look at them until my eyes turn to dust. Having become part of the world of flowers, I forget whether the sun is in the west or east. Outside are planted about a hundred trees; In the middle is a small pavilion. Looking out, I see redness without boundary; Beyond the redness, are the blue skies. (Xin, 2201) The first quatrain sets the stage for the early morning adventure, while the third explains why the early morning is the best time for appreciating the flowers. The other four stanzas represent a continuous progression of what the poet sees, feels, and does. As the persona moves further into the scenery, his viewing and experiencing become more immersive, sensation changing as he shifts his gaze. He describes the morning dew and dim light and then personifies the flowers as women, in freshly applied makeup. By creating a mysterious atmosphere, the poet indicates his anticipation of the experience, the flowers still at a distance. The fourth stanza describes his immediate feeling on entering the field of haitang flowers. Now the morning dew and dim light are replaced with overwhelming radiance and fragrance. The poet feels himself in a brocade city. Once accustomed to the color, fragrance, and radiance, he observes the density of the field of flowers, swallowing him up as he attempts to assess. In the last stanza, the poet makes a further attempt to figure out his surroundings, noting in the process the small pavilion in the middle and the trees outside. He is again amazed by what he finds: the haitang flowers are so abundant that their red color reaches to the edge of the sky. All six quatrains in this group pivot around the keywords in the title, kan (“to see”) and xiao (“early morning”), presenting the poet’s intense visual experience and tracking the movement of both the poet’s eyes and nature at the start of day. Qian Zhongshu has described Yang’s stylistic difference from his contemporaries: Able to express what others have not said is how Chengzhai transforms the unfamiliar into the familiar. . . . Chengzhai is good at taking things directly from nature. . . . Chengzhai’s poems are like the snapshots of modern photography. Be it a hare’s springing up or a falcon’s swooping down, he can see clearly and capture quickly the moments when things are about to disappear but have not disappeared yet, when they are about to change but have not changed yet, as if following an arrow or chasing the wind. This only Chengzhai is capable of doing.9 According to Qian, this snapshot of photographing requires acuteness in observation and a high level of concentration and cooperation between the poet’s eyes and hand. Yang’s amazing ability to express in words what he sees, one of the most prominent features of his poetry, has been singled out by Jiang Kui (1155–1221): “Each year, the moon and flowers do not even have 223

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one day free;/the mountains and rivers everywhere are afraid of meeting you.”10 Jiang Kui characterizes Yang as an obsessed poet focused on depicting the natural landscapes to the point of intimidating them.

Beyond the City Walls Yang Wanli’s deep interest in nature more often lies beyond the city walls. In the Song, with the economy highly developed, cities flourished. Starting especially from the early twelfth century, the entire lower Yangzi region had developed into an “ever more prosperous and ever more metropolitan region within China as a whole.”11 City life becomes a common thematic component of the song lyrics that thrived in this period; accounts are especially detailed about Kaifeng and Lin’an, the capitals of the Song.12 The increasingly heightened awareness of urban life, especially in the political center of the capital, forms an important background for Yang Wanli’s focused attention to nature. Yang uses the term shanlin (“mountains and forests”) oftentimes not only in its traditional metaphorical sense, associated with the retreat from public life, but also as a preferred actual living space in contrast with the city (chengshi), as a setting that differs from the urban mode of living and those artificially constructed spaces such as estates and gardens.13 By invoking the idea of the city, he makes the reader keenly aware of the boundaries separating the two realms, outside-the-city and inside-the-city. In a 1163 poem, Yang sighs: “Getting out of the city, everything is tranquil” (Xin, 32). He writes in a 1181 poem: “How can I obtain poetry in the city?/How can I obtain poetry without the mountains?” (Xin, 825) And in a 1185 poem: “Composing poems in the city only breaks my beard in vain;/ Every object is a topic for poetry in the mountains” (Xin, 1008). He explicitly expresses the mismatch between poetry and the city in his 1187 “Preface to Xigui ji” (Collection of Returning West): “Poetry is in the mountains and forests, while people are in the cities. The two are often in discord but it is a good thing that they do not get along with each other” (Xin, 3262). In a 1188 preface to the Jiangxi daoyuan ji, he forcefully states: “The caves and mounds in the mountains and waters are a boundless forest [of inspiration] for the poet” (Xin, 3269). He apparently rejects the possibility of the coexistence of shanlin and chengshi by saying that “It is hard to have both chengshi and shanlin at the same time” (Xin, 1932). Although he explicitly and repeatedly states where his heart really lies, the fact that shanlin is frequently mentioned side by side with chengshi indicates that the latter is a necessary context for our understanding of his nature poems. Yang’s favoring of shanlin over chengshi has also something to do with his extensive official travel experiences.14 As a government official, he is frequently on the road, transferring to his new posts or returning to his hometown during the mourning periods for his deceased parents. Shanlin more often appears in the poems composed at his various local posts and in his hometown. The geographical features and natural landscapes of those places become the major topics and writing sources of his poems. Yang Wanli himself comments on the topography of his hometown: “My hometown is truly a den of mountains and waters” (Xin, 102). In late 1188 and early 1189, while traveling south from his hometown to his post in Yunzhou, Yang composed altogether 250 poems; 24 of them, about one-tenth, are specifically on mountains. The following poem describes one of those experiences of traveling in the mountains: “Passing Ce Creek Mountain in the Evening” (Wan guo Cexi shanxia) How do I know the marvels of watching mountains? Not until the light of the setting sun starts to slant. 224

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Wrinkling their clothes to the point of cracking, They compete to get ahead, chasing one another into the distance. The six peaks are revealed from the tips of the pine trees, One thousand mountains are hanging upside down in the river. Throughout the journey, I have casually composed poems, The Ce Creek has indeed not betrayed me. (Xin, 1364) The swift movement of the boat is depicted from the viewpoint of the traveler on the boat watching the delightful scenery along the way. The mountains acquire human traits in an all-out race with the boat, to the point of wrinkling and cracking their proverbial clothes. The movement of the boat is further revealed through the increasingly pleasant mountain scenery. The excitement and satisfaction of the poet are explicitly affirmed in the last couplet.

The Patterns in Nature Besides providing writing sources and contrasting contexts for cities, nature plays other roles in Yang Wanli’s poems. Jonathan Chaves finds in Yang’s poems a particular connection with the Buddhist concept of fa (“model” or “law”) and the belief in achieving “enlightenment through individual effort” (Chaves, 26–39). Scholars have also tried to understand Yang’s nature poems in the context of Daoxue or Lixue, often referred to for convenience as Neo-Confucianism, especially its interest in the “observation of things” (guanwu) as a way to understand the natural or moral principles hidden in them.15 According to Zhu Xi (1130–1200), the great Neo-Confucian synthesizer, wu includes not only individual objects but all that exists or happens in the world: “Everything or every happening under the Heaven can be called wu;” “All that comes before or meets the eyes is wu.”16 Yang Wanli is known as a Daoxue learner who in his youth studied with scholars such as Wang Tinggui (1079–1171) and Hu Quan (1102–1180). When Yang served as the county magistrate of Lingling in Yongzhou (in present Hunan), he paid a visit to the prestigious statesman and Daoxue scholar Zhang Jun (1097–1164), who had been demoted and banished to the area. Zhang encouraged Yang to engage with “the learning that could correct one’s mind and make one’s intentions sincere,” hence Yang’s adoption of the style name “Sincerity Studio” (Chengzhai).17 Michael Fuller, examining Yang’s scholarship on The Book of Changes, noted his interest in seeing and showing the patterns of change in external things.18 The following poem is an example: “Searching for Coolness on a Summer Night” (Xiaye zhuiliang) The nighttime heat is still as much as that of the noon, Opening the door, I stand for a while under the bright moonlight. The bamboos are deep, the trees are dense, the insects are chirping, From time to time, comes a slight coolness—they are not winds. (Xin, 228) The first line of this brief but informative poem sets up the environment of a hot summer night with lingering heat from the day. The poet chooses to step outside the house to look for coolness. He is able to feel the coolness which, however, does not come from the wind. The poem invites the reader to figure out the source of the wind by going back and reidentifying the elements already provided in the poem: the deep bamboo, the dense trees, the chirping insects, and the bright moon, which together indicate that it is a tranquil night, and the coolness arises from this tranquility. Each element is effectively presented to deliver the message or the truth underneath the situation. 225

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Yang, however, does not sacrifice aesthetics for the purpose of presenting such nuanced discoveries in nature or his Daoxue-inspired ideas. He comments on the notion of poetic flavor in a writing dated in 1201: For what reason is poetry composed? “To value its words,” one may respond. I say that a good poet should get rid of words. Then one may answer, “To value the intention.” I say that a good poet should get rid of intention. And one may ask, without words and intention, how could poetry exist? I say that poetry could exist without words and intention. But could it really exist? I say, are you good at tasting syrup and the Tu plant? Who does not like the taste of syrup? At first it tastes sweet, in the end it turns sour. As for the Tu plant, people find faults in its bitterness. However, when one tastes it, they will greatly enjoy the taste of sweet even when the bitterness has not yet completely disappeared. Poetry is like this as well. (Xin, 3332) Yang Wanli believes that poetic flavor is the key element that defines a poem: it should exist beyond words and intentions and leave room for readers to savor.

Lively and Humorous Language Yang Wanli is commended for making witty discoveries after an intense or acute visual observation of his subjects. This is achieved, in addition to his ability to catch what he sees, by his humorous language and his adept use of anthropomorphism in his nature poems. The quatrain “Crow” (ya) is centered on one small detail of the bird that is being keenly observed: Watching, the little child could not help but laugh, I, the old man, also burst into chuckles. A crow in flight hovers above the corner of the rail— It has a beard, if you look carefully! (Xin, 288) This short poem depicts a scene when the poet and his child spot a crow. It moves from the child’s laugh to his own reaction and finally to the cause of their laugh. The whole process depends on the microcosmic presentation of the feature being observed: the beard of the crow. A crow’s feathery beard might go unnoticed under ordinary circumstances, but situating it between the child’s eyes and his own, Yang creates a surprising effect when he reveals it in the last line. His witty observation and humorous presentation not only amuse readers but also sharpen their view and their sense of viewing. In another example, the sparrows appear not only to have their own agenda, coming and going as they wish regardless of the poet, but they are also mischievous: “Winter Sparrows” (Hanque) Hundreds and thousands of winter sparrows fly down to the empty courtyard, Gathering on the ends of the plum branches, chatting about the clear evening. They intentionally come here together to kill me by their chirping noises, All of a sudden, they are startled and scatter, leaving behind only dead silence. (Xin, 575) Yang captures in minute detail what takes place in a courtyard during a short period of change: how a crowd of chirping sparrows instantly filled a quiet, empty yard and abruptly abandoned it.

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Moreover, he presents the scene in a lively atmosphere and with a light tone: The sparrows had a cheerful chat with each other, and the observer becomes part of the scene through their imaginary mischief. This liveliness was noted by Yang’s contemporaries as one of the key features of his poems. “Lively methods” (huofa) is a poetic term that can be traced to the early Northern Song and was promoted by the early Southern Song poet Lü Benzhong (1084–1145) as a desired poetic principle in correcting the rigid writing practice of the Jiangxi School. According to Lü Benzhong, poets should not be confined by the poetic rules but be creative and reach freedom by transcending them. The liveliness in Yang’s poems is viewed as a continuation and realization of Lü’s ideal, and its success is also closely associated with Yang’s increased use of heptasyllabic quatrains. Less rigid in terms of prosody compared to regulated verse and having more space than pentasyllabic quatrains, the heptasyllabic quatrain became Yang’s beloved poetic form in the formative period of the Chengzhai style, heavily influenced by the late Tang poets and by the Northern Song poet Wang Anshi (1021–1086). The brief and swift quatrain form is a good match for the instantaneous and shifting moments in Yang’s poems, hence its prominence there (Mo 2001).

Poems Concerning State Affairs Yang Wanli has composed poems showing the geographical and political mark of the Southern Song. With the loss of North China to the Jin (1115–1234), the Huai River became the new border between the Southern Song and the Jin, and territorial concerns and political crises became the common sentiments of Southern Song literati and officials. Many literati made official trips or travelled to the new border region and expressed strong feelings about the loss of territory beyond it.19 In 1189, Yang Wanli was sent to receive at the border the Jin ambassadors who had come to deliver the Jin emperor’s New Year greeting message to the Southern Song emperor. Stirred by the experience, he wrote four heptasyllabic quatrains upon arriving at the border. “Four Quatrains Upon Entering the Huai River” (Churu Huaihe sijueju) No. 1 My boat left the sands on the Hongze Lake bank. Arriving at the Huai River, my mood has deteriorated. Why should only the Sanggan River be deemed as far? North of this middle stream is already the edge of the world. No. 3 Boats from the two banks turn and sail away from one another, Even the waves feel it hard to intersect. There remain only the seagulls and herons, all unrestrained— Flying north, coming south, as they wish. (Xin, 1403–04) The Sanggan River referred to in the third line of the first poem was the previous northern border with the Liao (907–1125), now deep in Jin territory and out of reach for Yang and his Southern Song compatriots. The images in the third poem all come from things right before the poet’s eyes and carry the same sad message to him. The contrast between the human and the natural world is clear: while the birds come and go with no restraints, the boats that are operated by human beings have to obey the boundaries and turn. The first poem in the series is a direct utterance of the poet’s thoughts while the third uses images to subtly reveal his sadness and pain.

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As a renowned poet with a refreshing poetic style who also had a relatively successful official career, Yang Wanli not only actively promoted the status of poetry but also voiced the political frustrations of his fellow poets and officials.20 He was an effective leader of the poetic community of his time.

Notes 1 Fang Hui, “Ba Suichu You Xiansheng Shangshu Shi” [Postface to Departmental Minister Mr. You Mao’s Poems], in Tongjiang ji [Tongjiang Collection] (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1988), juan 3, 234. The other three poets mentioned in this quotation are You Mao (1127–1194), Lu You (1125–1210), and Fan Chengda (1126–1193). 2 See Yan Yu, Canglang shihua [Canglang’s Remarks on Poetry], in Canglang shihua jiaoshi [Collated and Annotated Canglang’s Remarks on Poetry], coll. and annot. Guo Shaoyu (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1961), 59. 3 For book-length studies on the Jiangxi School, see Mo Lifeng, Jiangxi shipai yanjiu [A Study of the Jiangxi School of Poetry] (Jinan: Qilu shushe, 1986); Yugen Wang, Ten Thousand Scrolls: Reading and Writing in the Poetics of Huang Tingjian and the Late Northern Song (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2011). 4 See his own account in “Preface to Jianghu ji,” in Xin Gengru, Yang Wanli ji jianjiao [Collated and Annotated Anthology of Yang Wanli] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007), 3257–58. 5 See Fang Hui, Yingkui lüsui [The Essence of Regulated Verse], juan 1, quoted in Yang Wanli Fan Chengda ziliao huibian [Collected Materials on Yang Wanli and Fan Chengda], ed. Zhan Zhi (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004), 41. 6 Scholars agree that poems composed around 1177 and 1178 played a crucial role in the formulation of Yang’s style. See Mo Lifeng, Jiangxi shipai yanjiu, 105–10. 7 The translation is modified from Jonathan Chaves, Heaven My Blanket, Earth My Pillow (New York: Weatherhill Press, 1975), 30. “Searching for lines from behind closed doors” is a phrase used by the Jiangxi School patriarch Huang Tingjian (1045–1105) to describe fellow Jiangxi School poet Chen Shidao’s (1053–1101) way of writing. 8 The term “photographic seeing” is borrowed from Susan Sontag. See On Photography (New York: Picador, 2001), 88–89. 9 Qian Zhongshu, Tanyi lu [On the Art of Poetry] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1984), 118. 10 “Song Chaotian xuji Gui Chengzhai, Shi Zai Jinling” [Returning the Sequel of Chaotian Collection to Chengzhai, Who Was at the Time in Jinling], in Baishi shici ji [Collected Poems and Song Lyrics of Baishi] (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1998), 33. 11 See William T. Rowe, “Introduction: City and Region in the Lower Yangzi,” in Cities of Jiangnan in Late Imperial China, ed. Linda Cooke Johnson (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 6. 12 See The Eastern Capital: A Record of a Dream of Splendor written in 1147 and The Splendid Scenery of the Capital written in 1235. For a general account of life in Kaifeng and Hangzhou, see Jacques Gernet, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250–1276, trans. H. M. Wright (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1962) and Senses of the City: Perceptions of Hangzhou and Southern Song China, 1127–1279, ed. Joseph Lam, et al. (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2017). 13 For the estates and gardens in the Tang and Song, see Stephen Owen, “The Formation of the Tang Estate Poem,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 55, no. 1 (June 1995): 39–59; Xiaoshan Yang, Metamorphosis of the Private Sphere: Gardens and Objects in Tang-Song Poetry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003); Ronald Egan, The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), 144–161; Benjamin Ridgway, “Southern Osmanthus and Northern Pear: The Garden of Xiang Ziyin as a Site of Memory in the Writings of Southern Literati,” in The Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 4, no. 1 (April 2017): 19–55. 14 For Song literati’s official travels, see Ellen Cong Zhang, Transformative Journeys: Travel and Culture in Song China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2010). 15 See, for example, Zhang Ming, “Chengzhai Ti yu Lixue” [Chengzhai Style Poetry and Neo-Confucianism], Wenxue yichan 3 (1987): 64–76. 16 Li Jingde ed., Zhuzi yulei [Classified Conversations of Master Zhu], Siku quanshu [Complete Works of the Four Repositories] edition, 15.1b, 15.24a.

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Yang Wanli’s “Chengzhai Style” Poetry 1 7 See Yang’s biography in Songshi [Song History], juan 433. 18 See Fuller, Drifting Among Rivers and Lakes: Southern Song Dynasty Poetry and the Problem of Literary History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2013), 214–26. 19 See Uchiyama Seiya, “Chang Huai Shijing (Nan Song Pian)—Aiguo Youguo de Yishi Xingtai” [The Poetics of the Huai River in the Southern Song: Ideology of Patriotism], trans. Zhu Gang, Donghua hanxue 17, no. 6 (2013): 105–35. 20 Beverly Bossler has noted “the expansion of the literate but non-official sector of the population in the Song” and concluded that “it mattered, even in the local setting, whether or not a man possessed a chin-shih degree and official rank.” See Bossler, Powerful Relations: Kinship, Status, & the State in Sung China (960–1279) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 1998), 206, 209, respectively. For a discussion of the issue from a literary perspective, see Fuller, Drifting Among Rivers and Lakes, and E. Li, “A Territory of Their Own: Poetic Identity and the Construction of Literary Communities in Twelfth-Century China” (PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2016).

Further Reading Chaves, Jonathan, trans. Heaven My Blanket, Earth My Pillow. New York: Weatherhill Press, 1975. E, Li. “Beyond the City Walls: Photographic Seeing and the Longing for Wilderness in Yang Wanli’s Nature Poems.” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 7, no. 2 (November 2020): 313–38. Fuller, Michael A. Drifting Among Rivers and Lakes: Southern Song Dynasty Poetry and the Problem of Literary History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2013. Mo Lifeng. “Lun Yang Wanli Shifeng de Zhuanbian Guocheng” [On the Transformation of Yang Wanli’s Poetic Style]. Qiusuo 4 (2001): 105–10. Qian Zhongshu. Songshi xuanzhu [Selected Poems from the Song with Annotations]. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1979. Schmidt, J. D. “The Poetry of Yang Wan-li.” PhD diss., University of British Columbia, 1975. Uchiyama Seiya. “Chang Huai Shijing (Nan Song Pian)—Aiguo Youguo de Yishi Xingtai” [The Poetics of the Huai River in the Southern Song: Ideology of Patriotism], translated by Zhu Gang. Donghua hanxue 17, no. 6 (2013): 105–35. Xin Gengru. Yang Wanli ji jianjiao [Collated and Annotated Anthology of Yang Wanli]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007. Zhang Ming. “Chengzhai Ti yu Lixue” [Chengzhai Style Poetry and Neo-Confucianism]. Wenxue yichan 3 (1987): 64–76. Zhang Ruijun. Yang Wanli pingzhuan [Critical Biography of Yang Wanli]. Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 2002.

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19 LI AND CHAN IN ZHU XI’S POETRY Wenli Zhang (Translated by Zhenjun Zhang)

Zhu Xi (1130–1200) was the great master of Neo-Confucianism in the Song dynasty, and because of this, few people paid much attention to his achievements in other fields. In fact, Zhu Xi was also very accomplished in literature. Qian Mu has pointed out that “Master Zhu not only had a comprehensive mastery of Song Neo-Confucian teachings but also had a deep understanding of Song classics, history, as well as prose writing, and was a great master of them.”1 His erudition in Chan (Zen) was also quite vast, so much so that Zhu Xi’s views on poetry and his own poetry both bear the imprint of Neo-Confucianism and Chan.

Zhu Xi's Cultivation of Neo-Confucianism and Chan Zhu Xi was a precocious and serious child. In recalling his childhood, he said, “When I was five to six years old, I began to worry about things like what are the celestial bodies and what is beyond them?”2 When he was a teenager, his father, Zhu Song, tutored him personally. Luo Congyan (1072–1135) and Li Tong (1093–1163) were Zhu Song’s teachers and friends. Li Tong was a student of Yang Shi, who was a student of Cheng Yi (1033–1107). Thus Zhu Song was influenced by Cheng and passed this teaching onto Zhu Xi. Unfortunately, his tutoring did not last long because his father died of an illness when Zhu Xi was fourteen years old. Before his death, Zhu Song enjoined Zhu Xi to learn from the renowned Confucian scholars Hu Xian, Liu Mianzhi, and Liu Zihui. This learning experience laid the foundation of Cheng Yi’s “Yi-Luo school of thought” in Zhu Xi’s mind. Zhu Xi drew on Confucian ideas from Confucius and Mencius in the pre-Qin period, developed the two Chengs’ (Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi) Yi-Luo theory, incorporated ideas from other Neo-Confucians in the Northern Song dynasty, and even delved into Buddhism and Daoism. By extensively incorporating principles from various schools of thought, he established the comprehensive and meticulous ideology of Neo-Confucianism, which became an influential school. Because he was born in Youxi in Fujian and taught in Chong’an and Jianyang for extended periods, his teachings and school are sometimes called the Min School of Thought. The tenets of this school can be summarized as depending upon three points: the ontology of li (principle) and qi (vital force), the epistemology of investigating things and deeply probing principles (gewu qiongli), and the dualism of human nature. DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-26 

Li and Chan In Zhu Xi’s Poetry

The theory of li and qi guides Zhu Xi in exploring the nature of being in the world. He believes that all things are composed of li and qi and that li (also known as taiji, or the Supreme Ultimate) is the origin of the world; all things have li, and the li of all things is ultimately unified into one li, which is the so-called “one principle with many manifestations” (liyi fenshu). What exactly is this li or principle? Chen Lai explains, “the two major meanings of the li in Neo-Confucianism refer to the rules of things and the principles of morality.”3 Qi is the material that constitutes things. Zhu Xi says in his “Reply to Huang Daofu”: “Between heaven and earth, there are li and qi. Li is the metaphysical way and the foundation of things, while qi is the physical tool and the apparatus of living things.”4 In terms of epistemology, Zhu Xi continued the two Chengs’ interpretation of “investigating things and extending knowledge” (gewu zhizhi) and established the more systematic theory of “investigating things and deeply probing principles.” He believed that the basic meaning of gewu was to “exhaust the principle,” that is, to explore the principle of all things to its ultimate end. “Ge means to reach the end; wu means ‘things.’ In exhaustively probing the principle of things, the desire is to reach all the ultimate ends.”5 He also said, “Gewu means only to completely probe the principle of one thing, but zhizhi means the state in which, after a thorough probing, there is nowhere my knowledge does not reach. It is to push one’s knowledge of one thing to its maximum.”6 By exploring the principle to extend knowledge and extending knowledge to deeply probe the principle, a comprehensive understanding of things is achieved. On the issue of human nature, Zhu Xi followed the ideas of Zhang Zai and the two Chengs and comprehensively demonstrated the dualism of human nature of “the in-born nature” (tianming zhixing) and “the physical nature” (qizhi zhixing). The former is the original nature, while the latter is the transformed form of the original nature as influenced by temperament.7 The two natures coexist in the human body, but people can realize the transformation from physical nature to in-born nature through the practice of reverence and self-cultivation. In addition, Zhu Xi also uses “natural mind” (daoxin) and “human mind” (renxin) to discuss the relationship between moral consciousness and individual passions, and proposed the concept of “first knowledge, then action.” These are all important components of Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism. Apart from Neo-Confucianism, Zhu Xi also had a deep infatuation with Chan Buddhism. In a passage in the Assorted Sayings of Master Zhu (Zhuzi Yulei), Zhu Xi talks about his connection with Chan in his early years: At the age of fifteen or sixteen, I also became interested in this (Chan). One day, I met a monk in Bingweng’s house and talked with him. The monk only echoed what I said without saying if I was right; but he told Liu that I also understood the mysterious Chan. Later Liu told me [about what he said] and I suspected that this monk had an even further depth to him, so I went to inquire of him and found what he said to be wonderful. When the time came to take the civil service examination, I wrote whatever came to mind based on what he said. At that time, writing was not as sophisticated as it is now, so one could be sloppier. Yet, the examiner was convinced by me, and thus I was given a passing mark. Later, I went to Tong’an to assume a post at the age of twenty-four or twenty-five. It was there I first met Mr. Li [Tong]. When I talked with him about Chan, Mr. Li just said that wasn’t right. . . . He asked me to read only the words of the sages and worthies. So I put aside Chan for the time being. Although Chan was still in my mind alongside the Way, I began to read the words of the sages. After reading day after day, I felt the words of the sages were becoming more and more meaningful. Later, in looking back at Buddhist teachings, I could gradually see more and more flaws.8 231

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This is Zhu Xi’s depiction of his connection with Buddhism and Chan in his early years and his experience of setting it aside and returning to Confucianism after meeting Li Tong. Zhu Xi met the Chan monk Daoqian at Liu Zihui’s house. Daoqian was a disciple of Dahui Zonggao (1089–1163), so Zhu Xi asked him about the essentials of Chan enlightenment. After Daoqian’s death, Zhu Xi composed a sacrificial offering in memory of him. Zhu Xi was listed as a dharma heir of Daoqian in Records of Lay Buddhists Sharing Lamplight (Jushi fendeng lu). Zhu Xi was very familiar with Zonggao’s understanding of Chan and admired Zonggao as a person as well. Before and after learning from Li Tong, he also associated with some other famous Chan masters and discussed Chan methods with them. His mastery of Chan was quite profound. It is said that when he went to take the jinshi examination in his youth, the only book he had in his bag was quotations of Chan Master Dahui.9 Some scholars have determined which Buddhist Chan classics Zhu Xi read based on information in the Collected Writings of Mr. Hui’an (Hui’an xiansheng wenji) and the Assorted Sayings of Master Zhu.10 He read a variety of Buddhist sutras, commentaries, and studies, as well as “lamp records” and recorded sayings on Chan. From this, his enthusiasm for studying Chan Buddhism is apparent. Chan Buddhism also influenced the Neo-Confucianist Zhu Xi because it was a widely disseminated social ideology at the time. When Zhu Xi constructed his Neo-Confucian thought, he actively drew from elements of Chan Buddhism.11 Zhu Xi later criticized Lu Jiuyuan’s thought as being Chan, but he did not realize that his own discourse was also full of Chan Buddhist terminology. In this regard, Qing thinker Yan Yuan insightfully noted, Whenever Master Zhu arrived at the crux of his argument against Chan, his discussion on Chan becomes especially meaningful. It is only because he was rooted in Chan and later incorporated Confucianism into Buddhism and Buddhism into Confucianism that it is easy to distinguish the Chan of Buddha and Bodhidharma, but hard to understand the Chan of Cheng and Zhu.12 Zhu Xi also incorporated aspects of self-cultivation from Chan Buddhism, such as dhyana (chanding; meditative concentration) and samadhi (jingzuo; meditation). He practiced these personally and taught them to his disciples. This is why Yan Yuan said, He meditated for half a day, so Master Zhu [followed] Bodhidharma for half the day; the other half he read [the classics], so he was [a student of] the Han Confucians for the rest of the day. We may ask: during the twenty-four hours in a day, when was he [a student of] Yao, Shun, Duke of Zhou, or Confucius?13 Qian Mu explained the relationship between Zhu Xi and Chan in this way: Master Zhu explored and admired Buddhism and had an extremely clear understanding of Chan. When Ming Confucian scholars attempted to delineate the boundary between Confucianism and Buddhism, their ideas were based on Master Zhu’s. Master Zhu criticized the disciples of the two Chengs all turned to Chan. He also claimed that Lu Xiangshan’s learning was founded on Chan. If one does not understand Zhu’s discussion on Chan, one will not know what he means.14 This is an accurate description of the relationship between Zhu Xi and Chan Buddhism. 232

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Zhu Xi was a great master of Neo-Confucianism in his time and was extremely well versed in Chan Buddhism. Both were united into one in Zhu Xi’s person. Indeed, the relationship between Song Neo-Confucianism and Chan was very complex. The theoretical structure of Neo-Confucianism drew heavily from Chan. Ideas such as “one principle with many manifestations,” nurturing the mind (yangxin), and realization (tiwu) in Neo-Confucianism incorporated the theoretical essence of Chan Buddhism. However, in Neo-Confucianism there were many criticisms of Chan Buddhist theory, including the approach of renouncing social life (chushi), the view that all beings are equal, the theory of reincarnation, views on life and death, the concept of “emptiness,” and the rough outlines of bizarre superstition. Huang Zongxi has stated, In regard to Cheng and Zhu’s critiques of Buddhism, although their theories are complex, they were always solely focused on the periphery; as for those aspects that appear close to li but in reality confuse the truth, Cheng and Zhu never pointed them out.15 The idea that Confucianism and Buddhism are different manifestations of the same core has long existed, and people such as Dao’an in the Northern Zhou and Liu Zongyuan and Li Ao in the mid-Tang advocated this perception.16 Cheng and Zhu tacitly agreed. Cheng Yi once said, “If we try to thoroughly understand the teachings [of Buddhism], we may not be able to. If we were to reach a thorough understanding, we would have already become Buddhas.”17 Zhu Xi also has a trope, “Outwardly Confucianist but inwardly Buddhist.”18 Luo Xianglin’s deep analysis of this revealed that, after the mid-Tang, many wise men turned to Buddhism, or studied Buddhism as a Confucian scholar. . . . Although on the surface they could not but maintain the Confucian tradition, the incorporation of much Buddhist content had become a fact that could not be concealed. This evolved into the Neo-Confucianism that spanned Northern and Southern Song down to the Ming dynasty.19 This is an accurate description. Neo-Confucianism and Chan teachings in Zhu Xi’s thought form an integration of opposites, intertwined in a complex relationship that resists full integration.

Li and Chan in Zhu Xi’s Poetics and Poems Zhu Xi’s views on poetics were clearly influenced by his Neo-Confucianism. His ontological view that li and qi were unified informed Zhu Xi’s proposal that literature and the Dao are also unified. The Dao is the root of literature; literature is the offshoot of the Dao. Since literature is rooted in the Dao, when it comes out as writing, it is still the Dao. The writings of the sages of the Three Dynasties (Xia, Shang, and Zhou) were all written from this heart/mind, but the text is only the Dao.20 As a Neo-Confucian, Zhu Xi primarily valued the Dao. While he believed in the unity of literature and the Dao, he gave priority to the Dao over literature. His views on these two are essentially consistent with his philosophical thoughts. In terms of poetic style, Zhu Xi carried on the Confucian tradition of writing in an affable and sincere manner and advocated the idea that poetry should be plain and principled, and it should 233

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conform to the doctrine of the mean. His own poetry reflected these views, leading Qian Mu to state, “The source of Master Zhu’s poetry is Wenxuan ([Anthology of Refined Literature]) emulation; it is thus elegant and serene and calmly follows a middle course without losing a sense of unbridled energy.”21 In the Collected Works of Zhu Xi (Zhu Xi ji), there are more than 1,300 of his poems. These can roughly be divided into two categories: poetry by a poet (literati poetry) and poetry by a scholar (Neo-Confucian poetry). The vast majority of Zhu Xi’s poems are literati poems, which has led some scholars to claim: “It can be said that most of his poems have nothing to do with Neo-Confucianism, nor are they by any means just some lines that rhyme. Therefore, on the whole, Zhu Xi’s poems can be viewed as authentic literati poetry.”22 If compared to poems by other literati, Zhu Xi’s are not on the same level as the leading poets of Southern Song such as Lu You, Yang Wanli, and Fan Chengda; however, they are of sufficient quality to make him be listed as a poet of distinction. His poems are broad-minded and discuss current events, the sufferings of the masses, kinship and friendship, and the natural world. His style is elegant and proper, and his language is simple in that he uses few allusions and describes things in a straightforward manner, making him unique. His Neo-Confucian poetry was composed mainly during two periods in his life. The first was during the last year of Shaoxing reign (1162) after meeting Li Tong, when Zhu Xi began to reflect comprehensively on the direction of his own academic research. Through painstaking consideration and self-reflection, he finally set Chan aside and returned to Confucianism. He began studying with Li Tong. In the process of self-reflection, some Neo-Confucian poems were composed. The second period was the autumn and winter of the third year of Qiandao reign (1167), when Zhu Xi visited Zhang Shi in Changsha to discuss “meaning and principle” (yili). They frequently sang and harmonized together (changhe), during which meetings quite a few Neo-Confucian poems were produced. If similar poems written on occasion during other times in his life are included, Zhu Xi wrote more than 200 poems with obvious Neo-Confucian overtones in his life. This constitutes about one-seventh of all his poems. This fact allows us to abandon the preconceived notion that Zhu Xi is primarily a Neo-Confucian poet. Moreover, specific analysis of these Neo-Confucian poems will reveal even more insights. Some of Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucian poems are purely about “meaning and principle,” such as “The Techniques of Benevolence” (Renshu), “Assiduous Study, Two Poems” (Kunxue ershou), “Guidance” (Yindao), “Seeing Off Lin Xizhi, Five Poems” (Song Lin Xizhi wushou), “Reading Jizhong Jingren’s Poem ‘After Parting,’ Which Involves the Shizhuan gangmu, and Following the Prior Rhyme” (Du Jizhong, Jingren “Biehou” shiyu yinji Shizhuan gangmu fuyong qianyun), “Reading the Tongjian Chronicle, Responding by Following the Original Rhyme in Wuyi Songs, and Sending It to Jizhong” (Du Tongjian jishibenmo yong Wuyi changhe yuanyun ji Jizhong), and so on. It is not an overstatement to say that they are Neo-Confucian quotations in poetic form. Apart from rhyming, there is no poetic aesthetic in them at all. For example, the poem “The Techniques of Benevolence” reads: In the past, virtuous gentlemen Always desired benevolence in their heart, Seeking for the origins [of benevolence] there are always techniques, How could one not have reason to extend them to things? Where does compassion come from? Emptiness and awareness are truth. Expanding out from this thought, 234

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Blessings will befall everyone. In the haste when one falls into a well, In the trembling of an ox being led. I have always seen this as something afar, as the distance between Chu and Yue, And now it is within me.23 The poem talks about the reason for benevolence and the ways of realizing it. This type of poem by Zhu Xi is no different from the poems of other Neo-Confucians such as Shao Yong, Zhen Dexiu, and Wei Liaoweng. The purpose of composing these is to use the form of poetry to deduce meaning and principle and to promote transformation through teaching. Through the lens of the evolution of poetry, such works appeared during the Song. As Chen Yanjie claimed, this was “one disaster of Song poetry.”24 That is, it was a countercurrent in the long history of the development of poetry. Some of his Neo-Confucian poems use certain images to explain the system’s meaning and principle. In some of the more readable ones, such as “Sudden Enlightenment in Reading Books, Two Poems” (Guanshu yougan ershou), “A Poem in Response to Lu Zishou in the E-hu Monastery” (Ehu si he Lu Zishou), “Divining Where to Live” (Buju), “Watching Wild Lanterns” (Guan yedeng), and “Answering Yuan Jizhong on Enlightenment” (Da Yuan Jizhong lun qimeng), the objects and meanings are integrated into one in a very natural way. This can be seen in the highly praised “Sudden Enlightenment in Reading Books, Two Poems”: No. 1 The half-mu square pond is a clear mirror, In it, sky light and cloud shadows drift together. May I ask, why the water is so clear? Because water continuously flows in from its source. No. 2 Last night spring water surged by the riverside, A huge boat looked as light as a feather. It has wasted its propulsion since embarking, Today it moves freely in the middle stream.25 Since the title of the poem is “Sudden Enlightenment in Reading Books,” the poem undoubtedly concerns the insights obtained from reading. Zhu Xi does not directly talk about reason here; instead, he uses two natural objects to illustrate his insights读书心得: the half-acre square pond is always clear because of the continuous influx of water, a metaphor for keeping the mind active and clear by constantly enriching and improving it through self-cultivation. The huge boat floating freely in the middle of the river is a metaphor for the development of one’s ability to think, which is a process of accumulation—at a certain point the quantitative change becomes a qualitative change, and one’s thoughts enter a new realm. To explain such abstract ideas, Zhu Xi uses two vivid and concrete images. The poems not only illustrate the principle but also maintain the aesthetic quality of poetics, so both are excellent examples of good Neo-Confucian poetry.

The Integration of Chan and Li in Zhu Xi's Poems Zhu Xi’s profound mastery of Chan Buddhism is also exhibited in his poetry. Such examples of his poems as “Chanting Sutras” (Songjing), “A Ceremony Honoring Confucius While Resting in My Studio” (Shidian Zhaiju), and “Notes” (Shu shi) all reflect the extent to which Zhu Xi was 235

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influenced by Chan Buddhism. His poem “Chanting Sutras in My Studio during a Long Rainstorm” (Jiuyu zhaiju songjing) reads: Living alone, with nothing to do, I browse through Buddhist books. For a moment, I release the burden of the human world, Being detached, I connect with the Dao. The door is closed, the bamboo forest secluded, Birds chirp in the excessive mountain rain. Understanding this way of inaction, Both my body and mind are at ease.26 From this poem, we know that Zhu Xi often lived alone and read Buddhist sutras, and we can also sense his state of spiritual detachment, brought about by Chan Buddhism. Zhu Xi also uses poems to convey gradual and sudden enlightenment in Chan. For example, the “An Improvised Poem as I Leave the Mountain” (Chu shandao zhong kouzhan) reads, The reds and greens in the river and fields look so fresh, The evening rain and morning sunshine are even more pleasant. The days being buried in books never stop, It is better to discard them and seek for spring.27 “Being buried in books” refers to gradual enlightenment, the skill of meditative concentration taught in Chan Buddhism; “seek for spring” refers to sudden enlightenment, an example of realizing Buddhist teachings through daily life, as advocated in Chan. Other examples of such cases are recorded in Chan classics. According to Puji’s Collated Essentials of the Five Lamps (Wudeng huiyuan), for example, Chan master Shenzan of Guling once saw his master reading scriptures under the window. “A bee landed on the window paper wanting to get outside. The master saw it and said, ‘The world is so vast, why don’t you go out some other way? If you want to pierce the old paper, you won’t get out until the year of the donkey’.”28 How similar Zhu Xi’s poem is to the records of Chan classics! No wonder Lu Jiuyuan said happily after seeing Zhu’s poem, “Zhu Xi is now enlightened.”29 Zhu Xi also has a poem called “Spring Day” (Chun ri): Enjoying the scenery by the Si River on a sunny day, The boundless scene is so fresh. Easily I see the face of the east wind, Numerous purples and reds all showcase spring.30 On the surface, this poem depicts a spring outing on a sunny day, but its deep meaning is deducing the idea of “one principle with many manifestations” in Neo-Confucianism. Near the Zhu and Si rivers was the place where Confucius lived and taught his disciples. The poet enjoying the scenery implies his viewing/seeking/exploring the way of the Sage. However, just as all kinds of colors represent spring, the so-called “way of the Sage” also exists in the various forms of nature and society, and it is presented in the “boundless scenery” of daily life. At the end of the Song dynasty, Jin Lüxiang included this poem in his anthology Literary Creations of the Lian and Luo Rivers (Lian Luo Fengya), with the comment that it “is a metaphor for studying—after one has become very 236

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learned and then enlightened, he realizes that everything is unified by the same principle; that is, ‘one unity pervades all things’.”31 This implies that the poem exhibits the Neo-Confucianism tenets “one principle with many manifestations” and “everything shares one principle.” Interestingly, Zhu Xi’s poem “Spring Day” has been widely quoted in Chan classics. Some scholars point out that the poem has been well accepted and disseminated in Chan circles, including quoting the whole poem as well as excerpts whilst teaching dharma in classes, in praising ancient times, and in eulogies. It has even been an object of imitation, used to reevaluate previous ideas, and employed in dramatic productions.32 At its core, the formation of the Neo-Confucian concept “one principle with many manifestations” was at least partially based on the teachings of Chan Buddhism. According to the Assorted Sayings of Master Zhu, one of his disciples asked what the relationship was between the “supreme ultimate of the whole” (quanti zhi taiji) and the “supreme ultimate of one thing” (yiwu zhi taiji), as mentioned in the chapter “Principle, Human Nature, and Endowment” (li, xing, ming) in Zhou Dunyi’s the Book of Universality (Tong Shu). Zhu Xi replied, “[The whole] is not cut up in pieces [to form individual things]; it’s like the moon casting its reflection on the countless number of rivers.”33 The last sentence is a Buddhist phrase originally from the Avatamsaka Sutra (Huayan jing): “It’s like a pure full moon, which casts its reflection universally on all rivers.”34 Zhu Xi not only accepted the concept of the “non-obstruction of li and phenomena” (li shi wu’ai) and the “non-obstruction of all phenomena” (shi shi wu’ai) from Chan Buddhism but also borrowed the metaphor. He borrowed it again when he said, “Just like the moon in the sky, it is only one, but when it is scattered in the rivers and lakes, it can be seen everywhere. It cannot be said that the moon has been divided.”35 And again, “The Buddha said, ‘One moon appears in all waters, and all water is captured by one moon.’ This shows that Buddha also saw the principle.”36 For this reason, the Neo-Confucian poem “Spring Day,” which is saturated with rationality, is also a poem with Chan ideas/gusto. Now let’s observe the integration of New-Confucianism principle and Chan in Zhu Xi’s poems, through his “Sudden Enlightenment in Reading Books, Two Poems” and “Spring Day.” These three poems are the most representative of Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism poems, embodying Neo-Confucianism’s insight into the embodiment of things (tiwu guan) and epistemology. All three choose “water” to symbolize li. This is not accidental but rather is related to the understanding of water in Confucianism, Chan Buddhism, and even Daoism. Confucians regard water as a symbol of wisdom, saying that “those who are benevolent enjoy mountains, and those who are wise enjoy water.” Daoists regard water as a symbol of high quality, saying that “the highest goodness is like water.” Water is considered one of the “four elements” (si da) in Chan Buddhism, and these four (water, earth, fire and wind) are the basic components of all rupa dharma (se fa).37 According to the Sutra Spoken by Buddha on the Questions of Sarvanīvaraṇa-Viṣkambhin Bodhisattva (Foshuo chu gaizhang pusa suowen jing), the Buddha believed that water has pure virtue, its body (benti) is pure, it can nurture all living things, and it can cleanse all dirt. So, he used it in an analogy: Good man! If a Bodhisattva practices the ten kinds of dharma, he would be able to act like water. What are the ten dharma? First, the good dharma flowing down like water; second, planting all kinds of good dharma (seeds); third, faith and joy; fourth, soaking and destroying the roots of afflictions; fifth, being without impurities; sixth, eliminating the burning of afflictions; seventh, stopping all desires and cravings; eighth, being deep and boundless; ninth, filling upper and lower places; and tenth, stopping a variety of worries and worldly entanglements. . . . If a bodhisattva cultivates these ten kinds of dharmas, he will be like water.38 237

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So water has important connotations in Buddhism. Both Confucianism and Buddhism regard water as the most basic and important material form. Zhu Xi uses water to embody li, and this li itself is integrated with Confucianism and Buddhism. Therefore, the “source of flowing water” in the first poem of “Sudden Enlightenment in Reading Books, Two Poems” also represents the cultivation of Chan Buddhism; the huge boat going freely in the middle of river in the second poem resembles the gradual-to-sudden enlightenment of Chan. The poetic realm (shi jing) in “Spring Days” is also a state of epiphany in Chan. The zest on principles (li qu), Chan witticism (Chan ji), and poetic beauty are seamlessly intertwined and blended together in Zhu Xi’s three poems.

Conclusion Zhu Xi represents the highest achievement of Song dynasty Neo-Confucianism, with a deep cultivation of Chan Buddhism as well. At the same time, he loved literature and continuously labored in creating poetry, leaving a rich poetic legacy for later generations. The following two lines by him could be viewed as his self-depiction: “In speaking of the Way, my heart thirsts for it; while reciting poems, my thoughts are rolling thunder.”39 Some of his poems convey the principles of Neo-Confucianism, some express the thoughts of Chan Buddhism, and some are excellent works that integrate both. Confucianism, Chan, and Zhu Xi’s poetry have formed a certain organic synthesis—Zhu Xi’s three identities as a Confucian, a Chan master, and a poet are not split. Yet at times conflicts are unavoidable in some of his works. This kind of ambivalence can be seen in the preface of his “Thoughts on Studio Life” (Zhaiju ganxing). He first praises Chen Ziang’s poem “Inspired Encounters” (Ganyu) as having “deep meaning and bold tonality” and calls it “a rare natural treasure from beyond the human world” from the perspective of its poetic beauty. But then he criticizes it in the tone of a Neo-Confucian as “practically useless to society” and “loathes the fact he does not excel at li but exalts himself by placing himself among the immortals and Buddhas.” He also stated that his own twenty poems on “Thoughts on Studio Life” are “all practical for daily use,” and his meaning is “clear and easy to understand.”40 This attitude reflects certain irreconcilable conflicts at times between Zhu Xi’s identity as a Confucian and his identity as a poet. After all, the pursuit of morality and writing carefree verses are two different value orientations. Luo Dajing’s Jade Dew from the Crane Forest (Helin Yulu) records the following discussion on poetry, Hu Dan’an recommended ten poets in a memorial he submitted to the throne, and Zhu Xi was among them. Zhu was displeased and vowed not to write any more poems. Yet thus far, he has not been able to stop. He once traveled to Mount Heng with Zhang Shi (1133–1180). They wrote more than one hundred poems back and forth. Suddenly he said, “Are our skills in poem writing getting rusty?”41 This vividly shows that although Zhu Xi was primarily a Neo-Confucian, he also loved poetry and could not help but compose it. Consequently, he became a poet as well.

Notes 1 Qian Mu, Zhuzi xinxue’an [A New Study of Zhu Xi], 157. 2 Li Jingde, comp., Wang Xingxian, ed., Zhuzi yulei [Assorted Sayings of Master Zhu] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), 45.1156.

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Li and Chan In Zhu Xi’s Poetry 3 Chen Lai, Song Ming lixue [Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming], 2nd ed. (Shanghai: Huadong shida chubanshe, 2004), 126. 4 Guo Qi and Yin Bo, eds., Zhu Xi ji [Anthology of Zhu Xi] (Chengdu: Sichuan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1996), 58.2947. 5 Zhu Xi, “Daxue zhangju” [Analysis of the Great Learning], in Sishu zhangju jizhu [A Collected Commentary on the Four Books] (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1983), 4. 6 Guo Qi and Yin Bo, Zhu Xi ji, 51.5210. 7 Yan Wenru and Wu Xuande, Zhongguo lixue [China’s Neo-Confucianism], Vol. 2 (Shanghai: Dongfang chuban zhongxin, 2002), 84. 8 Jingde, Zhuzi yulei, 104.2620. 9 See You Sui, “Ti Dahui yulu” [Remarks on Record of the Sayings of Chan Master Dahui Pujue], in Fozu lidai tongzai [Comprehensive Record of Historical Generations of Buddhas and Patriarchs], Vol. 20, Taisho Pitaka, 49.691a. 10 See Ha Lei, “Zhuzi suodu Fojiao jinglun yu zhuzuo shuyao” [Summaries of Buddhist Sutras, Commentaries, and Studies Zhu Xi Read], Kongzi yanjiu (Studies of Confucius) 4 (2008): 69–81; “Zhu Xi suodu chanzong dianji kao” [A Study of the Chan School Classics that Zhu Xi Read], Fojiao yanjiu (Studies of Buddhism) 3 (2019): 103–13. 11 Regarding Zhu Xi’s incorporation of Chan Buddhism, see Qian Mu, Zhuzi xinxue’an, 3.521–613. 12 “Zhuzi yulei ping” [Commentaries on Master Zhu’s Categorized Talks], in Yan Yuan ji [Anthology of Yan Yuan] (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1987), 283. 13 Yan Yuan ji, 278. 14 Qian Mu, Zhuzi xinxue’an, 521. 15 Huang Zongxi, “Fafan” [Introduction], in Ming ru xue’an [Records of Ming Confucian Scholars] (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1985), 17. 16 See Zhou Jin, Daoxue yu Fojiao [Daoism and Buddhism] (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1999), 11–12. 17 Cheng Yi and Cheng Hao, “Yishu” [Surviving Works], in Er Cheng ji [Anthology of the Two Cheng Brothers] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2008), 15.149. 18 Guo Qi and Yin Bo, Zhu Xi ji, 72.3770. 19 Luo Xianglin, Tangdai wenhuashi yanjiu [A Study of Tang Dynasty Cultural History], quoted from Huang Hetao, Chan yu Zhongguo yishu jingshen de shanbian [The Evolution of the Spirit of Chinese Arts and Chan] (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1994), 276–77. 20 Assorted Sayings of Master Zhu, 139.3319. 21 Qian Mu, Zhuzi xinxue’an, 5.185. 22 Guo Qi, “Lun Zhu Xi shi” [On Zhu Xi’s Poems], Sichuan daxue xuebao 2 (2000): 83–88. 23 Guo Qi and Yin Bo, Zhu Xi ji, 85. 24 Chen Yanjie, “Song shi zhi paibie” [The Schools of Song Dynasty Poetry], quoted in Xie Taofang “Luelun Songdai lixue shipai” [Brief Remarks on the Schools of Neo-Confucian Poetry of the Song Dynasty], Wenxue yichan 3 (1986): 37–43. 25 Guo Qi and Yin Bo, Zhu Xi ji, 2.90. 26 Guo Qi and Yin Bo, Zhu Xi ji, 1.17. 27 Guo Qi and Yin Bo, Zhu Xi ji, 9.318. 28 “Pierce through old paper” is a metaphor for reading. As there is no “year of the donkey” in China, the meaning is that one can never get anywhere only by reading. Su Yuanlei, ed., Wudeng huiyuan, juan 4 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1984), 195. 29 Zhou Xunchu, ed., Songren yishi huibian [Classified Compilation of Anecdotes of Song Personages], Vol. 5 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2014), 34.2395. 30 Guo Qi and Yin Bo, Zhu Xi ji, 2.89. 31 Jin Lüxiang, “Lian Luo fengya” [Airs and Odes of Lian and Luo], juan 5, in Siku quanshu cunmu congshu [Collections of Books Listed in the Section of Surviving Titles of the Four Treasuries] (Jinan: Qi Lu shushe, 1997), 268. 32 See Qiu Weihua, “Zhu Xi ‘Chunri’ shi zai chanzong yulu Zhong de jieshou yu chuanbo” [The Acceptance and Spread of the Poem “Spring Day” in Quotations of the Chan School], Fuzhou daxue xuebao 4 (2020): 105–12. 33 Assorted Sayings of Master Zhu, 94.2409. 34 Taisho Pitaka, 10.486c.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 3 5 Assorted Sayings of Master Zhu, 94.2409. 36 Assorted Sayings of Master Zhu, 18.399. 37 Rupa are objects that have the power to draw our awareness. 38 Taisho Pitaka, 10.486c. 39 “He ze zhi yun” [A Poem Written in Response to (Zu) Zhezhi (1011–1084)], in Guo Qi and Yin Bo, Zhu Xi ji, 5.211. 40 Guo Qi and Yin Bo, Zhu Xi ji, 4.177. 41 Wang Ruilai, ed., Helin yulu A, juan 6 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1983), 112.

Further Reading Hu Ming. “Guanyu Zhu Xi de shige lilun yu shige chuangzuo” [Zhu Xi’s Poetics and Poetic Composition]. Wenxue yichan 4 (1989): 61–70. Li Chi. “Chu Hsi the Poet.” TP 58 (1972): 55–119. Miu Yue. “Songci yu lixuejia—jianlun Zhu Xi shici” [Lyrics of the Song and New-Confucianist—On Zhu Xi’s Poems and Lyrics]. Sichuan daxue xuebao 2 (1989): 81–85. Mo Lifeng. Zhu Xi wenxue yanjiu [On Zhu Xi’s Literary Works]. Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 2000. Pan Liyong. Zhuzi lixue meixue [Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism and Aestheticism]. Shanghai: Dongfang chubanshe, 1999. Qian Mu. Zhuzi xinxue’an [A New Study of Zhu Xi]. Beijing: Jiuzhou chubanshe, 2011. Wu Changgeng. Zhu Xi wenxue sixiang lun [On Zhi Xi’s Literary Thoughts]. Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 1994. Yang Zhiyi. “Zhu Xi as Poet.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 132, no. 4 (2012): 587–611. Zhang Jian. Zhu Xi de wenxue piping yanjiu [A Study of Zhu Xi’s Literary Criticism]. Taibei: Taiwan shangwu Yinshuguan, 1969. Zhang Wenli. Li Chan ronghui yu Songshi yanjiu [Integration of Li and Chan and the Studies of Song Poetry]. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2004. Zhou Yukai. Zhongguo chanzong yu shige [Chinese Chan School and Poetry]. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1992.

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SECTION VII

Lyrics of the Song

20 LIU YONG, QIN GUAN, AND ZHOU BANGYAN Amelia Ying Qin

Scholars have long regarded Liu Yong (ca. 987–ca. 1053), Qin Guan (1049–1100), and Zhou Bangyan (1056–1121) as the foremost representatives of the “graceful and subdued” (wanyue) style of song lyric (ci) composition, a style so labeled in contrast to the “vigorous and unrestrained” (haofang) approach represented by Su Shi (1037–1101) and Xin Qiji (1140–1207). Liu Yong was the most popular and influential figure in the development of the song lyric form in the early Northern Song, with Qian Guan and Zhou Bangyan writing in his legacy. Qin Guan enjoyed much acclaim for his highly polished, delicate, and often sorrowful expressions of sentiments, and Zhou Bangyan had a long-lasting influence as the “great synthesizer” (ji dacheng zhe) of the tradition.

Liu Yong (ca. 987–ca. 1053) Liu Yong (style name Qiqing) was born to a literati family from Chong’an (in modern day Fujian). His father and grandfather held positions in regional governments and at court, but Liu Yong’s career was largely unsuccessful. Few details are known about Liu Yong’s life and, other than song lyrics, only a few pieces of his writings survive. The popular images of Liu Yong as a carefree youth enjoying the entertainment quarters, a frustrated talent excluded from officialdom, and a wandering poet singing sorrows in his later years were likely based on his self-portraits in song lyrics and on unverifiable anecdotal accounts.1 We do know that he made multiple attempts at the jinshi (presented scholar degree) examination. His first effort in 1009 was frustrated by none other than Emperor Zhenzong (r. 997–1022), who issued an edict against frivolous styles of writing. Disappointed, Liu Yong wrote in “To the Tune ‘Cranes Soaring to the Sky’” (He chongtian), “How can I bear to trade [the pleasure of] sipping wine and humming a tune for some passing fame?” According to one anecdote, when, in a later attempt, Liu finally made the list, Emperor Renzong (r. 1022–1063) removed him from the successful candidates with the comment, “Just go sipping wine and humming a tune. Why do you need this passing fame?”2 After more failures, the dejected Liu Yong left the capital, leaving behind him the famous “To the Tune ‘Bells Ringing in Continuous Rain’” (Yu linling). He then traveled widely in the southern regions and across the northwest and southwest, reportedly making a living by composing song lyrics. Some of his best pieces, such as “To the Tune ‘Eight Beats of a  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-28

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Ganzhou Song’” (Basheng Ganzhou), were composed during this time. It was not until he finally received the jinshi degree in 1034—the result of Renzong’s new examination policy that granted favor toward those who had long suffered failures—that he obtained his first post in regional government. Liu Yong was almost fifty years old when he started climbing—slowly, and with frequent difficulties—the ladder of official hierarchy, eventually retiring without reaching any significant position. Liu Yong’s song lyrics enjoyed tremendous popularity, to the extent that it was said, “As long as there is a well to drink from, there are people singing Liu’s songs.”3 He showed talent in writing from an early age as he indulged himself in pleasure quarters and enjoyed romantic sojourns in the cities along his way to the capital in preparation for the exams. He wrote about entertainers and brothel beauties, the pleasures and sufferings of love, the rich scenes of city life, and the sorrows of travels and parting. After he arrived in Kaifeng, his depictions of the splendor of the capital won him renown. However, due to his romantic nature and his indulgence in pleasure, Liu Yong was viewed by the elite as a controversial figure, frivolous and unsuitable to serious responsibilities, and his song lyrics were criticized by the elegant circles as vulgar and unedifying. To some degree, his image as an unrestrained, defiant talent promoted his celebrity in the entertainment quarters. He was much sought after by musicians and singers who believed his lyrics would bring popularity to their tunes and fame to themselves. Indeed, Liu Yong’s lyrics vividly brought out the romance and pleasure of the entertainment quarters. On these themes, his diction could be colloquial and intimate, his imagery amorous, affective, and sometimes erotic. Liu Yong was highly innovative in both the form and the musicality of song lyrics. He developed the “lyrics to the slow tune” (man ci), a much longer form with characteristics that differed significantly from those of other previous lyricists. The “slow tune” form, often with more than eighty characters in a song, allowed ample room for detailed expositions of themes and sentiments. He also introduced complex syntactic patterns and variations, such as the use of “padding words” (chen zi), which allows a line to better fit the music, and “governing words” (ling zi), whose semantic function expands across multiple lines that follow and offers a loose framing structure to organize the long lyric.4 His much-translated piece, “To the Tune ‘Eight Beats of a Ganzhou Song’” is a good example of his creativity: “To the Tune ‘Eight Beats of a Ganzhou Song’” Right before my eyes—the rushing downpour of dusk rain splashing over the river and sky, all at once, showering the clear autumn clean. Gradually—the frosty wind tightens its chilly grip, the passes and rivers turning desolate and bleak, remnant rays of sunlight bearing upon the tower. In this place, red blossoms decay and leaves of jade green wither, the lush and luxuriant splendor of things brought to its end. There is only the water of the Yangtze, flowing to the east without a word. I cannot bear— ascending on high and overlooking the distance, my gaze toward homeland so far and obscured. Those thoughts of return are too hard to hold back. 244

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I sigh for my wandering tracks these years. For what do I suffer such sojourns tarried? I envision that fair one looking longingly out from her boudoir tower: How many times did she by mistake identify that returning boat on the horizon as mine? How could she know that I, leaning here against the balustrade, am being stifled so with sorrow? Both stanzas start with “governing words”—“Right before my eyes” and “I cannot bear” —that cover several lines or phrases that follow. In the first stanza, the chilly and bleak imagery depicts the autumn as the season of decline, all lushness and glory of nature fading away right in front of the lyricist’s eyes. The descriptions of desolate scenery end with the image of the only consistency among the decay of things, the Yangtze. The river’s eastward flow, persistent and “without a word,” gains a touch of a human character and allows the line to lead smoothly into the second stanza’s exposition of human sentiments. The second stanza is then suddenly filled with actions such as gazing, sighing, and envisioning as the lyricist directly sings out his thoughts and feelings with details from both memory and imagination.

Qin Guan (1049–1100) Qin Guan (style names Taixu and Shaoyou) was a native of Gaoyou (in modern Jiangsu province). He was closely associated with Su Shi and, together with Huang Tingjian (1045–1105), Zhang Lei (1054–1114), and Chao Buzhi (1053–1110), recognized as the “Four Scholar Disciples of Su” (Sumen sixueshi). A jinshi degree holder of 1085, successful at his third attempt at the examination, Qin Guan started his official career with Su Shi’s recommendation, gradually being promoted from minor regional posts to court positions. This period was marked by factional struggles in the Northern Song court. Naturally, Qin Guan was regarded as a member of the conservative camp, or the “old” faction, due to his connection with Su. When Emperor Zhezong (r. 1085–1100) took control of court affairs in 1094, the reform—or “new”—faction regained imperial favor and political power. Many officials associated with the conservative faction were demoted out of the capital, and Qin Guan was sent to a series of regional posts. Later, Emperor Huizong (r. 1100–1126) summoned him to return to a court position, but he died en route to the capital. Though his name has long been one of the exemplary “graceful and subdued” style lyricists, Qin Guan wrote more than four times the number of poems as songs, as well as a significant collection of prose and discourse essays. In addition to his poetic talent, his prose, essays, rhapsodies, and calligraphy were much appreciated by the elegant society of his time. These mainstream literary and cultural accomplishments and his association with Su Shi’s literary circle all contributed to Qin Guan’s acclaim as a writer in general and as a song lyricist in particular.5 Like Liu Yong, Qian Guan enjoyed romantic relations with courtesans and entertainers and wrote a considerable number of song lyrics about these affairs. According to anecdotal accounts, some of his most famous lyrics were written for his lovers in the pleasure quarters, often with the name or features of the loved one artfully incorporated in his lines. In terms of style, Qin Guan’s song lyrics are delicate and sentimental and can be plaintive and dejected, or expressive of deep pain. The sorrows of love, longing, and unfulfilled ambitions are repeated themes, explicated in fine diction and elegant rhythm, often presented with lovely but 245

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ephemeral imagery, highly creative in offering fresh perspectives. The following piece, “To the Tune ‘Viewing the Ocean Tide’” (Wang haichao), serves as an example of his artistic originality: To the Tune “Viewing the Ocean Tide” Plum blossoms sparse and pale, ice melting, drifting afloat upon water, the east wind has secretly changed the season of the year. In the Golden Valley6 refined talents mingle and stroll, along the Bronze Camel Alley,7 in the newly cleared weather, they tread leisurely upon the smooth sand walkway. I still remember following a wrong carriage, amidst tumbling catkins and dancing butterflies, Love’s spring longing had me much tangled. Those paths under willows and trails among peach trees, did wantonly direct the charms of spring to someone else’s household. The Tartar pipe plays at the night banquet in the Western Garden.8 There are decorated lanterns blocking out the moon, and bustling carriages bumping into flowers. The orchid garden has never been empty, but those who roam therein are growing old. Now I come back here again, each and every scene becomes lamentable. Mists dim and banners of wineshops askew, I only lean against the tower, looking as far as my eyes can see, and from time to time, seeing crows come roosting in trees. That helpless heart of mine yearning for return, has secretly followed the flowing water to the edge of the world. In Liu Yong’s song previously, autumn rain and frosty wind bring forth the bleak scenes of a declining season. Here, in Qin Guan’s delicate imagery, the pale color of flowers and the slow drifting of melting ice lead to the realization that the season has been changed, “secretly,” by the eastern wind. Qin Guan’s second line then turns to human activities, presenting a scene of luxury and leisure with elegant company, setting the backdrop for personal remembrance. The rest of the stanza conjures wanton moments from a spring past—willow catkins and butterflies, tree-covered trails and paths branching off randomly—all subtly blamed for the lyricist’s flustered love longing, becoming graceful natural excuses for the spring’s romantic mistakes. While the lone Liu Yong envisions his fair beauty mistaking a returning boat for his, here, Qin Guan, in the bustle of the spring, follows a wrong carriage to someone else’s household. Thus is the charm of spring randomly delivered. Nothing is openly stated, but the entanglement of a spring-time romance is nonetheless strongly felt. The second stanza suddenly shifts the scene, pulls the reader from the lyricist’s personal memory, and brings the focus of the song to the present: a luxurious night banquet in elegant society. But the lyricist’s sentiments take a melancholy turn as he realizes the onset of old age that no 246

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one escapes. Precisely because the splendor of the garden remains, the ephemerality of life and youthfulness stands out, and everything becomes lamentable. This realization makes the lyricist notice the dim mists, the askew banners, the returning crows—all bleak signs at the periphery of the bustling banquet. Now, in old age, he is no longer a youth entangled in thoughts of love who would follow the wrong carriage down a random path. But his heart, yearning for return, “secretly” escapes the present, letting the flowing water carry it far away. Perhaps this meandering stream bears a familiar sense of randomness. No longer entangled in the here and now or the then and there—the garden banquet of the present or the spring alley of the past—the lyricist’s heart encounters a new question: where to return to? Unlike Liu Yong’s long gaze homeward and his much hoped-for return to his love, Qin Guan’s heart appears to be lost and just passively “following” the random wandering of the water all the way to “the edge of the world.” It is unclear if the hoped-for destination is ever reached or even where that destination might be. Could it be the past, the spring of youthful years? How sorrowful it is when one longs to return but knows not where. Or knows that that which is longed for can no longer be returned to. The imagery of the yearning heart floating on the water, like a piece of melting ice, ties the ending of Qin Guan’s lyric back to its delicate opening scene. Seasons change, yet the passing of years brings old age and a change of heart and sentiments in the poet. Such is the sophistication of design and sensitivity of feelings in Qin Guan’s lyrics.

Zhou Bangyan (1056–1121) Zhou Bangyan (style name Meicheng) was born to a local elite family in Qiantang (modern Zhejiang province). Among the three lyricists introduced here, he was the only one who had a successful official career and fully enjoyed the height of Northern Song cultural accomplishments. He was also fortunate enough to avoid the bitter sufferings from the Jurchen invasion that destroyed the Northern Song shortly after his death. Though his uncle was a friend of Su Shi’s, Zhou Bangyan in fact benefited from the era of “New Policies” reform during which he gained Emperor Shenzong’s (r. 1067–1085) favor by composing the “Rhapsody on the Bian Capital” (Bian du fu). It was a magnificent piece of work of around seven thousand characters, describing fully the prosperity of the city and praising the virtues of the dynasty and Shenzong’s rule. Later accounts also noted that when Emperor Huizong created the Imperial Music Bureau (Dashengfu), he appointed Zhou to take charge of court music and correct the tuning of instruments for state ceremonies. Thus, unlike Liu Yong’s case, Zhou Bangyan’s official career likely benefited from his outstanding talent in music and his reputation as an acclaimed poet and lyricist. This was probably because song lyrics were his only surviving writings, and thus “stories inevitably accumulated around them, connecting them to putative events and relationships in his life.”9 Regarded by critics as the “great synthesizer” of the tradition, Zhou Bangyan was influential on both his contemporaries and later lyricists.10 Wang Guowei (1877–1927) even viewed him as “the old Du of song lyrics,” on a par with Du Fu (712–770), who was highly acclaimed and respected in the genre of poetry.11 In Zhou’s work, one can detect the strong points of many earlier lyricists. He wrote about common themes, such as love and pleasure in the boudoir, sorrows of parting and longing, and weariness of travels and sojourning, and composed his fair share of poetic expositions on objects and historical sites. But in terms of artistic skill, Zhou surpassed all his predecessors with his highly original and innovative approach. He was the founder of a style of well-regulated prosodic structures that offered refined tonal and rhythmic features to the musicality of his lyric. Many lyricists from the Southern Song, such as Jiang Kui (ca. 1155–1221), Wu Wenying (ca. 1200–ca. 1260), and Zhang Yan (1248–ca. 1320), down to those of the late imperial times, regarded Zhou as 247

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the originator of their prosodically rich style. In addition, Zhou Bangyan was well versed in music composition and created a set of new tunes that incorporated features from both classical pieces and popular songs, tremendously enriching the genre of song lyrics. Like Liu Yong, Zhou Bangyan was a master of the “slow tune,” and the long form sufficiently displayed his talent for seamlessly blending scenery, sentiments, and storytelling. While Liu Yong used syntactic innovations such as the “governing words” to organize his long songs, Zhou Bangyan was able to introduce multiple layers and turns to his exposition, exercising effective control in his skillful delivery. He was especially deft at incorporating colloquial and vernacular language into his elegant lines. As a result, his lyrics were highly appreciated by musicians, performers, courtesans, as well as literati of elegant circles. Consider the piece “To the Tune ‘Wandering Youth’” (Shaonian you) as an example in which Zhou’s expression of sentiments can be even more subtle than that of Qin Guan, to the extent of being almost reticent, leaving space for savoring and appreciation: To the Tune “Wandering Youth” Clouds at dawn dense and dim, drizzling fine fleece of rain, towers and garrets assume the appearance of a pale spring. Willows weep and flowers cry, all Nine Avenues of the city laden heavy with mud. Outside of the gate, the swallow’s flight is delayed. Yet now the sun shining bright, lightening up the chamber of gold, Spring’s colors are right here in the branches of peach blossoms. Now is no longer like the time past— on that little bridge, braving the rain, only the two of us knew that secret longing and pain. Like Liu Yong’s writing to the tune “Eight Beats of a Ganzhou Song,” Zhou Bangyan here also offers the whole first stanza to the depiction of scenery, albeit in a compact form for this short song. The drizzling rain renders the spring pale, indistinct, wet, and heavy-hearted. Trees and flowers appear to be weeping, and even the swallows’ flight is hindered. Just when his audience assumes this is the scene right before the speaker’s eyes, the second stanza, opening with the short phrase “yet now,” neatly consigns all previous imagery to the realm of memory. A world of sharply contrasting imagery swiftly follows. With “shining bright,” “lightens up,” and “chamber of gold,” the poet illuminates a vision of brilliance. One cannot help but marvel at the efficiency of Zhou Bangyan’s art, which, after all, is the key to constructing sophisticated, layered expositions in a short song. With one sprig of peach blossoms, the second line of the second stanza then effectively restores the spring to its full color and vividness. The third line makes yet another turn—a turn in the lyric’s perspective as well as the direction of the audience’s expectations. The present spring scene, lively and bright, is said to be “no longer like the time past,” hinting at the melancholic sense that the present cannot measure up to one’s memories. Suddenly, past events and feelings fill the last line of the lyric: the dismal rain from the dreary spring in the first stanza is revealed to have been braved by the two lovers in their past, and at that time their longing for each other, though painful, had held their hearts together. With this glimpse into the past affair and the sentiments of the lovers on the bridge, Zhou Bangyan’s song comes to its abrupt end. Its momentum, however, does not stop here but rather provokes

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his audience to reflect. The speaker in this song must be one of the lovers, and in the golden chamber, with a bright spring fully restored, the lovers—or at least the speaker—must be faring much better than before. Yet the song recalls the dim and pale spring of the past with nostalgia. Is the feeling that held their hearts together then no longer present? Is that why the whole first stanza is fully immersed in imagery from the past, while the second stanza reads like a sudden waking up from a dreamy remembrance? Unlike Liu Yong’s open expressions of sorrow and longing or Qin Guan’s elegant suggestions of youthful romance and the helpless sadness of old age, Zhou Bangyan’s song keeps the present mindset of the speaker obscured, presenting only multi-layered contrasts and unexpected turns in the song’s imagery and perspectives. It is a masterful composition, executed efficiently within the space of a short song, in a style of elegance and subtlety, while allowing ample space for lasting reflection and appreciation.

To the Tune “Magpie Bridge Immortal” (Queqiao xian) It may be interesting to compare how these three lyricists approached a conventional theme with the same tune. Here, their renditions for the tune “Magpie Bridge Immortal” are considered as a brief example. This title originated from Ouyang Xiu’s (1007–1072) song lyric, but the story of the forbidden love between two stars and their secret meeting on the night of the Double Seventh (Qixi) festival can be traced to as early as the Han dynasty (206 B.C.–220 A.D.). “Far and Distant, the Cowherd Star; Fair and Bright, a Maiden by Heaven’s River” from the “Nineteen Old Poems” (Gushi shijiu shou), dating back at least to the second century A.D., is likely the first in the poetic tradition to sing their story. During the Northern Song, the main form of the song lyric “To the Tune ‘Magpie Bridge Immortal’”—as first defined by Ouyang Xiu’s piece—had fifty-six characters. Later versions brought in variations in tone patterns and occasionally one or two additional characters. Both Qin Guan’s and Zhou Bangyan’s lyrics to this tune follow the original form, while Liu Yong’s is the only example of this same-titled song written with eighty-eight characters. In his highly acclaimed lyric, Qin Guan wrote faithfully to the topic theme of love and longing between the two stars: To the Tune “Magpie Bridge Immortal” Delicate clouds show off her weaving skills, a shooting star brings word of his longing pain, far and wide across the starry Silver River—they made their way secretly to each other. In the golden autumn’s wind and amidst the jade-like dew, to meet just this once surpasses countless times in the world of mortals. Their gentle feelings are like water, this fine moment as if a dream, how can they bear to look back over the magpie bridge—the road for them to return? But so long as their love lasts and for each other lasts long, how would it still rely on being together night after night, dawn after dawn? Qin Guan’s first stanza presents an image of vast celestial space across the Milky Way, with clouds and shooting stars in motion, setting the stage for the lovers to meet. On both temporal and spatial levels, no meeting between lovers of the mortal world can be compared to this scene of an otherworldly rendezvous. In his famous last line, Qin Guan chooses to mediate the sadness of impending

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separation instead of highlighting its sorrow, making the lyric a timeless piece for the Double Seventh festival. Zhou Bangyan, however, artfully crafted the song to be a lovely dedication to a stem of divine lotus: To the Tune “Magpie Bridge Immortal” Frivolous flowers and flighty florets, countless times in the world of mortals, blooming everywhere— scarlet and scarlet again and white over white. Yet in the Jasper Pool of the Fairy Mother, that one stem of jade lotus— bathing in the autumn dew her perfected color of cinnabar. As the night chills, to the moon she bows, her gossamer robe ripples— Surely, she is known to the Immortal Lady in the Moon. In lightsome flight she rises, ready to ascend to the Palace of Vast Coldness. The sound of the jade flute accompanies her, with one note the sky turns blue and clear. The transcendental beauty of the divine lotus far surpasses the frivolous colors of mundane flowers. In the cool autumn night, the lotus bows to the moon, and is welcomed by the Immortal Lady to her palace. It was customary for young maidens to pray to the moon on the night of the Double Seventh festival to seek blessings from the moon goddess. In praising the divine lotus, Zhou’s song offers a subtle and elegant compliment to a woman’s beauty. The gracefully rising lotus could be a metaphor for the woman’s dance and the last line about the jade flute capable of clearing the sky, an exaggerated, but refined, applauding of her flute skills. Just like the lotus rising up to the heavenly palace, the beauty of this female entertainer is elevated to the level of a divine presence. With the same tune, Liu Yong brings forth a direct explication of the sorrows of separated lovers in the mortal world: To the Tune “Magpie Bridge Immortal” A long journey ahead, books and sword in hand, far and distant—on his lone horse, off to the east he heads. Wretched is that parting heart, alas for the young —all too easily separated, too hard to bring back together. Just when the fair one is tenderly affected so, soon she suffers the parting of the lovebirds. In the charming spring, she counts their intimate yearnings and secret pleasures— all so readily tossed away.

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This one moment, this one inch of heart—filled with ten thousand thoughts. Wretched is the sorrow-ridden face, wordless the broken soul. With tearful eyes, those fleeting times she turns to recall, time and time again. This wounded heart deep laden, to whom can she confide? Silent and motionless she stands and that’s all. Mists at dusk, cold rain— from where might he be looking back at this Tower of Qin? Some traditional scholars read this as a song depicting Liu Yong’s own sentiments at a certain moment of his life. However, unlike his “To the Tune ‘Eight Beats of a Ganzhou Song,’” the voice in this lyric feels less immediate, and therefore the song is here translated from a perspective that shifts between the two lovers. The lyric has a rhythmic charm even when read without the music. Its rhyming words roughly add up to twelve not just at the end of the lines but sometimes at the end of phrases within a line as well, presenting a rhyme pattern more dense than those of other lyrics. Except for one line depicting the natural scenery of mists and rain, the lyric focuses on human sentiments and actions, offering an almost immersive experience in the feelings of the separated lovers. All three writers have long been regarded by critics as outstanding lyricists with masterful skills. Qin Guan’s rendition of the “Magpie Bridge Immortal” takes a balanced approach to the topic about the two celestial lovers. Rather than focusing on the pain of separation, the poet produced a piece less intimate but calm and stately, with a feeling of timelessness. Zhou Bangyan’s lyric, on the other hand, in elevating the beauty from this world to the realm of the divine, is subtly and elegantly sophisticated. His intriguing metaphors invite the reader to savor the words and envision the images, an experience that allows one to explore the depth of meaning and charm of the lyric. Finally, Liu Yong’s direct and whole-hearted expressions of feelings are, as always, affective and close to the heart of the listener in this mortal world.

Notes 1 See Michael A. Fuller, An Introduction to Chinese Poetry: From the Canon of Poetry to the Lyrics of the Song Dynasty (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2018), 381. 2 Wu Zeng (fl. 1127–1160), Nenggaizhai manlu [Casual Notes from the Studio of the Corrigible], in Congshu jicheng chubian [The Complete Collection of Collectanea: First Series] (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1939), 16.418. 3 Ye Mengde (1077–1148), Bishu luhua [Conversations Recorded When Avoiding Summer Heat], in Congshu jicheng chubian, 2.49. For Liu’s lyrics, see Liu Yong, Yuezhang ji jiaozhu [A Collection of Music and Songs with Collation and Annotation], coll. Xue Ruisheng (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1997); For analysis and translations, see Stephen Owen, “The Yuezhang ji and Liu Yong,” in Just a Song: Chinese Lyrics from the Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2019), 63–98; Fuller, An Introduction to Chinese Poetry, 381–89; Jiaosheng Wang and James J. Y. Liu, “Liu Yung,” in Mair, ed. The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature, 314–15; Kang-i Sun Chang, “Liu Yung,” in The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, Vol. 1, ed. William H. Nienhauser, Jr. (Taipei: SMC, 1986), 593–94; James R. Hightower, “The Songwriter Liu Yung: Part I,” HJAS 41, no. 2 (1981): 323–76 and “The Songwriter Liu Yung: Part II,” HJAS 42, no. 1 (1982): 5–66; James J. Y. Liu, “Emotional Realism and Stylistic Innovations: Liu Yung (fl. 1034) and Ch’in Kuan (1049–1100),” in Major

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Further Reading Bossier, Beverly. “Shifting Identities: Courtesans and Concubines in Song China.” HJAS 62, 1 (June 2002): 5–37. Chang, Kang-i Sun. The Evolution of Chinese Tz’u Poetry: From Late T’ang to Northern Sung. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980. Chen Fusheng. Fanhua yu luomo: Liu Yong, Zhou Bangyan ci jieshou shi yanjiu [Splendor and Desolation: A Study of the Reception History of the Lyrics by Liu Yong and Zhou Bangyan]. Beijing: Beijing daxue, 2016. Cheng Ch'ien (1882–1968). “Liu Yung and Su Shih in the Evolution of Tz’u Poetry.” Translated by Ying-hsiung Chou. In Song Without Music: Chinese Tz’u Poetry, edited by Stephen C. Soong, 143–56. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1980. Hagiwara Masaki. “Ryūei no kōhanshō to sono shi” [Liu Yong’s Later Life and Lyrics]. Gakurin 12 (1989): 34–48. Lam, Lap. “A Reconsideration of Liu Yong and His ‘Vulgar’ Lyrics.” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies, 33 (2003): 1–47. Landau, Julie, trans. Beyond Spring: Tz’u Poems of the Sung Dynasty. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Leung, Winnie Lai-fong. Liu Yong jiqi ci zhi yanjiu [A Study of Liu Yong and His Lyrics]. Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian, 1985. Owen, Stephen. Just a Song: Chinese Lyrics from the Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2019. Smitheram, Robert Hale. “The Lyrics of Zhou Bangyan (1056–1121) (Sung Dynasty, China).” Diss., Stanford University, 1987. Uno Naoto. Liu Yong lungao: Ci de yuanliu yu chuangxin [Essay Drafts on Liu Yong: The Origins and Innovations of Song Lyrics]. Translated into Chinese by Zhang Hai’ou and Yang Zhaohong. Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1998. Yu, Pauline, ed. Voices of the Song Lyric in China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Zhan Hanglun. “Lun Qin Guan youlan tangquan de shi yu fu” [On Qin Guan’s Poems and Rhapsodies on Visiting the Hot Springs]. Journal of Oriental Studies 43, no. 1/2 (December 2010): 145–60.

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21 LI QINGZHAO Xiaorong Li

To approach the subject of this entry, let us begin with a brief, factual statement: Li Qingzhao (1084–ca. 1155) was a prolific Chinese woman writer of considerable literary talent who produced an extraordinary body of work during the Song dynasty. However, when we delve into the biography and literary corpus associated with her name, complications arise. If someone familiar with Li Bai (701–762) or Du Fu (712–770) were asked to introduce them, most people would say they are China’s greatest poets without necessarily mentioning they were men. However, when asked about Li Qingzhao, most would immediately mention her gender as a prefix to her identity as a poet or writer. In other words, Li Qingzhao is the name of an author, the study of whom is gendered; that is, it marks a woman’s relationship with literary discourse, authority, and canon formation as distinct from that of a man. Li’s gender not only shaped the ways in which she participated in literary creation but also determined how her life and work have been constructed and received. Because of her female gender, this poet has been read and judged differently than men. The different levels of meaning embedded in Li Qingzhao’s songs can best be examined from this critical perspective.

A Cultural Icon and Canonical Model The Chinese term cainü, or woman of talent, traditionally refers to a woman talented in the literary arts, particularly poetry. Li Qingzhao has been celebrated as the foremost representative of talented Chinese writing women. Googling her name, one would find many identify her as “the most talented woman in history” (qiangu diyi cainü). In Shandong province, where Li was born and produced her work, more than one memorial hall and museum have been built in her honor. Li’s talent is recognized particularly in the domain of ci, song lyrics, which, along with shi style poetry, constitute the two major genres of classical Chinese poetry. Guo Moruo (1892–1978), an influential scholar-official of the Mao era, granted her the honorific title of “great lyricist” (yidai ciren) in his own calligraphy, later inscribed on a stele in her former residence, the memorial hall in Qingzhou. Shandong further enshrines her as a “dean of lyricists” (yidai cizong). The three aforementioned titles honoring Li Qingzhao, however extraordinary, still fall within the realm of traditional literary criticism. Zheng Zhenduo (1898–1958), who played a leading role during China’s literary modernization movement at the turn of the twentieth century, canonized Li Qingzhao in modern terms, hailing her as: “the greatest woman poet in Chinese history.”1 It is  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-29

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noteworthy that the term shiren, or poet, is an authorly identity coined to reflect a modern conception of Chinese literature. Although Li’s talent was recognized immediately by her contemporaries, and her career was often adopted as a benchmark of excellence when evaluating a woman’s songs in the later ages, this was the first time any Chinese woman poet was honored with the modern identification shiren and celebrated as such nationwide. Li Qingzhao is among the very few classical poets whose works have been reproduced in modern Chinese textbooks. Since the Republican period, up to ten songs of hers have been included in middle and high-school textbooks, taught in both mainland China and Taiwan. Although some have become controversial because they describe lovelorn feelings, the following song, taught in the first year of middle school, seems to have been well received:2 To the Tune “As in a Dream” (Rumengling) I often recall one nightfall in the creek-side pavilion: Completely intoxicated, I lost my way home. Having had enough fun, I returned to my boat at dusk, But mistakenly drifted deep into a lotus patch. Struggling to pass through Struggling to pass through, I startled into flight a whole sandbar of egrets and gulls.3 As some syllabi circulating on the Internet explain, this work has been appreciated as a vignette of the poet’s boating excursions in summertime. Students are led to focus on the poet’s carefree excursion and vivid description of waterfront sceneries as recalled from the speaker’s memory. Alongside her literary talent, Li Qingzhao is also known for her marriage with Zhao Mingcheng (1081–1129), which is celebrated as a “match made in heaven” because of their similar pedigrees and intellectual compatibility. Li Qingzhao’s autobiographical narrative in the Jinshilu houxu (The Afterword to Records of Metal and Stone, hereafter abridged as “Afterword”) and anecdotes in other records have fueled details of the romantic couple’s everyday life for the readerly imagination. Readers took delight in reading and telling the stories about the couple’s friendly competitions: debating the source of a citation from memorization, for instance, would begin with a round of tea, followed by having their friends judge whose poetic lines were superior. Apart from perhaps relishing the fact that Li Qingzhao often outsmarted her husband, many appreciated or even envied their companionship, especially given the bleak norm of arranged marriages in traditional China. Those lovelorn feelings and other romantic sentiments as expressed in Li Qingzhao’s song lyrics have also been popularly received as revealing her devotion to her deserving husband. Furthermore, Li Qingzhao is remembered not only as an extraordinary female talent and devoted wife but also as one possessing a heroic and patriotic spirit. This reputation mainly stems from the following poem, a quatrain in the shi genre: In life, one should be an outstanding person, In death, one should also be a hero as a ghost. Even today, we still reflect upon Xiang Yu, Who refused to cross the eastern river.4 The thematic concern of the poem is conveyed through the contrast between the heroic Xiang Yu (232–202 BCE), who refused to acquiesce to a deal for personal benefit after he lost the final battle against his enemy and the Song court retreated to south of the Yangtze River after the Jurchen 254

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invaded the north. This brief poem is even included in some elementary-school textbooks and has been taught widely as evidence for Li Qingzhao’s patriotic sentiment. Of course, more sophisticated readers would understand that the poem actually criticizes the court for its failure to maintain the Song’s sovereign integrity. The canonization and iconization of Li Qingzhao as a woman writer are exceptional and even ironic, given that women’s participation in literary writing was always controversial in premodern China. According to the Confucian gender distinction between the outer/public versus inner/ domestic spheres, women were assigned to the latter and expected to mind domestic business only. For those who subscribed to such gender norms, writing, especially publishing one’s work, was not a legitimate practice for women. Although the Ming-Qing era saw the rise of a critical mass of women writing poetry (despite the controversy), writing women were extremely rare in Li Qingzhao’s time. We must constantly bear in mind that Li Qingzhao was an exceptional case. All the genres in which she engaged, including the song lyric, were dominated by male literati, whether as predecessors or contemporary peers. Though there were certainly literary women before and after Li Qingzhao, in particular a critical mass of women poets active during the Ming-Qing era, only Li has ever achieved an iconic status; moreover, her ci poems have been recognized as canonical models. Some of her lines have been widely cited and even become idioms used in everyday language. Thanks to the viral spread of her works, life story, and even imaginary portraits on the Internet, Li Qingzhao’s name and image have become popular and widespread, to a degree without precedent.

Historical and Critical Reassessments While the iconic image of Li as an extraordinary female talent and an ideal wife is still prevalent today, and many (including scholars) read her poems in the context of her personal life, recent studies have provided historicized reappraisals of Li Qingzhao’s life and work.5 These reveal not only a long and complex history of construction and reception but also discrepancies between popular understanding and a more reliable source: historical records. First, many would be shocked to learn that some of their favorite pieces, including the most iconic ones, such as the following, actually may not have been written by Li herself: To the Tune “Dabbing Crimson Lips” (Dian jiangchun) Dismounting the swing, She arises and languidly straightens her clothes with slender fingers. The dew is heavy, the blossom frail, Light perspiration has stained her dress. Seeing a guest coming, Stocking-footed, gold hairpin drooping, She runs away shyly, But at the door she turns her head, And sniffs the green plum.6 Featuring a maiden’s virgin beauty and coy manner, this song has often been interpreted as written about the young Li Qingzhao shortly after she first met Zhao Mingcheng. However, as Egan shows, not only did the song appear in anthologies much later (not until the Ming), but it had also been attributed to Su Shi (1037–1101) and Zhou Bangyan (1056–1121), the two famous Song era male 255

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poets. Having transferred this poem to Li Qingzhao after being attributed to the former poets, the anthologist offers no investigation or explanation.7 How likely is this to be Li’s original work? From the Ming on, anthologists and critics have repeatedly treated the poem as Li’s without questioning its origins. Readers today still understand these lines in relation to Li’s own lived experiences and sentiments. According to Egan’s meticulous evidential determination, of the total eighty-five songs attributed to Li, only twenty-three can be reliably credited to her.8 In fact, the authenticity of a much greater number of songs added to the corpus during the Ming-Qing era, including that of the one cited previously, is questionable. These were most likely the result of the anthologists’ own sentimental choices or even forgeries for commercial profit. While Li Qingzhao is generally held up as China’s greatest female song writer, particularly in the “feminine” style, she was a versatile writer very able in other genres as well. In addition to the aforementioned quatrain that satirizes the court’s political failure (the shi poem best known to today’s audiences), she composed a significant number of other shi poems and prose that address political and military matters. She was also consciously engaged in masculine topics and styles to showcase her knowledge and insights beyond the inner quarters. Ironically, however, critics and anthologists from her own to later times have chosen to emphasize her innovations in the domain of the song lyric, a genre seen as more befitting her gender. Li Qingzhao’s personal, especially marital, life has also been reexamined in light of further historical investigation and critical discernment. A close reading of her narrative in the “Afterword” suggests hierarchy and tension during her companionate marriage with Zhao Mingcheng.9 Historical documents also demonstrate that Li did not remain a virtuous widow after Zhao passed away but out of practical concerns was remarried to a man named Zhang Ruzhou, whom she divorced soon after, owing to domestic violence, among other issues. Modern readers may not find it hard to accept the complexity of Li’s personal life, and some may even admire Li’s courage and independence. However, many have not realized that Li’s image as an ideal wife and widow is a cultural construction and those upholding this image, such as the moralistic Qing critics, have made efforts to dismiss the earlier records of her remarriage and divorce. We may never be able to retrieve the real Li Qingzhao, but historical and critical reassessment may bring us closer to her and enable us to develop a clearer sense of her life and work from our changing positions and perspectives.

Re/reading Li Qingzhao’s Lyric Voice Li Qingzhao’s best-known legacy is the widely-read ci (song lyrics) authored by and attributed to her. Within its limited scope, this entry will focus on Li’s song lyrics, as they encapsulate her extraordinary creativity as a female author, whose gender explicitly and implicitly played a crucial role in her poetic creation. Established during the Tang dynasty and fully developed during the Song, the ci/song lyric genre intersects with gender in myriad ways. Originally written to certain tune patterns for performance in the entertainment quarters, the ci has different formal structures than the shi. Even though it began as a genre specializing in women and love, it was still predominantly shaped by male poets. Inspired by their romantic encounters with courtesans and singing girls, these male poets typically depicted the image and voice of a young and beautiful woman longing for her far-off male lover. To further complicate the situation, some Song literati appropriated the ci form to voice their “manly” concerns and sentiments, such as military pursuits and political ambitions, subject matter previously belonging to the shi genre. By the time of Li Qingzhao, both gendered styles, the wanyue/ feminine versus the haofang/masculine, had been highly developed. 256

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The situation would become particularly interesting when Li Qingzhao, a woman writer, chose to dedicate much of her work to the ci’s already gendered practice. Although surviving textual evidence shows that Li also wrote in the masculine style, the texts under her name transmitted to us are mostly in the feminine style, aligned with her own gender. Her distinctive style is recognized in this mode of writing. In the time-honored Chinese poetic history, only a few poetic styles are named after individual authors. Li Qingzhao is one of them. The earliest record to date is Xin Qiji’s (1140–1207) indication in the title of his song, “Written on the Road to Boshan, in the Style of Li Yi’an” (Yi’an is a literary alias Li adopted).10 Whether he captured Li’s style or not, Xin’s naming it as a model of emulation shows that Li’s distinctive approach to the song lyric had been well recognized by the Southern Song. What does Li Qingzhao’s iconic style imply? Which innovations did Li Qingzhao bring to the genre, especially to the feminine poetics depicting her own gender? Many meticulous studies have analyzed her style in terms of diction, imagery, musicality, and sensibility. Although these analyses are useful for understanding the technical aspects of Li Qingzhao’s art, they fail to recognize in a wholistic way her distinctive voice. All writers write both within and against a literary tradition, carrying on the tradition’s generic conventions while also transforming them. In other words, a body of literary discourse is an intertextual continuum, one that is marked by individual creations. A  specific style named after an author is just such an individualized moment. Once established, that style also opens up the possibility for emulation, rendering the text’s authorship unstable. Though it may be futile to investigate the authenticity of authorship in general, it is still meaningful to establish reliable connections between a style and its creator, with the aim of recognizing the writer’s individual agency and creativity. In the case of Li Qingzhao, the twenty-three song lyrics that were most likely authored by her (as determined by Egan) provide us a representative sample with which to examine how she both carried on and individualized the ci tradition. As a woman writer, Li Qingzhao at first accomplished what supposedly befit her gender (of course, for a reader in traditional China to think this way, they had to morally approve her literary practice in the first place); that is, applying her superb sensibility and literary prowess to transform the feminine style. Many of her songs fall into this category. This may simply be the product of anthologists’ and critics’ overlapping choices for anthologizing, but it also showcases Li’s commitment to the genre and its traditional practice. Let’s start with the following song, a good example of her interpretation of a time-honored theme associated with the ci form, the “boudoir plaint” (guiyuan): To the Tune “One Cut-Out Plum” (Yi jian mei) The red lotus has lost its fragrance, the jade mat feels autumnal— I slightly loosen my gauze skirt, Alone I board the orchid boat. From the clouds, who will send me a brocade letter? When the geese return, The moonlight will fill the western tower, Blossoms scatter and float on the flowing water— Sharing the same kind of longing, But we are idle and sorrowful in two places. This feeling—there is no way to make it go away: Just after I dispelled it from my brows, It latched onto my heart!11 257

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This two-stanza song revolves around the thoughts and activities of the lovelorn woman, whose gender is hinted at by her clothing and dwelling. From day to night, from indoor to outdoor, and from exteriority to interiority, all the descriptions point to her fixation on an absent figure. With one image shifting to another, a natural flow of movements mirroring an obsessive cycle, the poet artfully depicts a woman speaker trapped in her endless longing for the one who left her behind. Some scholars read “the longing” expressed in this song as Li’s feeling towards her husband, Zhao Mingcheng. Although both the textual and contextual information allow us to arrive at such an interpretation, it may prove more compelling to take this longing as exemplifying Li’s lyric art, a perfect reproduction of the lyric moment as depicted by countless poets, a sentiment to which many of her readers could relate. Li Qingzhao was able not only to craft classical scenarios inside the ci’s generic conventions but also capable of pushing its generic boundaries to convey feelings and emotions whose complexity far exceeds that of the stock boudoir plaint. Li’s “Note after Note, Long Song” (Shengsheng man), widely celebrated as her iconic masterpiece, demonstrates a virtuosic approach to describing one’s innermost trouble, a moment of profound loneliness and distress: Having searched and sought, I found it chilly, lonesome, Wretched, miserable, and sorrowful. It is that moment: growing warm yet cold again, The hardest to bear. How can two or three cups of light wine Help one resist The forceful night wind? Wild geese are flying past, What truly breaks my heart Is that they are my acquaintances from years past. Piling up all over the ground are yellow blossoms. So withered and damaged— As of now, who would pick them? I sit beside the window All by myself, how can I get by until night? Onto the paulownia leaves, there is the light rain falling, Until dusk has fallen, Drip after drip, drop after drop. A moment like this, How could the single word “sorrow” capture it all?12 Ci critics have lavished their praise on the musical effect created by Li’s artful employment of ­reduplicated words in the opening lines. Indeed, by reduplicating three compound words (xunmi → xunxun mimi, lengqing → lengleng qingqing, qican → qiqi cancan) plus one monosyllabic morpheme (qi → qiqi) and fitting them into the fourteen syllables allowed by the first three lines of the tune pattern, Li accomplished a virtual mission impossible. Not only do they establish a special musical effect, these lines also vividly mirror the natural process of the speaker’s emotional struggle: one who searches, hunts, seeks, and looks but finds nothing, only descending deeper into isolation.

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Then the song goes on to depict how the autumn season and storm are felt and measured in the speaker’s subjective time and space. The flying geese resemble those of years past, but those years will never return. The fallen flowers remind the speaker that beauty and youth are fleeting, whereas the rain during the sleepless night measures eternal loneliness drop by drop. Ironically, having exhausted all manner of rhetorical devices to convey its predicament and inner sentiments, the speaking voice still feels that the human language is too limited to express them. Critically acclaimed by both readers and critics, this long song demonstrates Li’s art at its finest. Though the author was not actually aged, the speaking voice is certainly getting on in years. It is lamenting not only a weakened body but also an injured spirit. Because of its concentration on the speaker’s self and the profoundness of the expressed emotions, the song cannot simply be read as the plaint of an abandoned woman confined in her boudoir. Although the speaker’s female gender is vaguely hinted at through the image of wilted flowers, the profound loneliness and depression expressed by the poet are not specific to the female gender. Beyond creatively transforming the ci’s established conventions, Li Qingzhao also critically intervened in the genre by pushing an authorial voice to the textual surface. This is the author’s intrusive voice, emanating directly from the author rather than from a ready-made, even fictional, persona. In studying women’s relationship to their poems and paratexts, Maureen Robertson has distinguished three different yet interconnected “subjects” as entailed in the entity of an author, which may help us understand Li’s distinctive voice: (1) the existential/historical subject: the existence of the author as a historical person, whose life may or may not be fully present in the text; (2) the authorial/writing subject: the historical person in the role of author, who is directly responsible for their textual creation; and (3) the textual/speaking subject: the persona present in the text, which can either overlap or be blended with the historical and the authorial, or even diverge from the author’s real identity and experience.13 In the case of Li Qingzhao, we have analyzed here types one and three: In revealing the details of her marital life in “Afterword,” she speaks as a historical woman, the wife of Zhao Mingcheng. In the song to the tune “One Cut-Out Plum,” she speaks as a longing woman, which could be her self-representation if read autobiographically, or simply an artistic representation of the lovelorn woman persona as conventionally established in the ci genre. However, as will be discussed in the following, she also speaks from the authorial position (type 2). Li’s consciousness as the creator of the poem or her subjectivity as the author can be traced in quite a few examples, often in the cases of rewriting previously established scenarios or imageries. Her rewriting of preexisting conventions demonstrates not only her exceedingly creative energy but also a remarkable agency in intervening in the textual tradition as an individual author. As Egan points out, based on the last four lines of the Tang poet Han Wo’s (844–923) poem: Last night, at the Third Watch, a rainfall has brewed This morning, a sudden chill. Are the crab apple blossoms still there? Having turned on her side and raised the blinds, she took a look.14 Li created the following song: To the Tune “As If in a Dream” Last night the rain was scattered, the wind gusty. Deep sleep did not dispel my wine-induced hangover.

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I tentatively asked the one who raised the curtains About the crab apple blossoms, but was told they were as before. Shouldn’t one know? Shouldn’t one know? The greens must be plumper and the reds thinner?15 While Han Wo’s poem stops before his persona divulges anything or leaves room for readers to surmise what happens to the blossoms, Li’s concludes with a direct voice that feels compelled to reveal the truth. Many appreciate this song of hers because, rather than the lonely presence of the lovelorn woman, it creates an unprecedented dialogue within the boudoir. Critics tend to interpret “the one who raised the curtain” as the speaking persona’s maidservant. Based on the substantial connections between the two poems, however, it is not completely a stretch to conclude that Li is referencing Han’s persona, one who raises the blinds but does not utter a word of her own. Indeed, unlike the female persona created by male authors, Li Qingzhao was herself an author who could express herself. Filling in the details Han Wo left out, she has not only given voice to the previously speechless female persona but also uttered her authorial impulse. With the tune pattern that allows her to say “don’t you know” twice, she projects a compelling voice, eager to share with the reader, “the greens must be plump and reds skinny,” the best expression she could bring in as a writing subject to the depiction of a scene in spring, and by extension, transforming the ci genre. Li Qingzhao’s striking authorial intervention also manifests itself in a subversive mode she consciously adopted in her self-representation during her late years after she had already established her literary reputation. If the voice asserting the lines “don’t you know” is young and cheerful, the one in the following song has become bitter and aged: To the tune “Immortal by the River” (linjiang xian) The courtyard is deep, so deep, but how deep is it? Amidst clouds and mists, windows and halls are often locked. Willow tips and plum buds gradually take their distinct shapes. Spring returns to the trees of Moling, This person is sojourning in the city of Jiankang. Lamenting the moon, chanting the breeze, how many romances have I written! Today I have aged but accomplished nothing. Haggard and declining, who would cherish me? Trying the lanterns? No interest— Treading on snow? Not in the mood!16 The first line is borrowed from Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072), another male master of the feminine/wanyue style, whose widely circulated work to the tune “Butterflies Lingering over Flowers” is considered a masterpiece of the boudoir plaint:17 The courtyard is deep, so deep, but how deep is it? Willows pile up, generating mist, Blinds and curtains, layer upon layer, are endless. Where the jade bridle and carved saddle seek pleasure,18 The tower is high, but she cannot see the road to Zhang Terrace. 260

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Heavy rain and strong gales, the third month draws to an end, The door is shut at dusk. No way to retain Spring. Tearful eyes ask the flowers, but the flowers do not speak, Scattered red petals fly over the swing.19 By contrasting the male wanderer frequenting the pleasure quarters with the abandoned woman longing for him, Ouyang Xiu is telling an old story. Li herself noted that she loved the first line of Ouyang Xiu’s song so much that she composed three songs with it as the beginning line. In this only surviving one, we see she has used Ouyang’s line as a point of departure in her composition. Similarly, her first stanza contrasts the secluded inner chambers where the woman dwells with the larger world which the male sojourner explores. However, the second stanza quickly turns away from her thoughts about the sojourner and begins to reflect upon the meaning of her life as both a woman and a poet in old age. Li Qingzhao’s representation of aged women, depicted as based on her subjective experience, has been recognized as a significant contribution to the ci genre. This is not, however, the first time that she adopts the persona of an elderly woman. In another song to the tune “Joy of Eternal Union” (Yong yu le), the speaker presents a contrast between her former life during the glory days of the Northern Song and her later years drifting in the south: [. . .] In those glory days of Zhongzhou The inner quarters were full of leisure time. I remember how we relished the First Night Festival:20 Lavishing kingfisher feathers on our headpieces, Rolling golden threads into snow-willow hairpins, Each tried to outdo the other to be the best-dressed! But now I am haggard, My hairdo disheveled and temples frostbitten— I’m afraid to go out at night. Would it be better for me from Behind a lowered blind To listen to other people laugh and talk?21 This song begins with the old days when the poet’s young self was excitedly dolled herself up to watch the parade of lanterns from her carriage, one of the typical events during the First Night Festival, but ends with the old self lamenting that she has since aged. The two songs explicitly echo each other in their lamentation of old age. But the mood expressed in “Immortal by the River” is even worse. If the last few lines in “Joy of Eternal Union” sound as though the speaker knows her place as an elderly person, the direct utterance at the end of “Immortal by the River” quickly rejects the lanterns and snow, things she used to enjoy, thus revealing her barely contained grumpiness. More than lamenting an old woman’s suffering, what Li expresses through “Immortal by the River” is also an author’s late-year reflection about her writing career. The implications suggested by the images, “the moon” (yue) and “the wind” (feng), deserve special attention. These images are central to the depiction of romantic feelings and tender pathos, and, combined, they form the compound phrase fengyue, denoting romance or love affairs. Unlike the woman in Ouyang Xiu’s song and the female personae in songs composed by men, which are conveyed through such fengyue 261

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rhetoric, Li Qingzhao is endowed with emotional subjectivity and writing agency, “moved by the moon” (ganyue) and “chanting in the wind” (yinfeng). By identifying herself as the subject or agent of these activities, Li reveals not only her identity as a poet but also the particular theme and style in which she engages. However, as she goes on, she begins to project a negative attitude towards this engagement. “Trying the lanterns” and “treading in the snow,” activities that used to be so much fun and have inspired numerous brilliant lines—now simply annoy her. Compared with the one who is proud of coming up with the clever expression about the crab apple flowers, the speaker in this song is full of sorrow and self-pity. One may interpret this dismissal of her previous poetic compositions on romantic sentiments as symptomatic of the loss of her addressee, Zhao Mingcheng. But claiming that chanting about “the moon” and “the wind” has achieved nothing when she has grown old (laoqu wucheng), she conveys the sense that she had taken writing as a serious endeavor. Elsewhere, she has made a similar point: “The road is long, I say, and the day already late./I study poetry but useless are my startling lines.”22 Her deprecation of her poetic work, repeatedly expressed in her later years, suggests Li’s deep frustration that her literary endeavors had led her nowhere. As an author who now views her lifetime engagement negatively, she concludes her song with an anti-climax, an ultimate disruption of the feminine poetics in which she has engaged: Trying the lanterns? No interest,/Treading on the snow? Not in the mood! In these final lines, by inserting direct utterances that are incongruous with the surrounding style, Li Qingzhao creates a moment of rupture in the flow of feminine poetics. Critics often praise her unique style in juxtaposing colloquial words with the ci’s elegantly stylized language. In fact, Li was not the only poet to do so. Her male predecessor, Liu Yong (ca. 984–ca.1053), is famous for his adoption of colloquial style in his song lyrics to enable his female personae to address male lovers directly.23 But unlike Liu, whose colloquial phrases still voice female longing, Li asserts a more complex or peculiar mood as the author. In the case of the present song, she is speaking in a fashion that runs contrary to the coherent aesthetic and evocative effect most ci writers, including herself, aspired to produce. In this way, more than conveying the bitterness of being a “wreck” as an unwanted, aged woman, she is subverting the genre’s established style as a poet who now found being “moved by the moon” and “chanting in the wind” meaningless. The distinctiveness of Li Qingzhao’s lyric voice and its significance can be grasped only in terms of subjectivity. As Egan aptly puts it, “It is often the subjective element in Li Qingzhao’s songs that is the most original and memorable.”24 The subjective element she introduced can be broken down into two interlinked aspects: (1) subtly or significantly different textual subjectivities in terms of persona, voice, and emotion and (2) her own subjectivity as an author. While these two categories can often be unified, such as the aged woman and assertive author in the songs we have just read, it is important to discern the two categories of subjectivities in order to recognize not only Li’s creative power in speaking universally as a lyric subject but also her critical consciousness as an author and critic of the ci genre. Indeed, as shown in her essay “On Song Lyrics” (Ci lun), her only surviving piece of literary criticism, Li is not afraid to express her insightful understanding of ci composition and her frank judgments of the leading male figures in the field. Beyond the personae commonly stylized in the ci tradition, Li also projects her authorial image and voice, forging a unique subjectivity belonging exclusively to herself, as she self-reflexively ruminates upon her artistic approach or subversively disrupts the established literary conventions. Compared with those prominent women writers from the Ming-Qing era, we do not see any critique of gender inequality in social practice from her, at least not from her corpus of surviving work. However, the way in which Li inserts the authorial subjectivity into her poetic compositions and criticism is extremely rare and of particular political significance. This is her attempt to intervene

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in the male-dominated literary tradition, a practice that had long rendered most women voiceless, and herself an anomaly.

Notes 1 Zheng Zhenduo, Chatu ben Zhongguo wenxue shi [Illustrated History of Chinese Literature] (Beijing: Pushe, 1932), 2.31. 2 Some may still find fault with this song if they do not understand that the word “intoxicated” (chenzui), in the second line, is here a metaphor. 3 Xu Peijun, annot., Li Qingzhao ji jianzhu (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2002), 1.40. 4 Xu Peijun, annot., Li Qingzhao ji jianzhu, 2.238. 5 Egan’s book-length study, The Burden of Female Talent: The Poet Li Qingzhao and Her History in China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), not only summarizes the preexisting studies but also advances them with his rigorous research and sophisticated theoretical approach. This entry is much indebted to his book. 6 Xu Peijun, annot., Li Qingzhao ji jianzhu, 1.1. 7 Egan, The Burden of Female Talent, 358–59. 8 Egan, The Burden of Female Talent, 91–105. 9 Stephen Owen, The Experience of the Past in Classical Chinese Poetry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), 80–98. 10 See Xin Qiji ci quanji [Complete Song Lyrics of Xin Qiji] (Beijing: Beijing Book, 1900), 17. 11 Xu Peijun, annot., Li Qingzhao ji jianzhu, 1.20. 12 Xu Peijun, annot., Li Qingzhao ji jianzhu, 1.161. 13 Maureen Robertson, “Changing the Subject: Gender and Self-Inscription in Authors’ Prefaces and Shi Poetry,” in Writing Women in Late Imperial China, ed. Ellen Widmer and Kang-i Sun Chang (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 177. 14 For Han Wo’s poem, see Quan Tangshi (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1960), 683.7832. 15 Xu Peijun, annot., Li Qingzhao ji jianzhu, 1.14. 16 The last two lines of this song as included in Xu Peijun’s Li Qingzhao jianzhu are different. Here I use a more popular version as included in Zeng Zao, ed., Yuefu yaci (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1939), 6.272. 17 This ci has also been attributed to Feng Yansi (903–960), but scholars such as James Liu think that its style is closer to Ouyang Xiu’s. See Liu, Major Lyricists of the Northern Sung: 960–1126 A.D. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974), 43. 18 This refers to wealthy and powerful men who ride on fancy horses. 19 Ouyang Xiu, Ouyang Xiu quanji [Complete Works of Ouyang Xiu] (Hong Kong: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), 231–32. 20 “Three Times Five” refers to the First Night Festival. 21 Xu Peijun, annot., Li Qingzhao ji jianzhu, 1.150. 22 Cited from her song to the tune “Fisherman’s Pride” (Yujia ao), as translated by Egan, The Burden of Female Talent, 49–51. 23 For a study of Liu Yong, see James R. Hightower, “The Songwriter Liu Yung,” HJAS 41, no. 2 (December 1981): 323–76. 24 Egan, The Burden of Female Talent, 350.

Further Reading Chang, Kang-i Sun, and Haun Saussy, eds. Women Writers of Traditional China: An Anthology of Poetry and Criticism. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. Deng Hongmei. Nüxing cishi [A History of Lyrics by Female Lyricists]. Ji’nan: Shandong jiaoyu chubanshe, 2000. Egan, Ronald. The Burden of Female Talent: The Poet Li Qingzhao and Her History in China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2013.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature Fong, Grace. “Engendering the Lyric: Her Image and Voice in Song.” In Voices of the Song Lyric in China, edited by Pauline Yu, 138–43. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Hightower, James R. “The Songwriter Liu Yung.” HJAS 41, no. 2 (December 1981): 323–76. Idema, Wilt, and Beata Grant. The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004. Li, Xiaorong. Women’s Poetry of Late Imperial China: Transforming the Inner Chambers. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2012. Owen, Stephen. Remembrances: The Experience of the Past in Classical Chinese Poetry. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986. Robertson, Maureen. “Changing the Subject: Gender and Self-inscription in Authors’ Prefaces and Shi Poetry.” In Writing Women in Late Imperial China, edited by Ellen Widmer and Kang-i Sun Chang, 171–217. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. Xu Peijun, ed. Li Qingzhao ji jianzhu [Annotated Anthology of Li Qingzhao]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2002.

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22 SU SHI Alice W. Cheang

A leading light of the eleventh-century Song elite, Su Shi was a great and original writer, thinker, artist, and critic, as well as an eminent statesman. He transformed every field of creative endeavor to which he turned his hand, even as he set the terms by which he wished to be understood, or as Wordsworth would have put it, created the taste by which he is to be relished. As much as these transformations were the product of his own genius, however, they were also part of the collective effort of literary men of his time to forge a new identity as wenren or “men of culture”— sometimes translated as “literati”—through innovative practice in arts, letters, and thought. In other words, Su was a maker of change in a rapidly changing society that favored change. As a Confucian, Su would have subscribed to the dictum that a man should make an undying name with virtue, with meritorious deeds, and last and least with words. But he became famous as a poet early in life, and it is as a poet that he is now chiefly remembered. His extant poetic corpus is made up of over 2400 shi, or lyric poems,1 and some 300 ci, or song lyrics. This chapter will focus on Su Shi’s song lyrics.

A Creative Poet of Ci Like his peers, Su composed classical poetry his entire life. Writing poems was seen as an important means of self-realization, no less than the pursuit of public service. The song lyric, on the other hand, was a new and still unstable art form. As yet unburdened by tradition, it afforded scope for a poet seeking fresh ground for his creative explorations. Stephen Owen has written trenchantly on the evolution of the song lyric in the first half of the Song dynasty, from a performance practice into a fully fledged literary form, in terms of how song lyrics provided poets with a creative space sequestered from the larger world of literati concerns that occupied them in classical poetry. This was possible because the socially marginal status of the song lyric, with its roots in the demimonde, made it the natural province of “ ‘irrelevant’ enterprises.” This also explains the persistence of the gender bias in this form. Originating as banquet songs2 composed by elite male poets for singing girls to perform at their social gatherings, song lyrics were not only cast in the voice of a female (or, sometimes, sexually ambiguous) persona, they also embodied a deeply feminized sensibility (Owen, 2–3). Crudely put, song lyrics addressed “feeling” (qing), gendered as the eros of sexual passion because of its association with women, as  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-30

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opposed to the more gender-neutral “intent” or “aspirations” (zhi) that were the province of poetry. More importantly, whereas in poetry the poet was assumed to speak in his own voice, song lyric was conceived as display, sometimes display of a high order of artistry, but it was not self-expression.3 The story is often told of how Su Shi transformed song lyric into a vehicle for self-expression by introducing into it the themes, subject matter, and language of classical poetry, thereby bringing the two closer together in form as well as function,4 in the process of which the song lyric became uncoupled from the performance tradition. In the generations after his death, Su was either praised for emancipating the song lyric from the limitations of a performance repertoire, thus enabling it to address broader themes and more serious purposes, or condemned for destroying the song lyric as a musical form.5 Literary history is narrated in ways that sometimes confuse effects with intentions. We do not know if Su actually set out “to make shi into ci,”6 only that, coming late to the composition of song lyrics as a fully mature poet, he naturally brought his experience in time-honored forms to bear upon his treatment of this newer form. Ultimately, however, Su approached the song lyric in a different way than he did classical poetry. Poetry was a lifelong commitment, whereas his relationship with the song lyric unfolded as a series of sporadic encounters, shaped by fortuitous epiphanies and occasional accidents of circumstance. Su’s songwriting activities fall roughly into four periods: (1) Hangzhou, where he was vice-prefect, his first post in the provinces (1071–1074); (2) Mizhou and Xuzhou, two other provincial posts, where he served as prefect (1074–1079); (3) Huangzhou, where Su was exiled for committing lèse-majesté by writing and disseminating poetry to satirize the reform policies sponsored by the throne (1080–1084); and (4) the rest of his life (1084–1101).7 The first period may be called an apprenticeship, the second a period of bold experimentation. He reached his full maturity as a lyricist during the third, after which his output declined sharply. The most sustained development thus took place in the decade between 1074 and 1084.

The Formative Years in Hangzhou It is well known that Su Shi’s life was deeply impacted by the schismatic politics that split the Northern Song court into factions—progressive (supporters of the aggressive reform policies of Wang Anshi) and conservative (men, like Su, organized around their opposition to reform). Factionalism shaped Su’s fortunes (and misfortunes) in government, leading to two exiles, during the first of which he reached his apogee as both poet and thinker. Less well known is the fact that, but for factional politics, Su might never have started composing song lyrics. During the ascendancy of the pro-reform faction in the 1070s, many conservatives took up posts in the provinces to get away from the hostile political environment at court. Su Shi was assigned to Hangzhou. Prior to this, he had shown no interest in song lyrics, even though his mentor, Ouyang Xiu, was a famous songwriter.8 Then, in Hangzhou, he fell in with the circle gathered around the retired statesman Zhang Xian, also a famous songwriter, and began to compose song lyrics on a regular basis.9 More importantly, the songs Su learned to compose under Zhang’s tutelage—still banquet songs at this stage—deploy an idiom, unlike Ouyang’s amatory songs, close to that of classical poetry.10 This was the idiom Su was to use in his future songwriting.11

Experimentation in Mizhou While in Mizhou and Xuzhou, his next two posts, Su wrote a number of highly experimental song lyrics. Mizhou, on the dry hilly plains of Shandong, was a dreary and isolated place,12 where 266

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loneliness may have been a spur to his invention. Or perhaps, away from the Hangzhou circle, Su could give freer rein to his own creative instincts. His first full year here, 1075, is bookended by two songs set to the same tune pattern. The first is an elegy. To the tune “River town” (Jiangchengzi): “Recording my dream on the twentieth night of the first month in the year jimao”: Ten years lost to each other, the living and the dead. Without thinking of you It is hard to forget. A thousand miles away, your solitary grave, Where can I pour out my desolation? If we met you would hardly know me, My face so weather-beaten, My hair like frost. Last night in a shadowy dream all at once I was home. By the little window You sat combing your hair. You looked at me speechless, Tears streaming down your cheeks. Year after year my heart is sure to break On a moonlit night By the pine-clad mound.13 Wives typically appear in poetry only when dead, but this is the first time a dead wife has been treated in song lyric.14 Su commutes the feeling (qing) of intense longing for an absent lover, the familiar stuff of song lyric, onto an unfamiliar subject, and the effect is extraordinary. He begins with the feeling itself, an amorphous mist filled with unsummoned memories and words of unspoken sorrow. There is no hope of meeting, because his wife is dead, and no point in meeting even if they could. Then, across the stanza break, the mist dissolves into a moment of clarity that comes, paradoxically, in dream. Suddenly, the object of his desire is there before him, in an endearingly familiar pose. But the poet stays outside the window, and though his wife turns to him, she cannot speak for tears. Even in dream there can be no communion between them. But Su’s plaint does not end with the intense pain he feels now. In the concluding lines, he looks forward to a future of feeling the same pain again and again. As Su tracks his longing for his dead wife through moments of almost unbearable intensity, he fully taps into song lyric’s power to deliver pure emotion, while at the same time emptying it of its sexual charge. The effect is to de-feminize, or de-eroticize, the intrinsically feminine sensibility of the song lyric. If one were to ask why Su chose to write his elegy in this form, the answer might be that he saw in song lyric a relatively uncluttered space—no longer to be found in classical poetry— for the exploration of feeling, even as the particular feelings he wished to explore were not typically those found in song lyric. The second Jiangchengzi, subtitled “Going hunting in Mizhou,”15 was composed the following winter. It is hard not to see these two songs as deliberately paired opposites, the first a treatment of the “feminine” style of songwriting, as redefined by Su, the second done in an aggressively masculinized style to match. One is deeply sad, the other broadly comic. In the elegy, the speaker 267

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is readily identified with Su himself; the voice in the hunting song belongs to a persona of exaggerated dimensions, “an old fellow” momentarily possessed by “the wildness of youth.” This is a real performance piece, in which Su completely transmogrifies a modest and sober poem composed on the same occasion.16 But it is a jeu d’esprit that he was never to repeat.17 A song lyric that Su produced in the following year (1076) is one of the most famous pieces in his entire corpus. To “Water Music” (Shuidiaogetou): “On mid-autumn night in the year bingchen, I made merry ’til sunrise and, getting very drunk, wrote this piece; I was also missing Ziyou”: Full moon, when did you appear? Winecup in hand, I ask the dark night sky: and wonder, in the court of heaven, what age it is tonight? Blithely would I return, riding on the wind— only, in those crystal towers and halls of jade, So high up, I fear I should be cold. Get up and dance! Come, shadow, move! After all, there’s nothing like being among men. Rounding the vermilion chamber, Peering in at gauzy window, She shines down on the sleepless. Spite it cannot be, but why then is she always whole when you are far from me? Men grieve, delight, unite, are sundered, Moons wax and wane, grow dim and bright, These, from the first, were not for us to hold. My only wish: that we’ll both live on, though a thousand miles apart, to share the splendor of this shining orb.18 This piece is read as expressing the longing of one brother for another on the night of the harvest moon, traditionally a time for family reunion. Ziyou, to whom it is addressed, is the familiar name of Su Zhe, Su Shi’s younger brother.19 Set to a manci made up of two stanzas of nearly equal length, the song achieves a harmonious balance between sorrowful yearning and the consolation of philosophy, between the domains of poetry and prose. As a composition, it is so nearly perfect that one does not notice its experimental nature at first. But Su Shi has done much more than swap out one kind of feeling (erotic passion) for another (fraternal affection). Su’s piece grows out of a “recasting”20 of the iconic moon poem “Drinking alone under the moon”21 by Li Bai, the doyen of poetry about the moon. In the older poem, the poet, his shadow, and the moon form a threesome to drink and dance through the night and, before parting, make a pact to meet on the far side of the Milky Way. Su retraces all of Li’s moves, from toasting the moon to dancing with his shadow, taking them out of order and widening the discursive sweep of every gesture. The projected journey into the empyrean in Li’s poem becomes, in Su’s, a moonward flight aborted in mid-song, and then, because the poet decides against going to the moon, the moon comes down to him. Cold and distant at first, she becomes gentle and solicitous.22 This is recasting inspired to the point of genius—Li Bai’s poem made new on a scale at once grander and more intimate. 268

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The rest of the piece is all Su’s own. It is so exquisitely wrought that one has trouble noticing it consists of an argument—proposition and counter-proposition—that belongs in prose. But poetry and prose are so lightly yoked together that the two parts, far from jarring, fuse into a delicately balanced whole. The alchemy works precisely because Su’s feats of poetic imagination are grounded in the homespun plainness of his prose homily. In the closing lines, when the poet, baffled of all hope of reunion, asks only that men be allowed to unite in sharing the beauty of the moon, he is merely stating a bromide, but in the wistfulness of his entreaty bromide rises to the level of benediction. This Shuidiaogetou is rightly considered the finest of all the song lyrics Su Shi addressed to Su Zhe. Yet the preface clearly states the theme as the all-night drinking party Su had with himself, to which is added, as if in an afterthought, his longing for his absent brother.23 If we accept this at face value, the frame of reference for Su’s yearning for reunion then widens from his immediate family to embrace the greatest family of all, with the emperor at its head. In this context, the palaces of the moon become symbolic of the court, from which, as the emperor’s loyal servant, Su grieves to be separated and to which he wishes to return. During their years serving in provincial backwaters apart from each other, Su Shi lodged in many of the poems he wrote to Su Zhe his frustration at the thwarting of both private affection and public ambition. His ambivalence about their situation, repeatedly expressed as a tug of war between dedication to service and the impulse to withdraw from office, is in this song lyric assimilated into one majestic flight of fancy, in which the poet, longing to return and poised to return (both meanings are conflated in Chinese) to his beloved emperor, holds back only for fear of being coldly received. The conflicted feelings that fill so many of Su’s other poems from these years, often turned acid by satire, have found more graceful and temperate expression here.

Further Experimentation in Xuzhou Although the musicality of Su Shi’s song lyrics is a much-contested issue, his approach to songwriting seems to be conditioned by a musician’s instinct in that he often goes back to rework thematic elements from old song lyrics, in the manner of musicians taking passages from old compositions and working them into new ones.24 In Xuzhou, the place of his next assignment, Su revisited the theme of the elegy for his first wife, this time in a much more elaborate treatment of another dream featuring a woman long dead (1078). To “Always having fun” (Yongyule): “Awaking from a dream in Xuzhou one night, I climbed Swallow Tower and composed this”: Moonlight, bright as frost, Fine breeze, fresh as a stream, A pristine view that goes on forever. A fish jumps in the winding pond, Round lotuses shed the dew, In the silence, no one to see. Boom: the third watch, Creak: a single leaf. Darkly, a dream of clouds breaks off— night stretches on— Nowhere to be found again. Coming to myself, I pace the little garden through. 269

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A weary sojourner at the world’s edge, On the homebound road in the mountains My heart’s homing gaze breaks off. Swallow Tower is empty, The fair one, where could she be? Emptily, swallows are locked inside. Past and present are like a dream: When shall we ever wake? Only to old delights and new antipathies. Someday, looking out on Another scene by night at Yellow Tower, Someone else will sigh for me.25 The “fair one” (line 17) is Pan Pan, a singing girl and the concubine of a local official in Xuzhou in the ninth century. When he died, she chose to spend a chaste widowhood locked away in Swallow Tower instead of remarrying. But there are two Xuzhou sites in this piece: Swallow Tower, associated with the memory of Pan Pan’s solitary vigil, and Yellow Tower, which will become associated with Su Shi in future memory.26 Jiangchengzi, a short and fast-paced tune, was suitable for inscribing the dream that “all at once” delivers the poet home to his wife. For the complex interplay of dream, memory, and desire in this ambitious new interpretation, however, something more capacious is needed. In the previous generation, Liu Yong had exploited the unpredictable rhythms of manci to create the famous slow song of his “elegant” style, with a traveler taking his solitary way through a mazy landscape in which are embodied the twists and turns of his own melancholy thoughts. Su Shi admired these elegant itineraria—to which he pays homage here in the persona of the “weary sojourner” (line 13)—as much as he was offended by the sexual candor of Liu Yong’s “vulgar” songs. But Su noticed something else—that, far from favoring the unitary focus assumed in classical poetry, manci with its built-in asymmetries is better adapted to representing movement as a series of overlapping or interlocking patterns arranged around shifting focal points. Su tries this out here, constructing in Yongyule a song lyric in several fragments, loosely arranged and presented in disordered sequence, to mimic the frangible operations of dream, memory, and desire.27 In real time, the piece should begin with the erotic dream (“a dream of clouds”) from which the poet starts awake at the stroke of the midnight drum. Instead, the scene opens on what he sees as he opens his eyes. Only then does he realize he has been dreaming. In the next stanza, the scene jumps forward again, from the little garden to the gardens of the poet’s old home. The poet has climbed the tower, not in his own person, but in the poetic persona of a Liu Yong-esque “sojourner.” This sojourner has two objects of desire, the home that, strain his mind’s eye as he might, remains out of reach, and the beautiful denizen of Swallow Tower, doubly absent in death and in the emptiness of the place that vainly locks in the swallows but cannot hold her even as a remembered presence. Using the ponderous rhythms of the Yongyule tune pattern—groups of four-beat lines occasionally relieved by a line of six beats—Su replicates this pattern of stymied movements: an interrupted dream, a homeward yearning cut off by distance, a futile gesture at desire. Then, his poetic discourse over, Su transitions into what appears to be a philosophic discourse on life, and the collective memory of mankind, as dream. In the last line, replacing the persona of the “sojourner” with the pronoun “I/me,” he finishes the piece in his own person. Avers Su, the sorrow he feels tonight for the “fair one” in her Swallow Tower will on a future night be the same 270

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sorrow someone else feels for the prefect of Xuzhou in his Yellow Tower. The parallel is explicit. Just as Pan Pan, forever faithful to her lord, immured herself here, so Su Shi’s devotion to the emperor’s service keeps him confined to his post.28 In case we miss any of this, the dream from which Su wonders if he will ever wake is compounded of “old delights and new antipathies”— delight in the “old” ideas of his fellow conservatives and antipathy to the “new” policies of the reform government.29 Once again, political dissent has been encoded as the thwarted desire to retire from office and go home.

Establishing His Own Style in Huangzhou Su Shi’s experiments sometimes produced breathtaking results like those discussed in the preceding section. But it was only in Huangzhou that he began to develop a style that was markedly his own, creating a voice that distinguishes the song lyrics of this period as genuine works of self-expression. This is also the period of his most prolific output in song lyrics. What Su did in Huangzhou, rather than being merely provocative and interesting, was transformative for song lyric as a poetic form. In trying to account for this radical shift in Su’s journey as a songwriter, what I called earlier the accidents of circumstance cannot be overlooked. Exile in Huangzhou was just such an accident. In the infamous “Poetry Trial at Crow Terrace,”30 the charges against Su for slanderous attacks on the imperially sponsored reforms were based mainly on the content of his poems and letters (writings in genres of refined literature). The censors did not even bother to look at his song lyrics. If they had, they would not have omitted a piece like “Going hunting in Mizhou,” nearly identical in content to that of the matching poem they did include. The lesson Su apparently drew was that, whereas it was dangerous to write poetry, song lyrics were another matter.31 He wrote far fewer poems in Huangzhou than he had been doing in previous years, but his output in song lyrics increased significantly.32 The inference is clear. To fulfill his need to express himself in poetic form, Su turned to the song lyric. In Mizhou and Xuzhou, Su had expressed discontent at his situation in terms of the desire to quit office and return home. A recurrent leitmotif in his poems, this theme leaves discernible traces even in his song lyrics.33 But to say, while under banishment, that one wished to go home would have meant rank disobedience to an imperial command. Such treasonable words could not be put even in the relatively safe space provided by the song lyric. Yet Su must have felt a deep-seated yearning for freedom from the constraints of exile, feelings for which, because they could not be expressed openly, he needed to find not only release but also containment. As Su entrusted his need for self-expression to the song lyric, and as he continued to delve into its potential to shape the expression of feeling, he found another path to this dual goal of containment and release. In all the earlier pieces I have discussed, the poet finishes by looking beyond the end of the song lyric, because the object of his yearning lies outside the confines of the space inscribed therein. Unfinished business—sorrowful feelings that leave the poet wavering and irresolute—has always been the stock-in-trade of the song lyric. In Huangzhou, however, Su began to produce song lyrics in which the song lyric unfolds as one movement, initiated and completed within its own space, with nothing left unresolved at the end. By not looking beyond the space contained, Su creates moments of wholeness in which, as the poet’s experience fills the entire space of the song lyric, the entirety of the world is fully present before him, and he to it. Here is an example, composed after two years of living in exile (1082). To “Settling the Waves” (Dingfengbo): “On the seventh of the third month, I ran into a rainstorm on the Sand Lake Road. The raincoats had all been sent 271

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on ahead, and the people traveling with me were all thrown into confusion. I was the only one who was unaware. Soon it cleared up, and I wrote this”: Pay no heed to those sounds, piercing the woods, hitting leaves— why should it stop me from whistling or chanting and walking slowly along? With bamboo cane and sandals of straw I move more free than on horse. Who’s afraid? Let my life be spent with a raincoat in the misty rain. A biting chill in the spring breeze blows me sober from wine. A bit cold, but the sunshine that sinks on the hilltop comes back to welcome me. Turn your head back to where you just were, Where the winds were howling, go back— on the one hand, it’s not a storm; on the other, not clear skies.34 The rainstorm (“wind and rain” in Chinese) is a universal emblem of the buffetings of life; at the same time, it is just a rainstorm that the poet runs into one day. The sudden shower is violent (“piercing,” “pelting”), but through it all, as he insists in the preface, he alone remains “unaware” (bujue)— untouched, unmoved, unaffected. Likewise, a vision of the sky clearing after stormy weather is usually taken to presage the return of halcyon days, but the poet is just glad to be able to catch a glimpse of the sun in the moments before it sets. Content to take life as it comes (with a raincoat if necessary), he looks back to see that everything he has been through is neither storm nor calm. It just is. The movement traced in this piece is not that of the poet trying to get from pain to a point beyond pain. Within the song lyric’s self-subsistent space, there is no separation between experience and understanding, between having an experience and afterwards gaining perspective on that experience. As Su says, he is impervious to everything because he is “unaware,” or perhaps because he has gained another level of awareness.35 In other compositions from Su’s life in exile, we see him recreating his experience as a totality contained within a single moment. For example, in “Moon on the West River” (Xijiangyue), composed about the same time as the preceding, the poet goes out on a moonlight ride, gets drunk, and falls asleep by the stream, head pillowed on his saddle. The last line goes: “An oriole calls once—spring dawn!” As the oriole cries the poet awake, the world around him comes into being, in a single moment.36 Or, in a “Partridge Sky” (Zhegutian) of 1083, the poet turns around at the end of an evening stroll to look back over the landscape, a lovely bucolic scene of a village nestled at the foot of wooded hills, complete with a lotus-filled pool and birds homing overhead. He concludes: “How considerate the rains at midnight were—I’m given another day of coolness in this floating life.”37

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This is pathetic fallacy at its most sympathetic. The effect is not to cue the reader into agreeing that there may be some kind of beneficent intention in vouchsafing this perfect evening but rather the opposite, that the experience is just what it happens to be. The pretense of interpreting the moment cancels itself out, leaving only the moment. Living in disgrace with no official duties, Su had time to go deeply into the study and practice of Chinese thought, as expressed in Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist texts, all of which give importance to finding “a place of rest” or being “at peace” (different interpretations of an) as a key goal in self-cultivation.38 To rephrase my discussion in these terms: in certain of the Huangzhou compositions, the song lyric becomes the space in which Su’s longing for freedom is re-inscribed as the search for a state of inner peace as well as being the space within which that place of rest is located.39 Thus, when Su reconceived the poetic moment as a moment of totalized experience, through which the poet achieves, if only momentarily, a state in which he is wholly present to himself and to the surrounding world, he was approaching the writing of song lyric in essentially the same way as he approached the study of sacred texts. Each act of poetic transformation is, in miniature, a movement toward self-transformation. It is ironic that Su should have chosen song lyric, a vehicle especially adapted for the expression of sorrow, to help him to attain a state beyond sorrow or joy, beyond feeling itself. Also ironic, and wonderful, is that fear of censorship may be what led him to find not only new artistic freedom but also a means to spiritual emancipation. Far from an “irrelevant enterprise,” his excursions in song lyric became an integral part of the process by which, out of his life in Huangzhou, Su Shi grew into the new person he called the “Lay Recluse of East Slope” (dongpo jushi).40 As remarkable as are these pellucid epiphanies in short and mid-length song forms, Su Shi made his greatest strides during this period in the longer forms. The following may not be the most representative of the song lyrics from this period, but it is certainly the best loved among them, as well as being Su’s signature work. To “The Charms of Niannu” (Niannujiao): “Meditation on the past at Red Cliff”: The great river goes east. Its waves have washed away The gallants of all past ages. West of the abandoned ramparts, People say, lies That Red Cliff of Master Zhou in the Three Kingdoms. Jumbled rocks pierce the sky, Frighted waves pound the shore, Unfurling a thousand drifts of snow. River and hills are like a picture: Where so many heroes were, once upon a time. Distantly my mind’s eye sees Gongjin back in the day— the younger Qiao newly come as bride— His bearing manly, pouring forth radiance. With feather fan and turban of black silk, He chatted and laughed as Masts and prows turned to ashes and smoke.

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My spirit wanders that ancient realm: So sentimental, I’ll make you laugh, Hair turned white before my time. Life is like a dream: Let me pour a cup of libation to the river moon.41 Red Cliff is the site of a famous battle (winter of 208) during the Three Kingdoms era (220–280), when three forces were contending for control of the disintegrating Han Empire. The one headed by the genius statesman-general Cao Cao was in the process of winning until a naval expedition commanded by Zhou Yu (“Master Zhou” and “Gongjin,” his familiar name) won a decisive victory at Red Cliff and changed the balance of power sufficiently to enable a tripartite division of the empire’s territory to be established. That the successor to Cao Cao’s dynasty eventually triumphed makes Zhou Yu, the victor who ended up on the losing side, that much more of a romantic hero. “Meditation on the past” is traditionally a theme in classical poetry. Instead of writing a poem, Su treats his contemplation of the past at Red Cliff no less than three times: once in the preceding song lyric and twice in prose rhapsody (wenfu). In 1082, Su wrote two prose rhapsodies, in which he gives account, respectively, of two trips he made to a place called “Red Cliff” near Huangzhou. He probably knew that this was not the site of the famous battle (“people say it is”), but it clearly did not matter to him. In the first rhapsody, Cao Cao’s defeat becomes the occasion for a debate between Su and a flute-playing guest. Su proposes a tragic vision of the human condition as a futile struggle against the ravages of time; his guest counters by enlarging the perspective to assimilate human history into an all-encompassing vision of time. As a piece on the consolation of philosophy, this is brilliant. The second rhapsody records Su trying to recapture, on a later trip, that earlier experience in a landscape now changed beyond recognition. What he sees this time (a stork whirring past in the darkness) and his baffled attempt at interpreting its meaning (he dreams that night of a Daoist priest dressed in white but cannot confirm his identity as the stork) wind up destabilizing the harmonious balance he had worked out in his first piece. The second rhapsody therefore does not so much rewrite as unwrite the first. In Huangzhou, where Su is forging himself anew, there can be no easy answers. How, or if, this Niannujiao is related to the two prose rhapsodies is also a question not easily answered. The first stanza is a meditation on the past in the fullest sense of the word: Su takes in the entire sweep of human history as he presents a view of the landscape before him as a panorama filled with the vanished traces of all the romantic heroes (“gallants”) in every bygone age. Then, shifting time and place across the stanza break, he conjures distantly in his mind’s eye a vision of Zhou Yu, the manliest of all manly men, in both bedchamber42 and battlefield. The vision intensifies until, at the pitch of battle, the enemy disappears into nothingness and Su is brought back to the present. Roused from his spirit-journey, the poet steps outside himself for a moment and playfully mocks his own sentimentality, his readiness to be overwhelmed by his feelings, for making him old and useless before his time. And in the laughter he invites from the reader, we hear a fleeting echo of Zhou Yu, laughing and chatting as, seemingly without effort, he changed the course of history. That is all. Su ends his meditation on the past, which began so grandly, without drawing a moral lesson, without dwelling on the plangent melancholy of song lyric, and without seeking solace in philosophy. Life is but a dream that signifies nothing beyond itself, the poet seems to be saying, as he pours a cup of translucent wine that disappears straight into the limpid moonbeams in the water.43 The Huangzhou corpus is rich in song lyrics of many kinds. Two deserve particular mention because they show Su continuing to widen his range at opposite ends. One is the “song lyric on objects” (yongwu ci), yongwu being a category closely linked to the tradition of allegorical reading 274

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in early poetry, in which the object stands for something else. Su wrote some magnificent yongwu ci in Huangzhou, of which his song on willow catkins, to the tune “Water Dragon Song” (Shuilongyin) (1081),44 is the most highly prized. “Like a flower and yet not like a flower,” the willow catkin is both flower and woman, as Su rings through all the changes on flowers, women, flowers and women as entities with or without feeling, flowers falling, beauty fading, the dying of springtime, and the sorrow of parting, in a tour de force of whirling imagery, layered voices, and stunning shifts of perspective. This is song lyric as display, a tribute to beauty that is itself a thing of ravishing beauty. However, Su also composed song lyrics into which he infused a large contingent of non-poetic and unmusical elements. Shaobian,45 a recasting of the great poet-recluse Tao Yuanming’s rhapsody “The Return” as a long song, is one example.46 Other song lyrics read, in part, like prose disquisitions on philosophy, such as one “Courtyard filled with Fragrance” (Mantingfang),47 which begins, “Empty glory on a snail’s tentacles,/Trifling profit on the head of a fly,” but goes on to develop an extended argument in plain prose before returning to poetic language just before the end. Very few readers like the prosaic content in Su’s song lyrics, just as very few readers dislike the exuberant language of his songs on objects. But rather than seeing the one as the ingenious application of craft to fancy and the other as unruly and self-indulgent effusion, perhaps we should look at them as different iterations of what song lyric means to Su Shi.48 A purist like Li Qingzhao regarded the song lyric as more exacting than even the most prosodically complex forms of regulated verse,49 but everything we have seen in Su’s approach to writing song lyrics suggests the opposite. Su Shi saw in the song lyric a more generous and forgiving form of written expression than any other he had previously encountered, and as he worked to expand that potential, it came to provide him with the space to say what he needed, and wanted, to say.

After Huangzhou After Su was recalled from exile, his output in song lyrics declined greatly. He may simply have been too busy back at court and then out on another round of provincial assignments. But a second exile, this time to Huizhou and Hainan Island in the far south, recreated the conditions of his life in Huangzhou, with even more draconian censorship. Yet Su seldom turned to song lyrics again. This time he found another way to elude his watchdogs and still write poetry—by writing poems to match the rhymes of every poem in the corpus of Tao Yuanming, 109 in all. Working in an archaic idiom using exclusively four- and five-syllable lines,50 Su Shi developed a “primitive” style, severely disciplined and almost bare of adornment, which came to distinguish the poetry of his final period. Song lyric’s loss, in this instance, was classical poetry’s gain.

Notes 1 In his history of the song lyric in the first half of the Song dynasty, Just A Song: Chinese Lyrics from the Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2019), Stephen Owen refers to shi as “classical poetry.” This is less confusing than saying “lyric poem” as opposed to “song lyric.” Hereafter I will refer to shi as either “classical poetry” or “poetry.” 2 The shorter tune patterns favored by elite songwriters from the late Tang into the early Song nearly all fall into the category of “little pledges” (xiaoling), reflecting their origin as drinking songs. 3 The last ruler of the kingdom of Southern Tang, Li Yu, living under house arrest after the Song conquest, composed mournful songs in a voice consistent enough to invite being identified as his own. In the early eleventh century, Liu Yong wrote two kinds of songs, “vulgar” (demotic) and “elegant”: the “vulgar” songs are peopled by all manner of lively personae, but in the “elegant” songs, perennially inhabited by one single world-weary wanderer, the poet is sometimes presumed to be speaking in his own person. In the works of these two songwriters, we can see the beginnings of an autobiographical voice.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 4 Chen Shidao, one of Su Shi’s protégés, once opined that his mentor “used shi to make ci” (yi shi wei ci). This comment, reverberating down the ages, has infected the rhetoric of aficionados and detractors alike, and it continues to be a major influence on the way in which contemporary scholars as widely dissimilar as Ye Jiaying and Liu Shaoxiong approach the reconstruction of literary history. 5 Benjamin Ridgway gives an insightful summary of the history of this debate. See his “From the Banquet to the Border: The Transformation of Su Shi’s Song Lyrics into a Poetry of National Loss in the Restoration Era,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, and Reviews 34 (2012): 57–103 (71 et seq.). 6 In his own words and in the compendia of proto-literary criticism known as “remarks on song lyric” (cihua), Su goes on record as praising the song lyrics of others as no inferior to poetry and also as finding it complimentary when others liken his song lyrics to poetry. But such comparisons may be seen as borrowing the prestige of a highly respected poetic form to burnish that of one that had yet to be accepted as a legitimate form of poetry. To infer from this a conscious agenda to remake the song lyric in the image of the classical poem would be reading too much into it. 7 Based on Murakami Tetsumi’s reapportionment of the divisions suggested by Long Yusheng. See his Sōshi kenkyū: Tō godai Hokusōhen (Tokyo: Sobunsha, 1976), translated into Chinese by Yang Tieying as Songci yanjiu: Tang Wudai Bei-Song pian [Studies in the Song Lyrics of the Song Dynasty: Section on the Tang, Five Dynasties, and Northern Song Periods] (Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2012), 231–32. 8 Notwithstanding the best efforts of scholars working to reconstruct a chronology for Su’s song lyrics, there are none that can reliably be dated to the years prior to 1071. 9 In addition to Zhang Xian, other important influences on Su Shi at this time include: Chen Xiang and Yang Hui (aka Yang Yuansu), Su’s direct superiors in the prefectural government, who both happened to be avid songwriters, and Hangzhou itself, a great center of courtesan culture. These would have combined to make an environment in which songwriting was de rigueur. 10 As Owen points out, Zhang Xian’s song lyrics often read like “lyricized classical poems” (196). 11 Zhang Xian’s role as a formative influence on Su Shi cannot be overstated. Su is usually credited with starting the practice of adding prefatory notes to link his song lyrics to the specific occasions for which they were composed, as was standard with classical poems composed for social occasions, when in fact he picked this habit up from Zhang Xian. The mix of short (xiaoling) and long (manci) forms with which Su expanded the repertoire of elite songwriters, who had up until this time shown an almost exclusive preference for short forms, is also mainly derived from Zhang Xian. Murakami notes these as Zhang Xian’s innovations, although he tactfully refrains from pointing out their misattribution to Su Shi. See the chapter on Zhang Xian in Murakami, Sōshi kenkyū, 152–63. 12 A “Butterflies lingering among flowers” (Dielianhua), composed on the night of his first Lantern Festival in Mizhou (1075), contrasts warm memories of the festivities in Hangzhou with the loneliness of a cold dark winter’s night in the north. Su Shi ci biannian jiaozhu [The Song Lyrics of Su Shi, Arranged Chronologically, Collated, and Annotated] (hereafter SSCBJ), ed. Zou Tongqing and Wang Zongtang (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2002), 140. 13 SSCCBJ, 141. Translation by D. C. Lau, A Silver Treasury of Chinese Lyrics, ed. Alice W. Cheang (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003), 122. 14 Su’s first wife, née Wang, died in 1065 and was buried in the family plot in the foothills of his native Meishan in Sichuan. 15 SSCBJ, 146–47. For an excellent translation, see Stephen Owen, Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company, 1996), 201. 16 Quoted in SSCBJ, 149. 17 “Going hunting in Mizhou” is often cited as an example of the “masculine” (haofang, variously translated as “heroic,” “unbridled,” or even “brash”) style of songwriting that Su is said to have invented. In a letter to Xianyu Shen (winter of 1075), Su states proudly that the “little lyrics” he has lately been composing are “in a class by themselves” and makes a point of differentiating them from those of Liu Yong, a name that had become synonymous with the “feminine” style of songwriting, one closely associated with performance by female singers to the accompaniment of flutes and strings. Enclosing a copy of “Going hunting in Mizhou” with his letter, Su adds that this particular composition would make “a bold spectacle” if performed by “a strapping fellow from the east [i.e., a local youth of Mizhou], clapping his hands and stamping his feet, with flutes and drums [i.e., martial music] to set the beat.” Quoted in SSCBJ, 149. A hyper-masculine style of performance such as Su has just described, albeit clearly in jest, might appropriately be called haofang, but interestingly, Su, who does use the term elsewhere, does not apply it here. From the way he uses, or refrains from using, haofang as a descriptive term in different contexts, I infer that, although haofang did become a

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Su Shi stylistic rubric with well-defined characteristics in the Southern Song, it had yet to acquire a stable meaning in Su’s own time. 18 SSCBJ, 173–74. My translation, Silver Treasury, 124. 19 Like Su Shi, Su Zhe also served in a number of provincial posts in the 1070s, but the two brothers never succeeded in getting assigned to places near each other. 20 Yinkuo is a standard technique in song composition, in which lines from classical poems are rewritten— lengthened, shortened, and rearranged—to make them fit into the metrical patterns of song lyric. 21 The first in a series of four, Li Taibai quanji [The Complete Works of Li Taibai], ed. Wang Qi (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1977), 2.1062–1063. 22 Su is famous for his masterful deployment of the stanza break to achieve shifts of time, place, and viewpoint. Here the change of perspective—from man gazing up at the moon to the moon looking in on man— happens with seamless ease. 23 One can never be entirely sure if the prefaces to Su’s song lyrics are from his hand or that of an editor, but the oddity in this one suggests that Su is trying to make a point. 24 For example, an early Yongyule (1074; SSCBJ, 131), written between leaving Hangzhou and arriving in Mizhou as a verse epistle to a friend, contains the basic elements Su was later to reuse in the more intricate “Water Dragon Song” (Shuilongyin) (1082; SSCBJ, 349–50) that begins “My little boat slices across the springtime river,” in which Su, now exiled to Huangzhou, recalls another friend in a marvelous dream sequence. Another early verse epistle set to the tune “Spring Permeates the garden” (Qinyuanchun) (1074; SSCBJ, 134–35), also written while traveling between Hangzhou and Mizhou, was reworked into the 1076 Shuidiaogetou on the mid-autumn moon discussed in the preceding section. The Qinyuanchun is as bizarre and eccentric as the Shuidiaogetou is rounded and polished. Both are addressed to Su Zhe. 25 SSCBJ, 247. My translation draws upon that of Ronald Egan, in his Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 1994), 339–40. 26 To commemorate the successful conclusion of a flood control project he undertook as prefect of Xuzhou, Su had recently had a tower built and painted the color of earth as a talisman against future floods. 27 Su’s preface is our cue for a deconstructive reading of this piece. The poet had a dream, it says, after which he climbed Swallow Tower. At no point is the dream directly connected to Pan Pan. An alternative preface that does connect the two has largely been discredited. 28 Egan points to the latent symbolism in “fair one,” a conventional trope for loyal statesman as dutiful female, but sees it only as “a dim presence” in this piece (341). 29 The faction headed by Wang Anshi was identified with their “new” policies, aimed at reviving (“renewing”) the state through fiscal and military reform, and for this reason the conservatives who opposed them became identified as “old.” 30 See Charles Hartman, “Poetry and Politics in 1079: The Crow Terrace Poetry Case of Su Shih,” CLEAR 12 (1990): 15–44. 31 While in Huangzhou, Su stated in many letters that he had given up writing refined literature (wen). For examples, see Zheng Yuan, Dongpo ci yanjiu [Studies in the Song Lyrics of Dongpo] (Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2010), 55–56. 32 See the statistics provided by Egan (Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi, 426, n. 41). 33 See my discussion of Shuidiaogetou (1076) and Yongyule (1078) in the preceding sections. 34 SSCBJ, 356. The translation is by Owen, Anthology of Chinese Literature, 578–79, with the preface slightly modified. 35 In 1097, exiled to Hainan Island in the remotest part of the empire and expecting to die there, Su reused the concluding lines of this song lyric to finish a seven-syllable old-style poem to which he gave the title Dujue, meaning “awake alone” (and, perhaps, “alone aware”). 36 SSCBJ, 361. See Egan, Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi, 334, for a complete translation. 37 SSCBJ, 474. Slightly modified from the translation by Egan, Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi, 336. 38 In Huangzhou, Su made progress in his study of Buddhist texts, practiced Daoist methods of internal and external alchemy (respectively, meditation and the use of elixirs), and produced an authoritative commentary on the Book of Changes. See Beata Grant, Mount Lu Revisited: Buddhism in the Life and Writings of Su Shih (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994); Peter Bol, “This Culture of Ours”: Intellectual Transitions in T’ang and Sung China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992); Egan, passim. 39 In a “Fortuneteller” (Busuanzi) (1080; SSCBJ, 275), composed while still in temporary lodgings after arriving in Huangzhou, we can see Su Shi laying out the terms of the challenges facing him in exile. The

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Further Reading Egan, Ronald. The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006. Hokari, Yoshiaki. Xinxing yu chuantong: Su Shi ci lun shu [Innovation and Tradition: Essays on the Song Lyrics of Su Shi]. Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2005. Liu Naichang. Su Shi wenxue lunji [Collected Essays on the Literary Works of Su Shi]. Jinan: Qi-Lu shushe, 1982. Liu Shi. Su Shi ci xuan [Anthology of Song Lyrics by Su Shi]. Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2002. Wang Shuizhao. Su Shi xuanji [Selected Writings of Su Shi]. Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1982. Wang Shuizhao and Zhu Gang. Su Shi pingzhuan [Su Shi: A  Critical Biography]. Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 2004.

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Su Shi Xue Ruisheng. Dongpo ci biannian jianzheng [The Song Lyrics of Dongpo, Chronologically Arranged, with Notes and Commentary]. Xi’an: San Qin chubanshe, 1998. Ye Jiaying. Su Shi. Taipei: Da’an chubanshe, 1988. Zhang Zhilie, Ma Defu, and Zhou Yukai, eds. Su Shi ciji jiaozhu [The Song Lyrics of Su Shi, Collated and Annotated], Vol. 9 in Su Shi quanji jiaozhu [The Complete Works of Su Shi, Collated and Annotated]. Hebei renmin chubanshe, 2010.

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23 XIN QIJI Chi-chiang Huang

Xin Qiji (sobriquet Jiaxuan, epithet You’an, 1140–1207) is regarded as the greatest poet of song lyrics, or ci poetry, a form in fashion during the Song Dynasty (906–1279), particularly in the Southern Song (1127–1279). He is also constantly praised for being “heroic” and “patriotic,” attributes which have come to define both him as a person and his song lyrics, which are treated as a nearly unsurpassable accomplishment. He is often discussed in tandem with Su Shi (1037–1101) because both, though in many ways different, are considered the founders of the “blazing,” or haofang,1 mode of song lyric, with its adherents being known as the Su–Xin poets. Xin remains highly venerated today, widely viewed as a symbol of national pride and a great literary talent. Indeed an exceptional poet, he is celebrated for his remarkably wide range of style: “from earthy humor and colloquialism to high reaches of philosophical speculation and the fecundity of his learning, from moods of the deepest melancholy and tenderness to the most spirited outbursts of high-minded sentiments.”2 Whether or not he has earned what some modern scholars regard as excessive and unconditional acclamation from post-Song poets and critics has prompted them to raise questions about his character and the quality of his song lyrics. At least one critic views them as expressions of the “wild and arrogant,” using a somewhat pejorative tone to upend the common panegyric bestowed on Xin Qiji as a morally impeccable historical figure and his song lyrics as inimitably outstanding.3 The intention in this discussion is to introduce general readers to Xin Qiji’s life and poetry from an empathetic perspective rather than disputing whether the paean of praise or the relatively rare disapproval of Xin Qiji as a man and a poet is correct. Considering Xin as a man much frustrated by the deprivation of opportunities to fulfill his ambition, I offer a deliberative portrayal of the life and work of an estimable poet whose self-assurance is now sometimes perceived as hubris.

Official Career Xin Qiji is well known to have been a military man and scholar-official throughout his life.4 Although there is little information about his youth, a detailed account written when he was twenty-three describes his early life, as follows: A native of Licheng of Shandong, then occupied by the Jin, he scored at the top of the Provincial Graduate (xiangjian) examination at the age of only fourteen but failed the Jinshi DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-31 

Xin Qiji

examination later. He soon joined Geng Jing’s irredentist forces, known as the Song Royal and Righteous Armies (zhongyi jun) in the Shangdong and Hebei areas and became Geng Jing’s Chief Secretary.5 In that capacity, he urged Geng Jing to submit to the Song court in the south under the Southern Song emperor Kaozong (r. 1127–1162). In 1162, the last year of Gaozong’s Shaoxing reign (1131–1162), Geng Jing followed his advice and commissioned him to pledge allegiance to Gaozong, who gave him an audience and appointed him Right Gentleman for Rendering Service, thus beginning his official career in the Southern Song court at the age of twenty-three. Throughout his life, Xin Qiji served the central government briefly in such functionary positions as senior compiler of Imperial Archives and assistant secretary of the Ministry of War. Court politics, however, impeded his progress toward fulfilling his self-imposed mission, which resulted in his frequent relocation to regional circuits and prefectures in Jiankang, Jianxi, Hubei, Hunan, Fujian, and Zhedong, where he was generally a very effective official. As Zhu Xi (1130–1200), a close friend, once said, “As the Commander-in-Chief in Hunan, Jiaxuan used only eight words in his disaster relief announcement. Although it was a slapdash approach, it did demonstrate his administrative talent.” This is evidenced by his success in regional governing in Chuzhou of Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan, where he reduced taxes, trained militia, established military farming, quelled bandits, and built the regional army in Hunan known as the Flying Tiger Army (Feihu jun) for protecting the locality. Despite all this, he was wrongly impeached by hostile censors for wasting public funds when he was stationed in Longxing Prefecture and Fuzhou. As indicated in his poetry, Xin Qiji repeatedly advocated the restoration of North China, which had been lost to the Jurchens. Among the officials who strongly supported reclaiming the lost land, he took it upon himself to plan an attack on the Jin, which won him commendation for being a “heroic” or “patriotic” poet. In 1165, at the age of twenty-six, he submitted his proposals for a military strategy known as Meiqin shilun that was aimed at recovering the captured land.6 In 1170, age thirty-one, he was summoned to the imperial palace, the Hall of Yanhe, to meet with Emperor Xiaozong (r. 1162–1189), the second emperor of the Southern Song and an enthusiast for restoration, along with Grand Councilor Yu Yunwen (1110–1174), who was a staunch backer of anti-Jin policy. There Xin took the occasion to discuss the advantages and disadvantages in North and South, urging the emperor to use talented people comparable to those in the Period of the Three Kingdoms. He also submitted other proposals to propound the theory of undercutting Jurchen’s military power at the time, when, he believed, political and military situations had shifted to become favorable to the south, wherein its military had developed superior fighting skills and had become better prepared for the strategic defense of crucial military bases and for a counteroffensive. His recommendations were soon jettisoned, however, because a peace treaty between the Jin and the Southern Song, known as the Longxing Peace Treaty, had just been reached, following the failure of a Northern expedition commanded by Zhang Jun (1097–1164), then the military affairs commissioner, who had served Gaozong as grand councilor.

Song Lyrics and Shi Poetry Xin Qiji served four Southern Song emperors throughout his official career. The last emperor he served was Ningzong (r.1196–1224), during the early phase of whose reign Xin received most of his court and prefectural office assignments. He died at the age of sixty-eight, just before he began 281

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his last assignment as chief recipient of edicts in the Bureau of Military Affairs. This was the forty-fifth year after his first song lyric is dated (1163) and the thirty-ninth year after his first shi poetry (1178). In other words, it is likely that he began writing song lyrics at the age of twenty-three, sixteen years before he began writing shi poetry, at thirty-nine.7 If modern scholars’ count of the totality of Xin’s poetic writings is correct, there are approximately 132 shi and 629 song lyrics, the latter of which is the highest in number among all song lyrics produced by poets in both the Northern and Southern Song. The large quantity of Xin’s song lyrics encompass a wide array of tunes, genres, themes, and topics that defy any attempt to label or categorize Xin as a poet espousing any specific creed. A recurrent theme, however, is conspicuous: a passion for the military. An example is the first of his song lyrics, to the tune of “Hangong chun” (Spring in the Han Palace), written in 1163 when he was twenty-four, not long after he became a citizen of the Southern Song and while he lived in Jingkou (in present-day Zhenjiang, Jiangsu). Composed just after he had started a new life as a husband, in his second marriage, living now in the south, it tells us much about his thoughts after relocation.

“Hangong chun”—Beginning of Spring

Spring has returned. Look at the fair lady’s head, You can see delicate and graceful spring banners. It storms for no reason, diminishing not the lingering cold. Swallows that arrived last year remain here— I expect that I will return to the West Garden in my dream. Unable to arrange sacrificial wines at all, I can neither prepare spiced spring dishes. But I laugh at this time when the east wind comes, Blowing plum blossoms and green willows, Without idling for a moment. In my leisure hours, however, I look at the mirror again, Only to see the changes of my youthful pink face. With the unstoppable sorrow, I ask: who is capable of breaking the interlocking chain? I’m really afraid to see flower bloom and fall—the passing of spring, And the border geese staying here this morning Are flying back to the north too early. This song lyric was written in the beginning of spring, nearly one year after Xin had entered Southern Song as an expatriate to pledge allegiance to Emperor Gaozong on behalf of Geng Jing, as noted previously. After being granted an audience, Xin Qiji and a host of Geng Jing’s army generals were awarded official titles, while Geng Jing was formally appointed military governor of Tianpingjun. Two months later, Geng Jing was murdered by his underling, Zhang Anguo (d.u.), who surrendered to Jin but was soon captured by Xin, in a doughty and courageous surprise attack amid the traitor’s revelry with Jin generals in their campaign tents. Xin took Zhang prisoner, handing him over to the Southern Song court, where the emperor ordered Zhang executed at the marketplace and appointed Xin to a minor official post, notary of the administrative assistant in Jiangyin of Changzhou south of the Yangtze River. The resistive force that Geng Jing had organized was summarized in Xin’s Meiqin shilun (Ten Insignificant Treatises Humbly Presented [to Your Majesty]), which he 282

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planned to submit to Emperor Xiaozong when he would have an audience with the emperor. In the first of the ten treatises, Xin said that when the rebel [Wanyan] Liang invaded the south, people in the Central Plains assembled as quickly as lightening and swarmed like bees [to resist]. Your subject gathered two thousand men to join Geng Jing and went to serve him as his army’s chief secretary. Together we planned to restore [the lost land]. We were able to recruit 25,000 soldiers and rendered services to the court. Unfortunately, a coup was staged [and Geng Jing was murdered], causing our plan to fall apart. This failure of the resistance effort haunted Xin Qiji throughout his life in the south. This was first insinuated in the previous “Hangong chun,” which shows his worry about the Southern Song’s inability to reclaim the north so that he could return because the way he was working and traveling took a terrible toll on his health. This regret was again expressed in a song lyric he composed forty years later, when he was sixty-three. Written to the tune of “Zhegu tian” (The Partridge Sky), the song lyric was addressed gaily to a guest who was gallantly discussing “achievements and fame”:

“Zhegu tian”—A Guest Gallantly Discusses Achievements and Fame, So I Recall What   I Did in My Youth and Write This in Jest

In my valiant years, I led ten thousand men with military banners, Clad in brocaded armor, our raider cavalry had just crossed the Yangtze River. The Jin army, at night, was in preparation for a fight, While we, in the morning, attacked them with our flying arrows. Now when reminiscing on this past event, I sigh about what I am today— For the spring wind cannot paint my white mustache black; But instead, it renders my Barbarian Quelling Strategy useless, In exchange of my master’s tree-growing book. The Barbarian Quelling Strategy, which includes the Meiqin shilun and Jiuyi (Nine Proposals), lays out a comprehensive plan on defeating the Jurchen, pointing out the weaknesses of the Jin army and what the Southern Song court should do. The robust and scintillating ideas postulated in the two documents, however, were ignored by Emperor Xiaozong, whose renunciation of irredentism drove Xin to long-term despair. This despair was exacerbated by the rapid passing of time, over which Xin felt he had no control. It was also intensified by the anxiety he felt he could not help expressing. The song lyric, to the tune of “Manjiang hong” (Whole River Red), composed at the end of the spring following his relocation in Jiangnan, conveys this mood. Commonly deemed an expression of political allegory intoned in a woman’s voice, the song lyric was a form used by Xin to vent the frustration of his being viewed as unfit for military campaigns:

“Manjiang hong”—Twilight of Spring

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In flowery paths, after a bout of spring storm, everything is in disarray. Red and pink flowers have flowed away with waters silently, And it gradually feels like the tree shade in the garden is sprawling further. Coral tree flowers completely fall off this year again, And I feel cold and enervated. My grounds are quiet, leaving me only vain memories; No place for me to talk causing me to feel extreme sorrow. I fear that flying orioles and fledgling swallows learn of my feeling.8 Where are your letters now, huh? Colored clouds remain no traces. This even makes me feel embarrassed to ascend the storied mansion, And to see the greenish plain in a dense thicket. This song lyric can also be read as a woman’s longing for her man, known as the “wanyue” (soft and restrained) mood of song lyrics that Xin Qiji was also capable of writing. However, reading it as a political allegory depicts Jiangnan as a stark contrast to the “greenish plain in a dense thicket,” which is clearly in the north, occupied by the Jin. It can also make “flying orioles and fledgling swallows” more like references to Jurchen’s generals and soldiers. In other words, it is a way for Xin Qiji to express his worry about being left out of any potential military campaigns against the Jin. It should be noted that, although he served the Southern Song, he was eager to join the restoration campaign so that he could return to Shandong, the place he claimed as his demonym as a northerner. Coincidentally, his restoration plan as detailed in the Meiqin shilun states that Shandong should be the starting point for the Southern Song army to launch a major counteroffensive against the Jin.9 Xin Qiji repeatedly encountered difficult times: most of his official postings were to obscure regions which no other officials wanted. In 1172, at the age of thirty-three, he was appointed prefect of Chuzhou, which gave him an opportunity to show his managerial skills. Before that appointment, however, he wrote this song lyric, to the tune of “Qingyu an” (The Sapphire Table), and it is one of the most quoted pieces of his “wanyue” song lyrics. It was probably written in Lin’an when he was briefly there as a court official and had an opportunity to witness the festivity of the capital city on New Year’s Eve:

The Sapphire Table—“New Year’s Eve”

East wind in the evening, thousand lanterns light up. When blown and fall, they are like showering stars. Treasured horses, carved carriages, and the effusively scented road, There flute music starts, lantern lights spin, And the fish-dragon game is played all night. Decorated with paper moths and holding wands in gold threads, Women wearing perfume gaily proceed with laughter. I search her, my beloved one, a thousand times to no avail, Suddenly, at the moment I turn my head and watch— That girl is surprisingly over there—where the lights are dimming.

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While this song lyric portrays the festivity of the capital city on New Year’s Eve, it is usually read as a “searching for beauty” (xunfang) poem. It proves that Xin Qiji is very much a Southern Song literati scholar who, like many others, also enjoyed the viewing of beautiful women, or sing-song girls, during his holiday excursions. Nevertheless, this kind of activity was infrequent, because he was much more concerned with gaining recognition of his governing and military talents. Therefore, as soon as he was appointed prefect of Chuzhou, he spared no effort to rebuild cities in the prefecture. He allowed for partial remission of tax debts that people owed the prefecture government; relaxed and reduced taxation, cutting the city-entry tax that the peripatetic merchants had to pay; assembled people who had gone away and loaned them money to rebuild their homes; trained militia; and administered farming fields along the border, among other things. Very soon, the dispersed people returned, businesses boomed again, cities prospered, citizens grew richer, dutiful magistrates were promoted ahead of time, society became affluent, and Chuzhou flourished again. At this time, he used the surplus funds to reconstruct a storied mansion for visitors who might wish to come for different purposes. Known as Dianzhen Tower, the mansion became a place where common people gathered together to sing and dance while enjoying peace and prosperity. On one occasion, he also ascended the storied mansion and wrote this song lyric to the tune of “Shengsheng man” (Melody Turns Slower) in an exchange with his new acquaintance, Li Qingyu (d.u.): “Shengsheng man”—Composed When I Ascended Dianzhen Mansion While Going on an Excursion to Chuzhou Dust on their journey turns into a formation, visitors run across one another, All say: the mansion emerges out of nowhere like an illusion. Pointing to the top of eaves on the mansion’s roof, They say that waves surge and clouds float. This year, the land of grand peace stretches ten thousand leagues, Better yet, the thousand-man cavalry in the sprawling Huai area, Is needed to dismiss the Jin army when autumn comes.10 Leaning on balustrade and gazing afar, I say: an aura of auspiciousness appears in the South and East, And North and West are [to be reclaimed as] our Divine Continent.11 The man who built the timeless Huaisong Mansion is gone. Yet he still laughs at me for my being stationed at the Chu and Wu border.12 I watch the bows and swords [that soldiers carry], While carriages and horses crisscross paths like water flows. From now on, people can enjoy activities that excite them, And, as they please, arrange drinking and poetry games for wine parties. There they fulfill their dreams of peace, And I wish everyone happy every year as in days of yore. This lyric exemplifies Xin Qiji’s entrenched belief that the lost land in the north could and must be recovered. Although Xin portrays the peace and prosperity of Chuzhou after his governance, he never forgets the sine qua non of expelling the Jurchen from north China. In his mind, the peace is only

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temporary because the Jin could at any time cross the Huai River and the Yanatze River to maraud and invade the south. No one in Chuzhou and in the Southern Song court can afford to be complacent about the unsustainable and fragile armistice between the Jin and the Southern Song. The lyric alludes to the Huaisong Mansion built by Li Deyu (787–894), the prime minister under Wuzong of the Tang (r. 814–846). Pretending that Li marvels at him for his being a borderland official in Chuzhou, he points out that soldiers are still guarding his cities while the people are merrily enjoying their lives. Xin Qiji was one of the very few scholar-officials with true martial and military capability in old China who never shied away from admitting to his pursuit of “achievements and fame,” or “gongming.” This is no coincidence, because he viewed the annihilation of the Jin’s force in north China as presenting the gravest of situations and as his own life’s goal, and to him that was the gongming he aspired to. Rather than seeking higher offices as did most scholar-officials, he devoted himself to fulfilling his goal of extirpating the Jurchen and rebuilding the solid empire of the Song. In 1174 when he was thirty-five and was appointed consultant in the Military Commission Office of Eastern Zhejiang, he wrote this lyric to the tune of “Shuidiao getou”: Seeing sunset over the edge of the old city wall, I, with a cup of wine in hand, urge you to stay. Chang’an is far away—for what purpose13 You go there in tattered fur coat in a snowstorm? After renouncing your lot that was to shine like gold, Careless of your wife’s complaint, You plan to live in seclusion to befriend seagulls, Off to your destination on a skiff tomorrow night. And, accompanied by the moon, it’s loaded with grief of parting. As for “achievements and fame,” You are not yet old; when should you stop seeking? With poetry and history books in ten thousand volumes, You should have devoted yourself to the emperor, Like the ancient Yi Yin and Duke of Zhou. Rather than emulating Ban Chao, who threw down the pen to join the army. And despite being granted marquis enfeoffed with ten thousand leagues of land, You grew weary and old in the border region. Where can you go and rely on someone like Liu Biao as did Wang Can,14 Who, in loneliness, composed a rhapsody on ascending the tower? Although the first stanza, or strophe, of this lyric was intended to bid farewell to his friend who decided to give up his wealth to live the life of a recluse, Xin in the second strophe wondered in retrospect if he had chosen the wrong path, searching for achievements and fame. He suspects that it might have been a more rewarding choice had he aspired to become a prime minister like Yi Yin (1648–1549 BCE) of the Shang Dynasty or the duke of Zhou (d.u.) of the Zhou Dynasty, rather than a hero like Ban Chao (32–102), who became a haggard geriatric on the border of the Han. This insinuation of a bad versus a better path choice is clearly rhetorical because, as a “repatriate returning to his homeland” (guizheng ren), Xin was deprived of any opportunity to enter the highest office, a reality until the latter days of his life. In fact, he never stopped pursuing his ambition to become a hero of Ban Chao’s caliber.

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This aspiration to heroism is attested by a song lyric written to the tune of “Shui long yin” (The Water Dragon Cries), not long after the previous lyric. It was composed when or after he ascended the Shangxin Pavilion in Jiankang, where Ye Heng (1122–1183), regent of the auxiliary capital, had a high regard for Xin Qiji.  

“Shui long yin”—“Ascending the Shangxin Pavilion in Jiankang”

Sky above Chu, fresh air of autumn covers a thousand leagues. Water flows to the edge of sky—autumn is boundless. Looking afar, I see remote hills slope, Inflicting sorrow and causing grief, To a woman wearing a jade hairpin with a spiral-shaped coiled hairdo. Sunset over the top of the pavilion— Where amidst the sound of a lonely flying goose, A wandering traveler from Jiangnan is seen. Having gazed at his sword and struck the balustrade all the way, He feels that no one understands why he ascends the pavilion. Do not speak of the weever fish ready to be minced, Just let the autumn wind rise. But I ask: Has Zhang Han returned to his hometown? As I have been looking for field and house to settle down, How can I not be afraid and ashamed of seeing Such great talent as Liu Bei’s? What a regret that years have passed, And wind and rain have caused grief Even to trees! Who can I ask to fetch the red scarf and the green sleeve, To wipe away the hero’s tears?15 Unwilling to give up any chance to fight the Jurchen, Xin cannot help reminding his readers of the unabated heroic ambition he still harbors during his ascent of the pavilion—the ambition that, in his view, few people understood. He feels his looking for a house, undertaken to allow him to settle down, is a shameful act in the face of a hero like Liu Bei, who thought Chen Deng (163–201) disdained Xu Si (d.u.) upon his visit, because he knew Xu was interested in acquiring a piece of land for house construction. Frustrated by his inability to realize his goal and noticing the relentless passage of time, he felt very lonely with no beloved woman present to console him when he was in tears. Similarly, the sentiment of a hero’s frustration recurs in other song lyrics. One written in 1178, to the tune of “Zhegu tian” demonstrates this. This song lyric was written on his way to the capital city when he was thirty-nine. “Zhegu tian”—Seeing Off a Friend After singing through and through the Yang Pass tune, I sense my tears are not yet dry.

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Achievements and fame, now irrelevant, While food should be further supplied. Water surging up the sky floats countless trees; Clouds carrying rain bury half of the mountain. My regrets for the present and the past are innumerable; Isn’t it because separation and reunion cause sorrow and joy? Waves on the riverfront are not so treacherous; Only traveling in the human world is invariably difficult. The feeling of being a frustrated hero remained when he grew older, though he was still strong and active. For example, in about 1183, at forty-four, he wrote this song lyric to the tune of “Po zhen zi” (Crushing Enemy’s Battle Formation) to embolden one of his best friends, Chen Liang (sobriquet Tongfu, 1143–1194). “Po zhen zi”—Words Written and Sent to Embolden Chen Tongfu While drunk, I lit up my lamp and watched my sword. Then I seem to dream of hearing horn-blowing sounds reaching all joined camps. There, sharing roasted beef, “The Eight-hundred leagues,” with my soldiers, And hearing the military music coming from fifty-string lutes outside the border, I muster soldiers on the autumn battlefield. My horse runs as fast as the stallion Dilu that Liu Bei had ridden.16 My bow-strings twang like stunning thunderbolt and lightening flash. How much I wish to help finish my lord’s great job—to unite the world, And to win fame during and after this life of mine. But how sad it is to see my hair turn white [before my job is done]. The craving to go to the battlefield to fulfill his ambition and the frustration of being overlooked by the court made Xin Qiji dejected to the point of real distress. The repeated evocation of the spirits of unappreciated heroes in the past, such as General Li Guang (?–119 BCE) of the Western Han, in his song lyrics parallel his personal perturbation and discontent, aggravated as he saw men of mediocre and lower quality chosen over capable men for higher offices. The following song lyric written to the tune of “Bu suan zi” (Divination Sticks), when he was fifty-two, shows us Xin’s deep-seated feeling of being sidelined throughout his life:

“Bu suan zi”

General Li of the endless-year renown, Skillfully snatched the horse of a Xiongnu’s solider. Li Cai, his cousin, a lower than mediocre man by contrast, Was enfeoffed as a marquis to one’s dismay. When weeding the field, One needs to remove old roots; When putting up new tiles, One needs a long bamboo conduit to convey water. 288

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In case the court should recommend diligent farmers, Who else but I is the man? This is one of the ten song lyrics in which an allusion to the tragic Han general Li Guang was made. More than any heroes in post-Han times, Li Guang, who never stopped fascinating Xin, was his hero par excellence. The reason is simple: Xin believed that Li Guang, known as the “Flying General” (feijiangjun), possessed military skills and talent that were never recognized by Han emperors, and Li Guang’s extraordinary merit in defeating the Xiongnu in the battlefield never won him the title of a marquis as a reward. What made the pain Xin felt more poignant is that Li Cai (168–118 BCE), Li Guang’s cousin, in Xin’s opinion a mediocre man at best, was awarded the title of a marquis.17 Xin’s personal admiration for Li Guang and contempt for Li Cai reflect Xin’s deliberate effort to compare himself to Li Guang, to him an epic hero. By contrast, Southern Song court officials were comparable to Li Cai, whom Xin thought was unworthy. It is then reasonable to think that Xin used “weeding the field” as a metaphor for reform in court and “old roots” for those who were guilty of shirking their responsibilities. On the other hand, he was the one most qualified for being a “hardworking farmer”—a metaphor for most devoted military man, like himself. Another song lyric that echoes the rueful tone in this one exhibits much more intense self-despair and condemnation of feckless high-up officials and even Emperor Xiaozong. The song lyric was probably written when Xin was forty-nine or fifty and was forced to sequester himself in Xinzhou in Jiangxi for nearly ten years without holding an office. It was written to the tune of “Basheng Ganzhou” (Eight Utterances in Ganzhou) with a long preface as follows: “Basheng Ganzhou”—While reading the ‘Biography of Li Guang’ at night, I was unable to fall asleep. Thus, I recalled the agreement I had with Chao Chulao and Yang Minzhan on living in the mountains. I wrote and sent them this song lyric in jest by alluding to Li Guang’s story. After he was done drinking, The former general retired to his home at night; At the pavilion ten li away from the Lantian city, He untied his embellished saddle. Bemoaning the fact that the drunken captain of Baling did not recognize him, Because he was in haste, Nor was he capable of knowing that he had attracted countless admirers. On a single mount, he shot at what he thought was the tiger, Only to hear the stone split at the twang of the fierce bowstring. So down-and-out after failing to be made a marquis, He spent his later days in his field and garden. Who was chanting “the mulberry and hemp field over Duqu,”18 And asking for a short coat and a single horse to relocate at South Mountain? Look at the unrestrained, big-hearted man, Spending his twilight years talking and laughing. When expanding the frontier for the Han, He succeeded in spreading his fame myriad leagues away. How could such a brave man at his time be given a sinecure? 289

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Outside the gauze window are breeze and drizzle, Making me feel a burst of mild chills. Despite making no mention of irresponsible court officials and the emperor, Xin adulates Li Guang for his bravery and fealty to the state and the emperor while lamenting Li’s being relegated to a lower rank and forced to retire. This unfair treatment of a general whom he considers extraordinarily great and laudable gives him “a burst of mild chills,” because he can empathize with Li Guang’s agitation and agony. Xin’s unwavering desire to dedicate himself to the military campaign against the Jin, along with his faith in Confucianism, led him to reject Buddhist tenets after reading scriptures. In his mid-fifties, he suddenly turned his attention to the Yuanjue jing (The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment), as indicated in his shi poems titled “Xishu Yuanjue jing hou” (Writing, in Jest, an Afterword for the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) and “Du Yuanjue jing” (Reading the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment). Clearly unimpressed by the scripture, he chided the Word of the Buddha in these two shi poems. Of questions posed by twelve Bodhisattvas in the Yuanjue jing I approve of one or two and disdain the rest. If the Tathāgata had True Words to say, All sentient beings would surpass the Tathāgata. The wheel of contemplation on purity in twenty-five kinds,19 And the long, middle, and short period fast in spring and summer, Are meant for people to enter the state of emptiness. How could they become enveloped with so much affliction? These two poems suggest that Xin Qiji was ill disposed to Buddhism, adhering to the down-to-earth reality that Confucianism teaches. His touchstone of reality is the threat of the Jurchen and the compulsion he feels to eliminate it. Buddhism, and Daoism too, have no place in his world. The following two poems, also written when he was in his late fifties, give further signs of his distaste for Buddhism and Daoism. Casting aside Buddhist scriptures and Daoist texts, I relish the truly rich imports of the Analects and the Mencius The moment of being out in the world, I can see heaven and earth, And amid the light of sun and moon, I walk on smooth roads. What Taoism says about immortality is really absurd. And Buddhism’s no-birth view turns out to be more deceitful! To understand the truth of life and death, One must rely solely on sages from Zou and Lu.20 Clearly, Xin Qiji refutes Buddhism and Daoism in the two poems by extolling Confucianism, and he had been a Confucian to his bones since youth. The study of Confucianism nurtures his incandescent personality, which does not permit him to relinquish his plan to vanquish the Jin. Even in his twilight years, he felt undeterred even by his declining health. The following song lyric,

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written to the tune of “Yongyu le” (Forever Enjoy the Meeting), probably in 1205 when he was sixty-six, tells us of his enduring passion for achieving military success.

“Yongyu le”—Reminiscing about the Past at the Beigu Pavilion in Jingkou

The perennial mountains and rivers, Have left no hero to be found, In the kingdom ruled by Sun Zhongmou.21 There in dance halls and sing-song girls’ mansions, Romantic gatherings have been Battered down by rain and blown away by wind. The setting sun and shrub trees, The commonplace lanes and pathways, Were where Ji’nu once lived—as people have been saying.22 Back in those days, I think, He led his troops riding ironclad horses with golden lances in hand, Daringly dashing out into the battleground, a myriad li like tigers. Emperor Yuanjia’s botched attempt to launch a northern expedition,23 In hopes of performing sacrifice to heaven on Mt. Langjuxu, Ended up being defeated so badly that he fled south helter-skelter, While looking back at the north in tears, Forty-three years have passed (since I came to the south), I still remember, when gazing at the north (from here), The beacon fires lit on the road of Yangzhou From where the Jin troops pulled back. How is it bearable to look back at the Temple of the Bili Fox,24 Beneath which are left a whole slew of crows and temple drums? Who can be trusted to ask this: General Lian Po is old; Is he still capable of eating a peck of rice? This song lyric, written after the Southern Song army was defeated by the Jin, when the prime minister Han Tuozhou (1152–1207) was the army’s commanding officer, shows that Xin was well aware of the inadequate preparation and poor strategic plan administered by Han. In his view, the failures of northern expeditions launched previously by Liu Yilong (407–453), Emperor Wendi of the Southern Song during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, was a historical lesson. Han Tuozhou’s repetition of Liu Yilong’s disgraceful failures was to Xin a dreadful fiasco. The failure was avoidable—had Xin himself led an army, waging a much more efficient campaign. Despite being old, he remained hale and hearty, with great fortitude, ready to enlist in the military to fight for the reunification of the north and the south. For Xin, this aspiration could never be questioned, and Han should never again be a commander.

Concluding Remarks Xin Qiji died two years later at the age of sixty-eight. One month before his passing, while he was ill, he wrote this song lyric to the tune of “Dongxian ge” (Song of the Cavern’s Immortal).

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“Dongxian ge”—Composed in the Eighth Month of the Dingmao Year amid Illness

Between worthies and fools, How small the difference is by my reckoning. A millimeter miss, however, can be as good as a thousand miles! Consider this carefully: The distinction between righteousness and profit, Sage Shun and Robber Zhi, Whether good doers or bad doers, All rise when cocks crow. Sweet wine will have gone bad easily, Only in my later days did I realize this: Gentlemen’s friendship is as insipid as water. A moment of joy is similar to the thunderclap-like noise Caused by the throng of flying mosquitoes. I, thus, feel deeply conscious of this: Yesterday I was wrong but today I am right. Admiring the Taihe Soup from the Nest of Peace and Joy,25 I, (like Shao Yong), can drink heartily but in moderation, Just to get tipsy, and that’s all! This song lyric offers a quick summation of Xin Qiji’s life experience. It speaks of Xin’s self-discovery of his own merit and demerit from personal retrospection. After some sixty years of ups and downs in his tumultuous career, during which he was slandered, accused, and impeached, despite the support of some friends, he arrives at the conclusion that there is a fine line between good and bad. Unlike the song lyrics cited earlier, this last one was intended to admonish himself and his readers to think hard, because that means that a minor mistake could have unanticipated, even potentially disastrous, consequences—like the mistake he made joining Han’s allies in their chorus of praise for Han’s restoration attempt. The previous discussion should not be taken to suggest in any way that Xin Qiji’s song lyrics are concerned with military affairs only. As a passionate admirer of Tao Qian (ca. 365–427), who is famous for writing “homestead” or “pastoral” poems, Xin Qiji also appreciates bucolic landscape and writes many song lyrics similar in essence to the shi poetry left behind by Tao. During the period when he lived a rustic life around Lake Dai (Daihu) and Lead Mountain (Qianshan) more or less like a recluse, he dashed out, often with great panache, many shi poems and song lyrics concerning nature and farming, which is why his sobriquet Jiaxuan (The Farming Studio) was used. One is reminded that Xin Qiji was a prolific poet who authored the most song lyrics in Chinese history. These song lyrics, along with over one hundred shi poems, convey a broad spectrum of themes and thoughts. The captivating “sound and sense” in his poetry is dazzling and inspiring.

Notes 1 Haofang is a difficult term to translate. The disyllabic term is translated in many ways, most of which treat it monosyllabically. Stephen Owen gave it a “rough” translation as “brash.” See Stephen Owen, Just a Song: Chinese Lyrics from the Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), 197. I choose “blazing” to emphasize the intense and powerful aspects of the quality. 2 See Irving Yucheng Lo, Hsin Ch’i-chi (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1971).

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Xin Qiji 3 See Lian Xinda, Preface, The Wild and Arrogant: Expression of Self in Xin Qiji’s Song Lyrics (New York, Washington, DC, Baltimore, Boston, and Bern: Peter Lang, 1999). The title says it all, and the thesis of “the wild and arrogant” is noticeable throughout the book, especially in its chapter II. 4 For a detailed biographical account of Xin Qiji’s career, see the Song Shi [History of the Song Dynasty]; Lo, Hsin Ch’i-chi; and Xin Gengru, Xin Qiji yanjiu (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2008). For Xin Qiji’s life and works in chronological order, I use the following books as sources: Deng Guangming, Xin Jiaxuan nianpu, zengdingben [A Chronological Biography of Xin Jiaxuan, an Updated Edition] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1997); Deng Guangming and Xin Gengru, Xin Jiaxuan shiwen jianzhu [Xin Jiaxuan’s Poems and Prose with Annotations] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1995) and Jiaxuan ci biannian jianzhu [Jiaxuan’s Song Lyrics Annotated in Chronological Order] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2018); Zheng Qian, Jiaxuan ci jiaozhu fu shiwen nianpu [The Annotated Song Lyrics by Jiaxuan, Attached with Poems and Prose Arranged in Chronological Order] (Taipei: Taida chuban zhongxin, 2013), and Xin Gengru, Xin Qiji biannian jianzhu [A Chronological Biography of Xin Qinji, with Annotations] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2015). 5 Translations of all official titles in this chapter are based on Charles O. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985). 6 For the date of Xin Qiji’s submission of Meiqin shilun, see Deng and Xin, Xin Jiaxuan shiwen jianzhu, 63–64. The date recorded in the Song Shi [History of the Song Dynasty] is incorrect. 7 This is based on Deng and Xin, Xin Jiaxuan shiwen jianzhu; Deng and Xin, Jiaxuan ci biannian jianzhu. 8 Chinese critics read “flying orioles and fledgling swallows” as metaphors for wicked, crafty, and sycophantic ministers and officials. 9 See the “Xiangzhan” [Detailing the War] section of the Meiqin shilun. See Deng and Xin, Xin Jiaxuan shiwen jianzhu, 55–58. 10 Deng and Xin, Xin Jiaxuan shiwen jianzhu, 31–33. Xin Qiji expresses the same idea in the “shouhuai” (Guarding the Huai Area) section of the Meiqin shilun. 11 “Divine Continent” is a common reference to China. I translate dongnan as “South and East” and xibei as “North and West,” rather than “Southeast” and “Northwest” respectively, because the former refers to the entire Southern Song territory, whereas the latter refers to all the land lost to the Jin. 12 “Chuwei Wutou” refers to the location of Chuzhou. 13 Here, Chang’an refers to the capital city, Lin’an. 14 Here, “Liuke” alludes to Liu Biao of the Three Kingdoms Period, while “denglou” refers to the denglou fu [Denglou Rhapsody] written by Wang Can (177–217) of the Eastern Han. 15 Jiying and Liulang allude to Zhang Han and Liu Bei respectively. See Deng and Xin, Jiaxuan ci biannian jianzhu, 27, 39. 16 For the horse named Dilu, see Deng and Xin, Jiaxuan ci biannian jianzhu, 265. 17 Note that Li Cai was promoted to prime minister by Wudi of the Han. 18 Duqu was located south of the Tang capital Chang’an. 19 This translation is based on Chinese text that reads: “ershi bianyou ershiwuzhong qingjing dinglun.” 20 Zou and Lu refer to the places where Mencius and Confucius were born. 21 Referring to Sun Quan, who was the ruler of the Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms Period. 22 Ji’nu was the pet name of Liu Yu (363–422), the founding emperor of the Southern Song during the Northern and Southern Song Dynasty. 23 Yuanjia, the reign title of Emperor Wendi, Liu Yilong, the son and successor of Liu Yu, is a metonym for the emperor. 24 Bili was the pet name of Taiwudi of the Northern Wei, Tuoba Tao (408–452). 25 “Nest of Peace and Joy” (Anle wo) is the name of the residence of Shao Yong (1012–1077), well known as a scholar versed in cosmology, history, philosophy, and poetry in the Northern Song.

Further Reading Bai, Yan. The Political and Military Thought of Xin Qiji (1140–1207) with Translation of His Ten Discussions. New York: Edwin Mellon Press, 2005. Kelen, Christopher, and Agnes Vong, trans. Spring Wind Brings the Fireworks: Translations, Variations and Responses to the Poetry of Xin Qiji. Australia: Virtual Arts Collective, 2007.

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PART TWO

Prose

Editors’ Introduction Prose is probably the only genre that is comparable to poetry in its importance in the history of ancient China, yet it is much harder to define than any other. This is because it has been quite inclusive, and the concept of prose constantly changed over time. The classical term for prose in Chinese is wen, which originally meant “pattern,” “ornamentation,” “character,” “writing,” and “text.” This matches/overlaps with the conventional Chinese conception of scholarship, in which literature, history, and philosophy are mixed without differentiation. Wen began to designate literature in a modern sense by the early medieval period, when it was freed from the other three categories of the traditional classification, namely the Classics (jing), history (shi), and the works of the masters (zi), and came to refer specifically only to the independent single works that were classified as (part of) collections (ji). This is evident in the discussions of wen in Cao Pi’s (187–226) “Discourse on Literature” (Lun wen) in Normative Discourses (Dian lun) and Lu Ji’s (261–303) “Rhapsody on Literature” (Wen fu), as well as Xiao Tong’s (501–531) standard of selection in Selection of Refined Literature (Wen xuan). Wen xuan includes works in thirty-seven genres as follows: Rhapsody (fu), shi poetry (shi), sao-style poetry (sao), sevens (qi), proclamations (zhao), enfeoffments (ce), commands (ling), instructions (jiao), examination questions (ce wen), memorials (biao), letters presented to emperors/authorities (shang shu), official letters (qi), accusations (tan shi), reports (jian), notes of proposal (zou ji), letters (shu), proclamations (xi), responses to question (dui wen), hypothetical discourses (she lun), elegies (ci), prefaces (xu), eulogies (song), appreciations (zan), mandates based on prophetic signs (fu ming), disquisitions from the histories (shi lun), evaluations and judgements from the histories (shi shu zan), disquisitions (lun), linked pearls (lian zhu), admonitions (zhen), inscriptions (ming), dirges (lei), laments (ai), epitaphs (bei wen), grave memoirs (mu zhi), biographical sketches of deceased persons (xing zhuang), condolences (diao wen), and sacrificial offering (ji wen). Xiao Tong covers almost all types of writing, rhymed and unrhymed, that he considers literature, according to his standard, as stated in his preface: “Their matter is the product of profound 

DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-32

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thought, and their principles belong to the realm of literary elegance.”1 Liu Xie’s (1881–1936) classification in The Mind of Literature and Carving Dragons (Wenxin diaolong) is very similar to Xiao Tong’s. Although Liu includes only thirty-two genres, he treats some genres (such as qi, duiwen, and lianzhu) as sub-genres of miscellaneous discourses (zalun). Therefore, he actually includes more genres than Xiao. The system of dividing writings into wen (rhymed writing) and bi (unrhymed writing) during the Six Dynasties was not a helpful one in differentiating prose from verse, because wen included prose, and bi included verse. This broad concept of wen (literature) lasted for several hundred years until the “Ancient-Style Prose Movement” in mid-Tang, when prose became “free prose.” That is, it was freed not only from verse but also from the regulations of parallel prose (pianwen).2 The theoretical classification of prose developed much later than its practice. A clear and succinct classification is not found until Yao Nai’s (1731–1815) Gu wenci leizuan (Classified Compilation of Ancient Prose Writings), in which prose is divided into thirteen genres:   1.   2.   3.   4.   5.   6.   7.   8.   9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Discourses (lun bian) Prefaces and postfaces (xu ba) Memorials (zou yi) Letters (shu shuo) Compositions presented at parting (zeng xu) Edicts (zhao ling) Biographies and obituaries (zhuan zhuang) Epitaphs and necrologies (bei zhi) Miscellaneous records (za ji) Maxims and epigrams (zhen ming) Eulogies and panegyrics (song zan) Prose poetry (ci fu) Laments and sacrificial offerings (ai ji)

Apart from the zeng xu, which was distinguished from xu ba, Yao combined many similar genres into one. His classification system has greatly influenced modern scholars. In his discussion of the origins of these genres, however, Yao traced them back to the classics and historical texts, as Liu Xie had done. Indeed, the origins of various prose genres in pre-Qin works, especially the prose of historians and philosophers during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, cannot be ignored. These served as the model for various kinds of prose in later times, and they have always been addressed as foundational in any history of Chinese prose. The prose of historians can be traced back to the oracle-bone and bronze inscriptions. The Classic of Documents (Shangshu) is considered the earliest extant collection of Chinese prose. Well-known writings of historians include one of the five Confucian classics, the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu); the influential early historical text Zuo Commentary (Zuozhuan; see Chapter 24); Discourse of States (Guoyu) and Stratagems of the Warring States (Guoce; Chapter 25); and especially Sima Qian’s monumental work, The Grand Scribe’s Records (Taishi­ gong shu or Shiji; Chapter 26), which represents the highest achievement of Chinese biographical writing and shaped all such texts of later times. With the decline of the Zhou royal house, Eastern Zhou saw chaos throughout the country. As many states fought against one another, powerful ones among them dominated as the hegemon at different stages. In 481 BCE, the activities of the remaining seven powerful states marked the 296

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beginning of the Warring States period. As each state needed talented men and ideas to strengthen its governance, the members of the nobility who had lost their lands joined the wandering scholars in traveling to the various states to offer their services. In the resulting environment of creative freedom, philosophical prose became popular and reached its golden age, culminating in the writings of the Hundred Schools of Thought. The most famous of these are the Confucian classics The Analects and Mencius (essentially compilations of recorded conversations; see Chapter 27), the Daoist classics Laozi and Zhuangzi (Chapter 28), and the Moist classic Mozi and the Legalist classic Han Feizi (Chapter 29). These latter works are composed mostly of allegorical tales and argumentative essays. The third category of prose is that of the literati, generally single pieces, which may form part of a collection. The earliest such works include rhapsodies, believed to have been developed from Songs of Chu and pre-Qin prose, with representative writers such as Song Yu (298–222 BCE), Sima Xiangru (179–118 BCE), and Yang Xiong (53–18 BCE). Famous prose writings during the Qin-Han period include Li Si’s (d. 208 BCE) “Memorial against Driving Away Foreign Talents” (Jian zhuke shu), Jia Yi’s (200–168 BCE) “On the Faults of Qin” (Guo Qin lun), and Chao Cuo’s (200–154 BCE) “Memorial on Valuing Grain” (Lun Guisu shu). Later, during the Six Dynasties period, parallel prose (pian wen), with its strict regulations and special charm, was in vogue for several hundred years. In the end, however, it came to be seen as a barrier to freer, more effective writing, so, in the wake of the Ancient Prose Movement, the Tang and Song dynasties experienced a boom in free prose. Among the Eight Great Masters of old-style prose, Han Yu (768–824) and Liu Zongyuan (773–819), of the Tang (see Chapter 31), and Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) and Su Shi (1037–1101) of the Song (Chapter 32) are the most famous and well received.3 Generally speaking, there were no great prose masters during the Ming and Qing dynasties. In the late Ming, however, the three Yuan brothers, especially Yuan Hongdao (1568–1610), from the Gong’an School and their follower Zhang Dai (1597–1689) were known as great writers of literary sketches, or vignettes (xiao pin). This genre began as a writing practice established to offer a radically different alternative to the neo-classical movement promoted by the “Seven Masters” and the later Tang-Song School. The most prominent feature of the vignettes written by Yuan and Zhang is their carefree expression of genuine feeling and “natural sensibility” (xing ling). Their achievements were made under the impact of the “thought liberation” movement by the unorthodox Li Zhi (1527–1602) and others, as well as their being composed in the relatively loose political and social milieu of the time, in which literary inquisition was generally unknown (see Chapter 32).

Notes 1 See David Knechtges, trans., Wen Xuan, or Selection of Refined Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 91. 2 For detailed discussions on Chinese prose, see William H. Nienhauser, Jr., ed., Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 93–120, and Stephen Owen, “Key Concepts of Literature,” in The Oxford Handbook of Classical Chinese Literature, ed. Wiebke Denecke et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 3–12. 3 The other four masters are Su Shi’s father Su Xun (1009–1066) and younger brother Su Zhe (1039–1112), Wang Anshi (1021–1086), and Zeng Gong (1019–1083).

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SECTION VIII

Prose of Historians

24 ZUO COMMENTARY Trever McKay

The traditional understanding of the Zuozhuan (Zuo Commentary or Zuo Tradition) is that it is one of three extant commentaries on Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn Annals, or simply Annals), which is a record from the court of Lu outlining major events in Lu and in the surrounding states, beginning with the reign of Duke Yin (r. 722–712 bc) and ending in 479 bc, the sixteenth year of Duke Ai (r. 494–468 bc).1 Furthermore, it was widely held in ancient China that Confucius edited these court records to show the proper way to rule.2 This he accomplished by imbuing “deep meaning” into the accounts by way of “cryptic words” (weiyan dayi). That is, he purportedly changed the content of original records in a way that implied praise or blame, with the purpose being to delineate a more ritually appropriate outcome. Why only this subsection of Lu’s history was selected has never been explained. The implication of Confucius’ editing the Annals is that those who read his version would already have a knowledge of the history and be able to see what changes were made and consequently intuit through Confucius’ corrections the proper ritual behavior he was emphasizing.3 All of this was to achieve what Confucius did not accomplish during his lifelong endeavor to put society back on the path of ritual adherence, which would lead to social harmony.4 Sima Qian records that after Confucius’ death, his followers, each with their own predilections, understood his teachings slightly differently and emphasized different points. As a consequence, the true message in the Annals became less and less clear. In response, Zuo Qiuming compiled the Zuo Commentary to elucidate the meaning of Confucius’ redaction.5 At the beginning of the Han dynasty, four other commentaries on the Annals were in circulation: the Gongyang, Guliang, Zou, and Jia. The last two were abandoned by Eastern Han, while the Gongyang and Gulianghave been in continuous transmitted from then until the present. These two are more similar in nature and tend to navigate and explain the terseness of the Annals via a catechism-based exegesis. The Zuo Commentary, on the other hand, focuses more on providing background in the form of historical anecdotes. In this manner, the brief entries in the Annals are explained through an unpacking of persons and incidences that led up to the event. For this reason, and despite being embroiled in controversy at certain times in Chinese history, it has proved to be the more popular and durable commentary and has been viewed as being the most historically reliable.  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-34

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Formation and Early Transmission Little is known about the formation of the Zuo Commentary, though traditionally, it is ascribed to Zuo Qiuming. However, it is uncertain who this might be. Some say he was an official scribe in Lu, while others hold he was Confucius’ disciple. In Analects 5.25, Confucius says of insincere actions: “Zuo Qiuming regarded these as shameful, and I do too.” This seems to be an appeal to authority, meaning the Zuo Qiuming of this passage is older than Confucius. Yet based on internal evidence, the Zuo Commentary’s author is someone after Confucius. The Zuo Commentary was likely completed “by the end of the fourth century bce.”6 Yang Bojun argues for an earlier date, somewhere between 403 and 389 bc.7 Still, both of these dates are long after Confucius’ death in 479 bc. Furthermore, the writing and the voice of the Zuo Commentary is unified throughout, unlike Zhuangzi, for example, where there is a distinct change between the Inner and Outer chapters. If its formation and authorship are not well understood, even less is known about its transmission in the Warring States period, apart from Liu Xiang’s (77–76 bc) comment in Bielu: Zuo Qiuming transmitted it to Zeng Shen, Shen transmitted it to Wu Qi, Wu Qi transmitted it to his son Qi, Qi transmitted it to Duo Jiao from Chu, Jiao transmitted it to Yu Qing of Zhao, and Qing transmitted it to Xun Qing (i.e., Xunzi).8 That the Zuo Commentary was in circulation during the Warring States period is attested in abundance by several citations in works from that period, including (in addition to Xunzi): Zhanguoce, Han Feizi, and Lüshi Chunqiu. There are also indications of Duo Jiao’s abridging it for King Wei of Chu (d. 329 bc), whom he tutored. All textual indications point to the Zuo Commentary’s having been written in pre-Qin characters but not clearly transmitted until Western Han. Ban Gu (32–92) continues Liu Xiang’s list with scholars from Western Han and in so doing notes two important details: first, “Jia Yi wrote annotations for Zuoshi zhuan that explained its words and phrases,” and second, Jia Yi “taught these to Mr. Guan from Zhao, who became an academician for Prince Xian in Hejian.”9 Jia Yi’s work was necessary because the Zuo Commentary was written in ancient characters. Prince Xian established the first academician for the Zuo Commentary and was well-known for his love of ancient (pre-Qin) books. Furthermore, a copy of the Zuo Commentary was discovered in the cache of books and other documents stashed in the wall of Confucius’ old residence. Hanshu states that, when Prince Gong (d. 128) was expanding his palace, he went to demolish Confucius’ old residence and “in a wall found classics and commentarial works in ancient characters.”10 And while modern scholars tend to be dismissive of this incident, Wang Chong (27–97), the iconoclastic skeptic from Eastern Han, mentioned this incident a full three times in his work Lunheng.11 The Zuo Commentary was at one point very close to having an academician position established for it during the reign of Emperor Xuan (74–48 bc); however, the scholar Zhang Yu died of an illness before he could respond to the emperor’s summons. Zhang did transmit his learning to a Yin Gengshi, however, who then taught his son Xian and Zhai Fangjin (d. 7 bc). This transmission, the fact that the Zuo Commentary was written in pre-Qin characters, and its later fate in the Han (and even to the Qing)12 all come to a head with Liu Xin (46 bc–23 ad), the son of Liu Xiang. The Lius were originally focused on the Guliang, but while carrying out the task of examining all the texts in the Palace Library, Liu Xin read the Zuo Commentary in detail. Liu Xiang also cited it extensively in his works Shuoyuan, Lienü zhuan, and Xinxu but seemed to only see it for its historical value. Being steeped in the Guliang tradition, Liu Xin realized that the Zuo Commentary learning had never gone beyond explaining the ancient characters and phrases. So he added to these annotations more explanation on the overall thrust of the text, its larger meaning and purport. This single act of scholarship changed the trajectory of the Zuo Commentary’s 302

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influence and enabled it to become the clarifying commentary it later became known as. Whether this included Liu Xin’s rewriting the text into the then-modern clerical script (lishu), however, is uncertain. While the Zuo Commentary was different in nature than the Gongyang and Guliang commentaries, Liu Xin saw a way that it could gain ascendency over the other two by arguing its explanations of the Annals were more in line with Confucius’ editing because it was a much earlier work. So, he first pitted himself against his father’s erudition of the Guliang and found that his father was no match for him. When the last piece of his master plan fell into place by gaining favor with the emperor, he set out to have a new post added for the Zuo Commentary and the other ancient-character texts. Nevertheless, none of the other academicians would debate him, so he wrote a scathing letter condemning their cowardice and its hinderance on true scholarship. Such forceful language thoroughly offended his audience at the Imperial Academy and effectually stopped the momentum that he had been building. While Liu Xin was ultimately unsuccessful in his attempts, an academician post was established for the Zuo Commentary and the other ancient-character texts a few decades later, during the reign of Emperor Ping (r. 1 bc–ad 6). This precedent then opened a wider road of scholarship in Eastern Han, culminating with an annotated version by Jia Kui (174–228), called Chunqiu Zuoshi zhuan jiegu (Explanatory Notes on Mr. Zuo’s Commentary on the Annals). This, along with other scholarly works, led to Du Yu’s (222–285) Chunqiu Zuozhuan jijie (Collected Explanations of the Zuo Commentary on the Annals), completed in Western Jin (265–317). This is the second major development: Du outlines in his preface that collating the Annals and the Zuo Commentary together into a new redaction was his idea. Later, Kong Yingda (574–648) wrote subcommentary (shu) during the Tang dynasty, which became the version included in the collection of the Thirteen Classics by Ruan Yuan (1764–1849) in the Qing.

Aim and Content The Zuo Commentary is a fascinating work of many layers. Taken as a whole, it has a strong central message, which Zheng Xuan (127–200) highlighted when he observed: “Zuoshi excels in ritual propriety.”13 Sima Qian states that “in the Annals it records thirty-six instances of regicide, fifty-two times states were destroyed, and countless cases of feudal lords having to flee their state and not be able to protect their altars of soil and grain,” and yet the Annals does not contain any specific mention of li (ritual propriety).14 The Zuo Commentary mentions li a total of 536 times, with 55 of those instances being condemnatory judgments of feili (not in accordance with ritual propriety) and another 35 instances of wuli (devoid of ritual propriety).15 This intense focus on following ritual was ostensibly in response to the chaos that permeated society in the aftermath of the last two kings of Western Zhou—King Xuan (r. 827–782 bc) and his son King You (r. 781–771 bc)—including the latter’s death during the attack by the Qiang nomads. During this period of political upheaval in the Spring and Autumn period, Yuri Pines notes that while the Zhou Sons of Heaven lost all but the shadow of their former power and prestige, no alternative locus of power appeared, and the Zhou realm descended into a woeful war of all against all. Heaven’s decree was not transferred to others; it simply disappeared.16 The loss of this power locus in tian exacerbated the moral decay and led to more widespread social upheaval. The Zuo Commentary, in discussing such political developments in Lu and surrounding states, views these primarily through the lens of whether or not they were ritually appropriate. 303

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In addition, the Zuo Commentary contains other content that, if viewed through the lens of traditional Confucianism, had nothing to do with li. Some of this content was highlighted by Fan Ning (339–401) when he critiqued the work, saying, “its writing is beautiful and rich, yet its flaw is the overemphasis on the supernatural.” Yang Shixun (fl. 635) in his subcommentary on the Guliang Commentary fleshed out this criticism: “What is meant by ‘its flaw is the overemphasis on the supernatural’ is it recounts many instances of dealings with ghosts and spirits, and prophesies of good and bad fortune to come.”17 Indeed, many accounts of dreams, divination, prognostication, prophecy, palm reading, and encounters with ghosts and spirits are included in its historical anecdotes. Still, in a large portion of such passages, either the focus or the implication is that ritual propriety should be adhered to. Given that the social structure was supposed to be organized around ritual propriety, the adherence to which would bring harmony and success, while disregarding it would invoke chaos and disaster, the ability to determine what is appropriate expands in the Zuo Commentary into a fixation on ascertaining what might happen given a set of circumstances. There are threads throughout many of the passages revealing to what extent this desire to read signs went. Thus, disorderly chariot tracks and low banners by an army in retreat are a sign for the opposing army to continue attacking without fear of running into an ambush (Zhuang 10). Hail is a sign that there is no sage ruler, but the proper use and storage of ice by the people, with the ruler leading the way, could balance the yin and yang forces so hail would not destroy crops (Zhao 4). Such readings of signs permeate the text, whilst discriminating between the human and the supernatural. As Wai-yee Li has observed, “Whereas human signs, such as a gesture or a comment that captures the essence of a person and thereby explains his character and destiny, augment moral explanations and human agency in history, signs from the numinous realm may or may not corroborate human factors.”18 One of the challenging characteristics of the Zuo Commentary is the staggering number of historical persons in it. While calculations by scholars have arrived at different totals, the lowest tally is 2,400 individuals.19 This forms a robust database of permutations in personality, choice, and consequence—all useful for learning to read the signs. Yet, it is quite overwhelming to readers. To add to the difficulty, a variety of names can be used for one individual, including a given name, a courtesy name (zi), and an official title. Also, at this time individuals could be identified by their clan name (xing) or by the subbranches of the clan (shi). English translations attempt to mitigate this for readers by using one or perhaps two names for each person, which is helpful in reducing the overwhelming cognitive load but does come with some drawbacks. Removing special identifiers means that the nuances of interaction and ritual propriety might not be readily apparent.

The Zuo Commentary as Commentary Since at least Liu Xin’s time, there has been some controversy on whether the Zuo Commentary was intended as commentary to the Annals. This is due in part to aspects of its composition and in part to political machinations, and while the latter has dissipated with the end of imperial China and its civil service examination, the former persists.20 One aspect that has been but should not be a source of doubt is the fact that it was a separate text in the beginning. The rich tradition of the commentaries and subcommentaries that scholarship has been steeped in for so long began as an Eastern Han invention. Even the Gongyang and Guliang commentaries, which from their nature are clearly written as reactions to the Annals, used to be separate from the Annals until He Xiu combined the Gongyang text with the Annals and annotated them both.21 304

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A main factor that gives scholars pause is the different ending times for the Annals and the Zuo Commentary. The Annals in the Gongyang and Guliang versions ends with the capture of the unicorn in 481 bc, but the Annals in the Zuo Commentary does not end until two years later in 479 bc, with the death of Confucius.22 The Zuo Commentary text extends even further to 468 bc, the last year of Duke Ai’s reign. That the Zuo Commentary records an extra eleven years is viewed by some as evidence it was not originally meant as a commentary but was its own work. However, there are two possible ways understand this curiosity. First, it could simply be a matter of bringing full closure to the text by ending with the last year of Duke Ai’s reign, allowing for a full recording of events from the beginning of Duke Yin to the end of Duke Ai. Second, it could be necessary to bring the Annals to full closure. This can be seen from the Zuo Commentary’s emphasis on signs, omens, and divination. To the final entry in the Annals of the death of Confucius, the Zuo Commentary adds the eulogy of Duke Ai, in which he says, in effect, with Confucius’ death, he is alone and has no one to help him in ruling. This is an artful eulogy since the duke refused to offer Confucius an official post on the latter’s return to Lu. Such an ingenuine claim by the duke prompted Zigong to prophesy that the duke would not die in Lu. While much unrelated content is recorded between Ai 16 and Ai 27, the last recorded action of Duke Ai in Ai 27 is that he ended up fleeing to Yue and presumably died there.23 This latter reading would mean that the text was just closing out the last important narrative thread of the Annals. Next, if the Zuo Commentary is examined without the accompanying passages from the Annals, it becomes clear that it has its own, slightly different version of the Annals embedded in its commentary. Barry Blakeley has insightfully speculated that “it could be that this is the reason, as much as the touting of it as a commentary on the Chun qiu, that the original name given to the text was Zuo shi Chun qiu.”24 The Annals entries in the Zuo Commentary text quite often have minor differences from the Annals proper, both in the names of people and places, and in details in the passage. For example, in Xi 18, the Annals records, In the eighteenth year, in spring, in the royal first month, the Duke of Song, the Liege of Cao, a Wei leader, and a Zhu leader attacked Qi. The correlating Zuo Commentary passage, which has no accompanying backstory or historical anecdote, says, In the eighteenth year, in spring, Lord Xiang of Song took the princes to attack Qi. In the third month, the Qi leaders put Gongzi Wukui to death.25 This last sentence is not found in the Annals, and the details of the first sentence differ. That a version of the Annals is already embedded in the Zuo Commentary text seems to argue strongly for its original intended use as a commentary. The largest portion of the Zuo Commentary text and its most attractive feature is its abundant historical anecdotes and speeches. These add much insight into the flow of events behind individual passages in the Annals—much more so than explanations found in the Gongyang and Guliang commentaries. And yet they do not line up perfectly with passages from the Annals. The very first entry in the Zuo Commentary is a standalone passage on the backstory of Duke Yin’s and Zhuang’s complicated beginnings. Durrant et al. read this as a preface, and, while a reasonable explanation, it does not explain why this passage would not be given the chu marker and addended to the first Annals entry. Furthermore, some Annals passages do not have any corresponding commentary in the Zuo Commentary. For example, out of the six entries for Zhuang 22, only one of them has a 305

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corresponding explanation. The opposite is also true—there are many entries that do not have a corresponding passage in the Annals, which only intensifies the feeling that the Zuo Commentary was not originally commentary to the Annals. Finally, there are three types of “commentary” embedded within the Zuo Commentary text: direct commentary, the junzi statements, and the Zhongni statements. Direct commentary is focused on passages in the Annals but not on the Zuo Commentary narratives, contra to the junzi and Zhongni statements. It is concerned with what is recorded or not recorded but not with the morality of the why. In other words, it is rule based rather than praise–blame based. Du Yu subdivided these passages, numbering some 200 in all,26 into two categories: general precedents and transformed precedents. General precedents start with the marker fan 凡 and depict general rules of recording Annals passages. For example, in Xuan 16, it says “In summer there was a fire at the Xuan archery court at Chengzhou. This was a fire caused by people. In all cases (fan) concerning fires, a fire caused by people is called ‘fire,’ while a fire sent by Heaven is called ‘calamitous fire’.”27 Transformed precedents don’t have any specific markers and are more concerned with the specific Annals entry they are tied to. What is curious about these statements, as Van Auken has demonstrated, is if these passages are extracted from the main text, a thematic grouping schema is revealed. That is, if the surrounding text is deleted and only the transformed precedents are listed (in order), they will fall into groupings of two, three, or more. One salient example is in Xi 24, where the fact that Qin installed Chong’er in Jin “was not recorded because we were not notified” and, much later in the same entry, that a noble son had Duke Huai of Jin killed “was likewise not recorded because we were not notified.”28 The use of “likewise” (yi) shows correlation between subsequent transformed precedents. Long thought to be spurious and later additions to the text, Van Auken has argued that both types of precedent actually seem to pre-date the Gongyang and Guliang commentaries due to their more rudimentary application of the recording rules they identify.29 The other two types of commentary are judgment statements by the “Gentleman” (junzi) and by Zhongni, which was the style name of Confucius. While the nomenclature already implies these two types of statements are from variant sources, Eric Henry has demonstrated how fundamentally different they are. First of all, they are not evenly distributed throughout the text. Junzi statements are frequent in the first three-fourths of the text but less common in the last fourth; Zhongni statements seem to be the opposite, with the majority coming from the last fourth of the text. More importantly, the natures of the comments, while both focused on the right and appropriate ways to act, are quite contrasting. “The focus of the junzi’s attention never broadens to include the overall character of the performer of an action; he is concerned only to assess the particular action under discussion.” The Zhongni statements have a more holistic approach, taking more into account than what is in the immediate narrative, sometimes to the point that the judgments are “so equivocal that they cannot with confidence be placed in either the praise or the blame category.” This is because the junzi comments highlight what the reader should be understanding from the text. The Zhongni statements, on the other hand, tend to be from the subjective perspective of a participant in the narrative and are thus more nuanced and constrained.30 While it is clear the direct commentary is focused on the Annals, which would argue for the Zuo Commentary being intended a commentary, these passages are of unknown provenance. Most importantly, they do not seem to acknowledge anything provided in the rest of the Zuo Commentary text. The junzi and Zhongni commentary are primarily focused on what is happening in the Zuo narrative, and yet there are a few instances in which they respond to the corresponding entry in the Annals. Given the difference in time covered, the occasional misalignment between Annals entries and the Zuo Commentary explanations, and the fact that the junzi and Zhongni comments seem to 306

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almost fully ignore the Annals, the argument that the Zuo Commentary was not originally intended as a commentary to the Annals proper has three legs to stand on. However, in reality, the Zuo Commentary entries stay firmly within the Yin-Ai range of the Annals,31 the beginning and end of which is very arbitrary given that Lu was a vassal state since the early part of Western Zhou and given that Eastern Zhou began some fifty years prior to Duke Yin’s reign. That it stays within this arbitrary scope is strong evidence it was intended as commentary.

The Zuo Commentary as Literature and Its Influence on Shiji While the Zuo Commentary primarily belongs to the genre of Confucian classics, initially as a commentary and then later as one of the thirteen official classics, the literary style of its rich anecdotes and speeches has influenced several genres in later dynasties. Its most important literary quality is a narrative style that uses very economical sentences and brief details to explain events, preferring to employ dialog primarily as a means to show how the events unfold. In one of the most famous passages, it records in Yin 1 the struggle Duke Zhuang had with his mother and younger brother: Earlier, Lord Wu of Zheng had taken a wife in Shen who was known as Wu Jiang. She bore Lord Zhuang and Gongshu Duan. Lord Zhuang was breech born, and Lady Jiang was shaken. For this reason, she named him Wusheng and consequently hated him. She loved Gongshu Duan and wanted to establish him as heir. Time and again she asked this favor of Lord Wu, but the lord would not grant it. When Lord Zhuang acceded to his position, she requested the settlement of Zhi for Gongshu Duan.32 In a few short sentences, the narration goes from the marriage of Zheng’s ruler to the birth of his two sons, to his death and the ascension of his son to the throne, all the while providing background on the struggle for the throne between the brothers. The passage then transitions to a dialog between Lord Zhuang and his mother, then between Lord Zhuang and his minister Zhai Zhong to set the stage and give reasons for Gongshu Duan’s imminent revolt. Duan’s practical preparations are then covered in one swift sentence: “The Senior Younger Brother [Duan] reinforced walls, gathered provisions, repaired his armor and weapons, and prepared his infantry and chariots.”33 And the actual fighting and fleeing that follows is no less economically dealt with. The preference for dialog can be seen in the following scene from the famous Battle of Yanling in Cheng 16. Jin and Chu are preparing to battle, so Chu’s ruler ascends a towered chariot to observe preparations, with Bo Zhouli at his side: “The Chu king said, ‘Chariots are racing right and left. Why is that?” “So as to summon the military officers.” “They are all gathered around the central army!” “So as to plot their strategy together.” “They are setting up tents!” “So as to piously divine before the spirit tablets of the former rulers.” “They are taking down the tents!” “They are about to issue orders.” “It is very noisy; and the dust is also rising.” “They are about to fill in the wells and level the stoves so as to make passages and form their lines.” 307

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“Will they fight now?” “It is impossible to know yet.” “They mounted their chariots, but are all now dismounting right and left.” “They are listening to the oaths of battle.”34 The raucous clamor of a war camp, the busy preparations and movement of troops, and the intense deliberations of military officials are all captured in simple observations by the king and explanations by the official at his side. Yet the reader has from the king’s perch a panoramic and cinematic view of what transpires. This is the charm of the Zuo Commentary’s narrative style. Most of the time, dialog is not this terse. It often tends to meander as the speaker employs a variety of rhetorical skills to make a point. This terse narrative style, with emphasis on dialog between characters, had a profound effect on later historiographical writings. Specifically, the Zuo Commentary exerted a strong influence on the structure and composition of Sima Qian’s Shiji. Apart from the abundance of historical material that was appropriated (and often repackaged), several of Sima Qian’s choices in style and arrangement seem to be best understood as an imitation of or as a response to the Zuo Commentary. Shiji is composed of 130 chapters, the majority of which are in biographical form—that is, a self-contained, cohesive narrative of one or more historical figures. This arrangement breaks with the standard chronicle approach from pre-Qin China found in the Annals and the Bamboo Annals (zhushu jinian). This is ostensibly because one main issue with annalistic chronology as the primary paradigm in historiography is that historical figures only appear sporadically and never receive a full, sustained treatment. And yet the narrative lens of the Zuo Commentary is focused on ritual and on a moralistic presentation of history wherein the results of people’s choices are shown. Shiji has a very similar orientation. One overarching concern of Sima Qian’s was the concept shanzhong (to have one’s life end well) and to analyze this by seeing how one’s personality and choices affected this desired end. Such an approach is better developed in a biography-based history where the narrative of a person’s life is outlined from start to finish. This also helps to more fully develop the moralistic presentation of history. One common narrative tool that the Zuo Commentary uses in providing backstory (but which is rarely used in other pre-Han historical works)35 is the marker chu 初 (in the past, earlier, in the beginning). John Wang has called the passages that follow the chu marker “flashbacks” and observed “sometimes a whole episode, such as the death of Duke Mu of Zheng in the 3rd year of Duke Xuan, may consist entirely of a flashback.”36 Sima Qian adopts this tool from the Zuo Commentary and applies it freely through the work, even in Han-era biographies. Given the fact that Sima Qian’s biographies are often much longer in length than specific anecdotes in the Zuo Commentary, these play a parenthetical function, adding more information on the person or a historical event without completely derailing the narrative flow. Another borrowed feature is the editorialization of the text. Sima Qian’s signature ending to most chapters, the phrase Taishi gong yue (The Grand Scribe remarks), is a continuation—and a strong further development—of the junzi yue (the Gentleman remarks) and Zhongni yue (Zhongni remarks) insertions in the Zuo Commentary.37 While the Zuo Commentary editorializations are often found embedded within the narrative, Sima Qian moved his to the very end of each chapter, allowing for a summary paragraph that could further elucidate his appraisal of the person(s) in the biography. This editorialization of historical persons and happenings then further developed into zan yue (the panegyric states) in Hanshu and lun yue (a summary assessment states) in Hou Hanshu. This continued use with the change of a less personal marker (zan or lun) made it a codified part of historical writing. As a lot of imperial fiction was historical fiction, these editorial 308

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comments also made their way into classical short stories and novels. For example, in the Tang chuanqi story “An Account of Xie Xiao’e,” the final paragraph begins with “The Gentleman states” (junzi yue).38

Notes 1 Newell Ann Van Auken enumerates the contents of the Annals as including “deaths of rulers and nobility, diplomatic travel to and from Lu, military actions, diplomatic meetings and covenants, rituals and sacrifices, astronomical phenomena, and events that affected crops such as flood, frost, and pestilence.” Van Auken, The Commentarial Transformation of the Spring and Autumn (Albany: SUNY Press, 2016), 5–6. For a detailed treatment of only the Annals, see Van Auken’s Spring and Autumn Historiography: Form and Hierarchy in Ancient Chinese Annals (New York: Columbia University Press, 2023). 2 See, for example, Bryan Van Norden, Mencius: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2008), 84–85. 3 Van Auken holds that no such editing is observable in the received version; rather the text exhibits a strong formulaic sense where Lu recordkeepers followed strict conventions for recording information. See Van Auken, Spring and Autumn Historiography, 11. 4 See Sima Qian, Shiji [The Grand Scribe’s Records] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982), 47.1943. 5 Sima Qian, Shiji, 14.509–510. 6 Stephen Durrant, Wai-yee Li, and David Schaberg, trans., Zuo Tradition: Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016), xxxviii. 7 Yang Bojun, Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu [Annotations on the Zuo Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2000), 41. 8 Qian Mu, Xian-Qin zhuzi xinian [A Chronological Study of Pre-Qin Thinkers] (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1956), 192–93. 9 Ban Gu, Hanshu [The History of Han] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), 88.3620. 10 Ban Gu, Hanshu, 53.2414. 11 Cai Zhenchu, annot., Lunheng duben [Balanced Sayings: A  Reader] (Taipei: Sanmin shuju, 2015), 1080, 1497. 12 For example, in the Qing dynasty, during the second great Old/New Text Debate, Kang Youwei (1858–1927) held that Liu Xin had fabricated the Zuo Commentary along with other texts to forward a political agenda. See Michael Nylan, “The Chin Wen/Ku Wen Controversy in Han Times,” T’oung Pao 80, no. 1 (1994): 84. 13 Yang Shixun, annot., Chunqiu Guliang zhuan zhushu [Annotations on the Guliang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals] (Taipei: Yiwen yinshuguan, 1982), 3–1. 14 See Sima Qian, Shiji, 130.3297. 15 These calculations were done using the digital version on the Chinese Text Project. 16 Yuri Pines, Foundation of Confucian Thought: Intellectual Life in the Chunqiu Period, 722–453 B.C.E. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002), 60. 17 Yang Shixun, Chunqiu Guliang zhuan zhushu, 7-2. 18 Wai-yee Li, The Readability of the Past in Early Chinese Historiography (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asian Center, 2007), 173. 19 Fang Zhaohui, Chunqiu Zuozhuan renwu pu [Figures in the Zuo Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals] (Jinan: Qi Lu shushe, 2001), 1. 20 For example, Durrant et al., Zuo Tradition express doubt that the Zuo Commentary originally was intended as a commentary (xxxii). 21 See Gao Jiyi, “Chunqiu Gongyang zhuan zhushu heke li kao” [A Study on Examples of the Gongyang Commentary and the Spring and Autumn Annals Published Together], Zhongguo wenzhe yanjiu jikan 52, no. 3 (2018): 119–67. 22 Of this, Wai-yee Li states, “This means that one strand or layer of the text is interested in asserting the connection between Confucius and Chunqiu” (417). 23 Shiji has a more detailed and slightly different account. See Sima Qian, Shiji, 33.1545. 24 Barry Blakeley, “ ‘On the Authenticity and Nature of the Zuo zhuan’ Revisited,” Early China 29 (2004): 219. 25 Durrant et al., Zuo Tradition, 337, 339.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 2 6 See Van Auken, Commentarial Transformation, 39. 27 Durrant et al., Zuo Tradition, 687, substituting “people” for “humans” in the translation. 28 Durrant et al., Zuo Tradition, 373, with some adjustments to the translation. 29 See Van Auken, Commentarial Transformation, 175–203. 30 Eric Henry, “ ‘Junzi Yue’ Versus ‘Zhongni Yue’ in Zuozhuan,” HJAS 59, no. 1 (June 1999): 136–37, 147–48. 31 The only exception to this is the very last entry, which cites a brief passage from Duke Dao’s (467–437 bc) fourth year to close out the prediction in Ai 27 that Zhi Yao will “ultimately [fall] because of his own stubbornness and arrogance.” Durrant et al., Zuo Tradition, 1993. 32 Durrant et al., Zuo Tradition, 9. 33 Durrant et al., Zuo Tradition, 11. 34 Durrant et al., Zuo Tradition, 835. 35 It is only seen three times in Guoyu [Discourses of the States], once in Wu-Yue Chunqiu [The Annals of Wu and Yue], and three times in Zhanguo ce [Strategies of the Warring States]. 36 John Wang, “Early Chinese Narrative: The Tso-chuan as Example,” in Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays, ed. Andrew Plaks (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977), 6. 37 It should be noted that Guoyu and Yanzi chunqiu [The Annals of Master Yan] use these phrases also, albeit with much less frequency. 38 See both the original and an English translation by Xin Zou in Victor Mair and Zhenjun Zhang, eds., Anthology of Tang and Song Tales: The Tang Song chuanqi ji of Lu Xun (Singapore: World Scientific, 2020), 199–209.

Further Reading Blakeley, Barry. “ ‘On the Authenticity and Nature of the Zuo zhuan’ Revisited.” Early China 29 (2004): 217–67. Durrant, Stephen, Wai-yee Li, and David Schaberg, trans. Zuo Tradition: Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016. Henry, Eric. “ ‘Junzi yue’ Versus ‘Zhongni yue’ in Zuozhuan.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 59, no. 1 (1999): 125–61. Li, Wei-yee. The Readability of the Past in Early Chinese Historiography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asian Center, 2007. Pines, Yuri. Foundations of Confucian Thought: Intellectual Life in the Chunqiu Period, 722–453 B.C.E. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002. Pines, Yuri. “Han Feizi and the Earliest Exegesis of Zuozhuan.” Journal of Oriental Studies 70, no. 2 (2022): 341–65. Schaberg, David. A Patterned Past: Form and Thought in Early Chinese Historiography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002. Van Auke, Newell Ann. The Commentarial Transformation of the Spring and Autumn. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2016. Wang, John. “Early Chinese Narrative: The Tso-chuan as Example.” In Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays, edited by Andrew Plaks, 1–20. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977.

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25 DISCOURSE OF STATES AND STRATAGEMS OF THE WARRING STATES Weiguo Cao

Discourse of States Guoyu (Discourse of States) is a collection of didactic anecdotes which mainly contain speeches and conversations discussing a wide variety of topics, such as government administration, virtue and ethics, agriculture, diplomacy, ritual propriety, warfare, sacrifices, gods and spirits, omens, divination, prophecy, music, and education. It is a valuable book for modern readers to study various aspects of ancient China. Wei Zhao (204–273), the primary traditional commentator of the book, stated that it contained “fine words and good speeches,” which reflected the success and failure of the nations and states. Modern scholar Zhang He called it “an encyclopedia of pre-Qin history, especially the history of the Spring and Autumn period” (1). The book was divided into eight sections by state, totaling twenty-one chapters and 240 anecdotes. The earliest anecdote related King Mu of Zhou’s campaign against the Quanrong (Dog Rong) tribe in 976 BC, and the last event it refers to is the downfall of Zhibo in 453 BC. Within each state the anecdotes are loosely arranged in chronological order. Pei Dengfeng argued that the compiler(s) of the Guoyu collected a variety of source materials from different regions and arranged these materials according to states. Therefore, each geographic section has its own characteristics, reflecting cultural spheres of individual regions, and thereby forms an independent unit. Thus, Pei concluded that the Guoyu was a combination of several books and should not be treated as one unified book (67–95). Some scholars believe Yu was a popular genre in the pre-Qin period, featuring moralizing speeches, and it served as learning materials for the noblemen of that time (Zhang He, 25). A number of books can be categorized into the Yu genre, including the Lunyu [The Analects], Chunqiu shiyu (Discourse Related to Events of the Spring and Autumn Period), and Yu shu [Book on Discourse], Yu cong [A Cluster of Discourse] (Zhang He, 123–26; Pei, 11–25). The Yu-genre books also had an influence on works of later ages such as Xin yu [A New Discourse] and Shishuo xinyu [A New Discourse and Talks of the World]. Sima Qian (145–87? BC) claimed that the Guoyu was composed by Zuo Qiuming after he lost his eyesight.1 Furthermore, he indicated that Zuo Qiuming also composed the Zuoshi chunqiu (Master Zuo’s Commentary to the Spring and Autumn Annals), or simply Zuozhuan [The Zuo Commentary] (Sima Qian, 509–510). Ban Gu (32–92) basically agreed with Sima Qian, but he added that Zuo Qiuming compiled the Guoyu based on different source materials.2 According to Wang  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-35

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Chong (27–97), because the speeches in the Zuozhuan were not sufficient, Zuo Qiuming selected speeches from various states to supplement the Zuozhuan. Thus he stated that Guoyu was “Master Zuo’s external commentary [to the Spring and Autumn Annals].”3 In modern times, the Guoyu is sometimes called “a sister text to the Zuo Commentary” (Tharsen, 299). Bernhard Karlgren (1889–1978), in his study of the grammatical patterns of the Guoyu and Zuozhuan, made the following comment: “on the whole the grammatical systems of the two texts are so congruous, that they must be said to be written in essentially the same dialect, and probably belong to the same school” (60). Schaberg argued that Guoyu was not written at a single time by a single author. The anecdotes in the book were composed, recomposed, and refined over a period of decades and even centuries (Schaberg, 8). It is highly likely they originally came from disparate sources in both written and oral traditions (Schaberg, 316–319). Zhang He concluded that Zuo Qiuming might have been the earliest compiler or transmitter of the text and that the text may have been continuously revised or added to during its process of transmission (14). Concerning the relationship between the Guoyu and Zuozhuan, Watson pointed out that the Guoyu covered roughly the same period as the Zuozhuan and dealt with many of the same persons and events (66). Schaberg stated that despite numerous divergences in minor matters of historical fact, in diction, and in the preferred length of their speeches, the similarities between the two works greatly outweighed the differences between them, especially on the level of narrative and quoted speech (6). On the other hand, scholars have pointed out that there are significant differences between these two books. Thus, it will be indeed very difficult to assess the distinctive value of the book if these differences are ignored. Wai-yee Li, for example, noted that the Zuozhuan and Guoyu portrayed Guan Zhong and his lord Duke Huan of Qi in a different way. Thus, it is possible that the Zuozhuan and Guoyu accounts came from different sources (Li, 287). Zhang Yiren (1930–2009) listed more than 200 items in which Zuozhuan and Guoyu recorded the same events, but their accounts were different. These account for two-thirds of the content of Guoyu. Moreover, Zhang listed seventy-six items which were recorded only in the Guoyu but not in the Zuozhuan. There are only sixteen items in which the accounts of Guoyu and Zuozhuan are basically identical. Zhang also stated that Sima Qian, in his Shiji (Grand Scribe’s Records), sometimes had the same account as Zuozhuan, sometimes had the same account as Guoyu, and sometimes combined the accounts of both books (21–59). It is generally believed that the “fine words and good speeches” in the Guoyu were produced by the ministers, who attempted to advise or remonstrate with the rulers. For example, it has been said that “the Zhouyu, Luyu and Chuyu record admonitions made by various ministers to their rulers” (Knechtges, 308). Tharsen stated that many of these speeches are primarily concerned with the importance of virtue and ritual in governance and are often direct remonstrances by a high official to his superior, the sovereign of the state (276). He also noted that the exquisitely crafted rhetoric of noble men is consistently disregarded by their superiors, with inevitably disastrous results (Tharsen, 295). Sargent claimed that the author purports to show that the past disasters and triumphs of rulers were directly related to their willingness and unwillingness to follow advice. The author’s paramount interest is justifying the advisor’s right to share the ruler’s power. The anecdotes tend to follow this model: (1) Ruler X wishes to do something. (2) Advisor Y advises the ruler, citing historical precedents. (3) The ruler either accepts or declines the advice. (4) The result, often a known historical event, follows (Sargent, 6). However, it seems that these arguments are only valid with regard to part of the content of the book. It is too simplistic to generalize the content of the entire book in a single statement, such as “a wise minister presents a long and eloquent speech, advising a usually incompetent ruler.” There are too many exceptions to this standard model. For example, many anecdotes record speeches or dialogues among ministers, in which there is no ruler involved. 312

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In a group of anecdotes, the speeches are no longer “good speeches.” They are given by an evil woman, Concubine Li. There is also a group of anecdotes containing dialogues between family members, such as father and son, or mother and son. As Hart points out, the three chapters on the House of Zhou told the story of its gradual decline from the powerful king to the nominal ruler of the empire. It was a record almost wholly of failings. Kings were repeatedly warned against shortsighted or selfish actions, repeatedly they failed to heed the advice, and invariably the consequences were the further weakening of the royal house (Hart, 157). It should also be pointed out that, in the last anecdote of Zhouyu, a minister of Wey discussed the fate of Zhou in his speech and stated that it was heaven that brought down the misfortune on Zhou. Ever since King You, heaven has robbed the kings of enlightenment, causing them to be in confusion and disorder, abandon the virtue, and become indolent and licentious. Because of this they lost support of the common people. It has been long time that heaven has ruined them. (Chen, 16) In one anecdote in the Zhengyu, this idea of heaven destroying the Zhou royal house was further reinforced in the speech of Scribe Bo, who introduced the story of the mysterious birth of Bao Si, a licentious woman, in an attempt to demonstrate that the decline of Zhou was predestined nearly 1500 years ago (Chen, 576)! Lei Yang noted that in Jinyu, the collapse of Zhou is attributed to Bao Si rather than her husband, King You, who merely serves as the backdrop of this story (Le, 727). However, in the speech of Scribe Bo in Zhengyu, he clearly indicates that King You’s wrongdoings led to the disaster: he appointed Guo Shifu, a slanderous and adulterous person, as his senior minister; he abandoned his lawful queen and replaced her with the evil woman Bao Si; he was surround by his court entertainers such as clowns and midgets. To a certain extent, the failure of Zhou kings bears the traits common to rulers in the later history of imperial China: they refused to listen to the wise admonition of their loyal ministers and suppressed criticism from the common people; they trusted treacherous officials and eunuchs and became infatuated with beautiful but licentious women and thereby were condemned by heaven. Along with the decline of the royal Zhou house, the regional powers were constantly on the rise. The Guoyu depicted a number of local lords who were wise, competent, and virtuous, and they were blessed by Heaven. Among them, Chong’er, the Lord of Jin, and one of the “Five Hegemons” of the period, is a prominent example. Although Chong’er is commonly believed to be an ideal ruler, the image of Chong’er in the Guoyu is more complicated. Before he became the Lord of Jin, he was in exile for nineteen years. At one point he settled in the state of Qi and married a woman named Qi Jiang. He was so content with his life that he decided he would stay there for good. When Zifan, his uncle and one of his chief advisors, told him it was time to move out of Qi, he rejected his proposal. Qi Jiang, his virtuous wife, made two long and eloquent speeches in an attempt to persuade him to leave, but he still did not listen. The following anecdote in the Jinyu reveals what happened next: [Qi] Jiang plotted with Zifan. They made him drunk, loaded him onto a carriage, and then set off. When he woke up, he chased after Zifan with a dagger-axe in his hand, saying, “If I am not successful in the future, I shall take you, my uncle, and devour your flesh—even this won’t relieve my hatred against you!” While Uncle Zifan was running away, he retorted, “If we are not successful, I don’t know where I shall die, and who can fight for my flesh with wolves and jackals? If we are successful, you, my lord, will have all the delicacies of Jin and 313

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eat them with great relish. How can you eat my flesh, which smells fishy and foul?” In the end they set off for the journey. (Chen, 378) As we can see from this anecdote, at one moment in his life Chong’er acted almost like the tyrannical Zhou kings discussed previously. Not only did he refuse to listen to the wise advice of others, but he was also so enraged that he even wanted to eat the flesh of his loyal follower! Deciding to leave or not leave, this was certainly a defining moment in his life. In the end he overcame his weakness and chose the right path, and it led him to be the most successful ruler in the empire. Several anecdotes in the Jinyu indicated that the reason Chong’er was so successful is that he was surrounded by a group of wise ministers, and he diligently followed their advice. It was said, for example, he treated Zifan as his father, treated Zhao Cui as his teacher, and treated Jiao Tuo as an elder (Chen, 383). For this reason, it was repeatedly emphasized in the book that he obtained blessings from heaven: heaven would guide him. He was destined to be the hegemon among the feudal lords. Heaven made him flourish, and no one was able to destroy him (Chen, 404, 385, 389). One of the achievements of Guoyu, in terms of literature, is that it gives detailed and vivid accounts of the lives of a number of individuals. Some critics have pointed out that the “technique of assembling beautiful brocade” is employed to give a full portrait of a certain character, that is, a series of anecdotes focusing on one person are put together to depict various important moments in his life, reflecting various facets of his personality (Tan, 112–113; Zhang He, 179). For example, the entire Chapter Five of Jinyu, with twenty-five anecdotes, is devoted to the account of the life of Chong’er. The Guoyu gives accounts of over 400 characters. Among them are kings, feudal lords, ministers, generals, commanders, warriors, diplomats, diviners, prophets, musicians, fathers, wives, concubines, entertainers, and servants. Some of them have distinctive, memorable, and quite sophisticated characters. In some of the anecdotes, the authors seem to portray the characters in a fictitious and imaginative manner (Tan, 114–15). This provides valuable examples for Chinese biographical writing and fictional writing of later ages. Another literary achievement of the Guoyu is that it presents a great number of splendid speeches and conversations with various rhetoric devices. Speeches are given in elegant language. There is frequent use of series of rhythmic four-word phrases. Grammatical patterns are repeated to achieve parallel structure. Words, phrases, and ideas are used in balanced patterns. There is some use of sound consonance. Hart stated that Guoyu might be considered among the antecedents of the fu, for it contains two important elements. First, the style of the speeches is consciously literary. Second, the topics are similar to those of surviving fu: elegantly expressed criticism of the rulers or court officials (Hart, 185–186; Pei, 251). As Watson points out: Thanks to these two works (Guoyu and Zuozhuan), we are able to form a vivid and fairly detailed picture of the life of the period. How true the picture may be to historical reality we shall probably never know, but it is a picture which has had a powerful influence upon the Chinese imagination. In keeping with the didactic intent of the works, the figures who appear in them have become eponyms of wisdom, benevolence, delusion, greed, or craftiness. . . . Chinese historiography inherited in these two works an unparalleled example of vivid and dramatic style, a model of narrative art which later historians could draw upon for instruction and aspiration. (14)

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Stratagems of the Warring States Zhanguo ce (Stratagems of the Warring States) mainly depicts the historical events of the Warring States period, from 403 BC to the unification of China under the First Emperor of Qin in 221 BC. It is a collection of anecdotes, mainly recording the activities of the strategists or persuaders and their clever speeches, which demonstrate their ingenious schemes as well as their rhetorical skills. Burton Watson called it a “handbook on rhetoric and persuasive speaking” (75). Crump called it “the largest collection of historical anecdote, fable and tales of famous people dating from the pre-Han era (Chan-kuo ts’e, 33).” The book consists of thirty-three chapters and contains the “stratagems” of twelve states, totaling 497 anecdotes. In the account of each state, the anecdotes are arranged roughly in chronological order. The book has certain historical value and in fact this is the only major work concerning the history of the Warring States. As Sima Qian, the great historian of China, points out in his monumental history Shiji [The Grand Scribe’s Records]: after Qin unified China, historical records of various states were all burned because they contained messages criticizing Qin. Only the records of Qin were kept intact, but they were too sketchy. Then Sima Qian claimed: “there was also a large amount of materials concerning the stratagems of expediency which can be adopted [in my writing].”4 Although Sima Qian had not seen Zhanguo ce when he composed the Grand Scribe’s Records, he used a large quantity of material contained in the current version of Zhanguo ce, suggesting that these two books might have shared the same source materials (Crump, Intrigues, 32; He, 101; Pei, 26). On the other hand, scholars have argued that some materials in the book are fictional accounts, legends or historical romance rather than historical records (Goldin, 76, 78; He, 132–141). Thus, the book is significant in terms of both its historical and literary value.

Authorship and the Compilation We do not know who the authors were and when the anecdotes were written. It is generally believed that the book was written by various authors in various times. The texts may have undergone a long period of evolution in which new stories were added and old stories were polished and modified (He, 59). Crump postulated that the persuasive speeches in the book were originally created by students who underwent training to pursue careers as political advisors or diplomats, as their own persuasive exercises in some kind of rhetorical school (Legends of the Warring States, 2–3). He Jin stated that the art of devising stratagems and presenting persuasive speeches was a trendy subject to study at the time because mastery of this art would enable people to gain fame, power, and wealth in the fastest way. Thus, it is possible that a number of books were written to give guidance in that art, and that these books later became the source materials of the Zhanguo ce (He, 10). Around 26 AD, Liu Xiang (77–6 BC) received an order from the imperial court to conduct a systematic collation of the existing books in the Palace Library. Based on a group of books (or fragmented books) he found in the library, he compiled a book and named it the Zhanguo ce. In his memorial to the emperor, he stated, The books in the Palace Library were originally called Guo ce (Stratagems of the States), Guo shi (Affairs of the States), Chang duan (Advantages and Shortcomings), Shi yu (Discourse on Affairs), Chang shu (The Book on Advantages), and Xiu shu (The Book on Refinements). It appears to your servant that [the books are about] the peripatetic advisors of the Warring Sates rendering their assistance to the states which employed them, and devising stratagems and schemes for them. It seems proper, then, to call it Stratagems of the Warring States. Its

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events follow the Spring and Autumn period and continue to the Chu-Han era—events of a period lasting 245 years.5 As is evident in the memorial, when Liu Xiang compiled the Zhanguo ce, he adopted several different types of source materials. These source materials may have recorded events in different ways, and their accounts may even contradict each other. Modern scholars have observed the texts of the Zhanguo ce contain too many internal contradictions (Goldin, 78). In addition, sometimes a story can have several versions. Watson suggests that there was an original story which, in the process of transmission, became attached in various versions (77). Crump notes that the content of the Zhanguo-ce is diffuse in tone, uneven in quality, and in places garbled (Chan-kuo ts’e, 33). It seems such kind of internal contradictions or inconsistencies may have resulted from the diverse or even confusing nature of Liu Xiang’s source materials. As Liu Xiang himself admitted, his source materials are “fragmented” and “badly mixed up” (He, 62). In his memorial, Liu Xiang attempted to give an overview of the content of the Zhanguo ce: In the age of Warring States, the virtue of lords was shallow and meager; Those who made schemes and stratagems for them could not but rely on strategic advantage when rendering assistance [to their lords] and act in accordance with the times. For this reason, their schemes, which provided stability during emergencies and shored up precarious situations, were methods of expedience; although they cannot be employed to govern and edify the nation, they [exemplify] strategic advantage, which involves warfare and rescuing [the state] from emergencies. These were all outstanding men-of-service of lofty talent. They gauged what the lords of time were able to do and produced extraordinary stratagems and uncommon bits of wisdom. They turned danger into security and converted doom into preservation, indeed, in a manner that can be entertaining. All these things are worth reading.6 Perhaps the word “expedience” reflects Liu Xiang’s ambivalent attitude toward the men and their stratagems recorded in the book. On the one hand, they are men of extraordinary talent, and their stratagems are marvelous. On the other, due to lack of virtue, they were only able to solve the problems for the time being. Their stratagems may have rescued a state in an emergency, but in the end, the six states were all doomed to be destroyed by the powerful and ruthless state of Qin.

The Collapse of the Royal House of Zhou During the Spring and Autumn period, although the power of the Zhou royal family began to decline, it was still the nominal common ruler of the empire and enjoyed a certain prestige. This situation changed drastically in the Warring States period. The status of the Zhou royal family is reduced to that of a small feudal state. Powerful states like Qin no longer conceal their ambition to replace the Zhou Dynasty, unify the world, and establish a new dynasty. The very first sentence of the first anecdote of the Zhanguo ce reflects this situation: “Qin raised troops, approached Zhou, and demanded the Nine Cauldrons.” The Nine Cauldrons were the symbol of power of the royal house of Zhou. To prevent Qin from seizing the cauldrons, the Lord of Zhou asked Qi for help by promising to give the cauldrons to Qi. In the end, Qin withdrew its troops, but when Qi demanded the promised cauldrons, the envoy of Zhou broke the promise and basically told a lie to convince the king of Qi that it was an impossible task because they were too heavy—90,000 men were needed to transport a single cauldron (Crump, Chan-kuo ts’e, 66–67)! Zuozhuan [The Zuo Commentary] recorded a story in which King Zhuang of Chu expressed a similar ambition during the 316

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Spring and Autumn period.7 However, there are crucial differences between these two stories. (1) In the Zhanguo ce story, Qin rudely and straightforwardly demanded the cauldrons; by contrast, in the Zuozhuan story, the King of Chu tried to express his desire in a polite and tactful way: instead of demanding the cauldrons, he simply asked how much the cauldrons weighed. (2) In the Zhanguo ce, the envoy of Zhou spoke in a very humble manner, whereas in the Zuozhuan, the envoy of Zhou spoke in a more confident and condescending manner. He lectured the king of Chu, stating that Zhou still had the Mandate of Heaven and that it was not permissible to ask about the weight of the cauldrons. (3) In the Zuozhuan, the envoy of Zhou claimed that the power of Zhou relied on virtue rather than the cauldrons; however, in the story of Zhanguo ce, virtue was no longer mentioned, instead, the envoy solved the problem by means of breaking a promise and telling a lie. This story not only signifies that Qin was about to replace Zhou but also set the general tone of the book: leaders of the states would no longer rely on virtue; rather, they would use deception and treacherous schemes to survive in the constant warfare.

The Success Story of Su Qin and Strategists of the Vertical and Horizontal Alliances As Crump points out, almost synonymous with Zhanguo ce are the legendary “Vertical and Horizontal Alliance” (Crump, Legends of the Warring States, 8). The rise and flourishing of the movement of Vertical and Horizontal Alliances in the Warring Sates period was mainly due to two reasons: (1) the six states to the east of Qin were threatened by the increasingly powerful and menacing state of Qin, and, in order to prevent Qin’s invasion, they had to form the Vertical Alliance (from north to south) to block Qin’s aggressive advance. (2) For the state of Qin, in order to conquer the six states and unify the world, it was necessary to form the Horizontal Alliance (from west to east) with one of the six states in order to achieve the goal of breaking up the alliance. In the meantime, the old social hierarchy was breaking down. A man of any background, if he were talented (and lucky), could rise to power quickly. Such was the situation in the Warring States and the subsequent Chu-Han era, and in the end for the first time in Chinese history, a commoner, Liu Bang, was transformed into the ruler of the empire (Crump, “Chan-kuo ts’e and Its Fiction,” 317). Su Qin, the brilliant rags-to-riches leader of the Chinese states, was the chief exponent of the Vertical Alliance. The legend of Su Qin was a dramatized and idealized account intended to show what amazing achievement a persuader/strategist could obtain. Su Qin came from a humble origin and lost all his money in his first attempt to advise a ruler, but he overcame difficulties, studied hard, and, in the end, became the MVP of the empire: “He travelled throughout China giving advice to the kings of feudal states in their courts, silencing the mouths of their courtiers. He became peerless in the world.” At the end of the story, Su Qin made a general comment on his life: “Alas, in poverty my parents would not own me; yet in wealth and rank my whole family stands in awe and fear of me. Then can any man born on earth neglect power and despise wealth?”8 Su Qin’s comment reflects a general trend of the time; that is, traditional family values were no longer esteemed; instead, people only cared about wealth and power. Watson noted that many anecdotes in the Zhanguo ce are characterized by “extreme cynicism, unscrupulousness, and lack of concern for anything but motive of self-interest,” which reflected the age of political disturbance, constant fights which led up to Qin’s conquering of the six states and unification of China (82). Crump notes that there is a peculiar Chinese persuader’s trope in the Zhanguo ce: “Confucian ideals of filial piety and ‘righteousness’ are ways to protect one’s own good name, but do not serve the ruler’s advantage” (Legends of the Warring States, 7). 317

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In his discussion of the general trend of the Warring States, Sima Qian made the following comment: The primary task [of each state] is to strengthen military power and annex the territory of other states, thus schemes and deceptions have been widely used, and the theory of vertical and horizontal alliances has emerged. Various lies and scams have surged out, and vows and agreements have no sincerity. (685) According to a number of accounts in the Zhanguo ce, Qin was able to conquer the other six states not only through military strength but also by means of using schemes and deception. For example, when Qin was attacked by the joint force of Chu and Qi, Zhang Yi, the chief advocate of the Horizontal Alliance, promised to give Chu a large piece of territory if the latter could break off its alliance with Qi. Chu did break with Qi, but Qin broke its promise, attacked Chu, and took a large portion of Chu territory (Crump, Chan-kuo ts’e, 93–94). In another anecdote, Dun Ruo asked the King of Qin (and the would-be first emperor) to give him ten thousand gold units. With this huge amount of money, he embarked on a spying mission, bribing the ministers and generals in Han and Wei, causing the King of Zhao to kill his most competent general, Li Mu, and enticing the King of Qi to enter Qin territory (only to be imprisoned there). The author of this anecdote commented at the end: “The four states surrendered to Qin all because of Dun Ruo’s persuasions.”9 The anecdote about Gan Luo is astonishing. As a twelve-year-old pageboy, he was able to help Qin gain a dozen cities without a fight through a treacherous scheme (Crump, Chan-kuo ts’e, 153–154). No wonder Sima Qian made a comment: Gan Luo was young. However, he used an extraordinary scheme and his fame reached later generations. Although he was not a gentleman of moral integrity, he belonged to the strategists of the Warring States. When Qin was powerful, people in the world were especially fond of using schemes and deceptions. (2321)

Diverse Nature and Art of Persuasive Speech Although many anecdotes in the Zhanguo ce follow a typical format (a clever persuader gives a splendid speech to a ruler, mainly discussing how to deal with other states by using strategies such as vertical and horizontal alliances), there are other stories which do not fall into this category. As Watson observed, in some cases we find a man not offering advice but attempting to talk his way out of a difficult situation or someone trying to maneuver the downfall of a rival. But whatever the form, the emphasis is always on clever words and clever schemes (Watson, 81). For example, in one anecdote, the Queen of Chu was jealous of a beautiful girl who was loved by the king, so she designed a clever but vicious scheme; as a result, the king cut off the nose of that beauty (Crump, Chan-kuo ts’e, 248)! To a certain extent the stories of Zhanguo ce were concerned with both relationships among states and relationships among individuals. In other words, they were about “warring states,” but at the same time they were also about “warring individuals.” It is also noteworthy that there was a distinctive group of anecdotes telling the stories of famous assassins, notably Yu Rang (Crump, Chan-kuo ts’e, 279), Nie Zheng (Crump, Chan-kuo ts’e, 423–426), and Jing Ke (Crump, Chan-kuo ts’e, 503–511). Unlike the persuaders/strategists discussed previously, they are action heroes. They do not need clever speeches or clever schemes to

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persuade a ruler, nor do they lust for wealth, power, and fame. Here, the emphasis is on such traditional values such as loyalty, filial piety, righteousness, courage, and a sense of honor. They were the earliest examples of Chinese martial-arts heroes. Unlike Greece, political rhetoric in ancient China is not represented by an orator before an assembly or a citizen addressing other citizens; rather, it usually involves a dialogue between persuader and ruler. But political persuasion in the Warring States was a highly risky and often deadly game. Thus, it is crucial for a persuader to have the skill to make his speech in such a way that it will please the ruler and avert his hostility (Graziani, 43–44). Several devices were developed to make the persuasive speech more eloquent and appealing: 1. Reference to an historical event. 2. Introducing vivid, interesting stories, including fables and allegorical stories. Many famous Chinese idioms derive from these stories. 3. Injecting a quotation from the Classics or a homely proverb, ballad, or children’s song. 4. Use of rhythmical phrases, parallelism, rhyme, and trope. 5. Use of antithesis (or chiasm), parisosis (or symmetry of units), consonance verging on rhyme; use of topoi or loci communes (commonplaces), such as apothegm, induction, dilemma, enthymeme of comparison (Goldin, 82–86). 6. Use of amplification, exaggeration, and fictitious accounts. 7. Use of elaborate, polished, and resplendent language.

Influence on Literature of Later Ages The prose of the Zhanguo ce had a huge influence on the development of Han era fu (Crump, Intrigues, 76). Many famous anecdotes from Zhanguo ce have been incorporated into important anthologies of guwen (ancient prose).10 It is believed that Su Xun (1009–1066), one of the “Eight Great Prose Masters,” was greatly influenced by the style of the Zhanguo ce. Zheng Zhenduo (1898–1958), a modern literary historian, made the following comments: The era of the Zhanguo ce was a new age, the old world had been completely overturned and destroyed. Its arguments are unprecedented, nimble of wit, full of wonderful cunning and daring. Action is courageous, unconventional. . . . It is like a medieval European romance or a historical novel such as . . . the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and will ever be a delight to its readers.11 Truly, in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms as well as Water Margin, it was often mentioned that a wise man tried to overcome his enemy through his glib tongue, literally, “three inches of un-rotten tongue.” Zhuge Liang, the greatest strategist of the Three Kingdoms era, once even used his glib tongue to scold his enemy to death. They are the successors of the clever talkers of the Warring States.

Notes 1 Sima Qian, Shiji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982), 3300. 2 Ban Gu, Han shu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), 2737. 3 Wang Chong, Lun heng, Sibu beiyao, edition (Taibei: Zhonghua shuju, 1965), 29. 11a. 4 Sima Qian, Shiji, 686.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 5 Translation based on James I. Crump, “The Chan-kuo ts’e and Its Fiction,” T’oung Pao 48 (1960): 323; slightly revised. 6 Translation based on Paul G. Goldin, “Rhetoric and Machination in Stratagems of the Warring States,” in After Confucius: Studies in Early Chinese Philosophy (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005), 89; slightly revised. 7 Yang Bojun, Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu [Annotated Zuo Commentary] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju), 669–72. 8 Translation based on Crump, Chan-kuo ts’e, rev. ed. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 85, slightly revised. 9 Crump, Chan-kuo ts’e, 155–56; translation revised. 10 Crump has compiled a list of items from the Zhanguo ce incorporated in important Chinese anthologies and in French and English translations (Crump, Intrigues: Studies of the Chan-kuo Ts’e [Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1964], 147–50). 11 Translation based on Crump, Intrigues, 4, 44, slightly revised.

Further Reading Bodde, Derk. “Zuozhuan yu Guoyu” [The Zuo Commentary and the Discourse of States]. Yanjing xuebao, no. 16 (1934). Boltz, William. “Notes on the Textual Relation Between the ‘Kuo yü’ and the ‘Tso chuan.’” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 53, no. 3 (1990): 491–502. Chen Tongsheng, trans. Guoyu [Discourse of States, annotation, and translation of the text from Classical Chinese to Modern Vernacular Chinese]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2013. Crump, James I. “The Chan-kuo ts’e and Its Fiction.” T’oung Pao 48 (1960): 305–75. Crump, James I. Chan-kuo ts’e, Revised Edition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. Crump, James I. Intrigues: Studies of the Chan-kuo Ts’e. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1964. Crump, James I. Legends of the Warring States. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1998. Goldin, Paul G. “Rhetoric and Machination in Stratagems of the Warring States.” In After Confucius: Studies in Early Chinese Philosophy, 76–89. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005. Graziani, Romain. “Rhetoric That Kills, Rhetoric That Heals.” Extreme-Orient, Extreme-Occident 34 (2012): 41–77. Hart, James. “The Philosophy of the Chou Yü.” PhD diss., University of Washington, 1973. He Jianzhang. Zhanguo ce zhushi [Annotation of the Stratagems of the Warring States]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1990. He Jin. Zhanguo ce yanjiu [Study of the Stratagems of the Warring States]. Beijing: Beijing University Press, 2001. Imber, Alan. “Kuo yü, an Early Chinese Text and Its Relationship with the Tso chuan.” PhD diss., Stockholm University, 1975. Karlgren, Bernhard. “On the Authenticity and Nature of the Tso Chuan.” Gøteborgs högskolas årsskrift 32, no. 3 (1962): 3–65. Knechtges, D. R., and T. P. Chang, eds. Ancient Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide, Part One. Leiden and Boston: Koninklizke Brill, 2010. Lei Yang. “From Evil Women to Dissolute Rulers: Changes in Gender Representation Across the Zuozhuan, Guoyu, and Shiji.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (JRAS), Series 3, 30, 4 (2020): 721–36. Pei Dengfeng. Guoyu yanjiu [Study of the Discourse of States]. Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2016. Pei Dengfeng. Zhanguo ce yanjiu [Study of the Stratagems of the Warring States]. Beijing: Social Science Press, 2012. Sargent, Howard W. “A Preliminary Study of the Kuo yü.” Unpublished PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1975. Schaberg, David. A Patterned Past: Form and Thought in Early Chinese Historiography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Tan Jiajian. “Shi lun Guoyu de wenxue jiazhi” [On the Literary Value of the Discourse of States]. Jiang Huai luntan 6 (1983). Tharsen, Jeffery R. “Comparative Phonorhetorical Analyses of Speeches in the Zuo Commentary and the Discourses of the States.” The Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 6, no. 2 (2019): 275–330. Watson, Burton. Early Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962.

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Discourse of States and Stratagems of the Warring States Zhang He. Guoyu yanjiu [Study of the Discourse of States]. Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2013. Zhang Yiren. “Lun Guoyu yu Zuozhuan de guanxi [On the Relationship between the Zuo Commentary and the Discourse of States].” In Zhang Yiren xianqin shi lunji [Collection of Zhang Yiren’s Essays on Pre-Qin History], 1–72. Shanghai: Guji chubanshe, 2010.

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26 THE GRAND SCRIBE’S RECORDS William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

Sima Qian’s Shiji, or The Grand Scribe’s Records, is the first comprehensive history of ancient China, which covers the history from the legendary Five Emperors to the author’s own time, the Western Han, and provides a model/pattern for the later official dynastic histories. The Shiji is also considered one of the major literary achievements of the Han dynasty and one of the most important texts in Chinese, having had a tremendous influence on almost every aspect of Chinese culture.

Title The title Shiji has been rendered by Western scholars in a number of variations, including Les Mémoires historiques (Chavannes 1895–1905), Records of the Grand Historian (Watson 1993), Grand Scribe’s Records (Nienhauser 1994), and Aufzeichnungen der Chronisten (van Ess 2014). Translating the title is complicated, because the work was originally titled Taishigong shu (Sima Qian 2014, 130.4027)1 but was also referred to in Han times as Taishigong ji (Ban Gu 1962, 66.2889) or simply Taishigong (in the bibliographic treatise of the Ban Gu 1962, 30.1714), suggesting that the main author, Sima Qian (145–ca. 86 B.C.), left his autographs without a fixed title. The abbreviated title Shiji has been applied to the work only since A.D. 155 (Han Zhaoqi 1990, 31); Satō (1999, 480–83) argues it was used only from ca. 170. The understanding of any of the three original titles is also dependent on an understanding of what Taishigong 太史公 means. Taishiling was the title held by Sima Tan (d. 110 B.C.) and then by his son, Sima Qian. What the gong signifies has elicited a number of theories. Huan Tan (ca. 43 B.C.–A.D. 28) argued that this was Sima Qian’s respectful address for his father, Sima Tan, and should be understood as “his honor” (Sima Qian 2014, 4028). But Sima Qian himself is referred to as Taishigong in the Shiji. Wei Zhao (204–273; Sima Qian 2014, 12.587) also sees this as a respectful title but believes it was used by Sima Qian’s grandson, Yang Yun (d. 45 B.C.), to refer to both Sima Qian and his father. Zhang Shoujie (fl. 736), the author of the “Zheng yi” commentary, argues that gong is a respectful suffix for all officials connected with astrology; thus Sima Qian could employ it both for himself and his father, as he seems to have done (Sima Qian 2014, 1.54 and 12.588). Considering the occurrences of the expression in the texts we have today, none of these explanations is without problems. It may be that gong was originally used only to refer to DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-36 

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Sima Tan, but later copyists added it as well for mentions of Sima Qian. But Wei Zhao’s suggestion that Yang Yun added the epithet gong to refer to his grandfather, Sima Qian, may come closest to resolving the questions of both the reference to the Simas, father and son, and the full title of the text, since gong could then be translated as “his honor” or “the honorable.” Shi 史 is also a problematic term. In the Zhou dynasty, shi performed several functions, but marking and calculating seem to have been basic activities.2 Historically the Shiji itself records the activities of shi and taishi in pre-Qin times to include supervising sacrifices, interpreting natural disasters, reading changes in the heavens, copying down dreams, and recording assassinations (Fujita 2015, 76). These duties evolved over time.3 Nevertheless, since Sima Qian’s responsibilities seem to have included participating in sacrifices, making calendrical calculations, interpreting astronomical events, and preserving maps and texts, the translation as grand archivist or grand astrologer-archivist may be the best alternative (Nylan 1998–1999, 211, n. 30), or even grand astrologer-chronicler (van Ess 2014, 10–11). Taishigong would then be the honorable grand astrologer-chronicler. The final word of the original title, shu, means “documents” or simply something written on bamboo or silk (Shuowen). Thus Taishigong ji would be The Documents of the Honorable Grand Astrologer-Chronicler (van Ess 2014, 11–12). Qian Daxin (1728–1804; Ershier shi kaoyi [Taibei: Zhongwen Chubanshe, 1980], 96) maintains that although Sima Qian states his intention was to continue the tradition of the Chunqiu, he humbly called his book a shu. But Sima Zhen (679–732) glosses shu as “a general term for the five classics or six classical books.” Whatever significance the original title had, Sima Qian’s book was referred to as Taishigong ji (in Yang Yun’s biography, Ban Gu 1962, 66.2889), as Taishi ji in Fengsu tongyi [The Comprehensive Discussion of Customs], and as Taishigong ji and Shiji in Baopuzi [The Master of Embracing Simplicity], the change to the shorter title Shiji beginning, as noted above, after A.D. 155. Thus it seems that Shiji, the title by which the work has been known since the Later Han dynasty, was an abbreviation of Taishigong ji. Accordingly, the modern title of Sima Qian’s great work, Shiji, might be rendered Records of the Astrologer-Chronicler. However, given the possibility that this new title reflected the recognition of Sima Qian as someone who primarily copied out documents to construct his history (thus in keeping with his claim that he was transmitting, shu 述, his writings rather than creating, zuo作, them), the title Records of the [Grand] Scribe might still be both tenable and practical.

Contents The Shiji originally contained 526,500 characters, a text three times as large as any before it. Its 130 chapters trace China’s history from its mythical origins to about 100 B.C. The chapters are arranged in six sections: the benji (basic annals), biao (tables), shu (treatises), shijia (hereditary houses), liezhuan (arranged [biographical] traditions, and a final autobiographical postface (zixu) in which Sima Qian introduces his family and his work. Most chapters are followed by an evaluation of or comment on the chapter’s focus (some chapters are preceded by these judgments). Readings of the overall meaning of the text have variously been labeled: (1) romantic, which sees Sima Qian exploring characters and events from earlier times that echo those in his own life, a creative response to personal suffering (Durrant 1995); (2) historiographic, which attempts to validate the text of the Shiji with reference to actual historical events (Liang Yusheng [1745–1819] 1981); and (3) satirical, which understands the Shiji to offer criticism of Emperor Wu and his policies (van Ess 2014). The twelve basic annals are divided between chapters on dynasties—Xia, Shang, Zhou, and Qin—and those recording the events of more recent rulers, from the First Emperor of the Qin 323

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through Emperor Wu of the Han (r. 141–87 B.C.), whom the Simas served. Sima Qian also grants annals to the ruler of the Qin-Han interregnum, Xiang Yu, the dynamic general and self-appointed “King of Chu” who led the uprising that resulted in the overthrow of the Qin. Each of the annals is an admixture of chronological accounts of events together with anecdotes related to the major figures. Following the annals are ten tables, most of which primarily record year by year first the events in the various feudal states of the Zhou dynasty and then those of the Han-dynasty nobility (there are also monthly tables of the events of the Qin–Han interregnum and a genealogical table of the earliest three eras). Chapters 23–30 are eight treatises on topics such as ritual, music, the pitch-pipes, the calendar, the heavens, the feng and shan sacrifices, the Yellow River and its canals, and the balanced standards. These chapters are by no means standardized, however. The first two begin with Sima Qian’s explanation of ritual and music. Like most of the later treatises, they trace the history of their subject through Sima Qian’s era. But the treatise on ritual relies heavily on passages borrowed from the Xunzi, and that on music features long narratives depicting conversations between Confucius or his disciple Zixia explaining the difference between old and new music, passages that are identical to those in the “Yue ji” and the Hanfeizi. As a result, both chapters are thought by many scholars to have been composed by a later hand. Chapter 25 treats the pitch pipes; 26 the calendar; 27 the firmament; 28 the feng and shan sacrifices (much of this chapter occurs verbatim in basic annals of Emperor Wu); 29 the waterways; and 30, the “Pingzhun shu,” literally the “balanced standard,” is an account of how this balance between farmers and merchants was lost during the Emperor Wu’s reign, resulting in devastating currency fluctuations; it also incorporates the biography of a man who attempted to countermand these policies, Bu Shi 卜式. Following the eight treatises come accounts of thirty hereditary houses, which Sima Qian (2014, 130.4027) intended to contain records of the “top-level ministers, the arms and legs of the ruler” who as “thirty spokes share a single hub, revolve about him without end . . . loyal and trustworthy in carrying out the Way and thereby serving the ruler.” The first sixteen hereditary houses (chapters 31–46) contain accounts of the dominant feudal families of the pre-Qin era. In form they differ little from the basic annals, alternating chronological notations with anecdotes. Like the basic annals, they are based closely on earlier sources such as the Zuozhuan [The Zuo Commentary], Guoyu [Discourse of States], and Zhanguo ce [Stratagems of the Warring States]. Chapter 47, however, is devoted to Confucius; it ends with a genealogy of his descendants, evidence that his “house” also endured. Chapter 48 depicts the brief life of Chen She, who, although he was killed in the uprisings against Qin, left a legacy through the various men he set up or inspired in the rebellious atmosphere of the late third century B.C. After a hereditary house devoted to the maternal relatives of the emperors, Sima Qian offers the lives of the statesmen and generals who were enfeoffed at the start of the Han dynasty, followed by those of the men who impacted the history of that dynasty through Sima Qian’s own lifetime. The fifth section of the Shiji contains the “arranged traditions,” which presented the biographies of those who “upheld righteousness, masterful and preeminent, not allowing themselves to miss their opportunities, and established a reputation of merit in the empire” (Sima Qian 2014, 130.4027), beginning with an introductory chapter that treats the story of Bo Yi and Shu Qi, two ancient worthies whom Confucius praised for their loyalty to the Zhou dynasty, and moving in a roughly chronological fashion down to Han times, including the lives of more than 130 individuals. Almost half of these biographies contain parallel lives, and eight are leizhuan, collective biographies treating groups such as the assassins (cike), the reasonable officials (xunli) and their harsh counterparts (kuli), the wandering knights, and the rhetoricians (guji). Six deal with the states, regions, and peoples bordering the Han empire. The sixth and final “section” is the last chapter of the Shiji, an autobiography of sorts, which begins with the Sima Clan’s ancestry, depicts 324

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Sima Tan’s background and thought, records Sima Qian’s life and travels, and finally presents the reasons for compiling each chapter in this massive history. It is these chapters which have had the most influence on later Chinese writing, both historical and literary. The authenticity of a number of the chapters has been questioned, based originally on Ban Gu’s (32–92) claim that the text of ten chapters had been lost, with only their titles remaining (Ban Gu 1962, 30.1713 and 62.2724). One of those ten was the basic annals of Emperor Wu of the Han; some scholars believe that Sima Qian’s criticism of the emperor led to his castration (see discussion in the following). Four of these chapters were supposedly supplemented by Master Chu, that is, Chu Shaosun (fl. 30 B.C.).4 Although we cannot be certain what materials his father had already compiled, scholars have pointed to several chapters that seem to exhibit Sima Tan’s hand (see van Ess 2015). The basic annals and hereditary houses are based on early sources such as the Shangshu ([Book of Documents), Zuozhuan, and Guoyu, which Sima Qian edited to fit his requirements. “That which I have called ‘transmitting old events’ was ordering and unifying [various accounts of] what they handed down through the generations; it is not that which has been called ‘composing’” (Sima Qian 2014, 130.4006). Having traversed much of the Han empire in his youth, he also employed oral traditions that he had heard during his travels. It is also possible that he recorded events that were told to him by his elders and his teachers. The lengthy account of Lord Wen of Jin (r. 636–628 B.C.) seems to have been a unique narrative inserted whole into what was otherwise largely a chronological account of Jin history (see Nienhauser 2006, 321–42 and 371–73).

Literary Achievements Although the Shiji is a historical work, its lively style of writing has made it a literary monument. The following is a passage from “Xiang Yu, Basic Annals 7”: King Xiang’s army fortified their camp at Gaixia, but with his troops diminished and his food exhausted. [The king of] Han and the various [other] lords surrounded them with several rings of troops. After dark they heard the Han army on all four sides singing Chu songs. King Xiang was alarmed and said, “Has Han already secured Chu? Why is it that there are so many men of Chu out there?” He thus got up at night and drank in the tent. He had a Fine Lady, Yu, whom he favored and who always kept him company, and a steed, named Piebald, which he always rode. At this, King Xiang, in a mood both tragic and indignant, composed a song: My strength uplifted a mountain. My vigor shadowed the world, But the times do not favor me, and Piebald cannot gallop fast enough, And what can I do about it? Oh, Yu, Oh, Yu! What can I do about you? He sang it several times and the Fine Lady sang with him. Tears streamed down King Xiang’s cheeks and his attendants all wept; no one could lift his head.5 Depictions like this had a heavy influence on later historical texts, prose, and classical fiction. But it was in both constructing and shaping narratives—sometimes borrowed from earlier texts—that 325

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Sima Qian excelled. His agonizing accounts of the assassin’s Yu Rang’s attempts to avenge his lord, or the moving story of Jing Ke’s fatal mission to Qin to kill the first emperor, are known to most students of Chinese history. The Grand Scribe’s use of anecdote to characterize subjects is evident in biographies such as that of the Han-dynasty general Han Xin (d. 196 BCE) or the influential minister Yan Ying (d. 500 BCE; in Yan Ying’s case the entire biography consists of two short sketches that Sima calls “neglected” or “lost” stories, yishi). Indeed, Sima Qian’s biographies were the first of this genre and provided models for both official and unofficial writings, including the tales composed by Tang writers and especially the pseudo-biographies of Liu Zongyuan (773–819), Han Yu (768–824), some of their followers, and many other “Tang-tale” authors, which in turn provided plots for numerous dramatic works. In addition, over 800 stories in the Shiji have been transformed into well-known sententiae or proverbial sayings, such as “Mao Sui Recommending Himself” (Mao Sui zijian 毛遂自薦), used when a person offers to take on a difficult task.

Origin, Dating, and Authorship As Sima Tan lay on his deathbed in 110 B.C., he appealed to his son Sima Qian to remember what he had wanted to do, namely to set forth a record of the “achievements of meritorious ministers, hereditary houses, worthy grand masters” (Sima Qian 2014, 130.4005). Based on his travels, his studies, and his readings in the historical records of the feudal states and the various books that had been collected in the imperial library, Sima Qian then began to compose the Shiji, using whatever drafts his father may have prepared.6 His work may have begun shortly after his father’s death. He was appointed to succeed his father as Taishiling in 108 B.C. but was soon assigned to work on a new calendar to replace that of the Xia dynasty then in use. The calendar was completed in 104 B.C.,7 and the next five years (103–99 B.C.) are thought to have been the period when Sima Qian worked intensively on his history. In 99 B.C., when the general Li Ling (d. 74 B.C.) surrendered to the Xiongnu, Sima Qian defended him against those who were calling for a death sentence. Perhaps Sima Qian used this opportunity to press his opposition to the costly military campaigns of the past three decades. In any case, when Li Ling was condemned the following year, Sima Qian was implicated in the case, imprisoned, and given the death penalty. The sentence could be avoided by paying a huge fine or by suffering castration. Unable to purchase his freedom, Sima Qian submitted himself to castration, a punishment so base that he considered there was no greater disgrace.8 After his release from prison, he was made prefect of Palace Writers (Zhongshu ling), essentially a personal secretary for the emperor handling documents submitted to the emperor and aiding in his responses. Little is known of his last years, but he must have had time to complete or revise chapters of the Shiji. Most of the chapters dealing with the campaigns to expand the empire through military force reveal Sima Qian’s clear opposition to such policies. Some scholars believe that this criticism was actually the reason he fell out of favor and received such a harsh punishment. Others have argued that it was after his punishment that his accounts of contemporary events that involved Emperor Wu’s policies began to be more critical and sarcastic.9 He died around the time of Emperor Wu’s death in 87 B.C. In his own words: [my father] and I had gathered and brought together the old traditions of the world which were scattered and lost . . . studied the actions and events [in them], investigated the principles behind success and failure, rise and decay, in 130 chapters, intending thereby to examine the boundary

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between heaven and men and to comprehend the reasons for political changes from ancient times down to modern, completing [a work that contained] the opinions of a single family.10 In the “Postface” (Taishigong zixu) Sima Qian gives an account of what the goals of his history were: Then the Han arose and after Xiao He put in order the laws and ordinances, Han Xin set forth the rules of warfare, Zhang Cang made the regulations and standards, and Shusun Tong stabilized the rites and ceremonies, refined scholars of textual learning began to be presented [to the emperor] and the Odes and Documents gradually reappeared. From the time when Cao Can recommended Master Gai’s teachings of the Yellow Emperor and Laozi, when Master Jia [Yi] and Chao Cuo elucidated the doctrines of [the Legalists] Shen [Buhai] and [Lord] Shang, and Gongsun Hong achieved eminence for his classical learning, in the space of one hundred years, the writings that were passed down and the records of old affairs were without exception all collected by the Grand Scribes. The Grand Scribes, father and son, each in turn held and carried on this position.11 This description argues that the Simas’ work would bring the same order to history of both the “old traditions of the world” and “the political changes from ancient times down to modern” that Xiao He, Han Xin, and others had provided in their areas of expertise. There may also be meaning to be found in his arrangement of the chapters, as Hans van Ess has recently argued.12 The question of whether Sima Qian completed the Shiji before his death has also been debated, although Sima Qian says that he finished the work in 526,500 characters and left two versions of the text: the original “concealed at a famous mountain” and a copy in the capital.13

Editions Such questions lead to the discussion of how the text of the Shiji evolved. From the time Sima Qian left the two copies of his Taishigong shu, textual complexity began.14 Regardless of whether Sima Qian himself made both copies of his history or other hands assisted in writing out over 1 million Chinese characters, copying errors must have been made, resulting in two distinct autographs. It is thus possible there are two equally distinct textual histories of the Shiji, at least during the Han dynasty. Ban Gu offers a starting point for this discussion at the end of his biography of Sima Qian: After Qian died, his book15 came gradually to be known. During the time of Emperor Xuan (r. 73–49 B.C.), Qian’s maternal grandson, Yang Yun (d. 54 B.C.), the Marquis of Pingtong, reverently transmitted his [grandfather’s] book, and it finally was promulgated from this.16 There are indications that the Shiji often circulated chapter by chapter. It would have been a bulky text, even if copied onto silk. Ban Gu also notes that ten chapters of the Shiji had only titles, the text having been lost.17 Yet the Ban family seem to have had the entire text at some time, leading scholars since the Song dynasty to believe Ban Gu may have been referring to a partial copy in the imperial library, not the complete copy his family owned (van Ess 2014, 7). A. F. P. Hulsewé (following Cui Shi’s [1852–1924] Shiji tanyuan [Exploring the Sources of the Grand Scribe’s Records]) and other scholars have suggested that some Shiji chapters dealing with the Han era were lost and subsequently reconstructed based on the Han shu parallels, but recent studies have not supported this theory. Liu Zhiji (661–721) named fifteen scholars who were supposed to have added texts to the 327

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Shiji, but only the supplements by Chu Shaosun are clearly marked in the text. Zhang Fu (fl. 300) had a text of 500,000 characters.18 By the time of the early commentator Xu Guang (352–425), various manuscripts were circulating (Nienhauser 2011, 477, n. 69). Xu’s notes are included in Pei Yin’s (fl. 430) Shiji jijie (Collected Explanations on the Grand Scribe’s Records), the first of the three major commentaries. The earliest copies of the text are the partial manuscripts preserved in Japan and the portions of several chapters discovered in the Dunhuang caves, both dated to the Tang dynasty.19 The other two standard commentaries, the Shiji Suoyin (Searching for the Obscure in the Grand Scribe’s Records) and the Shiji Zhengyi (Rectifying the Meaning of the Grand Scribe’s Records), were also written in the Tang (early eighth century) by Sima Zhen and Zhang Shoujie, respectively. Sima Zhen focused on identifying allusions in the text and correcting some of Pei Yin’s comments; Zhang Shoujie’s notes primarily concern early place names and their locations. The first complete extant printed editions of the text were prepared during the Northern Song dynasty. Although some earlier versions of the three-commentaries texts contained only brief citations of the original Shiji text followed by relevant comments, it became common practice in the Song to include the three traditional commentaries with the entire original text. The most important Song editions include (1) that edited by Huang Shanfu (1196) and printed as part of the Baina (Hundred Patches) edition of the Twenty-four Histories and (2) the Bei Song Jingyou [Guozi] Jian (Northern Song College of the Sons of State) edition (1035). Three other traditional editions are significant: (1) Ling Zhilong's (fl. 1576–1587) Shiji pinglin (Forest of Comments on the Records of the [Grand] Scribe; supplemented by Li Guangjin [1549–1623]), published in 1576; (2) the Shiji edition published by the Wuying Dian (Imperial Printing Office) in 1739; and (3) the Jinling Shuju Shiji published in 1867. The Shiji pinglin is the only traditional edition to include substantial comments (in meipi or scholia added at the top of each page), primarily by Ming-dynasty scholars, in addition to those of the three traditional exegeses. The Jinling Shuju edition was intended to be the critical edition to replace all early texts. The project had been initiated in 1864 by Zeng Guofan (1811–1872) to replace texts that had been lost in the Taiping Rebellion. The editor responsible for the new Shiji, Zhang Wenhu (1808–1885), based his text in large part on the Ming edition (1525–1527) edited by Wang Yanzhe (1483–1541; Nienhauser 2002, xxxiii–xlvii). Zhang’s emendations were based in part on a number of other editions he actually examined, but he also took into account collation notes by Qian Taiji (1791–1863) concerning editions not available to him.20 Moreover, he often suggested a preferred reading based solely on Liang Yusheng’s comments in the Shiji zhiyi (Recording Doubts in the Grand Scribe’s Records).21 Despite Zhang’s extensive collation of texts, he did not have access to either the Baina edition (which was edited by Zhang Yuanji [1867–1959] only in 1936) or the Jingyou editions. Zhang’s work has had a great impact on modern studies of the Shiji because it became the base text for the Zhonghua Shuju edition of the Shiji (10 vols., Beijing, 1959), now the most commonly used edition.22 In 2013 a team of scholars at Nanking Shifan Daxue under the direction of Zhao Shengqun compiled a new ten-volume critical edition (also published by Zhonghua) that adds collational notes on editions and commentaries not considered in the original 1959 edition.23 In 2014 a paperback edition of the 2013 text followed adding a number of textual notes, without notation or explanation of the changes in the front-matter, thereby causing the pagination to differ from the 2013 text (the 2014 contains 4,034 pages instead of the 4,006 of the 2013 text). Thus this paperback version should be the basis of future scholarly work. However, because at present the widely used e-texts and indexes of the Shiji are keyed to the 1959 edition, that will remain the base text for Nienhauser’s translation (see subsequently). The scholarly apparatus to Takigawa’s edition is also important since it collects passages of traditional commentaries that are not found in any of the Zhonghua editions as well as comparisons to several other texts. 328

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Studies, Translations, and Reference Works An important collection of studies of the Shiji can be found in the fourteen-volume set titled Shiji yanjiu jicheng [A Comprehensive Collection of Studies of the Grand Scribe’s Records] (Beijing: Huawen Chubanshe, 2005). In addition to the works included there, Liang Yusheng’s Shiji zhiyi and Wang Niansun’s (1744–1817) Shiji zazhi [Miscellaneous Notes on the Grand Scribe’s Records] are important traditional commentaries. Wang Shumin (1982), Shiji jiaozheng [Collation of the Text of the Grand Scribe’s Records], is an important source of parallel texts. Fujita Katsuhisa's (2008, 2011, 2015) recent books are essential to Shiji studies—his volume on Zhanguo sources is also available in Chinese translation. In English the major studies are Burton Watson’s Ssu-ma Ch’ien (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), still one of the best introductions to the text in English; Grant Hardy’s Worlds of Bronze and Bamboo: Sima Qian’s Conquest of History (1999); and Stephen Durrant’s The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and Conflict in the Writings of Sima Qian (1995). Two conference volumes are also significant: Views from Within, Views from Beyond: Approaches to the Shiji as an Early Work of Historiography, edited by Hans van Ess et al. (2015), and The Letter to Ren An and Sima Qian’s Legacy by Durrant, Wai-yee Li, Michael Nylan, and van Ess which not only explores this important document from a variety of approaches but offers a number of interesting observations on Sima Qian (Durrant, 2016). Van Ess’s recent two-volume Politik und Geschichtsschreibung im alten China, Pan-ma i-t’ung (The Similarities and Differences between Ban Gu and Sima Qian, 2014) promises to a definitive study of Sima Qian, Ban Gu and their histories. There are four major Western-language translations of the Shiji: Edouard Chavannes (1895–1905), Burton Watson (1993), R. Viatkin (1974–2002), and Nienhauser (1994–ongoing). Chavannes’ rendition is an excellent translation of the first fifty-two chapters, with detailed information on parallel texts and some still-useful notes. Watson’s version is the most readable text, but, to avoid footnoting, it paraphrases some difficult passages and has not benefitted from recent studies. Viatkin’s translation is the only complete Western-language version. Nienhauser has enlisted several teams of translators in an attempt to provide the first scholarly rendition of the text, and thus the quality of the chapters translated so far varies. The numerous footnotes and translator’s notes following each chapter offer much of interest to scholars working on the Shiji. In addition, there are three useful baihua translations: that attributed to Wang Liqi (1988) but done under the organization of his former Peking University students, the version edited by Wu and Lü (Quanzhu Quanyi Shiji [Tianjin: Tianjin Guji Chubanshe], 1996), and the rendition by Yang Yanqi (2001). The best modern commentaries are Han Zhaoqi's (2009) nine-volume Shiji jianzheng [Annotation on the Grand Scribe’s Records] and Zhang Dake’s Shiji quanben xinzhu [New Annotation on the Entire Book of the Grand Scribe’s Records] (Xian: San Qin, 1990). Among the several Japanese versions, the fourteen-volume Japanese translation (Aoki Gorō et al., 1973–2014) of the Shiji, begun in the 1970s and completed in 2014, offers the most careful annotation and commentary. Major reference works include Cang Xiuliang (1991), ed., Shiji cidian [A Dictionary of the Grand Scribe’s Records] (Ji’nan: Shandong Jiaoyu); Shiji jiping [Collected Commentaries on the Grand Scribe’s Records] (v. 6 of the Shiji yanjiu jicheng), which collects comments by traditional scholars on the Shiji, arranged chapter by chapter (a reprint of Lidai mingjia ping Shiji [Commentaries on the Grand Scribe’s Records from Famous Scholars of Past Dynasties] (Beijing: Shifan Daxue, 1986); Mizusawa Toshitada (1957–1961), Shiki kaichū koshō fu kōhō [Collected Annotation and Textual Study of the Grand Scribe’s Records, with Supplementary Notes] (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 1986), the most thorough comparison of variants in different editions; and Xu Xinghai’s (1995) Sima Qian yu Shiji yanjiu lunzhu zhuanti suoyin [Topic Index of 329

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Research Works on Sima Qian and the Grand Scribe’s Records] (Xian: Shaanxi Renmin Jiaoyu). There are several indexes which can guide the reader to the first occurrence of place or personal names and thus often to glosses on such names in the three traditional commentaries: Ji Chao et al. (1990), Shiji diming suoyin [Index to the Place Names in the Grand Scribe’s Records] (Beijing: Zhonghua), and Wu Shuping, Shiji renmin suoyin [Index to the Personal Names in the Grand Scribe’s Records] (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1977). Two indexes explore the citation of other books in these commentaries: Cheng Jinzao (1998). Shiji “Suoyin” yinshu kaoshi [A Survey of Cited Books in the Suoyin Commentaries of the Grand Scribe’s Records], 2v. (Beijing: Zhonghua), and Duan Shuan (1982) Shiji Sanjiazhu yinshu suoyin [Index to the Cited Books in the “Commentaries of the Three Scholars” on the Grand Scribe’s Records] (Beijing: Zhonghua). Finally, Michael Loewe’s A Biographical Dictionary of the Qin, Former Han and Xin Periods (221 BC–AD 24) (Leiden: Brill, 2000), although not a study of the Shiji as such, provides meticulous summaries of Shiji accounts of men from the Qin and Han, along with references to the original texts and Han shu parallels.

Notes 1 The 2014 paperback edition has been slightly revised from the 2013 hardbound version. All references to the Shiji herein are to the 2014 edition. 2 Martin Kern, “Offices of Writing and Reading in the Rituals of Zhou,” in Statecraft and Classical Learning, ed. Benjamin A. Elman and Martin Kern (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 75–76. 3 Compare Kai Vogelsang, “The Scribe’s Genealogy,” Oriens Extremus 44 (2003–2004): 3–10, and Constance A. Cook, “Scribes, Cooks, and Artisans: Breaking Zhou Tradition,” Early China 20 (1995): 250–55. 4 Zhang Shoujie in his “Zhengyi” commentary argues that Master Chu supplemented all ten (Sima Qian, Shiji, 10 vols. [Beijing: Zhonghua, 1959 and revised edition 2014], 128.3917). Sima Zhen points to the likely sources of seven of these chapters in his “Suoyin” commentary (Sima Qian, Shiji, 2014, 130.4029). See also Sanguo zhi, 12.418. For a thorough study of Chu Shaosun, see Hans van Ess, “The Later Western Han Historian Chu Shaosun,” in Chang’an 26 B.C., ed. Michael Nylan (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015), 477–504. 5 William H. Nienhauser, Jr., ed., The Grand Scribe’s Records, Vol. I (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 205. 6 On Sima Tan’s role in the composition of the Shiji, see especially Dorothee Schaab-Hanke’s Der Geschichtsscriber als Exeget. 7 The Sui shu bibliography (30.1034) says the “Honorable Grand Scribe had written a Ten-thousand-year Calendar in one juan,” possibly Sima Qian’s work. 8 Ban Gu, 62.2727. 9 Hans van Ess, Politik und Geschichtsschreibung im alten China, Pan-ma i-t’ung [Differences and Similarities Between Ban Gu and Sima Qian], 2 vols. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2014), 2.771–72. 10 Ban Gu 1962, 62.2735. Burton Watson and others have understood the phrase yi jia zhi yan as “the words of a school,” which is also a possible reading. But the Simas are not known to have belonged to any school and, as Watson himself notes, “[Sima Qian’s writing,] no matter how one forces it, will produce no ‘system’ of thought. Qian Daxin (1728–1804), in his preface to the Ershier shi kaoyi [A Study of the Difference of the Twenty-two History], notes that the Shiji was not “a book of one family, but in fact a book for one thousand years.” 11 Sima Qian, Shiji, 2014, 130.4027. 12 Hans van Ess, Politik und Geschichtsschreibung im alten China, 2.708 ff. 13 Ban Gu 1962, 62.2724. Chen Zhi’s “Han, Jin ren dui Shiji de chuanbo ji qi pingjia” [The Han and Jin People’s Transmission of and Commentary on Shiji], in Sima Qian yu Shiji lunji [Collected Essays on Sima Qian and Shiji] (Xi’an: Shanxi renmin, 1982, 215) has suggested that the famous mountain refers to Sima Qian’s hometown of Hancheng. 14 Three recent studies have contributed greatly to this discussion: Zhang Yüchun’s Shiji banben yanjiu [A Study of Shiji Editions] (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2001); Yang Haizheng’s Han Tang Shiji yanjiu lungao [Draft Essays on the Shiji Studies in the Han and the Tang] (Ji’nan: Qi Lu shushe, 2003), and Lü

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Further Reading Publications Aoki Gorō, Mizusawa Toshitada, and Yoshida Kenkō, trans. Shiki. 14 vols. Tokyo: Meiji Shoten, 1973–2014. Ban Gu. Han shu. Beijing: Zhonghua, 1962. Chavannes, Édouard, trans. Les mémoires historiques de Se-ma Ts’ien. 6 vols. Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve, 1895–1905 [rpt. 1967–1969]. Durrant, Stephen. The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and Conflict in the Writings of Sima Qian. New York: State University of New York Press, 1995. Durrant, Stephen, Wai-yee Li, Michael Nylan, and Hans van Ess. The Letter to Ren An and Sima Qian’s Legacy. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016. Fujita Katsuhisa. Shiji Zhanguo shiliao yanjiu [Study of the Historical Materials of the Warring States period in the Grand Scribe’s Records]. Translated by Cao Feng and Hirose Kunio. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji, 2008. Fujita Katsuhisa. Shiki Sengoku retsuden no kenkyū. Tokyo: Kyūko Shoin, 2011. Fujita Katsuhisa. Shiki Shin Kan shi no kenkyū [A Study of Shiji and History of the Qin and the Han]. Tokyo: Kyūko Shoin, 2015. Han Zhaoqi. Shiji jianzheng [Annotation of the Grand Scribe’s Records]. 9 vols. Nanchang: Jiangxi Renmin, 2009. Han Zhaoqi. Shiji tonglun [A General Introduction to the Grand Scribe’s Records]. Beijing: Beijing Shifan Daxue Chubanshe, 1990. Hardy, Grant. Worlds of Bronze and Bamboo: Sima Qian’s Conquest of History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Ji Zhao. Shiji diming suoyin. Beijing: Zhonghua, 1990. Klein, Esther Sunkyung. Reading Sima Qian from Han to Song. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Li Changzhi. Sima Qian zhi renge yu fengge [Sima Qian’s Personality and Style]. Shanghai: Kaiming Shudian, 1949. Liang Yusheng (1745–1819). Shiji zhiyi [Recording Doubts in the Grand Scribe’s Records]. 3 vols. Bejing: Zhonghua, 1981. Ling Zhilong (fl. 1576–1587). Shiji pinglin [Forest of Comments on the Records of the (Grand) Scribe]. Comm. by Li Guangjin (1574–1623). Tianjin: Tianjin Guji, 1998. Lü Shihao. Cong Shiji dao Han shu—zhuanzhe guocheng yu lishi yiyi [From Grand Scribe’s Records to History of Han—the Transition Process and Historical Significance]. Taibei: Guoli Taiwan Daxue, 2009. Nienhauser, William H., Jr., co-translator and ed. The Grand Scribe’s Records. 9 vols. To date. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994, 1994, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2016, 2019 and 2022. Nienhauser, William H., Jr., “Sima Qian and the Shiji.” In Oxford History of Historical Writing, Volume I: Beginnings to AD 600, edited by Grant Hardy and Andrew Feldherr, 463–84. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature Park Jae-woo. Shiji, Hanshu bijiao yanjiu [A Comparative Study of the Grand Scribe’s Records and the History of Han]. Beijing: Zhongguo Wenxue, 1994. Satō Taketoshi. Shiba Sen no kenkyū. Tokyo: Iwanami, 1999. Sima Qian. Shiji. 10 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua, 1959 and revised edition 2014. Takigawa Kametarō (1865–1946). Shiki kaichû kôchô fu kôho [Collected Annotation and Textual Study of the Grand Scribe’s Records, with Supplementary Notes]. 2 vols. Rpt. of Tokyo: Tōhō Bunka Gakuin, 1934 ed. with supplementary collation notes by Mizusawa Toshitada. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji, 1986. van Ess, Hans. Politik und Geschichtsschreibung im alten China, Pan-ma i-t’ung [Differences and Similarities Between Ban Gu and Sima Qian]. 2 vols. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2014. van Ess, Hans, Olga Lomová, and Dorothee Schaab-Hanke, eds. Views from Within, Views from Beyond: Approaches to the Shiji as an Early Work of Historiography. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2015. Viatkin, Rudolf V., trans. Syma Cjan’: Istoriceskie zapiski (Shi tszi). 7 vols. Moscow: Nauka, 1974–2002. Wang Liqi, ed. Shiji zhuyi [Annotation and Translation of the Grand Scribe’s Records from Classical Chinese into Modern Vernacular Chinese]. 4 vols. Xi’an: San Qin, 1988. Wang Shumin (1914–2008). Shiji jiaozheng [Collation of the Text of the Grand Scribe’s Records]. 10 vols. Taibei: Zhongyang Yanjiuyuan, 1982. Watson, Burton. Records of the Historian. 3 vols. Rev. ed. New York and Hong Kong: Columbia University Press, and Renditions, 1993. Watson, Burton. Ssu-ma Chʻien, Grand Historian of China. New York: Columbia University Press, 1958. Wu Shuping. Shiji renming suoyin. Beijing: Zhonghua, 1982. Wu Shuping and Lü Zongli. eds. Quanzhu quanyi Shiji [Annotation and Translation of the Entire Text of the Grand Scribe’s Records from Classical Chinese into Modern Vernacular Chinese]. 3 vols. Tianjin: Tianjin Guji, 1996. Yang Yanqi. Shiji quanyi [Translation of the entire text of the Grand Scribe’s Records from Classical Chinese into Modern Vernacular Chinese]. 9 vols. Kuizhou: Kuizhou Renmin, 2001. Yang Yanqi, Chen Keqing, and Lai Zhangyang, eds. Lidai mingjia ping Shiji [Commentaries on the Grand Scribe’s Records from Famous Scholars of Past Dynasties]. Beijing: Beijing Shifan Daxue, 1986. Yin Shuan. Shiji Sanjiazhu yinshu suoyin. Beining: Zhonghua, 1982. Zhang Dake. Shiji yanjiu [Study of the Grand Scribe’s Records]. Lanzhou: Gansu Renmin, 1985. Zhang Dake. Sima Qian yu Shiji xue [Studies of Sima Qian and the Grand Scribe’s Records]. Xi’an: Shanxi Renmin Jiaoyu, 2006. Zhang Xinke, Gao Yirong, and Gao Yinong, eds. Shiji yanjiu ziliao cuibian [Collection of Research Materials on the Grand Scribe’s Records]. 2 vols. Xi’an: San Qin, 2011.

Websites Asia and Europe in a Global Context: http://tls.uni-hd.de/ China Text Project: http://ctext.org Wenyuange Sikuquanshu dianziben (Electronic Version of the Complete Library of the Four Treasures from Wenyuan ge). Hanji dianzi wenxian [Electronic Hanji]. Scripta Sinica database. Oxford Bibliography online: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199920082/ obo-9780199920082-0122.xml The WWW Virtual Library: http://projects.zo.uni-heidelberg.de/igcs/ Classical Historiography for Chinese History: http://www.princeton.edu/chinese-historiography/ Foreast: The Internet East Asian Library—includes references to several important digitalized text collections: http://www.foreast.org/ http://sinonavi.dahailaozhen.cn/main.asp

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SECTION IX

Prose of Philosophers

27 THE ANALECTS AND MENCIUS Trever McKay

The Analects and Mencius are two foundational works of Confucian thought. They are traditionally viewed as the authoritative collection of Confucius’ teachings and the most authentic development of Confucius’ thought, respectively. These two works are not traditional philosophical texts as the phrase is understood in the West, meaning there is no lengthy treatise or argumentation. Rather, they contain the teachings of Confucius and Mencius in the form of short conversations and pronouncements, similar in format to Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations or Plato’s Dialogs of Socrates. For this reason, they are classified in Chinese under the genre “recorded utterances” (yulu). Other philosophical prose works from this period, such as Zhuangzi and Mozi, more closely resemble the prose style of traditional Western philosophic writings. The short passages in the Analects and Mencius mostly show Confucius or Mencius teaching or correcting during their attempts to return society and rulers to the path of virtue, with Mencius being much more trenchant than Confucius. Despite this unique format, the Analects has had a clear and definitive influence on Chinese culture and ethics since at least the Han dynasty. Mencius did not grow in popularity in China until it was included in the Four Books (sishu) compiled by Zhu Xi in the Song dynasty, and especially since the Ming dynasty, when it was officially made part of the civil service examination. The ideas expressed in these two works historically spread beyond China to include Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and other areas.

Analects The Analects (lunyu) is a collection in twenty chapters of Confucius’ teachings and interactions with his disciples and a few contemporaries. The Chinese title, which evidently did not appear textually until the Han dynasty, literally means “collected or ordered [passages of] dialog,” which is an accurate if generic description of the contents.1 In 1861, James Legge (1815–1897) effectively established the English title of this work, stating, “I have styled the work ‘Confucian Analects,’ as being more descriptive of its character than any other name I could think of.”2 While the word “analects” did not specifically refer to this record of Confucius at first, subsequent to Legge’s using it as the title of his translation, it now almost exclusively does. One important aspect of the title is that there is no eponymous feature in Lunyu as there  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-38

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is in other philosophers’ works, such as Mozi, Mencius, Zhuangzi, Guanzi, and so on. This seems to imply that the work was more of an in-house collection.

Formation Very little is known about the formation and transmission of the Analects prior to Western Han. The small portion of what is believed or known is inferred from its content. The vast majority of passages are of Confucius talking or are conversations between Confucius and his disciples; in fact, Confucius is present or mentioned in more than ninety percent of the passages. Yet, the Analects gives no indication that Confucius wrote anything down.3 All of these aspects, as well as appellations and the arrangement of most passages, point to these disciples and their disciples as the recorders. Confucius is generally identified only by the honorific title zǐ, or master, properly a term of address used by disciples, but not by others. His disciples are either identified by their given names or their courtesy names (zì).4 The former would be the proper form of address by Confucius as their teacher or in self-reference, while the latter was the proper form of address in society at large. The terms of address for Confucius and his disciples generally fit with the way his disciples would have recorded events, with a smattering of exceptions. It was not until Western Han that the Analects appeared with sufficient breadth in the textual record to begin to show traces of its transmission and continued formation. Some early instances of citations and titular mentions are in a memorial from Dong Zhongshu (179–104 BC), several chapters in Sima Qian’s Shiji, and an edict from Emperor Zhao (r. 87–74 BC).5 Unearthed copies and robust scholarly lineages of transmission start to appear during the reign of Emperor Xuan (r. 73–48 BC).6 Furthermore, there are historical accounts of its being used as a primer for heirs apparent to train them in the ways of virtuous ruling and self-cultivation. One of the first examples of this took place during the reign of Emperor Wu (141–87 bc).7 Because of the 400-year textual lacuna from Confucius’ time to Western Han, a growing group of Western scholars has begun questioning the belief that the work was initially compiled by Confucius’ disciples upon his death. These scholars hold that evidence points to the Analects’ being formed at some point in Western Han.8 The current corpus of ancient texts—both received and unearthed—does not seem to definitively indicate which view of the formation is correct. So, this debate might continue until further evidence pointing to one side or the other is discovered. Ban Gu (32–92) states that there were three versions in circulation during the Han dynasty: the Lu, Qi, and ancient text versions. These were transmitted separately at first, then began cross-pollinating and undergoing several redactions before the text became finalized in the Three Kingdoms period by He Yan (195–249). He’s version marks the full formation of the Analects as a book and is the version in use today.

Content The difficulty with understanding Confucius’ thought in the Analects is that one needs to tease out a body of philosophy from an assortment of seemingly random snippets of conversation, many from unknown periods of Confucius’ life and intellectual development. To some, this might seem nearly impossible. However, the more familiar one becomes with the text, the easier it is to begin to see the whole of his thought. Indeed, Confucius once asserted to his disciple Zeng Shen (505–432 BC) that a unifying thought to his teachings did exist (4.15), and it is not unreasonable to assume that those who compiled these passages had a sense of that. 336

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It is clear from the text, and from other sources, that ritual propriety (li)—the social norms and rituals instituted by the Duke of Zhou to ensure a virtuous, harmonious society—was clearly in decline at the time. Many passages in Chapter 3 of the Analects specifically point out the Three Families’ (the de facto rulers of Lu) out-of-bounds and arrogant flouting of ritual propriety on many occasions. Yet they were not the only offenders. Violators were found even among Confucius’ own disciples. Once, when Confucius was sick, Zilu (542–480 BC) enjoined the other disciples to care for him as if they were his ministers and he was their ruler (9.12). Then, when Yan Hui died, Confucius counseled Yan Hui’s father against violating ritual for the sake of showing honor to his son. The disciples also wanted to bury him in a manner that did not match his station in life. In the end, Confucius could not talk them out of violating funerary rites (11.8, 11.10). Since the rites and music instituted by the Duke of Zhou were being changed to satisfy the vanity and pride of the noble class, the power to effect social cohesion and proper personal development was in danger of being lost. As Herbert Fingarette observed, There is no power of li if there is no learned and accepted convention, or if we utter the words and invoke the power of the convention in an inappropriate setting, or if the ceremony is not fully carried out, or if the persons carrying out the ceremonial roles are not those properly authorized. . . . Thus the power of li cannot be used except as the li is fully respected.9 Confucius felt called upon by Heaven to bring society back to the ancient Way outlined by the Duke of Zhou. He said, “At fifty, I understood Heaven’s Mandate” (2.4), that is, Heaven’s will for him personally. This is quite a revolutionary statement. Previous to Confucius, the Mandate of Heaven (tian ming) was something kings received—the divine right to rule. Now Confucius was claiming that he also had a mandate, one signifying his own mission in life.10 This mission was to be a “bell-clapper” for Heaven (3.24), to teach and awaken the rulers and people to the right Way. He attempted to do this first in Lu, then in the courts of various states, yet the noble class repeatedly showed little interest in the Way. Confucius also took on students, and, in the end, this proved much more effective in bringing about change. Commoners were educated in the wintertime until the age of fifteen in ancient China. Those of the noble class studied until eighteen in preparation for official service in the government. Confucius stated that he would teach anyone over the age of fifteen (7.7), even those who were known to be from places that did not easily accept the Way, provided they were sincere (7.29). He would through his teachings call for a new class of people (though he never termed it as such), one which would be employable in government positions, but which was also trained in morals and self-cultivation. The ideal product of his teaching would be a junzi (gentleman), a term that originally denoted the youth of the aristocratic class but was used by Confucius to designate one engaging in moral cultivation over other concerns. If, in the feudal system, the nobility was considered higher on the social evolutionary scale—having moved beyond being in charge of families and farms, or animals, or manipulating metals, clays, and so on to being in charge of people and polities, then Confucius’ concept of the gentleman also moved beyond the outward-seeking, earth-centered, pleasure-hungry natural man (a stage which all humans naturally reach) to one who looks inward, who connects with his elders and ancestors in a sincere way, and who takes great pleasure in self-cultivation. Or, as Mark Csikszentmihalyi stated, this term was a shift “from that of nobility as determined by social class to nobility as the product of moral education.”11 It is a higher level of personal evolution and development that can only be attained through conscious effort and diligence. 337

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Given that ritual propriety had become something of an empty vessel, Confucius sought to rectify adherence to it by cultivating the inner person. This was done through virtue acquisition. These moral character traits are at the core of the Confucian Way. They are the inner correlation to the outer rites of behavior, and the full development of virtues is the path of cultivation the gentleman must take. Virtues provide proper orientation in various relationships and situations that ensure a harmonious society. In fact, many Confucian virtues are tied to specific roles and relationships. One of the first virtues one should develop is filial piety (xiao), which is the proper love, respect, care, and genuine affection for one’s parents (see 2.5–2.8). Parents, on the other hand, should develop benevolence (hui), which is how a parent should treat a child, with kindness, and how rulers should treat those below them (5.16); dutifulness (zhong) should be manifest when one is working for others (1.4), and most often in an official post; trustworthiness (xin) is exhibited between friends (1.4); and empathy (shu), or the ability to put one’s self in others’ shoes, is for general application (15.24). Thus, different than the individualized Western concept of virtues, which often have wide social application (such as patience or integrity), many Confucian virtues were situational and closely tied with one’s role in a specific relationship. As Paul Goldin has summarized, “All Confucian morality, as we have seen, emerges from relations with other people,” and more specifically, “moral development begins in the family and only then radiates outwards to the rest of the world. Moral influence cannot be turned in the other direction.”12 The overarching virtue in Confucius’ thought was yet another concept he imbued with a new meaning: ren. This word is not easily translated, in part because its meaning changed over time; English translations of its use in the Analects include perfect virtue, Goodness, benevolence, humanity, humaneness, and human-heartedness. Among his contemporaries, Confucius’ new use of this term caused no small confusion, as is evidenced by the number of questions Confucius answers regarding what is ren and who is ren— one disciple, Fan Chi, is recorded as asking for a definition on three different occasions! Confucius once said, “Is ren really so far away? If I simply desire ren, then ren is already here” (7.30). This makes ren seem immediate and accessible. Yet to his brightest and most virtuous disciple, Yan Hui, he explained, “To be able of one’s own initiative to carry out ritual propriety is what ren means. . . . To be ren must come from within; how could it come from others?” (12.1)13 This explanation is much more involved. Moreover, Chichung Huang points out that Confucius would not call any living person ren, only those who were dead.14 Thus, ren is unlike the other Confucian virtues in that it seems to elude a direct definition. Consequently, Fu Peirong divided ren into three stages: ren as nature, ren as the correct path of life, and the culmination of ren. This approach can account for all the various ways Confucius uses the term. As one is genuine and sincere (seemingly the only thing that one could desire and have appear immediately), one’s conscience clearly nudges one in the direction of what is right and proper. As that desire is followed and expanded, one starts on the correct path of human development. Remaining on that path until the end of life ensures one’s full development. Thus, ren is, in its full maturation, the realization of all wholesome potential in a person for becoming the most fully cultivated and virtuous human, as an individual, that one could be. It is in this sense that ren is the culminating virtue and includes all other virtues within its scope. With regard to virtue, the Western concept is often a have/have not dichotomy: one is either patient or not, loving or not, hardworking or not. In Confucius’ view, everyone has some semblance of each virtue, be it a little or a lot. Self-cultivation is comprised of learning to employ each virtue properly. Confucius outlined this when he said, “Is not it best to acquire virtue by using the golden mean? Yet, people can seldom maintain this course for long” (6.29). Thus, all virtues 338

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in Confucianism are found in people somewhere along the following spectrum: underdeveloped, properly developed, and overdeveloped.15 Moral cultivation then aims to bring all virtues into the zone of proper development, or the mean. This is the basic work of anyone who seeks to become a true gentleman, and precisely what Confucius was trying to do with his individualized answers to people’s questions. With its overt emphasis on ruling well, following ritual propriety, and intensely cultivating oneself, the Analects enjoyed wide and sustained application over the centuries that followed. No other book in the Confucian tradition gives such an intimate look at Confucius and his teachings.

Mencius Meng Ke (372–289 bc) was a thinker and a proponent of Confucius’ thought and later was given the title Mengzi (Master Meng), which has been Latinized as Mencius. He lived about 100 years after the death of Confucius and studied under a disciple of Confucius’ grandson, Zisi.16 In many aspects, his life loosely paralleled Confucius’—he was from Zou, which is not far from Confucius’ birthplace in Qufu; he had the same fondness for learning; he also lost his father when he was young; and, like Confucius, he traveled around with some of his disciples looking for a ruler willing to implement the Way.17 While these aspects are more a matter of fate and less of conscious modeling, still, what Mencius most desired was a chance to learn personally from Confucius: “I was unable to be Confucius’ disciple; I had to learn from him through others” (4B.22).18 On one occasion, when one of his disciples tried to use many examples of past sages to get Mencius to acknowledge the extent of the sagehood he personally possessed, Mencius finally replied, “All these were sages of ancient times. I have never been able to act like them, but my wish is to learn from Confucius” (2A.2). Given this single-minded devotion to learning from Confucius, it is little wonder that Mencius became known as the true transmitter of Confucius’ Way.

Political Thought Mencius is an eponymous collection of conversations Mencius had with rulers, statesmen, his disciples, and other thinkers of the day. The work is structured in seven pian, with each divided into two parts.19 These pian are named using the same traditional method found in the Analects—selecting the first two or three unique characters as the name, plus a shang (first) and xia (second). In English, the chapters have been rendered into numbers, with A and B used in place of shang and xia. Each dialog within a chapter is also numbered, so textual references cite the chapter number followed by a dialog number (e.g., 1A.2). Whereas the compellation of the Analects was believed to have been done by Confucius’ disciples and their disciples, Sima Qian writes that Mencius worked with his disciples in compiling Mencius.20 Furthermore, there is more of a feeling of general order in the arrangement of chapters,21 and the individual passages in each chapter are significantly longer, for the most part, than passages in the Analects. By Mencius’ time, the breakdown of society was virtually complete, with many of the feudal lords calling themselves “kings,” and there was no longer any hope of reviving the house of Zhou. Instead, Mencius’ focus was trying to find and persuade a ruler to transform himself into a true king who would follow the Way by focusing on ren and yi (which are often translated in Mencius as “benevolence” and “righteousness,” with the connotation of treating people generously and doing what is right). Consequently, this primary concern is given prominence in the first few pian. One 339

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driving factor in Mencius’ focus on nurturing a true king was his belief that every 500 years a true king rises. Yet, it was more than 700 years since the last such event (2B.13). Some of his suggestions to rulers of his day are more practical than philosophical or ethical, such as using the well-field system for taxes, not overfishing or overharvesting lumber, having the ruler delight in what the people enjoy, and having the ruler share music and hunting with the people. His core aim though was to have a ruler adopt a caring attitude toward the people, as a parent would toward his children. Or, as Paul Goldin succinctly stated, “the most important plank of his platform in the purpose of government is the cultivation of morality.” That is, “government is about spreading humanity and righteousness.”22 King Xuan of Qi (r. 319–301 BC) was perhaps the closest to achieving this goal and even gave Mencius an official position; however, the king ultimately found it difficult to sustain interest in the long process.

Moral Cultivation Regarding self-cultivation, one of the salient points of Mencius’ thought regards human nature. It is widely held that Mencius viewed human nature as originally or fundamentally good (xing ben shan). This phrase is not found in Mencius but comes from Zhu Xi’s (1130–1200) own views on human nature, then was later codified in the first two lines of the Sanzi jing around a century later, lines that every Chinese person knows by heart: “At birth, man’s nature is fundamentally good. By nature, people are much the same, but through habits they begin to differ widely.” Mencius contains several passages on human nature, but the phrase used is “nature is good” [xing shan] (3A.1, 6A.6).23 The meaning behind it could be more accurately expressed as “human nature is oriented toward the good.”24 To illustrate, once when Mencius heard that Yuezhengzi was going to be given an official position in Lu, he was so happy he could not sleep. His disciple Gongsun Chou asked what qualities Yuezhengzi had which made him so ideal. Mencius said he was not particularly intelligent or knowledgeable, but that he was “fond of goodness” (6B.13). Mencius’ well-known view that every person has four naturally occurring dispositions (si duan) further clarifies his view of human nature. These are compassion (ceyin zhi xin), disdain (xiuwu zhi xin), respect (cirang zhi xin), and sense of right and wrong (shifei zhi xin), and are often initially manifest in spontaneous reactions to situations. One example Mencius gives is seeing a young child about to fall into a well. One would naturally respond with alarm and compassion in trying to save the child. This reaction is innate rather than learned and is a beginning to our true nature and potential. With further cultivation, these dispositions will blossom into ren, yi, ritual propriety (li), and wisdom (zhi), respectively (2A.6, 6A.6). These dispositions or tendencies do not mature on their own. They need active nourishment and care to fully mature.25 The way to develop this moral ability is through will (zhi), choices, and reflection (si). One must set one’s heart on following the Way (Analects 7.24). This is will. In following the Way, one aims for ren and yi (7A.33). Some situations might prove easier than others in applying them. For those times when doing the right things seems too difficult, then reflection becomes necessary. Through reflection, one can get in touch with the heart, which has the blueprint of proper conduct. Mencius said, It is not the function of the ears and eyes to reflect, and they are misled by things. Things interact with other things and simply lead them along. But the function of the heart is to reflect. If it reflects, then it will get it. If it does not reflect, it will not get it. This is what Heaven has given us. . . . This is how to become a great person.26

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Thus, the heart (or mind, as they are the same word in Chinese) is the compass to moral cultivation. Reflection and being in tune with the heart is the way the compass is activated. As one continues making choices that are in line with the heart, one will develop what Mencius called haoran zhi qi (lit. “great or vast force”), which is commonly translated as “great moral force.”27 It is the momentum one accumulates by doing righteous acts consistently (2A.2). The heart and reflection are not the only mediums by which we can progress along the Way. Another critical element is examples of previous worthies and sages. From studying their lives, one can know the proper way to act in various situations. Confucius’ disciple Zilu was pleased if someone informed him of his faults. When King Yu heard good teachings he bowed down in thanks. The Great Shun was even greater than they. He was good at unifying himself with others. He put himself aside and joined with others. He delighted in copying from others in order to do good. From plowing, planting, making pottery, and fishing on up to being Emperor—he never failed to copy from others. To copy others when they do good is to do good with others. Hence, for a gentleman, nothing is greater than to do good with others.28 These qualities that historical figures possessed leave one without excuse in knowing what is right and how to conduct oneself in life. From these points, it is clear Mencius’ take on human nature is founded in man’s potential for growth and proper development. Philip Ivanhoe observed that for Mencius “morality flows from a single source—human nature.”29 In this way, human nature is not just a starting block but also a blueprint for proper development. It is the potential to fully become. “Ren is what it means to be human” (7B.16). Heaven has provided everything for man to thrive: an initial inclination toward what is good, the positive examples of sages from previous eras, one’s heart that guides one down the path, and teachers and others from whom to learn and with whom to interact.

Rise in Popularity Many scholars produced commentary on Mencius during the Eastern Han and Three Kingdoms periods, the most influential of which was Zhao Qi’s (108–201). This is the commentary used in the Thirteen Classics. In the Tang, Han Yu (768–824) wrote in his treatise, Yuan Dao, that Mencius was the inheritor of Confucius’ thought and the last in a long line of sages, stretching back to Yao and Shun.30 It could be argued that this was the beginning of Mencius ascent in general popularity. In early Song, Sun Shi (962–1033) wrote a subcommentary. During the period of disunion between the Tang and Song, the Mengshu Stone Classics began being carved in 944. Almost two hundred years later, in 1123, Mencius was added to the stone corpus.31 It was around this same time that Zhu Xi bundled Mencius with the Analects as part of the Four Books, which greatly raised its status. The Four Books eventually surpassed the Five Classics in importance in the civil service examination. Mencius’ influence continued to grow into the Qing dynasty, during which the title of Second Sage (yasheng), by which Yan Hui had been known since at least the Han,32 was officially bestowed on Mencius. Mencius’ ascent and the correlative disappearance of Yan Hui can be attributed to Mencius. Yan Hui does not have any written teachings that have been passed on, and while traditionally virtuous acts (li de) were valued above written teachings (li yan) in theory, at least in this instance it is not the case.

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Notes 1 For a detailed discussion on the name of the Analects in Chinese, see Chen Tongsheng, Lunyu shi lun [Ten Discussions on the Analects] (Guangzhou: Jinan University Press, 2012), 2. 2 James Legge, The Chinese Classics, Vol. 1, Confucian Analects (Taipei: SMC Publishing, 1994 reprint), 137. 3 See Paul Goldin, Confucianism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 10. 4 A courtesy name was adopted at the coming-of-age capping ceremony (guanli) at twenty years of age; it was the name used by men in society. 5 For the memorial and edict, see Ban Gu, Hanshu [Book of Han] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), 56.2514 and 7.223, respectively. For a discussion on the Analects in the Shiji, see Bernhard Fuehrer, “Sima Qian as a Reader of Master Kong’s Utterances,” in Views from Within, Views from Beyond: Approaches to the Shiji as an Early Work of Historiography, ed. Hans van Ess, Olga Lomová, and Dorothee Schaab-Hanke (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz), 9–30. 6 With regard to unearthed manuscripts, the earliest version to date is from a tomb in Nanchang, Jiangxi, dating to 59 bc. The text has yet to be published. See Jiangxi sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo, “Nanchang shi Xihan Haihunhou mu” [The Western Han Tomb of Marquis of Haihun in Nanchang City], Kaogu 7 (2016): 45–62. 7 See Ban Gu, Hanshu, 14.415. 8 See, for example, Zhu Weizheng, “Lunyu jieji cuoshuo” [Jottings on the Compilation of the Analects], Kongzi yanjiu 1 (1986): 40–52; John Makeham, “The Formation of Lunyu as a Book,” Monumenta Serica 44 (1996): 1–24; Michael Hunter, Confucius Beyond the Analects (Leiden: Brill, 2017); Michael Hunter and Martin Kern, eds., Confucius and the Analects Revisited: New Perspectives on Composition, Dating, and Authorship (Leiden: Brill, 2018). 9 Herbert Fingarette, Confucius—The Secular as Sacred (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 12–13. 10 The same principle applies to all who are striving to follow the Way. See 16.8. 11 Mark Csikszentmihalyi, “Confucius,” in The Rivers of Paradise, ed. David Freedman and Michael McClymond (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001), 259. 12 Goldin, Confucianism, 27, 28. 13 There are other ways to translate the first sentence of this passage, the most common of which is “To overcome oneself and to carry out li is ren.” However, the rendering here matches better with the last half of the passage. 14 Chichung Huang, The Analects of Confucius (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997), 17. 15 This is similar to the reoccurring theme of the golden mean in ancient Greek philosophy. For examples in the Analects highlighting this spectrum, see 1.12, 6.18, 11.15, and 11.22; 6.1 also outlines how one can go to excess in applying a virtue. 16 See Sima Qian, Shiji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959), 74.2343. 17 It could be that Mencius did not travel as extensively as Confucius. The rulers who appear in the Mencius are from a smaller geographical area that includes only Qi, Lu, Liang (i.e., Wei), Teng, and Song—all of which were right next to or within the borders of Qi at the time. He also lived in Xiu after leaving Qi. 18 All passages of Mencius are from Bryan Van Norden’s translation with only an occasional adjustment. 19 In Eastern Han, there were originally eleven pian, but Zhao Qi determined four of them were not authentic and removed them when he produced his annotated version. 20 Shiji, 4.2343. Later scholars offered other theories on authorship. See Chen Guoqing, Hanshu yiwenzhi zhushi huibian [Collected Commentaries on the “Treatise on the Confucian Classics and Other Writings” of Hanshu] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2006), 103. 21 For example, in the first several chapters, the individual dialogs with various feudal lords recorded therein seem to be arranged chronologically. 22 Paul Goldin, The Art of Chinese Philosophy: Eight Classical Texts and How to Read Them (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2020), 98, 99. 23 See also Xunzi’s chapter “Human Nature Is Bad,” wherein he attacks Mencius on this term several times. Eric Hutton, trans., Xunzi: The Complete Text (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 248–57. 24 A lucid phrase borrowed from Fu Peirong. See Fu Peirong, Renxing xiang shan lun fawei [Disclosing the Subtleties of the Idea that Human Nature Tends Toward Goodness] (New Taipei: Lixu wenhua, 2021). 25 Possible areas of application are ren between father and son, yi between ruler and minister, ritual propriety between guest and host, and wisdom in employing worthies (7B.24).

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The Analects and Mencius 26 Bryan Van Norden, Mengzi: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2008), 156. 27 Qi is a difficult concept to grasp because there is no ready corollary in English. Mencius described it thus: “One’s will is the commander of qi. Qi permeates one’s body. Wherever one’s will is fixed, qi is sure to flow there” (2A.2). Bryan Van Nordon summed it up succinctly as “Qi is thus the physical medium through which one’s emotions and personal character are manifest” (Van Norden, Mengzi, 37). 28 Van Norden, Mengzi, 48. 29 Philip Ivanhoe, Ethics in the Confucian Tradition (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002), 16. 30 Zhu Xi, Sishu zhangju jizhu [Collected Commentaries on the Interlinear Analysis of the Four Books] (Taibei: Da’an chubanshe, 1999), 276. 31 Cheng Sudong, “Shu shijing Mengzi kankezhe kaobian” [A Study of the Inscriber of Mencius in the Classics Engraved on Stone Tablets in Sichuan], Zhongguo wenhua yanjiu 1 (2010): 160–65. 32 See, for example, Wang Chong; Chen Puqing, and Mei Ji, annot., Lunhen yizhu [Balanced Inquiries with Translations in Modern Chinese and Annotations] (Taipei: Jian’an, 2002), 144.

Further Reading English Translations Bloom, Irene. Mencius. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. Chin, Annping. Confucius: The Analects. New York: Penguin Books, 2014. Lau, D. C. Mencius. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. Ni, Peimin. Understanding the Analects of Confucius: A New Translation of Lunyu with Annotations. State University of New York Press, 2017. Slingerland, Edward. Analects: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries. Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing, 2003. Van Norden, Bryan. Mengzi: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries. Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing, 2008.

Scholarly Studies Fingarette, Herbert. Confucius: The Secular as Sacred. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Goldin, Paul. A Concise Companion to Confucius. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2017. Hunter, Michael. Confucius Beyond the Analects. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Hunter, Michael, and Martin Kern, eds. Confucius and the Analects Revisited. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Ivanhoe, Philip. Ethics in the Confucian Tradition. Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing, 2002. Liu, Xiusheng, and Philip Ivanhoe, eds. Essays on the Moral Philosophy of Mengzi. Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing, 2002. Shun, Kwong-loi. Mencius and Early Chinese Thought. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. Van Nordon, Bryan. Confucius and the Analects. Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2002.

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28 THE LAOZI AND ZHUANGZI Richard Lynn

The Laozi or Daode jing The Laozi ([Sayings of] Master Lao/The Old Master) or Daode jing (Scripture of the Dao/Way and Virtue) is a text of about 5,000 characters in eighty-one brief sections [zhang], some parts of which rhyme. It consists of two parts, the Daojing, sections 1–37, and the Dejing, sections 38–81, which seem to have been joined together into the received text, possibly reversed from earlier versions. Because the style is succinct, elliptical, and beset with incomplete and/or erratic grammatical constructions, its laconic, cryptic text has provoked extremely varied and even contradictory interpretations over the centuries, a tendency equally obvious in attempts to translate it into modern Chinese and other languages, both Eastern and Western. It was traditionally attributed to an individual author, “Master Lao,” who supposedly was a contemporary of Confucius (551–479 BCE), surname Li, personal name either Er or Dan, an official in the imperial archives, who after he resigned and expressed his wish to leave China, was commanded by the Han-ku Pass keeper, Yinxi, to write down his teachings before he allowed him to proceed into the Western regions—an account which first appears in the Shiji (Records of the Historian) of Sima Qian (ca. 145–ca. 86 BCE).1 However, in fact, no single person was the author, for internal textual evidence and modern archaeological discoveries of related early texts conclusively prove that the work is a collection of materials compiled over several centuries. This is why the text is now referred to as “the Laozi” and not “by Laozi.” Liu Xiaogan, after extensive sifting of such evidence, including the silk and bamboo Laozi–related elements discovered during the last few decades, dates the core parts of the Laozi to the sixth century BCE, while subsequent emendations may date from as late as the mid- to late fourth century BCE,2 a view shared by William H. Baxter.3 Another recent exploration of the evidence by William G. Boltz suggests that the received Laozi was likely first assembled a century or so later, in the third century BCE.4 The received text, the Wang Bi (226–249) recension, is so called because Wang’s commentary is associated with it. However, modern scholarship proves that this is not the actual text Wang commented on, since it obviously refers to different wordings of the Laozi. Such textual variants have plagued its study for centuries (five other recensions exist, all with significant variants), a situation further complicated by modern archaeological discoveries: (1) two transcriptions on silk were found in 1973 in a tomb closed in 168 BCE at Mawangdui (Hunan). The first can be dated to before DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-39 

The Laozi and Zhuangzi

206 BCE and the second to 206–194 BCE. Each differs in places from the other as well as from any of the recensions; (2) Three bamboo-slip texts corresponding to parts of the Laozi were found in 1993 in a tomb dated to the mid-fourth to the early third centuries BCE at Guodian (Hubei). These texts follow a different sequence and also often differ in wording from the recensions. The development of Wang’s approach, firmly rooted in xuanxue (arcane learning), to which he was a major contributor, to commentaries on the Zhouyi (Changes of the Zhou) or Yijing (Classic of Changes),5 the Laozi,6 and the Lunyu (Analects) of Confucius (of which only nine brief passages survive),7 is best understood in terms of his relation to the Jingzhou school of learning established by Liu Biao (144–208) during the generation prior to his own. The main features of Jingzhou learning are summarized as follows: (1) The late Han shift in classics scholarship (jingxue) away from new text versions of the five classics (jinwen jing) to old script versions (guwen jing) peaked in Jingzhou, where old script texts were declared orthodox and officially sanctioned. This involved rejection of prognostic commentary approaches, associated with earlier Han apocrypha, which often referred to correlative cosmology based on numerology or “image and number” (xiangshu), yin-yang thought, and the five phases (wuxing). Even the influential commentaries by Zheng Xuan (127–200), centered on yili (meaning and principle) exegesis, were disparaged because they still stressed abstruse correlative cosmological interpretations. Wang Bi enthusiastically joined the resulting trend toward straightforward and succinct philosophical commentary. (2) A major component of Jingzhou learning was the strong resurgence of Huang-Lao thought, supposedly a combination of the teachings of the Yellow Thearch and Master Lao, but actually an amalgam of Confucianism (Rujia), foundational Daoism represented by the Laozi and parts of the Zhuangzi, School of Names (Mingjia), Mohism (Mojia), and Legalism (Fajia). Huang-Lao thought originated in the middle Warring States era (fourth century BCE), dominated much of Western Han thought, and waned during the Eastern or Later Han.8 Yin-yang cosmology and techniques to achieve longevity and physical immortality were important components of earlier Huang-Lao thought, but these were de-emphasized in Jingzhou learning. Huang-Lao thought, especially aspects of it associated with Legalism, largely focuses on statecraft, an approach to government in which details of sagely rule are delegated to officialdom, while the sage ruler deals only with overall policy and fundamentals of governance. He refrains from their formulaic application, which is the responsibility of subordinate officials, whose decisions are informed and inspired by a sage ruler’s example of resonance with the Dao. Without his trying to make it so, the paradigm of the sage ruler shapes and guides officialdom so its decisions are always “right” in the sense that they produce perfect accord between the Dao of humanity (rendao), the political and social order, and the Dao of Heaven (tiandao), the cosmic order. This is a good place to introduce an analysis of two terms that appear ubiquitously in Laozi and Zhuangzi commentaries: wuwei and youwei. Wuwei has often been rendered as “non-action” in translation, which is quite wrong and most misleading. However, Wang Bi’s explanation of the two sets us right, for he explains wuwei as wuyi wei, “act out of nothing,” and youwei as youyi wei, “act out of something,” that is, act without conscious motive, act free of conventions, rules, precedents—act utterly spontaneously—as opposed to acting with conscious motive or conscious design, and in terms of conventions, rules, and precedence. “Nothing” or “nothingness” (wu) are epithets of the Dao, so wuyi wei also can mean “act out of/one with the Dao” (Lynn 1999, 17). 345

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  Wang Bi’s syncretistic hermeneutics thus combines Confucian political and social thought, Daoist naturalism, and Huang-Lao concepts of the sage ruler, while his great interest in the function of language owes much to the School of Names,9 all of which clearly echo essentials of Jingzhou learning. (3) Involvement of Jinzhou learning with the School of Names was focused on the relationship between “form and name” or “performance and title” (xingming), which constituted a two-pronged effort to define and apply criteria for the appraisal of personal character and selection of officials. Judging the inner reality behind appearance was thus a major issue, not only for the selection of officials but also, in those precarious times, the choice of personal friends and colleagues, since the wrong kind of associates could easily lead to one’s own destruction. Such concerns surely influenced Wang Bi’s interest in the relationship between “form and name” as a philosophical issue and the nature and function of language. Wang’s arcane learning approach thus shifted attention from external and formulaic rules of social and individual thought, the applied “wisdom” associated with the tradition of Confucian sagehood, to spontaneous and unselfconscious behavior associated with “original human nature” and the great, natural Dao. As such, he redefined the concept of the sage-ruler in Daoist terms, a move he hoped would serve as catalyst for the regeneration of self and society and lead to the foundation of a worldly utopia. Focusing on these and related issues, Wang’s commentary to the Laozi interprets it largely as a treatise of political philosophy, as advice to sovereigns how to rule as sage kings. He consistently reads the text in terms of the relationship between rulership and the Way of Nature and argues from Nature to rulership and back again through both explicit and implicit analogies. Such a reading of the Laozi is at great odds, of course, with literalist interpretations of the texts associated with the Daojiao religious tradition, which would have readers believe in, be inspired by, and imitate behavioral precepts illustrated and enunciated in them as magical recipes and charms for the acquisition of power and immortality. Wang eschews all references to charms, spells, ritual, or prayer—propitiation and conciliation of gods and spirits—and promotes neither the deification of Master Lao as Taishang Laojun “Most Exalted Lord Lao” nor devotion to the Daoist pantheon of gods and spirits, which was just then emerging in the third and fourth centuries. However, Wang does not banish all “religious” experience from the text, for he often interprets passages in terms of mysticism and self-transcendence, insisting that these essential attributes of sagely thought and behavior are natural (ziran) attributes of the “perfect man” (zhiren) or “true man” (zhenren), who is one with the Dao of Nature. Unity with nature is the source of the sage ruler’s powers, and the Laozi, in Wang’s view, is a manifesto of “naturalistic mysticism” or “mystical naturalism.” Moreover, although Wang’s reading has the Laozi largely addressed to rulers, it is implied throughout the commentary that this philosophy of mystical naturalism is available to all—by extension or analogy—and can serve as guide to self-fulfillment of the individual. Wang’s “mystical naturalism” reading thus has both religious and philosophical dimensions—but has nothing to do with the magic and ritual and devotional practices of Daoist religion. Although the Wang Bi recension has largely served as ur-text during much of pre-modern and modern times, and while Wang’s commentary has also proved generally influential, another slightly earlier and extremely significant commentary shaped a radically different tradition of interpretation—by Heshanggong, “Gentleman of the Riverbank,” a shadowy figure of doubtful identification,10 which may date from as early as the third century CE, toward the end of the Han. This text has usually appeared under the title Laozi Heshanggong zhangju (The Laozi Divided into

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Paragraphs and Sentences by the Gentleman of the Riverbank), or more simply, as Laozi Heshanggong zhu (The Laozi, Annotated by the Gentleman of the Riverbank). Although the sequence of the eighty-one sections is the same as in the Wang Bi recension, the Heshanggong version, divided more strictly into paragraphs and sentences, provides each section with a title that attempts to identify its theme. The commentary consists of an integration of elements associated with a developing Daoist religious tradition, together with metaphysical theorizing, which at times resembles that of Wang Bi and at others, is strikingly different; such differences are addressed here. Particularly important is Heshanggong’s correlation between the regulation of the self/body (shen) and regulation of the state (guo), an analogy stated succinctly in the commentary to Anmin (Keep the People Peaceful and Secure), Section 3, describing how the state is ruled by a sage (shengren zhi guo), simply says “regulating the state is the same as regulating the self/body,”11 and enlarged on in Shoudao (Keep to the Dao), Section 59 (first half): For governing the people, this refers to how the sovereign governs the people, using Heaven.” “Shi (serve) here means yong (use). He should use the Dao of Heaven (the Natural), which is to accord with the four seasons. Nothing is better than thrift. “Se (husbandry) here means thrift. Just as in regulating the state one must be sparing of human resources and not waste them, so in regulating the self/body one must be sparing of one’s jingqi (essential pneuma, life/vital force) and not be profligate with it.” “To practice thrift means to comply quickly.” “Zao (quickly) means to be first, and fu (comply) means de (obtain). Only by being thrifty with human resources and being thrifty with essential pneuma can one be first to obtain the Dao of Heaven.” “Comply quickly” means the repetitive accumulation of de (virtue, charismatic power).” “To be first to obtain the Dao of Heaven means that virtue shall repeatedly accumulate in the self.” “Once virtue is repeatedly accumulated, nothing shall vanquish such a one.” “Ke (conquer) means sheng (vanquish). Once such virtue is repeatedly accumulated in the self, nothing shall vanquish such a one. (Wang Ka, 230–31) Wang Bi reads the same texts entirely in terms of statecraft, avoiding all references to individual bodily cultivation: For ordering the people and serving Heaven, nothing is better than husbandry. ‘Nothing is better than’ is like saying ‘nothing surpasses.’ Se (husbandry) refers to the farmer. The way the farmer puts his farm in order is to bring a single uniformity to it by earnestly ridding it of weeds. He fulfills its naturalness by preventing the threat that it be damaged by neglect, that is, he eliminates that which causes damage by neglect [weeds]. For receiving the mandate of Heaven above and for keeping the people content below, nothing surpasses this. Only husbandry can be called “the quick way to submission.” “What there is ‘quick submission’ to is constancy (chang).” By “quick way to submission” we mean the repetitive accumulation of virtue. “Just let repetitive accumulation of virtue happen and avoid forcing them [the people] to go faster, for only then can one have them submit to the way of constancy. Thus, the text says: “By quick way to submission we mean the repetitive accumulation of virtue.” (Lynn 1999, 163) Elsewhere, in Chengxiang (Create Images), Section 6, the Heshanggong version also references bodily organ spirit-gods, breath control, and longevity techniques [physical immortality?], all of

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which hint also at yin-yang theory and the five phases (wuxing), to take its macro political economy vs. micro human physiology analogy even farther from Wang Bi’s reading: “The Valley Spirit never dies” “Valley means to ‘nourish’—as long as one successfully nourishes his spirit-gods, he shall not die. ‘Spirit’ mean the spirit-gods of the five viscera. The liver houses the Hun (evanescent soul); the lungs house the Bo (earth-bound soul); the heart houses the Shen (spirit-energy); the kidneys house the Jing (essential nature); the spleen houses the Zhi (will). Once the five viscera have completely deteriorated, the five spirit-gods depart.” “By this is meant the Xuanpi (Arcane Female).” “That is, the Way of immortality resides in the Arcane Female. ‘Arcane’ means Heaven (the Natural), which in humans is the nose. ‘Female’ means Earth, which in humans is the mouth. Heaven feeds humans with the five qi (pneumas), which enter through the nose and are stored in the heart. The five qi, pure and imperceptibly subtle, form the jingshen (essential spirit-nature, consciousness) and congming (hearing and eyesight, perception), yinsheng (intelligible voice) and the wuxing (five natures: xi [joy], nu [anger], yu [desire], ju [fear], you [worry, grief]). The gui (collective spirit) for all these is the Hun (evanescent soul). The Hun is male, which principally enters and leaves through the human nose and connects with Heaven, which is why the nose is xuan (arcane). The Earth feeds humans with the five flavored foods, which enter through the mouth and are stored in the stomach. The five flavored foods (tian [sweet], suan [sour], ku [bitter], la [spicy], xian [salty]), zhuoru (impure and defiled), form the xing (body shape), hai (skeleton), gu (bones), rou (flesh), xue (blood), the pai (veins), and the liuqing (seats of the six emotions: [dachang (large intestine), xiaochang (small intestine), wei (stomach), pangguang (bladder), sanjiao (three visceral cavities housing the internal organs), and dan (gall bladder)]. The gui (collective spirit) for all these is the Bo (earth-bound soul). The Bo is female, which principally enters and leaves through the human mouth and connects with Earth, which is why the mouth is pi (female). “As for ‘Gate of the Arcane Female,’ this means the root of Heaven and Earth.” “Root means yuan (primordial), that is, the gates of the nose and mouth are the conduits through which the yuanqi (primordial pneumas) of Heaven and Earth come and go. These seem there as if continuous silk floss. The way the nose and mouth breathe in and out seems like the delicate subtlety of continuous silk floss—as if it might be there and then again seem not there. “One should not belabor them.” “Use of these pneumas should be easy and relaxed, so one must not hurry and belabor them.” (Wang Ka, 21–22) Wang Bi’s reading eschews all such references to organ spirit-gods, breath control, and longevity/ physical immortality and has nothing to do with yin-yang theory or the five phases but instead reads the entire section in terms of metaphorical identifications of the Dao, thus keeping maintaining discourse on the level of abstract philosophy: The Valley Spirit never dies, and we call it the “Mysterious Female.” The gate of the Mysterious Female is referred to as the “Root of Heaven and Earth.” On and on, with only apparent existence, it functions inexhaustibly. The Valley Spirit is the nothingness in the center of the valley. It has neither form nor appearance and is utterly free of contrariness or disobedience. Lying low and unmoving, it maintains its quiescence and never weakens. Even though all things are completed by it, we do not see its form, for this is the most perfect thing. Lying low and maintaining quiescence, we cannot grasp it in order to give it [the

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Dao] a name, so the text refers to it as the “Mysterious Female.” The gate is the place from which the Mysterious Female comes. Since it is rooted in that from which it comes, it is the embodiment of the great ultimate, and this is why the text refers to it as “the root of Heaven and Earth.” Do you wish to say that it does exist? Well, we do not see its form. Do you wish to say that it does not exist? Well, the myriad things are produced by it. Thus the text says, “On and on, with only apparent existence.” Not one single thing fails to be completed, yet it never tires. Thus the text says, “it functions inexhaustibly.” (Lynn, The Classic, 62) The Wang Bi and Heshanggong versions of the Laozi exemplify two basic divisions in its exegesis, into which most if not all commentary editions seem to belong. The number of such editions is staggering: some 700 are listed in traditional bibliographical sources, of which about 350 still exist, as well as another 250 or so in Japan. Whereas the Wang Bi type might be labeled “historical-philosophical,” for it tends to read the Laozi in terms of ideas as they were formulated in their historical contexts, the Heshanggong type might best be labeled “scriptural,” for it tends to readings associated with practical guidance to a perceived “good life,” often sanctified by both beliefs and practices that seem “religious.” Master Lao, after all, eventually became deified as Taishang Laojun (Most High Lord Lao) or Taishang Xuanyuan Huangdi (Most High Arcane Primordial Thearch), and the Laozi became the most venerable scripture in the Daoist religious tradition. Translations into other languages tend to divide similarly into two types: the “historical” and the “scriptural,” a distinction perceptively observed almost a century ago by Arthur Waley (1889–1966): Now scriptures are collections of symbols. Their peculiar characteristic is a kind of magical elasticity. To successive generations of believers they mean things that would be paraphrased in utterly different words. Yet . . . they continue to satisfy the wants of mankind. . . . The distinction I wish to make is between translations which set out to discover what such books meant to start with, and those which aim only at telling the reader what such a text means to those who use it today. For want of better terms I call the first sort of translation “historical”, the second “scriptural.”12 We should also note that the Laozi is the most “translated” work in the world after the Bible. More than 800 versions in Western languages have appeared—about half in English. However, most are not actual translations but literary paraphrases based on previous learned translations. In general, Western language versions of the Laozi follow three basic approaches: (1) Scholarly translation, critically edited, arrived at with linguistic and philological expertise and attention to philosophical/religious and historical contexts, aimed at recovering the original meaning and intent, often with added explanatory material, usually a mixture of references, acknowledged or not, to Chinese or Japanese translations and commentaries and the translator’s own interpretations. (2) A second method presents a translation of an early commentary together with a new translation of the Laozi interpreted in light of and integrated with that commentary. Ideally, the two are thus fully integrated so interpreting the one is shaped by the other, with the result that the two complement each other and do not conflict. (3) Subjective interpretations of the text by those who cannot read the original (and who often think it unnecessary!) base renditions on non–traditional Chinese traditions or habits of thought. Such versions exploit the work of one or more of the other two kinds of translation. The vast majority of so-called “translations” of the Laozi are found here—caveat emptor!

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The Zhuangzi The Western reception of the Zhuangzi has a long history prior to the appearance of the first integral translations in the 1880s by Herbert Allen Giles (1845–1935) and James Legge (1815–1897),13 as part of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century general encounter of Europe with South and East Asian religious traditions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism—a religiocultural experience that profoundly shaped the development of modern Orientalism before imperialist ambitions and commercial greed during the nineteenth century compromised what had originally been essentially a search to expand Western religious perspectives—by discovering in Asia’s non-Abrahamic religions parallels and precedents for basic Judeo-Christian beliefs about God, creation, and the individual soul. The Zhuangzi, along with the commentary by Guo Xiang, also profoundly influenced the reception, interpretation, and translation of Buddhist concepts and terminology when that tradition arrived in China during its early period of development (third–sixth centuries CE).14 The text consists of a large collection of anecdotes, allegories, parables, fables, and relatively brief philosophical expositions, which the commentary by Guo Xiang (265–312) expands on and elucidates in terms of a coherent system largely of his own making, focused on the key concept ziran (Nature, the natural; natural endowment; natural spontaneity), lost to mankind due to the corrupting effect of “civilization” but recoverable through the attainment of sagehood. The Dao is the great prime pattern and all-inclusive matrix of principles of all existence: Heaven and Earth, both animate and inanimate, animal, vegetable, and mineral, and, of course, human beings. It is the sum aggregate of all individual principles, each of which governs natural properties and characteristic behavior. Think of the Dao as the cosmic program that runs the universe. However, human beings create (or are) glitches in the program because of their tendency to overreach their natural endowments in the pursuit of power, wealth, reputation, pleasure, and other “unnatural” goals—the bane of mankind. Access to and recovery of the natural self is only possible when one is free of conscious life, when all behavior is free of conscious action (wuwei), and one responds to things, “the other,” with perfect resonance, that is, arcanely merges or unites and becomes one with them. Whether the Dao exists ontologically both transcendent to things, in dualistic relationship with them, as well as inherent in them, exemplified by the xuanxue (arcane learning) of Wang Bi (226 ̶249), or exists only inherently in things, in a materialistic monistic system, epitomized by the thought of Guo Xiang, is a question debated extensively in the arcane learning tradition of the third–ninth centuries, a debate that extended into Neo-Confucian philosophy during the later Song ̶ Qing eras. Although the Zhuangzi (Sayings of Master Zhuang), after the Laozi the most important Daoist foundational text, has also popularly been regarded in both traditional and modern times as the work of a single author, Master Zhuang, Zhuang Zhou (fourth century BCE), overwhelming modern scholarly consensus is that it is a work compiled probably over at least two centuries. However, concerning the text, which except for fragments exists only in the thirty-three chapter recension of Guo Xiang, divided into three sections—Neipian (Inner Chapters), Waipian (Outer Chapters), and Zapian (Miscellaneous Chapters)—agreement has never been reached either as to how its chronological layers should be stratified or who contributed to its compilation, either individually or as members of schools of thought. Different ways of approaching the text, based on textual analysis, have been proposed, resulting in the reassigning of some passages in the Inner Chapters to the Outer and Miscellaneous Chapters, moving passages in them to the Inner Chapters, and classifying all chapters in terms of both chronological layers and “school of thought” affiliations. Earlier modern scholars tended to accept that the Inner Chapters were largely authored by Master Zhuang in the 350

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fourth century BCE and that the other two sections were a product of later “schools” of Master Zhuang’s followers, but eventually more sophisticated approaches appeared that resulted in more detailed conclusions, first significantly by Guan Feng (1919–2005) in 1961,15 whose work was developed further by A. C. Graham.16 Working independently of Graham, Liu Xiaogan covered similar ground but came to somewhat different conclusions in his Peking University doctoral dissertation (1985), directed by Professor Zhang Dainian (1909–2004), published as Zhuangzi zhexue ji qi yanbian (Philosophy of the Zhuangzi and Its Evolution). The first three chapters of Liu’s work were translated as Classifying the Zhuangzi Chapters with an Afterword, in which Liu contrasts his dating and classification scheme with Graham’s.17 Graham proposes six strata and kinds of authorship in the Zhuangzi: (1) The Inner Chapters (1–7) represent the actual writings of Master Zhuang, including some passages in the Miscellaneous Chapters in Guo Xiang’s recension that rightly belong in the Inner Chapters. (2) Chapters 8–10 and the first part of 11 are authored by an individual “Primitivist” influenced by the Laozi. (3) Parts of Chapter 11 and Chapters 12 and 33–16 are composed by an early Han school of eclectic Daoists or “Syncretists” (early third century BCE). (4) Chapters 17–22 expound on and further develop material in the Inner Chapters and as such are from the later “School of Master Zhuang” (third–second centuries BCE, perhaps into early Han). (5) Chapters 23 and 32–27 consist of heterogeneous fragments, including some early material that rightfully belongs to the Inner Chapters (fourth–second centuries BCE). (6) Graham attributes Chapters 28–31 to the “Yangists,” narratives supportive of Yang Zhu’s (370–319 BCE) ethical egoism that can be dated to the same time as the “Primitivists” (205 BCE). (7) The Syncretists”: a collection of passages, probably all of early Han date, that synthesize Confucian, Legalist, and Daoist thought, found in Chapters 12 and 14., 13, Liu proposes four divisions for the Zhuangzi: (1) Inner Chapters (1–7) (mid-Warring States period, fourth century BCE), records of Master Zhuang’s own teachings; (2) Group I Outer Chapters 17–22, Miscellaneous Chapters 23 and 32–27, composed and compiled by “Transmitters and Expositors of Master Zhuang” (Late Warring States period before 235 BCE), who explain/develop thought from the Inner Chapters as well as initiating thought of their own different from that of the Inner Chapters and essentially trying to transcend the conflicts between Confucians and Mohists; (3) Group II Outer Chapters 11B and 33, 12–16 (Late Warring States period before 235 BCE) that represent the “Huang-Lao School” and assimilate and accommodate several Confucian and Legalist points of view, emphasizing the arts of the ruler and expounding the principle that he should be inactive while his ministers are active; and (4) Group III Outer Chapters 8–11A, Miscellaneous Chapters 28–31 (Late Warring States period before 235 BCE) that represent “The Anarchists” who reject “reality” as illusory, seek the freedom of human nature, and promote the idea that in the society of highest virtue neither distinction of ruler and subjects nor class consciousness exists. Liu also insists that all of the Zhuangzi was complete by 241 BCE and that none of it dates from as late as the early Han. In the meantime, Harold Roth, in “Who Compiled the Chuang Tzu?”,18 largely follows Graham’s scheme but also argues, agreeing with Guan Feng, that the compilation of the Zhuangzi, which contains material composed and transmitted for about two centuries (fourth–second centuries BCE) should be attributed to Liu An (179–122 BCE), the King of Huainan, and the Huainan scholars and that the actual date of compilation can be narrowed down to about 130 BCE. For a comprehensive critique of Graham’s, Liu’s, and Roth’s work, among others, as well as new perspectives and conclusions, the reader is directed to Brian H. Hoffert, “Chuang Tzu: The Evolution of a Taoist Classic.” After sifting through all the evidence and arguments presented, Hoffert concludes that the fifty-two–chapter Zhuangzi listed in the Hanshu (History of the Former Han) Yiwen zhi (Treatise on 351

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Arts and Letters) was likely compiled by “Syncretists” at the court of the Prince of Huainan, Liu An (179–122 BCE).19 However, despite all this effort, much of the evidence still remains ambiguous as to which parts were originally composed when and by whom. The most significant early attribution of such a body of writings to Master Zhuang appears in the biography prepared for him in the Shiji (Records of the Historian), completed in 104 BCE by Sima Qian (Shiji, 63:2143–2145). Although the fifty-two–chapter version of the text apparently did not yet exist in Sima’s day, it was well known by the time of Guo Xiang, who also attributed all of it to “Master Zhuang.”20 Let us now consider what Sima Qian made of it. Sima Qian referred only to four sections or chapter titles: Yufu “The Old Fisherman” (Guo’s chapter 31), Dao Zhi “Robber Zhi” (29), Quque “Ransack Chests” (10), and Weilei xu Kangsang zi “Master Kangsang of Weilei Mountain” (apparently similar to “Gengsang Chu” [23]), all of which belong to Guo‘s edited Waipian “Outer Chapters” and Zapian “Miscellaneous Chapters.” None of these four belong to the first set of layers, considered the most representative of the core ideas of the Zhuangzi in the Neipian “Inner Chapters,” which suggests that the “Inner Chapters” compiled by Guo did not yet exist during Sima Qian’s lifetime. However, Sima Qian was familiar with some body of writings associated with Master Zhuang, for not only does his “Biography of Master Zhuang” provide considerable information, but elsewhere, in other parts of the Records of the Historian, he quotes or paraphrases passages that appear later in Guo’s version of the Zhuangzi.21 Sima Qian recognized that Master Zhuang “excelled at style and diction” and at “clarifying the principles underlying things through analogy,” and, though “his words unrestrained flowed as a great ocean just to please himself” and “such writings as ‘Master Kangsang of Weilei Mountain’ were all fictional fabrications,” he effectively used his skills to “excoriate the Confucians and Mohists” while “clarifying the teachings of Master Lao.” Sima goes on to say that although Master Zhuang’s scope of interest was vast, his teachings ultimately had their origin in the naturalistic thought of Master Lao, and so he contributed nothing fundamentally new. Moreover, Sima thought Master Zhuang’s thought narrower than that of Master Lao and that it lacked practical application. Such a view had an enormous influence on the later tradition, including Guo Xiang, whose commentary to the Zhuangzi is shaped to supplement and correct what he, like Sima Qian, regarded as Master Zhuang’s shortcomings. Key to understanding this last point is the correct reading of Sima Qian’s judgment of Master Zhuang that appears at the end of the “Grouped biographies of Master Lao and Han Fei”: Master Lao emphasized the absolute emptiness of the Dao and that it is by resonating with the Natural in non-purposeful action that one keeps in step with all possible change and transformation. Thus the work he wrote is judged so marvelously subtle that it is hard to understand. Although Master Zhuang separated Dao from Virtue and freely indulged in high-flown talk, he still fixed his essential thought on the Natural. Sima Qian, as is well known, largely identified with the Huang-Lao tradition of thought, which emphasized, among other things, the unity of the inner man (cultivation of sagehood) and external action (non-purposeful action, wuwei) resulting in harmonious and perfect government, in other words, the neisheng waiwang “inner sageliness and outer kingliness” ideal. This tradition, of course, has its origin in the Laozi (Sayings of Master Lao), in regard to which Sima seems to have understood dao and de as complementary, the two sides of the same coin, a fusion of inner and outer, essence [ben] and its practical ramifications [mo]. Therefore, just as Sima Qian found that

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Master Zhuang failed to maintain the unity of Dao and Virtue, so later did Guo Xiang, as he states in his preface to his edition of the Zhuangzi: We can say of Master Zhuang that he did indeed understand the underlying basis of things [ben]. As such, he never kept wild talk about it to himself. His words are those of one who responds to things in a unique way but fails to identify with them. Since he so responded but failed to identify with them, his words may be apt but have no practical use, and since what he says fails to address practical matters, though lofty it has no application.22 Tang Yijie (1927–2014) has insightfully commented on this passage: According to Guo Xiang, although Zhuang Zhou understood the essence of things [genben], he still tried to recognize such essence in terms of independent concrete entities [shiti], and in so doing he split essence and ramification into two. This was why Zhuang Zhou’s view of things “may be apt [dang] but has no practical use [yong] and “though lofty it has no application [xing].23 Sima Qian, Guo Xiang, and now the modern historian and critic of Chinese philosophy Tang Yijie all thus come to the same conclusion: although the Zhuangzi contains much wisdom for the cultivation of the enlightened individual self, it still fails to serve as means to create the ideal society through sagely rulership, that is, it may lead to sageliness but not kingliness. Guo Xiang thus composed his commentary as a corrective and supplement to the Zhuangzi—he did not merely explain what he thought Master Zhuang is supposed to have “said.” Guo thus rendered for the Zhuangzi what Wang Bi provided for the Daode jing: he composed a commentary that turned the Zhuangzi into a treatise on statecraft to serve as “advice for the prince.” However, such an interpretation does not preclude the reader from delving into it for wisdom to enhance personal thought and behavior, for it was common throughout the ages to read Confucian and Daoist works of philosophy, including the Zhuangzi, on more than one level. As the traditional Chinese view had it, the state was the family writ large, so the sage ruler of “all under Heaven” was regarded as the model for the aspiring individual sage in private life. The Zhuangzi can be read in this way, just as can many other early texts.

Notes 1 Sima Qian, Shiji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), 63.2139–42. 2 Xiaogan Liu, “Did Daoism Have a Founder? Textual Issues of the Laozi,” in Dao Companion to Daoist Philosophy, ed. Xiaogan Liu (Dordrecht: Springer, 2015), 25–46, 38–40. 3 William H. Baxter, “Situating the Language of the Lao-tzu: The Probable Date of the Tao-te-ching,” in Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, ed. Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998). 4 William G. Boltz, “The Composite Nature of Early Chinese Texts,” in Text and Ritual in Early China, ed., Martin Kern (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005), 59. 5 Richard John Lynn, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994). 6 Richard John Lynn, The Classic of the Way and Virtue: A New Translation of the Tao-te ching of Laozi as Interpreted by Wang Bi (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). 7 Richard John Lynn, “Guo Xiang’s Theory of Sagely Knowledge as Seen in His Essentials of the Analects (Lunyu Tilue),” in Dao Companion to Xuanxue, ed. David Chai (Dordrecht: Springer, 2020), 393–410..

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 8 Robin Yates, “Huang-Lao (Yellow [Emperor] and Old [Master]),” Pregadio (2008): 508–10. 9 Christoph Harbsmeier, “Science and Civilization in China,” in Language and Logic, Vol. 7, pt. 1, ed. Kenneth Robinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 355–58; Robert Ashmore, “Word and Gesture: On Xuan-School Hermeneutics of the Analects,” Philosophy East and West 54, no. 4 (2004): 458–88. 10 Although no up-to-date published reliable translation of the Heshang gong Laozi has yet appeared, the Edward Erkes version is still worth consulting; see Erkes, “Ho-Shang-Kung’s Commentary on Lao-Tse,” Artibus Asiae 8, no. 2/4 (1945): 119, 121–196; 9, no. 1/3 (1946): 197–220; and 12, no. 3 (1949): 221–51; as well as Ho-Shang-Kung’s Commentary on Lao-Tse (Ascona, Switzerland: Artibus Asiae, 1950). For a comprehensive and detailed study, which contains a new translation of the entire commentary integrated with the Laozi text, see Misha Andrew Tadd, Alternatives to Monism and Dualism: Seeking Yang Substance with Yin Mode in Heshanggong’s Commentary on the Daodejing (PhD diss., Boston University, 2013). 11 Wang Ka, ed., Laozi Daodejing Heshanggong zhangju [The Laozi Divided into Paragraphs and Sentences by the Gentleman of the Riverbank] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1993), 11. 12 Arthur Waley, The Way and Its Power: A Study of the Tao Tê Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought (London: Allen and Unwin, 1934), 12–13. 13 Herbert A. Giles, Chuang Tzu: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1889); James Legge, “The Texts of Taoism (Part 1): The Tao Teh King, the Writings of Kwang-3ze (Books I– XVII); The Texts of Taoism (Part II): The Writings of Kwang-3ze Books XVIII–XXXIII, the Thai-Shang Tractate of Actions and Their Retributions,” in The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Taoism, ed. Max Müller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1891). 14 Richard John Lynn, Zhuangzi: A New Translation of the Sayings of Master Zhuang as Interpreted by Guo Xiang (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022). 15 Guan Feng, Zhuangzi neipian yijie he pipan [Interpretation and Critique of the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961.1); “Zhuangzi wai zapian chutan” [Preliminary Investigation of the Outer and Miscellaneous Chapters of the Zhuangzi], in Zhuangzi zhexue taolun ji [Collected Essays on the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi], ed. Zhexue yanjiu bianjibu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.1961.2), 62–98. 16 A. C. Graham, “How Much of Chuang Tzu Did Chuang Tzu Write?” in Studies in Classical Chinese Thought, ed. Henry Rosemont, Jr., and Benjamin I. Schwartz (Chico: American Academy of Religion, 1980), 459–501; A. C. Graham, Chuang-tzu: The Seven Inner Chapters and Other Writings from the Book Chuang-tzu (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1981). 17 Liu Xiaogan, Classifying the Zhuangzi Chapters, trans. William E. Savage (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, 1994). 18 Harold Roth, “Who Compiled the Chuang Tzu?” in Chinese Texts and Philosophical Contexts, ed. Henry Rosemont (La Salle: Open Court, 1991), 79–128. 19 Brian H. Hoffert, “Chuang Tzu: The Evolution of a Taoist Classic” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2001), 346–47. 20 Much work has been done to recover the pre-Guo Xiang larger version of the Zhuangzi; for the most up-to-date findings, see Stephan Peter Bumbacher, “Reconstructing the Zhuang zi: Preliminary. Considerations,” Asiatische Studien—Études Asiatiques 70, no. 3 (2016): 611–74. 21 Wang Shumin (1914–2008) in Wang Zhuangxue guankui [Studies of the Zhuangzi, limited views] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007) tracks parallel passages shared by the Zhuangzi and the Huainanzi, the Han Feizi, Shiji, and other early texts. Esther Klein has also tracked parallel passages shared by the Zhuangzi and the Shiji in Klein “Were There ‘Inner Chapters’ in the Warring States? A New Examination of Evidence About the Zhuangzi,” TP, Second Series, 96, no. 4/5 (2010): 327–31. 22 Guo Qingfan (1844–1896), Zhuangzi jishi [Collected Explanations of Master Zhuang]; Xinbian zhuzi jicheng [New Edition of the Grand Compendium of the Philosophers], First Collection (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1997), Xu [Prefaces], 1. 23 Tang Yijie, Guo Xiang yu Wei Jin xuanxue [Guo Xiang and Arcane Learning of the Wei and Jin Eras] (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2000), 39.

Further Reading Kern, Martin, ed. Text and Ritual in Early China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005. Kohn, Livia, and Michael LaFargue, eds. Lao-Tzu and the Tao-Te-Ching. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.

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The Laozi and Zhuangzi Liu, Xiaogan. Classifying the Zhuangzi Chapters. Translated by William E. Savage. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, 1994. Liu, Xiaogan., ed. Dao Companion to Daoist Philosophy. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2015. Liu, Xiaogan., ed. Dao Companion to the Philosophy of the Daodejing. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2023. Lynn, Richard John. The Classic of the Way and Virtue: A New Translation of the Tao-te ching of Laozi as Interpreted by Wang Bi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Lynn, Richard John. “Western Translations of the Laozi Daodejing.” In Dao Companion to the Philosophy of the Daodejing, edited by Xiaogan Liu. Dordrecht: Springer, 2023. Lynn, Richard John. Zhuangzi: A New Translation of the Sayings of Master Zhuang as Interpreted by Guo Xiang. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022. Waley, Arthur. The Way and Its Power: A Study of the Tao Tê Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought. London: Allen and Unwin, 1934. Watson, Burton, trans. The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968.

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29 MOZI AND HAN FEIZI Eirik Lang Harris

In terms of philosophical thought, the Mozi and the Han Feizi are perhaps the two most maligned texts from early China. Part of this is for historical reasons, including the facts that the Mohist school of thought disappeared quite early, and Han Feizi is often tarred with the same brush as the First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Furthermore, both thinkers argued strenuously against Confucianism, which was a dominant philosophical force through much of Chinese history, and these texts have often been dismissed with little or no argument precisely because they disagreed with Confucian thought. In what follows, I shall introduce these two texts primarily through a comparison between them, including a focus on their similarities—a point overlooked by most scholars.1 Before examining the thought in these texts, a few words of introduction are in order. Both texts are named for the individuals whose ideas they purportedly contain. In the case of the Han Feizi, while there are a range of views about the authorship of the 55 chapters that compose the text, the ideas contained therein present a generally consistent vision, and many accept that the majority of the chapters were written by the historical figure Han Fei.2 The Mozi, however, is a more complex text, which is often divided into five different sections—the “Epitomes” (chapters 1–7), the “Core Doctrines” (8–39), the “Logical Chapters” (40–45), the “Dialogues” (46–50), and the “Military Chapters” (51–71). Of these, the most often studied philosophically are the “Core Doctrines.” The “Epitomes” and the “Logical Chapters” appear to be of a later date, while the dating of the Military Chapters is uncertain.3 The Core Doctrines, which will be the focus here, consist of triads of chapters on nine philosophical themes: “elevating the worthy,” “obeying one’s superior,” “impartial care,” “against aggressive warfare,” “economy in expenditures,” “economy in funerals,” “Heaven’s will,” “explaining ghosts,” and “against music,” and can be considered the philosophical core of the text. As with the rest of the text, these chapters are of uncertain authorship, and the existence of three versions of most of chapters has given rise to a range of interpretations including the idea that they came from three different sects of Mohism, that they came from three different set of “notes” taken by those who listened to Mozi, or that the second and third version of each chapter are simply further revisions/developments of the ideas in the first chapter. In any case, however we read them, one thing is clear—they are not from the hand of Mozi himself. Throughout this chapter, I shall take the same approach I do with the Han Feizi—take the Core Chapters to present a generally consistent philosophical vision. DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-40 

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It may also be instructive to briefly examine some similarities (and differences) in how these texts go about the task of persuading their audience—their writing methods and styles. The prose of the Mozi is often regarded as uninspired, flat, and repetitious,4 and the celebrated Sinologist Arthur Waley went so far as to claim that the text is “feeble, repetitive, heavy, unimaginative and unentertaining, devoid of a single passage that could possibly be said to have wit, beauty, or force.”5 Wiebke Denecke continues such discussions of the literary style of the Mozi by noting that, “Rhetorically, tropes of repetition on the level of words, phrases, paragraphs, and even chapters (as in the triadic core chapters) dominate Mozi.”6 This is in stark contrast to the Han Feizi, which has, since the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), if not before, been recognized for the quality of its prose; its author is credited in the Weishu as having written several chapters in the “linked pearl” style of allegorical expression,7 and his rhetorical flair and use of persuasion (shuo) have been lauded and appropriated throughout history. However different the stylistic features of their prose, however, there are stark similarities in how both used their prose to convey their views to their audience. Both texts take persuading their reader of their views as paramount, and they employ a variety of means for doing so, including linked chain arguments, hypothetical arguments, historical and hypothetical anecdotes, and appeals to the past. The Mozi evinces a strong belief in the power of rational arguments to change not only beliefs but also action and can be seen perhaps most prominently in the chapters defending impartial care. And while the Han Feizi spends an entire chapter lamenting the “Difficulties of Persuasion,” acknowledging the insufficiency of rational argumentation, it still sees the justification of its views as being grounded in its rational arguments. Neither text, however, limits itself to bare logical argumentation. Rather, both appeal to a wide range of stories and historical anecdotes to help demonstrate their points. The purpose of these stories is, in part at least, to make the logic of their arguments more vivid and clear to their audience. Let us turn now to the content of these texts and the goals of their arguments. There are several fundamental similarities in how these two texts approach questions of political organization—and ways in which they diverged from a range of other texts of the time, including those labeled Confucian and Daoist.8 The first is that the fundamental question of how the state should operate is answered by reflecting on what would maximize benefits to the state. In short, both texts advocate forms of state consequentialism. Second, neither text thinks that moral cultivation—either of the ruler, his ministers, or the general populace—is a necessary or even particularly useful tool for guiding or reforming the actions of these people. Rather, laws and their attendant rewards and punishments are seen as more effective at changing people’s actions. Finally, both texts advocate according with the natural motivations that people already have to establish political order.

State Consequentialism Although there is a range of similarities, there are significant differences between these two texts. While both are state consequentialist, they diverge on what consequences are seen as important. Furthermore, there are important ways in which their views about what motivates human beings differ, and this leads to differences in their views about how rewards and punishments work at the motivational level. Finally, while both oppose moral cultivation, their reasons for doing so reflect important underlying differences. Coming to a better understanding of these similarities and differences, and how they relate to other strands of political thought in the Warring States period, will take up the rest of this chapter. And, while this chapter will examine the similarities and differences noted previously, it would be a mistake to focus simply on these. Rather, it will endeavor to apply Lee Yearley’s insight that it is more profitable to delve deeper, looking for similarities within 357

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differences and differences within similarities, as it is at this level that the greatest potential for philosophical advancement arises.9 Let us begin by examining a point of similarity—the underlying assumption that political organization is necessary. Even if social organization is beneficial or even necessary, and few in the early Chinese world denied this, why move from the realm of social organization to that of political organization—a hierarchical system in which obedience is owed and demanded?10 The Mozi’s answer can be seen in the text’s discussion of what we might think of as the “state of nature”: In ancient times, when people first came into being and before there were governments or laws, each person followed their own norm for deciding what was right and wrong. And so, where there was one person there was one norm, where there were two people there were two norms, where there were ten people there were ten different norms. As many people as there were, that was how many norms were recognized. In this way people came to approve their own norms for what is right and wrong and thereby condemn the norms of others. And so, they mutually condemned each other’s norms. For this reason, within families, there was resentment and hatred between fathers and sons and elder and younger brothers that caused them to separate and disperse and made it impossible for them to cooperate harmoniously with one another. Throughout the world, people used water, fire, and poison to harm and injure one another, to the point where if they had strength to spare, they would not use it to help each other, if they had excess goods, they would leave them to rot away rather than distribute them to one another, and if they had helpful teachings, they would hide them away rather than teach them to one another. The chaos that ruled in the world was like what one finds among the birds and beasts. (Ivanhoe, “Mozi,” 62–63) Political organization, for the Mozi, is necessary because otherwise conflicts emerging among ideological factions inevitably bring chaos to the world. This leads the text to develop a political theory aimed at eliminating such factions and promoting a unified set of values beneficial to all. While the Han Feizi similarly sees a need for political organization due to the strife that would otherwise reign, it is not worried about conflict arising from incompatible ideologies. Rather, this text sees the fundamental problem of chaos and conflict as arising from a combination of limited resources and people acting based on what they think will fulfill their immediate interests. In antiquity, adult men did not engage in agriculture, for the fruits of bushes and trees provided sufficient nourishment. Adult women did not weave, for the hides of wild animals provided sufficient clothing. They did not exert their strength and yet there was enough to nourish them. The people were few while material resources were abundant, and so the people did not fight [amongst themselves]. Therefore, magnanimous rewards were not handed out, and strict punishments were not employed, and yet the people were well ordered of themselves. In the present, having five sons is not considered many, and these sons in turn each have five sons of their own, so that before they pass away, grandfathers already have twenty-five grandsons. Thus, the number of people increases while goods and material resources grow scarce. The people exhaust their strength for meager supplies of nourishment. Thus, the people fight amongst themselves, and even if rewards are doubled and punishments are piled on, chaos cannot be avoided. (Harris, “Han Feizi,” 358)

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The chaos that necessarily arises from competition for limited resources is compounded because most people are like small children, lacking an accurate understanding of what is actually in their overall long term interests. In the words of the Han Feizi, “the people are stupid, dull, corrupt, and lazy, and thus they are bitter over small expenditures and forgetful of great benefits.”11 This means that even if pro-social actions are actually beneficial to the people, insofar as they do not comprehend this, they will continue to act in a destructive fashion in failed attempts to gain more for themselves. In both the Mozi and the Han Feizi, the implicit justification for political organization, then, is the chaos that would otherwise obtain. However, they differ on the cause of the chaos. For the Mozi, the cause is to be found in people’s violent attempts to realize their conflicting ideologies, while for the Han Feizi, it arises because people come into conflict as they pursue what they think will benefit them when resources are limited. For both texts, the answer to this chaos is to be found in the development of state consequentialism. For the Mozi, the goal was the maximization of wealth, order, and population of the state, while for the Han Feizi, it was the maximization of the state’s strength, stability, and security. While these appear quite similar, this similarity hides an important difference. For the Mozi, what maximizes these consequences for the state is also what maximizes the consequences for the people within that state—following “Heaven’s will.” Understanding Heaven’s will leads to the Mozi’s famous advocacy of “impartial care,” defended and justified in the triad of chapters that bear that title.12 The state consequentialist goals of maximizing wealth, order, and population are justified not simply because maximizing these goals maximizes the strength and power of the state but because it maximizes benefits to those within the state. The fundamental concern of the Mozi is with the well-being of the people, and the state is a tool which, properly utilized, can maximize that well-being. The order that the Mozi endeavors to implement is the order that naturally arises when the state and its people accord with Heaven’s will. While the Han Feizi also subscribes to a state consequentialist framework, it makes no effort to justify this framework by arguing that it maximally benefits the people. Rather, its fundamental concern is ensuring that the state be maximally strong, stable, secure, and not susceptible to either internal or external threats, and benefit to the people is simply ancillary. This does not mean that benefit to the people is unimportant. However, benefit to the people is ancillary in the sense that it is not fundamental in and of itself but is in service of something more fundamental—order.13 And this has substantial implications, as we can see: Order and strength arise from law while weakness and disorder arise from leniency. If the ruler is clear-sighted with respect to this, he will set straight rewards and punishments and will not treat those below with benevolence. Rank and emoluments will arise from achievement, while punishments and penalties will arise from crimes. . . . King Zhaoxiang14 understood the proper disposition of the ruler and did not release supplies from the Five Gardens. . . . There was a great famine in the state of Qin. The Marquis of Ying said: “As for the plants and roots of the Five Gardens, these vegetables, acorns, jujubes, and chestnuts would be sufficient to allow the people to survive. I ask that we distribute them . . .” King Zhaoxiang replied, “Ordering the distribution of melons, vegetables, jujubes and chestnuts would be sufficient to allow the people to survive, but this would cause those who have achievements and those without achievements to struggle over getting these things. Now, keeping them alive but having disorder is not as good as letting them die but having order. May you, Grand Minister, cast aside this thought!” (Harris, “Han Feizi,” 376)

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The king’s reasoning here is straightforward. Distribution based on need would benefit those who had regularly worked hard and who were only in danger of starvation due to circumstances outside of their control. However, indiscriminate distribution of food stores would also benefit the lazy, the lay-abouts, those who even in times of good harvest would be in danger of starving because of their own lack of effort. If food is distributed without a concern for merit, then the lazy will have no incentive to work for themselves. Given the Han Feizi’s conception of human nature alluded to previously, whereby people are primarily motivated by their own perceived benefit, to the extent that they can achieve such benefit without effort on their part, they will do so. This implies that the only leverage that the state has over the people to get them to act in ways beneficial to the state are the twin handles of reward and punishment. If the state gives up this leverage and provides rewards without demanding achievements on the part of the people, then they will no longer do as the state wishes, decreasing the state’s strength, security, and stability and increasing disorder. This points to a fundamental difference in the conceptions of order in the Mozi and the Han Feizi. For the Mozi, order in the state is maximized just in case the well-being of the people is maximized. For the Han Feizi, on the other hand, the two come apart. As we saw in the passages previously, there are times when order is preserved even at great cost to the population, and the state need not, and indeed should not, always act in such a way as to maximally benefit its people. This is not to say, though, that there is no relationship between the well-being of the people and a well-ordered state. Insofar as the state is composed of people and could not exist without its people, it must necessarily take care of them and ensure their survival, but only to the extent necessary for the strength, security, and stability of the state. The people are not seen as valuable in and of themselves but, rather, valuable insofar as they benefit the state. And their maximally benefitting the state does not require the state to maximally benefit them, according to the Han Feizi.

Motivating the People Both texts take people to originally have desires and dispositions that are inimical to both social and political organization. The Han Feizi never claims that people are psychological egoists, that they are incapable of acting for any reasons other than their own perceived benefit. However, it argues that, as a matter of fact, self-regarding interests overwhelm other-regarding interests when they come into conflict. Indeed, this is the text’s explanation of the classical Chinese practice of female infanticide.15 It is not that parents do not have a concern for both their male children and their female children. As the text says, Furthermore, as for how parents treat their children, when they give birth to a son, they congratulate each other, while when they give birth to a daughter, they kill her. They consider their future benefits and calculate their long-term profit. Therefore, even when it comes to how they treat their children, parents use calculating minds in dealing with them, how much the more so in situations where the [natural] warm feelings between parents and children are absent!16 Female infanticide does not occur because parents lack a natural concern for their offspring. Rather it occurs because acting from this other-regarding concern would be detrimental for the parents’ own interests. When other-regarding concerns are placed in opposition to self-regarding ones, the latter will inevitably win. Furthermore, and here we see a divergence from the Mozi, the Han Feizi takes our set of desires, motivations, and interests to remain relatively stable throughout our lives. 360

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We may very well find new ways of satisfying our set of interests, but the fundamental content does not alter in any appreciable way.17 This has important implications for how the state can motivate its people and ensure that they act in ways beneficial to the state. Unlike the Confucians, who aimed to cultivate the population, thus either strengthening or developing other-regarding motivations for acting, the Han Feizi argues that such attempts at developing such motivations are bound to fail. In Chapter 49, the text explicitly discusses Kongzi and his students, remarking that, even though Kongzi was the greatest sage that the world had ever known, he was only able to attract some 70 students, and among them only Kongzi himself possessed the virtues of benevolence and righteousness. If even the world’s greatest sage was so unsuccessful at changing people’s motivations, the text implies, any state that attempts to change motivations rather than working with pre-existing motivations, is bound to fail (Harris, “Han Feizi,” 361). What will work, thinks the Han Feizi, is the implementation of a strict and inviolable set of rules and regulations and attendant rewards and punishments. Insofar as the vast majority of the people have a strong aversion to punishment and a preference for rewards, they can be motivated by these tools. And, importantly, when people’s actions change as a result of rewards or punishments, this does not signal a change in their underlying motivation set. Rather, rewards and punishments work with already existing motivations, and simply change what it is necessary to do in order to achieve what one has always wanted or avoid what one has always disliked. The Mozi as well appeals to the power of punishment, claiming that, In ancient times, sage-kings created the Five Punishments18 to facilitate good order among their people. These are like the main thread of a skein of silk or the drawstring of a net. They are how the sage-kings gathered in those in the world who refused to obey their superiors. (Ivanhoe, “Mozi,” 65) However, unlike the Han Feizi, the Mozi believes that there are other alternatives that will work for large portions of the population. The Mozi’s solution to the problem of the state of nature articulated previously was to unify the norms of right and wrong throughout the state. As we see throughout the triad of chapters on “obeying one’s superior,” the text’s methodology is to get everyone within the state to approve of the norms for right and wrong of their superior. Thus, order is achieved in each district when those within the district accorded with the norms of the leader of the district. And order is achieved in the state when the norms of each of these leaders accorded with the norms of the ruler of the state. But note the difference here. The Mozi believes that it is possible to change people’s norms of right and wrong. And further, it believes that it is possible to change people’s motivations for action. These motivation sets are not seen as fixed. The Mozi explicates this in a justly famous example: In the past, Gou Jian, King of the state of Yue, was fond of bravery. And so, he taught his soldiers and subjects to be brave. But since he was not sure if they were really brave, he had his ships set aflame and ordered that the drums signal an advance. His troops fell on top of one another in their forward charge and countless numbers of them perished in the water and flames. Even when they ceased drumming, still the troops did not retreat. We can say that the soldiers of Yue were resolute indeed! Charging into flames is something very difficult to do, but masses of people did it in order to please the King of Yue. Within a single generation the people changed because they wanted to accord with the wishes of their superior. (Ivanhoe, “Mozi,” 72) 361

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The desire, essentially, to curry favor with their superiors can lead the people of the state to engage in a wide range of activities that otherwise they would never dream of doing. If actions such as these are psychologically possible for large swaths of the population, then the Mozi can avail itself of a behavioral modification tool beyond rewards and punishments. There is one final tool in the Mozi’s motivational arsenal. Unlike what we saw in the Han Feizi, which evinced an extreme skepticism of the people’s being able to accurately evaluate and assess what actions are actually in their self-interest, the Mozi demonstrates a (perhaps heroic) belief in the power of rational argument to not only convince but to motivate. Indeed, much of the triad of chapters advocating “impartial caring” is aimed at providing a rational argument for why it is that individuals should prefer to act impartially rather than partially. This point, coupled with the capacity of people to be motivated to do things as psychologically difficult as charging into flames led the Mozi to believe that logical reasoning could give rise to a change in both belief and action. The Mozi, then, relies on three distinct, but related, tools for changing people’s actions: logical reasoning, manipulating people’s desires to curry favor with their superiors, and utilizing their aversion to corporal punishment. These tools work together not merely by changing what will satisfy people’s pre-existing interests, but also by changing these interests in important ways, unlike what we see in the Han Feizi.

The Inefficacy of Moral Cultivation As previously mentioned, these two texts share a disregard for a fundamental tool in the arsenal of both the Confucians and the Daoists—moral cultivation.19 This similarity in disregarding moral cultivation arises, we might suspect, because the Mozi and Han Feizi share a conception of well-being that focuses almost exclusively on what we might term external goods rather than on internal, psychological goods. The more stuff people have, the better their lives are, both texts assume. Thus, the process of making lives better, whether it is on the part of the individual in question or on the part of the state, is seen as increasing the amount of external goods available rather than on cultivating psychological goods or new sources of value that might enrich one’s life. Again, though, this similarity needs to be examined with an awareness of underlying differences between the visions of these two texts. For the Mozi, the crux of the issue arises because of an apparent lack of awareness of the complexity of the human psychological make-up. In its attack on Confucian burial rituals, for example, the Mozi has this to say: However, if by following their words and implementing their plans concerning lavish funerals and prolonged mourning one really cannot enrich the poor, increase the population, bring stability to precarious situations and order to chaos, then these things clearly are not benevolent and right or the proper task of filial children. Those who offer counsel could not but discourage them. Benevolent people would work to eradicate such practices throughout the world; they would seek to abolish them and bring the people to condemn them and to never follow them, to the end of their days. (Ivanhoe, “Mozi,” 77) The Mozi sees funeral and mourning rituals purely from the standpoint of their material costs—the expenditure of which leaves less for the survivors. The text seems to completely lack an awareness of how such rituals may be psychologically beneficial to the survivors.20 Given such a lack of interest in people’s inner lives, along with the text’s apparent belief in the power of logic to direct action on its own, it is not surprising that the Mozi never tries to make use of moral cultivation. 362

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While the Han Feizi seems similarly uninterested in enriching the inner lives of the people, its take on moral cultivation is fundamentally different. There are, the text implies, two fundamental problems with attempting to rely upon moral cultivation to change the actions of the people within the state. We saw the first previously in the text’s discussion of Kongzi. Moral cultivation simply does not work for most of the population. If Kongzi was unable to fully cultivate any of his followers, what hope does the state have of morally cultivating its populace? Thus, as the Han Feizi says, “Those who govern employ what works for the many and abandon what works for the few. Therefore, they do not work on their kindness, they work on their laws” (Harris, “Han Feizi,” 376). Moral cultivation simply is not an efficacious tool for bringing about behavioral change. A second problem is that the actions of the morally cultivated, insofar as they exist, will not reliably be actions that maximize the strength, security, and order within the state. Regardless of what it is that makes an action right or good according to the cultivated individual, the source of this reason will not be found in whatever it is that maximizes order within the state. That is to say, insofar as one acts from the reasons provided by moral cultivation, one is acting from a set of reasons that are non-identical to the set of reasons that one would be acting from if one is acting to maximize order within the state. And to the extent that these two sets of reasons diverge, the actions that they demand will at times diverge. Sometimes the “virtuous” thing to do will be detrimental to state order. Furthermore, moral cultivation, if it works, does so in part by strengthening the individual’s motivations to act from virtue. This, though, means that when these reasons conflict with the order of the state, there is little chance that the state will win out. As such, the Han Feizi sees moral cultivation to be a danger to the state, a danger that increases as the cultivated individual’s commitment to his or her principles increases.

Conclusion While these texts are often read in opposition to each other, to the extent that they are read at all, I hope that this chapter has provided some insight into what may be gained by reading the Mozi and Han Feizi with an eye toward their similarities as well as their differences. They share a fundamental orientation—that of state consequentialism—and this sets them apart from the majority of philosophical texts from their time period. They also share similar positions on the role of laws and punishments, as well as the appropriate role for moral cultivation, and in this as well find themselves at odds with many of their contemporaries. Identifying these similarities is useful not only for positioning these two texts in opposition to others of the time period, however. Doing so also allows us to dig under the surface, examining in more detail exactly where and why these texts diverge in their social visions, as well as demonstrating to us the variety of directions open to those who take a well ordered state and its consequential goods to be central to normative philosophizing.

Notes 1 There are a few who have noted these similarities, including Philip J. Ivanhoe, “Hanfeizi and Moral Self-Cultivation,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 38, no. 1 (2011), 31–45; Eirik Lang Harris, “Mohist Naturalism,” The Philosophical Forum 51, no. 1 (2020), 17–31; Tao Jiang, Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early China: Contestation of Humaneness, Justice, and Personal Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), esp. 442–47. 2 For more on the question of authenticity, see Bertil Lundahl, Han Fei Zi: The Man and the Work (Stockholm: Institute of Oriental Languages, Stockholm University, 1992).

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 3 For more on dating, see Ian Johnston, trans., The Mozi: A Complete Translation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), xxxii–xxxiv; Carine Defoort and Nicolas Standaert, eds., The Mozi as an Evolving Text: Different Voices in Early Chinese Thought (Leiden: Brill, 2013); Carine Defoort, “The Gradual Growth of the Mohist Core Philosophy,” Monumenta Serica 64, no. 1 (2016), 1–22. 4 Burton Watson, Mozi: Basic Writings (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 15. 5 Arthur Waley, Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China (London: G. Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1939), 163–64. 6 Wiebke Denecke, The Dynamics of Masters Literature: Early Chinese Thought from Confucius to Han Feizi (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 130. 7 Wei Shou, Wei Shu (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1974), 790. 8 These are useful labels, but their limitations should be recognized. While thinkers such as Mengzi and Xunzi did self-identify as followers of Kongzi, there are important differences in their philosophies. Additionally, the authors of texts such as the Laozi and the Zhuangzi were only categorized as “Daoist” long after they were written. For more on school identification, see Kidder Smith, “Sima Tan and the Invention of Daoism, ‘Legalism,’ Et Cetera,” The Journal of Asian Studies 62, no. 1 (2003), 129–56. 9 Lee H. Yearley, Mencius and Aquinas: Theories of Virtue and Conceptions of Courage (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990), 195. 10 This conception of political organization is borrowed from Alan Gewirth, Political Philosophy (New York: MacMillan, 1965), 12. 11 See Han Feizi, Chapter 18. 12 Jian’ai is often translated as “universal love.” However, as Philip J. Ivanhoe notes, the Mozi is not concerned with a lack of compassion, but rather with a lack of action. The problem is that people do not take care of one another, not that they do not feel certain positive emotions toward one another. Philip J. Ivanhoe, “Mohist Philosophy,” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig (New York: Routledge, 1998), 452. 13 Another example may make this clearer. Philology, we might argue, is ancillary to the study of the history of philosophy, but it is certainly essential. See William B. Thompson, “Reading the Classics—Aloud,” in Greece & Rome, Second Series 9, Supplement: Re-Appraisal (Cambridge UP Publishers, 1962), 19–23. 14 King Zhaoxiang (325–251 BCE) set the state of Qin on the road to dominance in the Warring States period, with the result that his grandson gained unified control over all the states, becoming the First Emperor in 221 BCE. 15 For discussions of other-regarding concern and care for children, see also Chapters 20 and 47. Unfortunately, the only published English language translation is the unreliable Liao, Wên-kuei, trans., The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzu: A Classic of Chinese Legalism, 2 vols (London: A. Probsthain, 1939/1959). 16 See Han Feizi, Chapter 46. Translation my own, but see Liao, Wên-kuei, trans., The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzu: A Classic of Chinese Legalism, vol. 2 (London: A. Probsthain, 1959). 17 For more, see Eirik Lang Harris, “Human Motivations in the fa Traditions,” in Dao Companion to China’s fa Traditions: The Philosophy of Governance by Impartial Standards, ed. Yuri Pines (New York: Springer, 2024), 295–313. 18 The five punishments were tattooing, cutting off the nose, cutting off the feet, castration, and execution. 19 While there are central cultivational elements in the Laozi and Zhuangzi, they are importantly different from texts such as the Analects, Mengzi, and Xunzi. For a valuable discussion of these differences, see Philip J. Ivanhoe, “The Concept of De (‘Virtue’) in the Laozi,” in Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi, ed. Mark Csikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe (Albany: SUNY Press, 1999), 239–257. 20 The Xunzi provides a particularly strong argument for the psychological goods that can be provided by rituals. For an analysis, see Mark Berkson, “Xunzi as a Theorist and Defender of Ritual,” in Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi, ed. Eric L. Hutton (New York: Springer, 2016), 229–267.

Further Reading Translations Harris, Eirik Lang. “Han Feizi.” In Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy. 3rd ed., edited by Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan W. Van Norden. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2023. Johnston, Ian, trans. The Mozi: A Complete Translation. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Knoblock, John, and Jeffrey Riegel, trans. Mozi: A Study and Translation of the Ethical and Political Writings. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 2016.

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Mozi and Han Feizi Liao, Wên-kuei, trans. The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzu: A Classic of Chinese Legalism, 2 vols. London: A. Probsthain, 1939/1959. (Highly problematic, but the only complete English translation) Watson, Burton, trans. Han Feizi: Basic Writings. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Watson, Burton, trans. Mozi: Basic Writings. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.

Secondary Literature Back, Youngsun. “Reconstructing Mozi’s Jian’Ai.” Philosophy East and West 67, no. 4 (2017): 1092–117. Defoort, Carine, and Nicolas Standaert, eds. The Mozi as an Evolving Text: Different Voices in Early Chinese Thought. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Flanagan, Owen, and Jing Hu. “Han Fei Zi’s Philosophical Psychology: Human Nature, Scarcity, and the Neo-Darwinian Consensus.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 38, no. 2 (2011): 293–316. Fraser, Chris. The Philosophy of the Mòzĭ: The First Consequentialists. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. Goldin, Paul R., ed. Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Han Fei. New York: Springer, 2013. Harris, Eirik Lang. “Is the Law in the Way? On the Source of Han Fei’s Laws.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 38, no. 1 (2011): 73–87. Harris, Eirik Lang, and Henrique Schneider, eds. Adventures in Chinese Realism: Classic Philosophy Applied to Contemporary Issues. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2022. Hutton, Eric L. “Han Feizi’s Criticism of Confucianism and Its Implications for Virtue Ethics.” Journal of Moral Philosophy 5 (2008): 423–53. Ivanhoe, Philip J. “Hanfeizi and Moral Self-Cultivation.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 38, no. 1 (2011): 31–45. Lowe, Scott. Mo Tzu’s Religious Blueprint for a Chinese Utopia: The Will and the Way. Lewiston: E. Mellen Press, 1992. Loy, Hui-chieh. “On a Gedankenexperiment in the Mozi Core Chapters.” Oriens Extremus 45 (2005): 141–58. Lundahl, Bertil. Han Fei Zi: The Man and the Work. Stockholm: Institute of Oriental Languages Stockholm University, 1992. Martinich, A. P., and Siwing Tsoi. “Mozi’s Ideal Political Philosophy.” Asian Philosophy 25, no. 3 (2015): 253–74. Mei, Yi-pao. Motse, the Neglected Rival of Confucius. Westport: Hyperion Press, 1973. Schneider, Henrique. An Introduction to Hanfei’s Political Philosophy. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018. Van Norden, Bryan W. Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

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SECTION X

Prose of Literati

30 HAN YU AND LIU ZONGYUAN Xin Zou

Han Yu (768–824) and Liu Zongyuan (773–819) stand as two of the most crucial figures in the history of traditional Chinese literature. Their writings, included in school textbooks, have been studied by generations of Chinese students. To most Chinese readers, Han and Liu are chiefly remembered as champions and practitioners of guwen (ancient-style prose), and they were perceived, retrospectively, as the Tang forerunners in the initial phase of the “Ancient-style Prose Movement.” Together with Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072), Su Xun (1009–1066), Su Shi (1037–1101), Su Zhe (1039–1112), Zeng Gong (1019–1086), and Wang Anshi (1021–1086), they are collectively known as the “The Eight Great (Prose) Masters of the Tang and Song.” At the beginning of this discussion, it is essential to acknowledge that our understanding of Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan is largely influenced and shaped by the views, interpretations, and tastes of scholars, critics, and editors throughout history. Consider, for instance, the label “The Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song.” This term did not come into existence until the Ming dynasty, when a cohort of scholars—Tang Shunzhi (1507–1560), Wang Shenzhong (1509–1559), Mao Kun (1512–1601), and Gui Youguang (1507–1571)—sought to rejuvenate Ming literature by venerating Tang and Song prose as their standard. Similarly, the very notion of “Ancient-style Prose Movement” was introduced by modern scholar Hu Shih (1891–1962) in the context of his promotion of modern China’s “Vernacular Movement” in early twentieth century. While these examples don’t necessarily suggest that Han and Liu’s writings have been misrepresented, it remains important to frequently remind ourselves that Han and Liu’s writings have been passed down through numerous hands and are often interpreted through a variety of lenses, each emphasizing a particular aspect, or a version, of Han and Liu that resonates most closely with the times and specific agendas of later readers. The main objective of this entry, therefore, is to present an overview of Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan’s ideas and practices of ancient-style prose, placing particular emphasis on how these writings were perceived in the mid-Tang period. Guwen is a polysemous term. During the late eighth and early ninth centuries, it often denoted prose written in a less ornate and more flexible style compared with pianwen (parallel prose), which was a rhymed, balanced, and highly abstruse style, and the standard of the time. Han Yu was the first to use guwen in the context of “ancient-style” writing, with the earliest example of this usage traceable to his renowned prose piece “Discourse on the Teacher” in 802, when Han Yu was serving

 DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-42

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as Erudite of Four Gates Studies at the Directorate of Education, the academy for training young elites for the examinations in the Tang capital Chang’an. Towards the conclusion of the essay, Han Yu clarified his motivation behind this specific piece: Pan of the Li family, now seventeen, is fond of the writings of the ancients (guwen) and has thoroughly studied the six Confucian classics and their commentaries.1 Not bound by (the conventional ideas of) the times, he asked to study with me. I appreciate his ability to walk on/practice the Way of the ancients (gudao) and have composed this “Discourse on the Teacher” to give to him. Two points in this quoted passage warrant particular attention: First, guwen (ancient writings) are closely related to gudao (the ancient Way). In Han Yu’s perspective, Confucian classics form the foundation of a solid education and good writing. More importantly, Han Yu’s endorsement of guwen writing was not merely for the sake of writing; it was instead aimed at the revival of Confucian traditions in mid-Tang. In other words, we would diminish the significance of Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan if we were to regard them only as style reformers or innovators in the relatively narrow sense of “literature” in our era. Second, as Han Yu informs us here, the study of guwen was quite unusual in his time. It’s important to note that, while contemporary and later guwen writers looked to Han Yu as their master, the actual influence of guwen at the time shouldn’t be overestimated. To be clear, the pianwen style continued to dominate in the imperial examinations and court documents throughout the late Tang, Five Dynasties, and early Northern Song, and even ardent guwen writers continued to write in pianwen styles as the situation required, without the slightest sense of contradiction. The prime of guwen writings would have to wait until the mid-eleventh century, with the emergence of a new generation of Northern Song writers, particularly Ouyang Xiu, who was instrumental in establishing Han Yu’s reputation as a guwen master and Han’s works as the standard for this style. Han Yu’s approach to prose writing is often encapsulated by the term fugu, or “return to antiquity.” Yet scholars generally agree that this “return to antiquity” was not an exercise in mere imitation but rather an innovation of a new style. Moreover, Han and Liu’s endeavors in ancient-style prose were not isolated; fugu was a theme also explored in Tang poetry.2 However, Qian Mu astutely emphasizes that “returning to antiquity” posed different challenges for poets and prose writers: For poets, emulating the spirit of ancient poets suffices; they do not necessarily need to replicate the exact form of “tetrasyllabic shi poetry” from the Book of the Poetry to demonstrate their return to antiquity. Yet, for prose writers like Han Yu, they still faced the challenge of justifying how their short prose pieces could live up to the lofty expectations of “transmitting the Way.” In this regard, Qian Mu notably referenced a letter from Zhang Ji, a close friend of Han Yu, to illustrate the concerns of the time about the legitimacy of these short prose writings. Zhang Ji begins his letter by chronicling the rise and fall of Confucian traditions preceding their own era: following Confucius’ demise, the teachings of Yang Zhu and Mo Di held sway until Mencius arose to rectify the trends and resurrect the Confucian Way. Subsequently, Huang-Lao Daoism took precedence, until Yang Xiong (53 B.C.–A.D. 18) wrote Fayan (Model Sayings) to uphold Confucian traditions. He then continued: Since Master Yang composed Model Sayings, nearly a thousand years have passed, and nobody is speaking of the Way of the sages anymore. The only person still discussing it is your Excellency. However, when your insights reach those accustomed to the current ­conventions,  they often find them unusual and unconvincing, resorting to criticism 370

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against you. All these, ultimately, contribute little to furthering the teachings of the sages. Your Excellency has exceptional intelligence, and your writings stand on a par with those of Mencius and Yang Xiong. Why not write a book to revive and preserve the Way of the sages, so that people of this era and those of future generations can understand your efforts to depart from and sever ties with heterodox teachings? How can you simply conform to the common, indulging in empty and noisy debates? Those who aspire to uphold the Way of the sage should themselves adhere to the Way. Nevertheless, I have noticed of late that you take pleasure in sayings that are heterogeneous and baseless, which you write about for others’ amusement. I fear this is something that might tarnish your great virtues. Zhang Ji praises Han Yu’s commitment to reviving Confucian traditions, but he appears to disagree with Han Yu’s actual methods of achieving this. Zhang values writing over speech, asserting that to convey the sage’s Way, one must compose a book. The underlying logic of Zhang’s argument is that the teachings of the sages have come down to us in book form. Therefore, if Han Yu truly aims to revive the ancient Way, he must also write a book, not merely compose any type of writing, especially not those which Zhang Ji criticizes as “heterogeneous and baseless.” At the heart of this concern lies the question of which genre of writing best serves the guwen writers’ goal of transmitting Confucian values. In his response letter, Han Yu addresses these concerns. He first refutes Zhang Ji’s assertion that “writing” is the exclusive medium to convey the Way: In speaking of “writing a book,” the essence primarily resides in the words itself. Whether one articulates these words verbally or writes them down on bamboo slips, what is the difference? . . . To transform the present world, there’s nothing more potent than speech, but to convey ideas to future generations, there’s nothing more enduring than a book. Concerning Zhang Ji’s critique of his preference for “baseless and heterogeneous” writings, Han Yu clarifies that these were merely his means of amusement rather than his serious endeavors. Han Yu’s debate regarding speech versus writing is indeed intriguing, but it did not attract much attention in subsequent ages. It was not until the twentieth century, when Hu Shi and other intellectuals engaged in discussions about writing and orality during modern China’s language reforms, that this debate regained relevance. However, Zhang Ji’s first concern was a valid one, which we can further extrapolate to ask: what genre, style, and language of writing best serves guwen writers’ aim of transmitting the Confucian Way? As we will see, this is a question to which Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan provided their own distinct answers through their respective theories and writing practices. In the subsequent sections, we will delve into some exemplary prose pieces by Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan, bearing in mind two central questions: (1) What does “return to antiquity” mean for Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan? How did they draw from “antiquity,” and in what ways did their writings embody this pursuit? (2) In what sense did their writings bring forth innovation, whether by addressing novel concerns of their time, employing fresh words and language, or elevating new genres to unprecedented heights?

Han Yu Examining Han Yu’s diverse body of prose, one quickly appreciates the breadth of genres it encompasses, including disquisitions and memorials, records and accounts, encomiums, laments and 371

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offerings, letters, prefaces, stele inscriptions, and miscellanea, among others. While Han Yu left his indelible mark on each of these genres, scholars have generally observed that his most profound and lasting impact on Chinese prose centers on three genres: preface, letter, and stele inscription, which collectively account for nearly half of his prose corpus. Accordingly, our exploration of Han Yu’s ideas and practice of prose writing will primarily focus on a letter and a stele inscription written by him. The “Letter in Reply to Li Yi,” composed in 801, is Han Yu’s longest exposition on the theory and practice of writing among his extant essays. At this point, while Han Yu had not yet taken up his appointment at the Directorate of Education, he had already begun to cultivate a following of like-minded young scholars seeking literary mentorship, perhaps in the hopes of passing the prestigious jinshi (presented scholar) examination. One of these students was Li Yi, whom Han Yu recommended to Lu Chan, an official who was to assist with the administration of the 802 jinshi examination. Han Yu’s recommendation proved fruitful: Li Yi successfully passed the examination that year. “Letter in Reply to Li Yi”3 On the twenty-sixth of the sixth month (of 801), [Han] Yu addresses Scholar Li as follows: The words in your letter are truly lofty, yet your inquiry carries such humility and respect! With such an approach, who could refuse to relate to you their ideas? The day morality finds its way to you is near, not to mention the refinement of writing, which is but its external manifestation. I, Han Yu, am merely one of those who “stand outside the gates and walls of Confucius’s abode, without entering his hall.” How am I qualified to discern right from wrong? Regardless, I cannot but speak about my thoughts to you. What you said about “establishing oneself through words” is indeed correct; what you have done is very close to what you strive for. Yet, I am uncertain if your resolve is simply to surpass others [in writing] so that you can be recognized (find employment), or do you truly aim to reach the level of those who established themselves through words in antiquity? If you seek to surpass others and be recognized, then you have already achieved that; however, if you aspire to match the standards of those who established themselves through words in antiquity, then do not anticipate a swift success, nor let yourself be lured by power or profit. [As one nurtures a plant,] nourish its roots and wait for it to bear fruit; [or as with a lamp,] add lard and wait for it to glow. A plant with robust roots can be expected to bear fruit; a lamp filled with rich lard will certainly shine. A person of humanity and righteousness will naturally possess words of gentle and calming allure. Yet, there are still obstacles, and reflecting on what I have done, I am unsure if I have fully reached the intended goal [in my writing]. Nevertheless, I have studied writing for over twenty years. At the beginning, I dared not read books other than those of the three dynasties,4 or the two Han periods, and I dared not retain any thoughts outside of those from the sages. While staying at home, it was as if I had forgotten something; when going outside, it was as if I had left something behind. I appeared solemn as if in constant contemplation, and confused as if I lost my way. When I took my thoughts from within and poured them out through my brush, I worked only to eliminate all clichéd words and the result was cacophonous and difficult! In presenting my works to others, I was oblivious to their mockery, failing to even recognize their derision as such. I continued like this for years without change. Only then did I begin to discern what was correct and what was false in ancient texts, and what, although correct, was imperfect—the 372

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distinctions became all clear, as distinct as black and white. I then devoted my energy to removing the false and flawed, and it was at this point that I gradually started to gain something. When I took my thoughts from within and poured them out through my brush, they came in fast torrents. In presenting my works to others, if they laughed, I would be pleased; if they praised, I would be anxious, taking it to mean that my words/writing still bore the preference of others.5 Again, I continued like this for years and only then did my writing flow like a great current. Yet, I fear that there were still impurities in my writing, so I approached it from an opposite stance, scrutinizing it in a calm and dispassionate way, until it was pure in every sense. Only then did I release it. And yet still, I must keep nurturing it [to sustain the flow] by walking on the path of humaneness and rightness, roaming in the source of the Classics, never losing my way, never breaking off my connection with the source, until the end of my life. Qi (vitality of writing) is like water; words are like floating objects. When the water is full, all objects, big or small, will float. The relationship between qi and words is the same: when the qi is full within, all words, regardless of their length or brevity, and regardless of their high or low pitch, are fitting. Although my writing is now like this, dare I claim they are close to perfection? Even if they were close to perfection, what do I stand to gain if they were to be recognized by others? And even if there were something to gain, isn’t a person who awaits such recognition from others just like a mere vessel (tool)?—his use or disuse depends on others. A superior man is not like this. He puts his mind towards the moral Way and conducts himself according to these principles. When employed, he spreads his Way to others; when not employed, he passes it on to his followers, and hands it down through writing, setting a model for future generations. In doing so, is it sufficient to bring one delight or not? Those whose resolve is set on antiquity are indeed rare in our times! Setting one’s resolve on antiquity inevitably leads to neglect in the present. I truly delight in the former and yet grieve at the latter. I often praise such people highly, not that I dare to laud what might be lauded or fault what might be faulted, but rather to encourage them. Many have asked me about writing, but only your words are not set on profit. I have, therefore, tentatively spoken of my thoughts to you. Written by Yu. While Li Yi’s original letter to Han Yu is now lost, we can infer from Han Yu’s reply that the young scholar was primarily preoccupied with the art of writing and expressed an ambition to “establish himself through words.” However, Han Yu’s response doesn’t offer immediate or straightforward advice on how to polish one’s prose. Instead, he leads the young man back to the fundamental question: what is the essence of writing? This prompts Han Yu to turn this personal letter into a medium to articulate his perspectives on the inherent purpose of writing and the path towards its mastery. Writing, in Han Yu’s mind, is the outward manifestation of an individual’s virtues and moral integrity. Thus, to refine one’s writing, the focus should not be solely on the craft itself but rather on cultivating its bedrock—personal morality. To drive home this point, Han Yu employs two metaphors: Like nourishing a plant, one should cater to its roots and await its fruition, or, like maintaining a lamp, add oil and expect it to glow. Likewise, if one establishes himself as a virtuous and moral man, the refinement of writing will naturally follow. As Han Yu expresses: a person of humanity and righteousness will naturally possess words of gentle and calming allure. For Han Yu, dao and wen, like the essence and its external manifestation, are inseparable entities. Some scholars thus summarize Han Yu’s philosophy as “writing as an embodiment of the Way” (wenyi mingdao), or “through one’s writing, the Way becomes visible” (jiwen jiandao). This perspective diverges 373

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from the Song Confucian scholars’ idea of “writing as a vehicle for the Way” (wenyi zaidao), which risks reducing writing to a mere tool for transmitting the Way. The strength of this letter is not solely embedded in its profound theory but also in the relatable image of a dedicated writer that surfaces from it. The notion of a “transmitter” is not novel within the Confucian tradition, but Han Yu is arguably the first to provide this concept with a vivid image. He paints a picture of his challenges, joys, and, most importantly, his unwavering perseverance in every situation. This image resonates with those who share similar aspirations and provides them with a relatable figure to accompany them on their solitary and arduous journey. In terms of the craft of letter writing, Han Yu was a master of structuring his essays to mirror a steady progression in the content. For example, Han Yu initially refers to writing as “taking from the heart and pouring out through the brush,” an image that brings to mind the fluidity of water. As his essay unfolds, we observe how this metaphor is continued, as this stream of ideas evolves from a modest rivulet to a roaring torrent, surging forth like a potent current until it is finally released into rivers and seas. Literary critics frequently refer to Han Yu’s treatise on qi and words as an embodiment of his literary theory. Here, I will use it as an exemplification of Han Yu’s approach of “return to antiquity” and its manifestation in his writing. Qi (vital force) is like water; words are like the floating objects. When the water is full, all objects, big or small, will float. The relationship between qi and words is the same: when the qi is full within, all words, regardless of their length or brevity, and regardless of their high or low pitch, are fitting. In fact, Han Yu is not the first to discuss the qi of one’s writing. Cao Pi’ (187–226) “A Discourse on Literature” (Lun wen) also explores this concept of qi: Qi, “vital force “ or “breath,” is the most important factor in literature. Qi has its own norms, either clear or murky—it is not something that can be brought about by force. We may compare qi to (flute) music. Two performers/players may be equal in knowing the melody and following the rules of the rhythm; but when there is an inequality in drawing on a reserve of qi, we can tell a skillful player from a clumsy one. Even a father cannot pass this qi on to his son, and an elder brother cannot pass it on to his younger brother. Comparing these two passages, we find more differences than similarities. Cao Pi’s qi refers to an inherent quality or talent in writing, which he emphasizes is not transferable or teachable. Conversely, for Han Yu, qi, which sustains one’s writing, is not just a component of writing, but a quality that can be nurtured and cultivated. A more direct source for Han Yu’s concept is Mencius’s qi. In his “Letter in reply to Liu Zhengfu,” Han Yu elaborates on his stance of “taking the sages and worthies of antiquity as a model,” encapsulated in “emulate their ideas, not their diction.” Han Yu’s adaptation of the Mencius source demonstrates his statement. He does not directly quote Mencius, but his reference to qi, its association with humanity and righteousness, and his advice on preserving qi can all be traced back to the Mencius passage. But notably, Mencius’s primary focus is not writing, and it was Han Yu who transformed it from a concept about cultivating personal virtues and morality to a concept about nurturing one’s writing. He further substantiates these abstract principles laid out by sages of antiquity with a detailed account of his own learning trajectory, helping others to navigate their own learning journeys towards the Way. 374

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Next, we delve into “Epitaph for Fan Shaoshu of Nanyang,” written in 824, shortly before Han Yu’s own demise. The epitaph, as a genre, bears a clear objective and a somewhat rigid structure, detailing the deeds and accomplishments of its subject. In this instance, we will observe how Han Yu leverages this genre not merely to pay tribute to his friend, but also to propagate his own writing ideals, thus expanding the genre boundaries of the epitaph form. Han Yu’s inscription commences with a recounting of the vast array of writings discovered in Fan’s residence, which includes two thirty-juan books, a fifteen-juan commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, 290 prose texts spanning various genres, 220 inscriptions, ten fu, and 719 poems. After cataloguing this extensive list of writings, Han Yu proceeds: Alas, how abundant it is! Such has never been seen in the ancient past. Yet all must come from Shaoshu himself, not imitating a single word or sentence of those who came before— how difficult this is! His writing emerges from and returns to humanity and righteousness. Its richness is akin to the universe, giving birth to and nurturing a myriad of things. Much like the sea’s reach and the earth’s support, it is unrestrained and free, devoid of any uniform principles. It conforms to the Way, requiring no plumb line or saw for adjustment. Ah! In his writing, Shaoshu can indeed be said to have reached the zenith of this art.6 Reading this epitaph in conjunction with Han Yu’s letter to Li Yi, as discussed earlier, yields intriguing observations. We find an echoing language and themes between these two pieces, emphasizing, not imitating, words from preceding writers and adhering to the principles of humanity and righteousness throughout one’s life. If the previous letter focuses on guiding a young man towards cultivating writing and morality, this epitaph presents the final picture, or product, that results from following the path Han Yu delineates. Thus, this epitaph embodies Han Yu’s ideal of perfect writing—an ultimate goal he did not claim to have reached in his letter to Li Yi. But in this eulogistic genre for his friend, it seems fitting to put forth such an ideal and exemplar. To Han Yu, the most distinctive feature of Fan Shaoshu’s writing is its breathtaking breadth, encompassing all genres, underpinned by a consistent adherence to the principles of humanity and righteousness. Qian Mu astutely utilizes Han Yu’s language to summarize the pursuit and aesthetics of Han Yu’s guwen writings—it’s all-encompassing, like the sea’s reach and the earth’s support. Qian Mu uses a metaphor to elaborate this concept: When ancient people wrote books, “from one trunk came ten thousand branches.” But when Han Yu created the short prose of the Tang, he transformed it into “ten thousand breaches all come down to one root.” What are these branches rooted in? They are rooted in humanity and righteousness.7 We may interpret this as Han Yu’s response to Zhang Ji’s question we raised at the outset of this chapter: what genre of writing best serves guwen writers’ aim of transmitting Confucian values? For Han Yu, a guwen writer does not confine himself to a single genre or style, provided his writing is rooted in humanity and righteousness—one should be able to discern the Way through all kinds of writing a true writer produces, regardless of its genre and style.

Liu Zongyuan Liu Zongyuan hailed from a distinguished family, the Liu clan of Hedong. He passed the jinshi examination early on, securing a strong foothold in the central government. However, his political 375

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affiliation with Wang Shuwen soon curtailed his political career. Banished to the south, he spent 14 years in Yongzhou and Liuzhou, until his demise. In 813, a young man named Wei Zhongli traveled thousands of miles from the capital to Yongzhou to request to study with him. In his reply, Liu Zongyuan courteously declined this request, but shared with Wei his thoughts on writing, which echoes Han Yu’s ideas: As a young man, I thought that in writing, the primary concern is crafting words. As I aged, I realized that the purpose of writing is to illuminate the Way. Hence, I am reluctant to create compositions that shimmer and glitter or to devote myself to writing colorful and melodious works and regard these as evidence of my writing competence. All that I have put forth in writing, in my humble opinion, are close to the Way, although I truly am uncertain if they are, indeed, close to the Way or far from it.8 Chen Jo-Shui observes that while Liu Zongyuan views writing as an effective tool to illuminate the Way, he still maintains that writing’s ability to advance the Confucian cause is limited; that is, “although literature could illuminate the Way, it could not realize it.” According to Chen, this relates to Liu Zongyuan’s public-spirited approach in Confucian teaching, his conception of Confucianism as a philosophy of public good. Consequently, Chen concludes, “for Liu Zongyuan, although literary writing should aid in the pursuit of the Confucian Way, the two aspects were more likely two tasks with their independent lives.” In the sections that follow, we will provide one example from Liu Zongyuan’s more public-facing writing with a clear political and didactic message, and another one written more for the private sphere. Liu Zongyuan’s “Discourse of the Snake Catcher” (Bushezhe shuo), written during his exile in Yongzhou, narrates an encounter with a third-generation snake catcher discussing his hazardous profession. While the snake-catcher confronts death by snakebite twice annually, he contends that his life is comparatively peaceful and content, when compared with his overtaxed and poverty-stricken neighbors. In the coda of the writing, the narrator comments on the story and explicitly conveys his message: After hearing this, my sadness deepens. Confucius once said, “Harsh governance is fiercer than a tiger.’” I used to doubt this, but now, observing Mr. Jiang’s situation, I am convinced. Alas! Who would think that the toxicity of levying taxes is even worse than that of snakes! Hence, I composed this discourse, waiting for the surveillance officials to see it. Liu Zongyuan cites Confucius’s saying as his source. If we examine his narrative alongside the original story recorded in the Tangong chapter of the Book of Rites, it’s evident that Liu Zongyuan emulates not only its content and critical spirit but also its narrative structure. This is likely Liu Zongyuan’s deliberate approach, as he chose to convey the story in the shuo genre, which Wu Ne (1372–1457), a Ming literary theorist, encapsulates as “to lay out principles clearly and describe them in terms of your own ideas.” In this case, Confucius’s words set the ancient principle, and the specific case Liu Zongyuan encountered in Yongzhou provides new evidence to elucidate and explain it. His attitude towards writing is also evident from the final sentence—this writing is expected to be read by authorities, so that the situation can be reported back to the central government and addressed, emphasizing the use of writing to provoke actual political actions that will result in tangible change. That is not to say, however, that Liu Zongyuan didn’t care about the craft of his writing. On the contrary, he understood the importance of style, stating, “even the most rudimentary language can 376

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fulfill the function of writing, but without literary style, it fails to stimulate or engage the reader, and will not leave an impression on future generations. Writing pieces that do not endure is not the path the true gentleman follows.” In this essay, Liu Zongyuan exhibits the descriptive power of guwen. For instance, he vividly depicts the chaotic impact of local officers on the village. Liu Zongyuan appears particularly interested in portraying these harsh and arrogant local officers, and he uses his literary skills to the full in the following passage from “Account of Guo Hunchback, the Tree Grower”: Day and night, the officials come and shout, “By official orders, we are here to hasten your plowing, encourage your planting, monitor your harvesting. Hurry up and speed your silk reeling, quicken your cloth weaving, raise and educate your young children, and tend to your chickens and pigs.” They beat the drums to gather people and strike the wood to summon them. We, the common people, skip meals to receive these officials, barely having enough time. How could we possibly propagate our offspring and maintain our innate nature? Therefore, we are sick and weary.9 Note how Liu Zongyuan uses a similar structure of short, imperative sentences to convey the numerous tasks that local officers demand of the people. The brevity of the sentences accelerates the pace of the passage, giving a sense of oppressiveness and intensity. Such evocative descriptions are surely sufficient to achieve Liu Zongyuan’s goal of “stimulating or arousing” his reader. Next, our focus shifts to Liu Zongyuan’s “Record of the Little Hillock West of the Box-iron Pond.” This piece is one among a series of essays Liu Zongyuan wrote between 809 and 812 while he resided in Yongzhou. Collectively, these essays became known as the “Eight Records of Excursions in Yongzhou.” To write about the landscape of Yongzhou, Liu Zongyuan opted for the ji (account, record) genre. Throughout the eighth century, ji was primarily a public genre, often employed to commemorate a place or a building. If we examine the ji section of Liu’s collection, we see this conventional public and commemorative style in roughly three-quarters of the writings. However, as Nienhauser points out, while earlier ji emphasized the description of a scene or place, Liu Zongyuan’s youji (record of excursion)—centered around a man visiting a place—shifts the focus to the relationship between a man and his surrounding environment. Essentially, Liu Zongyuan is not merely describing a place he visits, but reflecting on the experience, thereby helping transform the genre into a more private and contemplative form. “Record of the Little Hillock West of the Box-iron Pond”10 Eight days after discovering the West Mountain, I followed a path leading northwest at the foot of the mountain for two hundred paces and found the Box-iron Pond. Twenty-five paces west of the pond, where the flow was fast and deep, there was a fish-weir. Above the fish-weir was a little hillock, growing with bamboo and trees. Almost innumerable were its rocks which, sheer and towering, their backs covered with dirt, rivaled one another in having unusual shapes. Those which descended, piled steeply upon one another, resembled cattle and horses drinking at the brook; those which ascended, thrust upward like bears climbing in mountains. The hillock was so small it did not even span a mu in area, and one could almost cage it up and claim its ownership. I asked who owned it, and someone said, “it was an abandoned 377

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land of the Tang family. It was up for sale but could not sell.” I asked the price and was told it only cost four hundred. Feeling sympathy for it, I bought it. At the time, Li Shenyuan and Yuan Keji had accompanied me on this trip, and we were all overjoyed, as this exceeded our wildest expectations. Then, taking tools, we Mowed weeds, felled poisonous trees, Built a fierce fire and burned them all. Fine trees stood out, Delicate bamboo were exposed, and Unusual rocks were revealed. When we gaze out from top of the hillock, Heights of mountains, Flights of clouds, Flow of brooks and Sport of fowl and beast, All joyfully parading their arts and displaying their skills As if sent to serve beneath the little hillock. When we set out pillow and mat to lie down there, The clear, quiet images of the water are in rapport with our eyes, The murmuring sounds of the water are in rapport with our ears, A far-reaching void is in rapport with our spirit and, An abyssal serenity is in rapport with one’s heart. In less than ten days, I have found two spots of uncommon beauty. Even among the connoisseurs of antiquity, surely there was no one who could have matched this. Alas! with the splendor of this hillock, if it were placed in the prefectures of Feng, Hao, Hu or Du, then those gentry members who enjoy excursions would vie to purchase it; but even if they would raise their bids one thousand gold daily, they still would not be able to obtain it. Abandoned now in this prefecture, peasants and fisherman pass by, thinking it worth nothing, and even at a price of four hundred for years, it could not be sold. And now Shenyuan, Keji and I have happily obtained it. This is indeed a happy encounter. I inscribed this record on a stone to congratulate the encounter with this hillock. In this essay, as in his other records of excursions in Yongzhou, Liu Zongyuan declares he has found another delightful spot—the hillock. But unlike other spots he discovered earlier, this place has an owner who, finding no use for it, put it on the market. Hence, “market value” becomes a key term in this essay. What determines the value of such a place? Use is certainly one criterion, and its owner, along with the peasants and fishermen of Yongzhou, find no utility in it. After all, it does not yield crops nor does it produce fish. Therefore, despite being on the market for a considerable time, no one was willing to buy it. Location also matters. As Liu Zongyuan informs us, if this place were located in a provincial city, the nobility would compete to purchase it for its value as a suitable place for excursions. This raises a question: who has the right to determine the value of this place? There are elements of truth on both sides, but it seems a matter of misplacement. A valuable place or object, when located inappropriately, may become valueless. In this sense, the hillock is analogous to Liu Zongyuan himself, whose talents are wasted in this remote place. There are other 378

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details that lend themselves to this allegorical reading. For example, the current owner of the hillock in the essay is said to come from a Tang family, a possible nod to the Tang dynasty. That’s why Liu Zongyuan feels particularly “sympathetic” towards the hillock and decides to purchase it, thus actualizing its market value. After Liu Zongyuan’s acquisition, the hillock undergoes a profound transformation. Note the language Liu employs: “scything away undesirable plants and cutting down bad trees” resulting in “fine trees stood out, delicate bamboo were exposed, and unusual rocks were revealed”—all signify a process that accentuates the inherent qualities of the hillock, rather than merely imposing outside standards onto it. More importantly, after the transformation, the hillock seems to have gained a transformative power of its own. It reconnects people with their surroundings in new ways: from nature’s side, rivers, clouds, and birds all present their beauty to the people on the hillock. And from the people’s perspective, as if equipped with new eyes, ears, and sensibilities, they perceive their surroundings as never before. Towards the end of the essay, Liu Zongyuan poses a question: the hillock, long neglected, is now his cherished acquisition. The hillock remains the same,—so what caused this drastic shift in attitude? Here, Liu Zongyuan uses the word yu, which can be translated as the circumstances one encounters in life, be they favorable or not. The question regarding one’s value at the outset of the story now becomes one of how to confront these varied circumstances. According to Liu Zongyuan, this “record” is a celebration of the hillock’s fortunate encounter. For those yet to meet their fortune, it offers the comfort of knowing that there is still hope that somewhere, someday, your value might be rediscovered. But if that day never comes, acceptance is key. Life, after all, is a series of circumstances one must face and celebrate. Does this essay, however, exist as a purely personal musing with no ties to Confucian ideals? In some ways, the narrator who has come to accept and celebrate his encounters in Yongzhou bears resemblance to the devoted writer whom Han Yu has depicted in his letter to Li Yi. Let’s revisit Han Yu’s words: Isn’t a person who awaits such recognition from others just like a mere vessel (tool)?—his use or disuse depends on others. A superior man is not like this. He puts his mind towards the moral Way and conducts himself according to these principles. When employed, he spreads his Way to others; when not employed, he passes it on to his followers, and hands it down through writing, setting a model for future generations. Liu Zongyuan was one such individual. Although unrecognized and unused, he still adhered to Confucian principles and communicated these ideas through his writing. Even in the face of obscurity, he celebrated his circumstances, staying true to his ideals and leaving a legacy in writing for generations to follow.

Notes 1 The Six Classics refers to The Book of Odes, The Book of Documents, The Book of Rites, The Book of Music, The Book of Changes, and The Spring and Autumn Annals. 2 Hence, scholars like Qian Mu trace the origins of the ancient-style prose movement to the ancient-style poetry movement, often attributing the genesis of this shift to poet Chen Ziang 陳子昂 (661?–702?) of the early Tang era. 3 In preparation for this translation, I consulted the renditions by Charles Hartman and Anna Shields, from which I  greatly benefited. See Charles Hartman, Han Yü and the T’ang Search for Unity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 242–44; Anna M. Shields and Stephen H. West, “Tang and Song

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature Occasional Prose: Prefaces and Epistolary Writing,” in How to Read Chinese Prose: A Guided Anthology, ed. Zong-qi Cai (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022), 282–84. 4 The term “three dynasities” (三代, sandai) refers the Xia (c. 2070–1600 BC), Shang(c. 1600–1046 BC), and Zhou (c. 1046–256 BC) dynasties. 5 Namely, the clichéd words. 6 Charles Hartman, Han Yü and the T’ang Search for Unity, 247–48. 7 Mu Ch’ien, “Zalun Tangdai guwen yundong” [Miscellaneous Notes on the guwen Movement of the Tang], Xinya xuebao 3 (1957): 146. 8 Based on Chen’s rendition with minor modifications. See Jo-Shui Chen, Liu Tsung-yüan and Intellectual Change in T’ang China, 773–819 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 128. 9 Here I consulted Wang Yugen’s translation. See Wang, “Tang and Song Biographical Prose: Allegorical and Fictional,” in How to Read Chinese Prose: A Guided Anthology, 299–300. 10 This is based on Nienhauser’s translation with minor modifications; see William Nienhauser et al., Liu Tsung-yüan (New York: Twayne, 1973), 68–69.

Further Reading Chen, Jo-Shui. Liu Tsung-yüan and Intellectual Change in T’ang China, 773–819. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Ch’en Yin-k’o. “Lun Han Yü.” Lishi yanjiu 2 (1954): 105–14. Ch’ien Mu. “Zalun Tangdai guwen yundong” [Miscellaneous Notes on the Guwen Movement of the Tang]. Xinya xuebao 3 (1957): 123–68. Gentzler, J. M. “A Literary Biography of Liu Tsung-yüan.” Unpublished Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1966. Hartman, Charles. Han Yü and the T’ang Search for Unity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986. Nienhauser, William H., Jr. “An Allegorical Reading of Han Yü’s ‘Mao-Ying Chuan’ (Biography of Fur Point).” OE 23, no. 2 (December 1976): 153–74. Nienhauser, William H., Jr., Charles Hartman, William B. Crawford, Jan W. Walls, and Lloyd Neighbors. Liu Tsung-yüan. New York: Twayne, 1973. Owen, Stephen. The Poetry of Han Yü and Meng Chiao. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975. Shields, Anna M., and Stephen H. West. “Tang and Song Occasional Prose: Prefaces and Epistolary Writing.” In How to Read Chinese Prose: A Guided Anthology, edited by Zong-qi Cai, 267–90. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022. Wang, Yugen. “Tang and Song Biographical Prose: Allegorical and Fictional.” In How to Read Chinese Prose: A Guided Anthology, edited by Zong-qi Cai, 291–310. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022.

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31 OUYANG XIU AND SU SHI Ronald Egan

The prose writings of Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) and Su Shi (1037–1101) receive attention in all standard histories of Chinese literature. Selections of their writings are well represented, moreover, in the best known pre-modern anthologies of literary prose (e.g., Guwen guanzhi [All the Ancient Style Prose You Need to Read], and a few of their signature compositions regularly appear even in secondary school textbooks in Chinese-speaking lands today. But rather than thinking of this pair simply as two talented individuals who produced a few stellar essays that have become literary chestnuts in anthologies and narrative accounts, this discussion will try to situate the prose of Ouyang and Su in a larger context and view their two corpora of this kind of writing as seminal in certain ways even when placed in the entire sweep of Chinese literary history. There is another way this chapter will diverge from standard accounts. The prose of these two scholar-officials is conventionally thought of as the second stage or “act” of what is termed the Ancient Prose Style Movement (guwen yundong), the first belonging to their Tang predecessors, led by Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan. This way of categorizing their prose output, or of pigeonholing it, has become so ingrained in literary history that it is seldom questioned or critically examined. To identify a few of the more obvious problems of this way of thinking: (1) is it justifiable to label something a “movement” when it had but a handful of adherents and (2) those few did not self-identify as participating in such a “movement” (a modern socio-political term and concept, unknown at the time)? (3) How is it that the leaders of both stages of the movement continued themselves to produce a large amount of prose in the prosodic form (that of “parallel prose”) against which this “movement” was supposedly counterposed? (4) When we look into either the intellectual underpinning or the writings themselves of the two sets of leaders, we find vast divergences; so how legitimate is it to treat them as two parts of the same literary-ideological-stylistic program? Finally, the writing that was produced in this Tang and Song innovation does not, in fact, closely resemble anything that was written in China’s ancient history (of the Spring and Autumn, Warring States, or Qin-Han era). So how accurate is it to label it ancient prose in the first place? This last point deserves more attention and analysis than it has received. One should start with rigorous linguistic analysis. Only in a very superficial sense is the prose language used by Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan, Ouyang Xiu, and Su Shi reminiscent of genuine prose of the pre-dynastic and earliest dynastic periods. But how is it different, that is, in its vocabulary (word frequency), favorite grammatical patterns and sentence structure, prose rhythm, interjections, rhetorical  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-43

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devices, and so on? These are traits that could be isolated, enumerated, and analyzed, to develop general descriptions of the two corpora. To my knowledge, this has yet to be done. Until it is, we have only vague and impressionistic notions of what constitutes “ancient prose style” and no way of accurately gauging the relationship of the latter “revival” from its exemplar of a millennium or more earlier. Rather than focusing on the “return to antiquity” aspect of the Tang-Song revival, we might instead think about how the new style of prose departed from the existing prevalent one, the motives behind dissatisfaction with that standard, and what was gained by developing a new one. The decorousness and rhetorical effectiveness of parallel prose cannot be denied, but its limitations are also obvious. When the writer of prose must present all his thoughts in couplets consisting of parallel or antithetical lines, the form constricts everything he says. No matter how skillful he is, inevitably he ends up padding his exposition, matching a line unessential to the logic of his train of thought with an essential one, thus diminishing the straightforwardness of his reasoning, or even skewing his argument by including an element that is truly oblique or even at odds with his larger reasoning, because of the prosodic requirement of double lines. What is gained is an aura of formal elegance and balanced decorum, distantly removed from anything that is unstable or spontaneous. What is lost is precisely the unpredictability of human speech, its organic and dynamic qualities. Why was parallel prose, first developed during the Wei, Jin, and Southern Dynasties, so persistent and difficult to replace? Because its balanced beauty evoked a world that is supremely harmonious in all its antithetical diversity; a world of ritual, formalism, stability, and control. Why was there a persistent urge to abandon the parallel style and forge an alternative? Out of keen awareness of its artificiality and the stifling effect it had upon thinking. The crucial difference between the two modes of prose was not, then, simply a matter of prosody and style of expression. It was more a choice between prioritizing form over content or content over form. As Ouyang and Su would repeatedly admonish others who sought their advice, writers should yi yi wei zhu “make meaning primary” in what they produced. In other words, not allow formal considerations to compromise the expression of thought. It follows, then, that the shift from parallel prose to an approach to prose writing that rejected the parallel style was a kind of liberation. It was a shift that had far-reaching implications for the writer’s apprehension of the world as well as his self-identity. Socio-political factors were ever-present in the choice between the two modes. The parallel style was closely associated with the imperial court and centers of power, because of the world view it implicitly embraced and perpetuated. A preference for “making meaning primary” in one’s prose might easily be seen as taking exception to the ritualistic and hierarchical structures embodied in the imperial court, because it pushed the individual writer’s thinking to the forefront. Since this shift from a parallel to a non-parallel style was such a considerable one, with its many ideological and socio-political ramifications, it is not surprising that it could not be accomplished all at once. Here is where the two-stage concept of the “ancient prose style” narrative makes a certain sense (so long as it may have room for seeing the second stage as more than a simple repetition of the first). In fact, there are telling differences between the literary prose produced by the leaders of the Tang and Song periods, respectively. These are differences both of language and of perspective or world view (with consequences for the topics written about). Han Yu’s language tends toward the archaistic: the sentences clipped and the diction difficult for anyone not steeped in classical or pre-classical usage. The range of topics is correspondingly narrow, and the general tone is highly moralistic and didactic. When placed side-by-side with Ouyang Xiu’s literary prose, a gulf between them is immediately apparent. Ouyang’s language is less hoary and more accessible. His range of subjects is also considerably broader, and the didacticism, although often present, is toned down. These are not only perceptions of the contrast between the two that a modern-day reader is likely to 382

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have; it was a contrast that had already occurred to Ouyang Xiu’s contemporaries. Here is Su Xun (the father of Su Shi) describing it, in a letter he addressed to Ouyang, adding in a representative of true “ancient prose” (Mencius) for a further contrast: There is not a man in the entire empire, sir, who does not know of your writing. But I humbly submit that my own appreciation of it is especially profound, surpassing all others’. Now, the writing of Mencius is concise but the meaning is complete. Although he does not use jagged or sharp language, the spearheads of his arguments cannot be parried. Han Yu’s writing resembles the vast Yangzi or the great Yellow River, which flow and twist in mighty torrents, and harbor fish, tortoises, and scaly dragons—a myriad terrifying monsters. Yet he keeps them dimly concealed, not letting them reveal themselves outright. But when people gaze upon the glow of its murky depths and hoary surface, they shrink back in fear, not daring to look from close at hand. Your own writing, sir, is supple and ample, turning this way and that a hundred times. Yet its reasoning is clear, free from any gaps or breaks. Even when the spirit and diction rise to a climax, when the words come quickly to clinch a point, the writing remains leisurely and simple, without any trace of the vexing and belabored. Each of the three is its own manner of writing. . . . Thus, sir, your style is not that of Mencius nor that of Han Yu. It is no one’s but Master Ouyang’s.1 If we step back from the Tang and Northern Song periods, we may see the turn away from parallel prose (and especially the Northern Song iteration of it) into a larger shift in Chinese literary history. Although it may sound strange to invoke the gradual vernacularization of high Chinese culture (from the Tang to the Song-Yuan, and into the Ming periods) in this context—strange because the prose that the Tang-Song stylists pioneered definitely was not a written version of Vernacular Chinese—the innovation examined here has certain affinities with that other development. These include the appearance and flourishing of new literary genres among the lettered class, some that actually did incorporate elements of the vernacular language (ci, sanqu, zaju); the growing interest among elite writers in exploring non-elite topics and peoples; and the increased attention to the material world, including local history and culture, and even borderlands and ethnic minorities within the empire. Such socially downward and outward, linguistically non-classical (if not truly vernacular), personally empowering trends, all at the expense of prior near-exclusive orientation to the imperium and center of power, is the larger story of which the shift in prose writing discussed here was a part. It may have been a minor part of this larger transformation, but it could be seen as symptomatic of the grand cultural shift that was underway.

Ouyang Xiu At first glance, the prose section of the literary collections of Han Yu and Ouyang Xiu look similar in content and genre distribution. The works they contain are spread through the same or similar genres, a range of them, with the largest single genre (in number of pieces and total page quantity too) being that of muzhiming “grave inscription,” while other funerary genres occupy second place. On closer inspection, however, we find considerable divergences between the two collections, once we move beyond the funerary genres. Han Yu’s prose has a preponderance of didactic essays on various topics in the fields of ethics and governance. Whether their titles identify them as “Essentials of . . .” (yuan 原), “Discourse on . . .” (shuo), “Admonition on . . .” (zhen), “Exposition on . . .” (jie), or “Disputation on . . .” 383

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(bian), these compositions are essentially essays on perennial issues in Confucian education, morality, and statecraft. To be sure, Ouyang Xiu has such essays in his collection too, but this kind of material occupies a much larger proportion of Han Yu’s collected prose than Ouyang Xiu’s. What really stands out in Ouyang Xiu’s prose, when compared to Han Yu’s, is the quantity and character of his writing in the ji genre. This genre, variously translated as “record,” “account,” or “inscription” (or simply left untranslated) is inherently different from those of Han Yu listed just previously. It is less apt to present an argument. It may not be truly expository at all, in the sense of presenting an analytical discussion of an idea or issue. Its essence is to record rather than to argue or evaluate, and its focus is more likely to be a physical thing or place (a pavilion, painting, garden) or an event (an outing, a calligraphic performance) rather than an abstract idea or problem that lends itself to reasoned analysis. Han Yu’s collection contains only seven ji; Ouyang’s contains more than five times that number, thirty-eight. Ouyang clearly discovered in the ji a form that was conducive to a new kind of writing he wanted to explore. But it is not just the quantity of Ouyang’s ji that stands out. It is also the highly personal tone he cultivates in the form. Ouyang Xiu writes ji on “things” meaningful to him in his personal life, for example, his own studios (the famous “Old Drunken Man’s Pavilion” is just one of several of his studios he commemorates in a ji), his fishpond, his antique qin stringed instruments. Han Yu’s ji tend to be not about his personal belongings: they are about government buildings or other person’s renovated pavilions. Even on the rare occasions that Han Yu writes about something he possesses, he writes about it in a distinctly impersonal way, as with his “Account of a Painting,” the bulk of which describes the posture of the 132 persons delineated in a long handscroll, as well as 83 horses, oxen, and other animals (Su Shi would say dismissively of this ji: “it is little more than an inventory of the images in the painting, and as a literary work has nothing at all of interest”). We may contrast the way Ouyang Xiu writes about his three antique qin’s, deftly using the different materials used for the studs in the upper board of the instrument (marking the string depression points for different notes) to suggest something about himself in old age: It is really only the zither that has stone studs [inlaid in the wooden surface] that is suitable for an old man like me. People today like to play zithers with studs of gold, jade, mother-of-pearl, or lapis-lazuli because when such instruments are placed beside a candle at night the studs shimmer in the light. But it is hard for an old man whose eyesight is failing to place his fingers squarely on those studs. It is only stone studs that do not reflect light, and so even when placed beside a candle the while studs can readily be distinguished from the dark wood. That is why a stone-studded qin is best for an old man like me.2 Even when Ouyang Xiu’s subject is not a personal possession, he goes out of his way to inject himself into the piece, as he does when writing this inscription for a garden in the estate that belonged to the family of his friend Li Gongzuo: The people [of Suizhou] struggle just to make a living and have little relaxation or pleasure. Even in plentiful years, the great clans and the wealthiest families remain unacquainted with the joys of wooded gardens with ponds where they might amuse themselves during the seasonal festivals. The only exception is the prominent Li clan south of the city, which has accumulated a large collection of books that they enjoin their children to study. When I was a boy I used to play with the Li boys at their home, and I watched Mr. Li cultivate the family’s eastern garden. He would go out looking for the finest shrubs he could find and would bring them back and plant them in the ground with his own hands, one by one. Then he would 384

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inspect all the transplanted trees. Day after day he could be seen making his rounds in the garden, tending everything with the utmost care. . . . I only returned to Sui many years later. When I went south of the city again, Gongzuo took me up into the pavilion he had built. Surveying the garden, I tried to spot the things I remembered from my youth. The trees that had been saplings then were large enough to wrap one’s arms around, and the trees that used to be that large were now saplings growing out of stumps. The plants that had been mere seedlings had developed into dense bushes, and the fruit stones that were just starting to put out roots had grown into trees bearing fruit. I inquired about the boys I saw playing in the garden. They were Gongzuo’s sons, and were about the same age I had been when I played there. We counted back and calculated that seven intercalary years had come and gone since we played together in the garden. And yet everything vaguely resembled the way I remembered it in those former days. I lingered there, unable to leave.3 Ouyang’s habit of cultivating a personal tone and perspective in his ji writings carries over, in fact, into his prose in other forms, including the letter, preface, prose farewell (songxu 送序), and even the grave inscription.4 This trait would become the hallmark of his literary writing, in whatever form. The remarks here about the distinctive traits of Ouyang Xiu’s prose may remind readers of some of the best-known writings produced not by Han Yu but by his contemporary, Liu Zongyuan, specifically Liu’s eight records (ji) of outings in Yongzhou. Those writings, seminal in the development of the subtype of ji on travels or outings, do indeed cultivate a highly personal tone, for which they are famous. But those writings, noteworthy as they are, are also limited in number and narrow in scope (dealing with little more than the problem of worthy men who find themselves in disagreeable places of exile). They may have been a crucial step in the development of a more personal approach to prose writing, but their compass remains small in comparison to what Ouyang produced. One other aspect of Ouyang’s output in prose deserves attention here, both for its inherent interest as innovation and its subsequent influence in literary history. That is his work in small collections of anecdotes or stray notes in different subject areas, including poetics (Remarks on Poetry), reminiscences of the private lives of high court officials, most of a lighthearted tone (Notes Written for Retirement to Farmlands), botanical cultivation (Account of the Peonies of Luoyang), and two collections of notes written during calligraphy practice (Brush Talks and Brush Exercises).5 The first and third of these were “firsts” of their kind, and each was soon followed by an outpouring of similar works in the two respective fields. “Remarks on poetry” would soon develop into a major form of poetry criticism, theory, and evaluation, eventually encompassing hundreds of distinct titles by the later dynasties. The later legacy of Peonies of Luoyang may be less momentous; but the work did spawn, beginning within a few years and continuing on through the Southern Song and later, numerous botanical treatises on other plants, and these eventually took their place beside other specialist writings on non-botanical topics (such as the qin, incense, crabs, wine, inkstones, calligraphy brushes, etc.), collectively constituting a new and burgeoning field of connoisseurship manuals or literature. Ouyang’s biji, Notes Written for Retirement to Farmlands (Guitian lu) joins the list of other Northern Song biji, several of which preceded it, and so it cannot be called a “first” of its kind. Still, it was not yet commonplace for an official of Ouyang Xiu’s eminence to produce such a collection of seemingly inconsequential notes and hearsay. The fact that it was done without any claim by its author for a modicum of seriousness, that is, it had no rhetoric about the virtues of “supplementing 385

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the historical record,” and, quite to the contrary, has a preface that features a dismissal of the work by an interlocutor as entirely frivolous, without any effort by the author to mount a defense— indeed, the author himself asserts that the only use the work serves will be provide some diversion for himself in retirement (hence its title)—all this is of some significance. The author is unabashed in his admission that this is a lightweight work, intended only to provide amusement. Such a complete undercutting of the seriousness of one’s own writing (more than just a perfunctory apology) was not common at the time. There certainly is some distance between these five short collections and the better-known prose discussed earlier. These anecdote and notes collections are decidedly less literary—they have no place in Ouyang’s primary literary collection (the one he edited himself), Jushi ji. Four of the five of them are virtually unprecedented in the surviving works of prestigious literati. They are thus a step or two “down” the hierarchy of writings that we expect from a leading scholar-official. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to discern some connection to the innovations in the more literary prose forms described previously. These little collections may likewise be seen as springing from a loosening of the criteria of what and how a member of the scholarly elite writes or, we might say, a broadening of the boundaries of the content and purposes of writing. The effect of this expansion, as with that evident in the more orthodox and traditional prose genres, was to sanction greater attention to the personal life as an alternative to the state-oriented officialdom and to find value in writing about topics (like grafting and planting techniques for peony cultivation, or the relative merits of different materials used in qin construction) that had little relevance to discourse on the Confucian Way or advancement at the imperial court.

Su Shi The most striking feature of Su Shi’s prose output, when we first come to it from Ouyang Xiu’s, is the abundance of his work in what could be called the less literary and less traditional prose forms, including the informal letter (chidu, as opposed to the classic literary letter, shu), miscellaneous prose writings (zazhu), the colophon (tiba), and the miscellaneous record (zaji). Altogether, there are more than 2,500 compositions in these four categories found today in his collected works, with this breakdown: informal letter, 1546; miscellaneous prose, 51; colophons, 726; and miscellaneous records, 223; for a total of 2546 compositions, which fill nearly 3000 pages in the most recent annotated edition of his complete works. This body of writing is in addition, of course, to Su’s sizable output in the standard literary genres of the ji, letter, preface, essay, and farewell. There must be various factors involved in the sudden appearance of such a large amount of writing that would have been considered only marginally literary as recently as in Ouyang Xiu’s generation. Su Shi’s fame as a calligrapher (and a man with empire-wide fame, from early on) helps to explain why so many of his seemingly mundane and ephemeral informal letters survived (because people did not discard paper with his writing on it, no matter the content), and why he was invited to compose so many colophons on other people’s possessions). Still, the production of such a large amount of this writing in less prestigious forms represents a noteworthy shift away from what anyone had done before. Consider, for a moment, the colophon. We may suppose that it was already a well-established literary genre. It turns out, however, that the leading literati in the generation before Su Shi produced very little writing in this form; we note that four among them (Wen Yanbo, Sima Guang, Fan Zhongyan, and Su Xun) left cumulatively a total of 15 colophons. For Su Shi to come along and produce, all by himself, 726 pieces in this form is a development not to be overlooked. It was Su Shi who demonstrated the rich possibilities of the highly flexible colophon form, which would be further developed by later writers until it became, in time, a major vehicle for aesthetic thought and criticism. 386

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This turn by Su Shi to less traditional and less prestigious prose forms is underappreciated, even today; it is poorly represented in modern anthologies and selections of his works, which persist in favoring the traditional and more prestigious literary genres of all kinds, prose as well as poetry. Su Shi’s interest in the less traditional forms surely reflects in part his intuition that they lent themselves to literary experimentation and innovative expression—innovative precisely because they had seldom been used for such purposes before. But we must point out that a political factor also played a role in his turn to these forms. When Su Shi was arrested, imprisoned, and brought to trial in 1079 for having committed lèse majesté against the emperor and his court in his writings, it was specifically his writings in the more prestigious forms (shi 詩 poetry and prose in the ji, preface, and letter) that got him in trouble. When his life was spared and, after four months in prison, he was only stripped of office and sent into exile in Huangzhou, his family and friends repeatedly admonished him to give up writing altogether. This he was constitutionally incapable of doing, but he made a compromise. He became more circumspect about what he wrote in the forms that landed him in prison, and at the same time he began to pour more of his creative energy into less prestigious written forms, the kind that his enemies had not thought to use to incriminate him because they were considered lowly and inconsequential. Each subsequent charge against him and resultant new exile (in 1094 to Huizhou, in the distant south, and then to Hainan Island in 1097 (off the coast of Vietnam), nudged Su Shi further in this direction. He never gave up writing in the standard forms, but he became more and more careful about what he wrote in them (which did not prevent those determined to silence him from digging up new examples of his defamation of emperors and the state—more imagined than actual), and he was attracted more and more to those forms that were unlikely to be taken seriously by his political enemies back in the capital. With each exile Su Shi renewed his exploration of the “lesser” forms, obviously intrigued by what he was discovering he could do with them. This, then, is another reason that his output in them was so prolific. When we consider the tone and content of Su Shi’s output in these lesser or experimental forms, we quickly see how innovative he was. Let us look first at the informal letter. In earlier writers’ hands, this was a vehicle for workaday communication between friends and relatives. Distinct from the literary “letter” (shu), the informal letter or note (chidu, shujian) had no pretensions of seriousness and was not expected to take up weighty topics. It was simply a way of conveying important personal news or information from one person to another who was close to him. The primary topics were quotidian ones such as finances, health, and life events such as births, marriages, and deaths in one’s immediate family. Su Shi transforms this humble form into an aesthetic object. He seizes upon the expectation that it will consist of a minimum number of words, in order to avoid any verbal ornament (since its function is to convey essential information) and turns this into an aesthetic of verbal economy that brims with personality and affection for the recipient. In his last years on Hainan Island, Su Shi befriended a promising young man, Jiang Tangzuo, who came from another town on the island to live near Su Shi for several months, apprenticing himself to Su Shi as teacher. One afternoon, upon learning that Jiang had a service obligation that evening, Su sent him this missive: Just when I started writing this note, I received the one you sent. Knowing the military inspector called a meeting tonight, I did not dare to invite you over. But if your meeting ends early, would you like to come over to sip some tea together?6 While he was still alive, Su Shi’s letters were already collector’s items and were being engraved on stone. Anthologies of such stone engravings, printed up as books, circulated widely by the 387

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mid-twelfth century. It is impossible to separate, in the enthusiasm for such engravings, appreciation for Su Shi’s calligraphy, the pleasure of holding in one’s hands the brushwork of a cultural icon (quite apart from the quality of the calligraphy), and enjoyment of the letters as literary art. It is clear, nevertheless, that the third kind of appreciation complemented the other two, because it is specifically commented upon. The Southern Song poet Lu You, a great admirer of Su Shi the poet, owned a version of Su Shi’s engraved letters, and savored them so much that he boasted that “for thirty years the volume has never left my hands.” Su Shi’s gift for humor and self-parody also shows itself in these letters. This also may have great effect, which comes partly from the reader’s knowledge that Su Shi is transforming a type of writing that had normally been used to communicate essential personal information into something quite frivolous and meant primarily for amusement. Here is an informal letter that Su Shi sent to Qin Guan (Taixu) early in their friendship: Last night I happened to drink several cups of wine with some friends, then beside a lamp I composed one letter to Li Duanshu and another to you, Taixu, before falling asleep. Today when I look again at those two letters, I see that the calligraphy of Duanshu’s letter is fairly neat and regular, but the calligraphy of the one to you is wild and inconsistent. I must have been really drunk last night! I first thought I’d make a clean copy of the letter to you, but then it occurred to me that seeing what my writing looks like when I’m drunk might bring a smile to your face, across the thousand miles that separates us. When you have a moment, kindly send me a word. That would relieve my boredom here. No more for now.7 Su Shi’s hundreds of entries in the miscellaneous records (zaji) and colophon forms often resemble Song period biji entries (and would posthumously be edited into the biji that are misleadingly attributed to Su Shi). There is, first of all, no clear distinction between the two forms in Su Shi’s use of them—editors struggle to maintain genre divisions and create subcategories of them—and on the whole these writings give the impression of having been dashed off and then put aside, with no attempt to organize them into larger coherent units. In that sense, they appear even more random and disconnected than we typically find in a chapter of biji writings, if that is possible. We will cite but two examples of miscellaneous records in the following: On How Lichees Resemble Scallops8 Once I asked, “What is there that resembles lichees?” Someone replied, “Longan fruits resemble lichees.” All the other guests in the room laughed at this for being so simplistic. In fact, there is nothing that resembles lichees. Finally, I said, “Scallops resemble lichees.” No one knew what to make of what I said, and I did not try to explain. Yesterday, I saw Bi Zhongyou. I asked him, “Who resembles Du Fu?” Zhongyou said, “Sima Qian resembles Du Fu.” I was delighted but said nothing. His answer was, in fact, a perfect match to what I had said previously about lichees. Su Shi had an abiding interest in synesthesia and that seems to be what underlies this odd entry. If the question is “What resembles lichees?” we naturally expect that the answer will be some other fruit. But Su Shi is not thinking of the flavor of the fruit; he has put the trait of flavor aside (perhaps because there is no good candidate for a close match), and has moved on to the trait of texture, or perhaps to the issue of the singularity of one food within its food class (fruits, seafood). That must be why he gives the answer of scallops. Similarly, when the question is “Who resembles 388

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Du Fu?” we naturally expect the answer to be another poet. But Bi Zhongyou, being of one mind here with Su Shi himself, must be thinking that there is no other poet who produced a corpus of verse like Du Fu’s. So he puts the category of “poetry” aside, and replies with the name of a writer who in other respects (breadth of subject matter, ability to synthesize previous writings, originality, influence) had achievements that were, in fact, comparable to Du Fu’s, even while being radically dissimilar in the writing itself. Here is a very different sort of miscellaneous record, written in Hainan Island, where Su Shi suddenly recalled an old friend. The nickname given to the friend, Lemon Li, involved a pun: mengzi 檬子 “lemon” was a pun on mengzi 蒙子 “dimwit, simpleton”: Lemon Li9 My old friend, Li Chun (polite name Xisheng), wrote a commentary on the Spring and Autumns Annals, continuing his family tradition of specializing in that classic. Ouyang Wenzhong (Ouyang Xiu) was fond of him. He was roughhewn by nature and somewhat slow and dull, so Liu Gongfu playfully gave him the nickname “Lemon Li,” thinking that this name epitomized his character, not knowing that in the vegetable kingdom there really was such a tree as the lemon. One day the two of us were riding our horses in the street, and we heard a hawker in the market calling out the name of the fruit, selling it. We laughed so hard we nearly fell off our horses. Where I am living now in Hainan Island, this tree grows everywhere, its shiny fruits clustered densely in the branches. But those two gentlemen have already entered the register of ghosts. Suddenly, I thought of the bearing and character of those two friends—when will I ever meet their like again? Liu was definitely a man who did not throw himself into the world, and Li had literary talent, stuck to his principles, and did not align himself lightly with others. Su Shi’s writing in this vein, as well as that exemplified in the letters quoted earlier, had a considerable influence upon xiaopin wen as it developed in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Xiaopin writers had great admiration for Su Shi and followed his lead in exploring the expressive uses of short, lyrical prose entries that prided themselves on avoiding any scholarly pretention or ponderousness. A related point, with which we may conclude here, is that for Su Shi himself this manner of prose expression could be viewed as an alternative to poetry. Rarely, if ever, had a writer of prose shown himself to be so comfortable with featuring intensely personal and affectionate expression as we find in the recollection of Lemon Li or the letter to Qin Guan. Yet, for all its lyrical qualities, those entries are still prose, not poetry, and so they have certain advantages that prose inherently enjoys over poetry, such as greater facility with abrupt changes of topic, timeframe, and direction of reasoning. We began with Ouyang Xiu and described how he cultivated a personal tone in so much of his literary prose. Su Shi carried Ouyang’s innovation still further, extending it into prose that often took leave of the traditional genres entirely, creating in the process a new approach to prose expression that drew near to the highly personal and affective qualities of poetry while retaining its own distinctive characteristics.

Notes 1 Su Xun, “Shang Ouyang neihan diyi shu” [The First Letter to Ouyang Xiu], Jiayou ji, juan 12, para. 1 (Ctext online edition: https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&res=766526&remap=gb. 2 Ouyang Xiu, “Sanqin ji,” in Ouyang Xiu quanji [Complete Works of Ouyang Xiu], ed. Li Yian, 6 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2001), 63.943–44.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 3 Ouyang Xiu, “Li xiucai Dongyuan ting ji,” Ouyang Xiu quanji 64.932–33. 4 See the discussion of these other genres in my study, The Literary Works of Ou-yang Hsiu (1007–72) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), chapter 2. 5 These five collections are contained in Ouyang Xiu quanji, juan 128–29, 126–27, 57, 129, and 130, respectively. 6 Su Shi, “Yu Jiang Tangzuo xiucai” [Correspondence with Jiang Tangzuo], no. 4, Su Shi wenji jiaozhu [Annotated Prose of Su Shi], in vols. 9–20 of Su Shi quanji jiaozhu [Annotated Complete Works of Su Shi], ed. Zhang Zhilie et al., 20 vols. (Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 2010), 57.6359. 7 Su Shi, “Yu Qin Taixu,” no. 2, Su Shi wenji jiaozhu 52.5751. 8 Su Shi, “Lizhi si jiangyaozhu shuo” [On How Lychees Are Like Scallops], Su Shi wenji jiaozhu 73.8423. 9 Su Shi, “Li Mengzi,” Su Shi wenji jiaozhu 72.8228–29.

Further Reading Egan, Ronald. Exile and Invention in the Informal Prose of Su Shi. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, forthcoming. Egan, Ronald. The Literary Works of Ou-yang Hsiu 1007–72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Egan, Ronald. Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 1994. Hartman, Charles. Han Yü and the T’ang Search for Unity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986. Shields, Anna M., and Stephen H. West. “Tang and Song Occasional Prose: Prefaces and Epistolary Writing.” In How to Read Chinese Prose: A Guided Anthology, edited by Zong-qi Cai, 267–90. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022. Wang, Yugen. “Tang and Song Biographical Prose: Allegorical and Fictional.” In How to Read Chinese Prose: A Guided Anthology, edited by Zong-qi Cai, 291–310. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022.

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32 YUAN HONGDAO AND ZHANG DAI Yang Ye

Milieu and zeitgeist There is some kind of acquiescent consensus in scholarly works that the term “Late Ming” covers, roughly, the last sixty years of the Ming dynasty, somehow beginning from the death of Zhang Juzheng (1525-1582), the ironhanded statesman who, serving as the senior grand secretary in the early years of the young Emperor Shenzong (ruled 1572–1620, Wanli reign), managed to hold the nation together with relative success, politically and economically; his decease marked the beginning of the end of the empire.1 These six decades were full of catastrophes and conflicts, with rampant corruption, court intrigues, and perennial political crises. Without a capable administrator like Zhang by his side, Emperor Shenzong grew up to isolate himself from the cabinet, and relied increasingly on his eunuchs for governing. In the penultimate reign of the short-lived Emperor Xizong (ruled 1620–1627, Tianqi reign), the political situation worsened with the rise in power of the eunuch Wei Zhongxian (1568–1627), which sharpened the struggles among various factions of the imperial court. There was not much improvement with the enthronement of the next and last Ming emperor, Sizong (ruled 1627–1644, Chongzhen reign), who, despite giving orders for the execution of Wei Zhongxian, relied on another group of eunuchs and was personally responsible for a series of fatal decisions, most notably the execution of General Yuan Chonghuan in 1630, which to a large extent contributed to the eventual downfall of the empire. One may argue that such corruption, intrigues, and blunders were not unknown in the early years of the Ming dynasty, which is quite true. Generally speaking, especially when compared with the earlier Tang and Song dynasties, or the subsequent Manchu Qing, the Ming empire, in its 276 years of reign, had an assembly of, taken together, the most ruthless and least competent “sons of heaven” in Chinese history. What distinguished the Late Ming period from other historical periods, however, was that it was also a relatively liberal time for literary and artistic expression. An anxiety among the literati, who somehow sensed the pending disintegration of the empire and the decline of traditional values, was ironically coupled with an escapism into the refuge of sensual pleasures, which may have accounted for an unprecedented enhancement of connoisseurship in the materialistic aspects of life in all its colors, flavors, and sounds. For example, Lu Shusheng (1509–1605), who lived to the age of 96, received numerous and diversified senior official appointments, including cabinet minister, but declined or resigned from  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-44

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most of them, so that his years of government service totaled only about a dozen. His short prose pieces display how much he enjoyed living as a recluse among his collection of ink slabs, walking sticks and paintings. Chen Jiru (1558–1639), a close friend of Dong Qichang (1555–1636), the great calligrapher and painter who also served as a cabinet minister, chose to terminate his political career by taking an expressive symbolic act of setting fire to all his scholar’s caps and gowns at the age of 28, and began to live as a commoner, turning himself into the major arbiter of fashion of the age in all kinds of epicurean pleasures, including horticulture and gastronomy. Li Liufang (1575–1629) openly refused to pay homage to Wei Zhongxian at the peak of the latter’s power, when shrines in honor of the eunuch were constructed all over in the empire. He relinquished his political aspirations, went back south to his native Jiading county, and personally saw to the building of a family garden where he spent most of the rest of his life composing poems and hosting parties for his friends, becoming a leading landscape painter of the period.2 The Chinese-American author Lin Yutang once observed that Taoism and Confucianism are but two alternating moods in the nation’s soul: “Every Chinese is a good Confucianist when he is a success, but a Taoist when he is in trouble or frustrated and beset by difficulties and failures.”3 Many men of letters of the Late Ming period were exactly like that, and while it was nothing unusual throughout Chinese history, what was remarkable about them was that in spite of the political turmoil, their rebellious and unorthodox behaviors in life were somehow tolerated, and they were able to find a refuge in the privacy of their artistic and literary pursuits without getting into trouble. Literary inquisition, which had been found in the earlier Song dynasty, as in the case of Su Dongpo, known as the “Suit about Poems at the Blackbird Pavilion,” or that which went to its peak during the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns of the subsequent Manchu Qing, was generally unknown during the Late Ming. Such circumstances accounted for the formation of the Late Ming zeitgeist. Under the posthumous influence of Wang Yangming (1472–1529), who challenged the prevailing neo-Confucian orthodoxy of the Song daoxue thinkers like the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi, and who advocated spiritual enlightenment through vigorous ethical actions in society and meditative self-exploration, many intellectuals of the period kept a grain of salt for tradition and were inclined to defy authority. They were persistent, often daring, in pursuit of individuality, which not infrequently took the form of idiosyncrasy. On the other hand, the popularization of Wang Yangming’s ideas meant also the decline of the daoxue rationalism and its restriction of human desires. Consequently, the literati of this period, while seeking spiritual freedom, also indulged themselves in materialistic and sensual pleasures. In addition to their conventional engagement in the “Three Perfections,” i.e., poetry, calligraphy and painting, they also integrated and developed into their art of life such highbrow diversions as playing the Chinese lute (qin) or chess (weiqi, or go), and quotidian activities such as gourmet feasting, tea and wine drinking, gardening, and the keeping of various pets. In a letter to his friend, Yuan Hongdao (1568–1610) listed five items, appealing to both refined and popular tastes, as constituents of the “true bliss of life”: 1) the reveling in all the colors, flavors, and sounds in the world; 2) banquets with wine, women, and song; 3) great book collections and the company of talented friends; 4) touring around in a boat with a music band and several concubines in attendance; and eventually, when one has used up all one’s wealth and property enjoying all of these and has to begin to live from hand to mouth, 5) living the rest of one’s life begging around, but “without a sense of shame.”4 To attach great importance to free time and leisure, to remain unconventional and unrestrained in life and society, to persist in following one’s true nature day in and day out, and sometimes even to behave in a frivolous manner, became part of the new value system of the age. Behind all this, 392

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however, there was also a constant, pervading anxiety, a feeling of restlessness, and even a kind of fin-de-siècle despair.

The Genuine, the Contemporary, and the Popular: the Rise of the xiaopin An examination of the literary expressions of the Late Ming period reveals three main tendencies, which may be represented by three Chinese characters. First, zhen (the genuine/the truthful) was widely, often avidly, treasured in writings. Secondly, many authors strongly defended the idea of jin (the present/the contemporary), in comparison with, or rather in contrast to, the past (xi), let alone the ancient (gu). Thirdly, the su (the popular, the lowbrow, or even the vulgar) was no longer considered something to avoid or shun; on the contrary, it was often glorified or honored, making way for a process of re-canonization of literary history. The formation and rise of such predilections resulted from a dissatisfaction with, and opposition to, the neoclassicism which had dominated the field of poetry and prose, conventionally the main genres of serious highbrow literature, since the early sixteenth century. By the Jiajing reign (1522–1567), the torch of neoclassicism was carried on by the “Latter Seven Masters” led by Li Panlong (1514–1570), and most forcefully by Wang Shizhen (1526–1590), who served as a high-ranking official in the imperial government. The neo-classical movement started as a refreshing and salubrious force, but it wore itself out in due course and, at its extreme, sacrificed content for form. By the early years of the Wanli reign it confronted oppositions on many fronts, partially as a consequence of the posthumously increasing impact of Wang Yangming’s concepts of “intuitive knowledge (liangzhi)” and “unity of knowledge and action (zhi xing he yi),” and began to dwindle in influence. Among those who fought against the retrogressive theories were a group of writers categorized later as the “Tang–Song School,” led by Tang Shunzhi (1507–1560), Wang Shenzhong (1509–1559) and Mao Kun (1512–1601), who argued for learning from the prose masters of the Tang and Song dynasties instead. In addition, a number of “lone warriors” took their own personal stance against the current of restoration. Among them were Gui Youguang (1507–1571), who, while failing to achieve distinction in his pursuit of an official career, nevertheless made a reputation through his prose writing, being acknowledged even by Wang Shizhen, an opponent in theory, as “one in a millennium.” Xu Wei (1521–1593), a versatile artist and author, who, despite his lack of success in the higher civil service examinations, seemed to have attended to his creative activities for the future. Last, but not least, Li Zhi (1527–1602), the nonconformist and unorthodox man of letters, provided a kind of manifesto for the rising new camps with his essay, “On the Mind of a Child,” which argued for the “genuine” and spoke against the affected and the false in writings nurtured in learning and society. The best writings in the world, it remarked, were those that “exclude the false and value the true.” It maintained that literature was not to be judged by priority in temporal order, thus giving strong support to the “contemporary.” It also ranked works of popular literature, the play Western Chamber and the novel Water Margin, side by side with acknowledged classics like Book of Songs and Selections of Refined Literature (Wen xuan).5 Li Zhi’s impact on Late Ming literature was primarily felt as a source of inspiration to his admirers, most notably the three Yuan brothers, Zongdao, Hongdao, and Zhongdao, who managed to deal the fatal blow to the neo-classicists. The so-called Gong’an School made its name by them, all natives of the Gong’an county, Hupei, who took an active part in the new literary movement. All three achieved academic distinction, each winning the degree of the Metropolitan Graduate, respectively in 1586, 1592, and 1611. Zongdao (1560–1600), who died at the early age of forty, was actually the first among the brothers to stand up and launch an attack on the retrogressive arguments 393

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of Li Panlong and Wang Shizhen. In a bi-partite essay “On Prose,” after enumerating the shortcomings of “simulation after the Qin and Han” in the writings of the neoclassicists, he observed that the main purpose of writing was to use it like one’s mouth and tongue, in speaking out what was in one’s heart. He emphasized the importance of idea formation in the first place so that one’s prose, as a vehicle of the idea, might take shape.6 Both Zongdao and Zhongdao were eclipsed in fame by Hongdao; even when still a teenager, he already displayed his leadership quality by serving as an organizer of local literary societies. After he began his official career, he built up a large circle of friends through frequent correspondence, meetings, and parties. In numerous writings he criticized the theory of simulation and advertised his call for “natural sensibility” (xing ling), which he developed from Li Zhi’s idea of the “Mind of a Child.” In a preface he wrote for Zhongdao’s poetry collection, Hongdao remarked: In recent times, poetry and prose have become extremely lowly. Prose has to model itself on that of the Qin and Han, and poetry, that of the High Tang. It’s nothing but plagiarism and sheer imitation, down to the last detail. As soon as they see something not resembling the respective model, they will accuse it of being sheer heresy. . . . Every epoch has its rise and fall, and one should never follow the same rules but rather exhaust all possible changes and explore all possible interests. That is what makes it valuable, and it is not to be judged in its relative values.7 Following in the footsteps of Zongdao, Hongdao targeted the “Latter Seven Masters” in their retrogressive slogan of “returning to the ancients,” and argued for the importance of finding new possibilities and new interests with the changing times. Referring to his own arias (qu), Feng Menglong (1574–1645), a ubiquitous figure in Late Ming literature through his contribution to various genres of popular literature that included vernacular short stories and erotic folk songs, observed that they “absolutely lacked patterning and grace, but excel in one word: genuineness.”8 Li Zhi was one of the earliest open admirers of popular literature. In addition to his comments on Western Chamber and Water Margin in “On the Mind of a Child,” he once placed the novel in the same niche as Sima Qian’s Historical Records and the poetry of Du Fu and Su Dongpo.9 Following in his wake, Yuan Hongdao also argued, in talking about literary evolution from the ancient classics onward, that “Writings have no option but to evolve from the ancient to the contemporary: it is decided by the changing times.”10 It was within such a context of changing times and trends that in prose (wen), which along with poetry (shi) remained the two major literary genres, a new genre rose and became dominant during the Wanli reign, one marked by relative shortness of length, an emphasis on individuality, and idiosyncratic stylistic features. The new genre was acknowledged with a new name, xiaopin (“little piece”), or vignette, by the second decade of the sixteenth century, but its rise had started some half a century earlier. Both Yuan Hongdao and Zhang Dai stood out as among the best authors of this new genre.

The Prose of Yuan Hongdao In his own vignettes Hongdao attempts to find new possibilities in wording, phrasing and structure. In particular, he became renowned for his travel notes (you ji). Zhang Dai has ranked Hongdao’s travel notes with the very best in history, second to none but those by Li Daoyuan, the Northern Wei author of A Commentary on the Water Classic, and Liu Zongyuan, the great Tang master and author of the “Eight Notes on Yongzhou.”11 394

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Hongdao’s travel notes excel in their choices of apt, refreshing, and striking similes and metaphors in descriptions, as illustrated in the following examples (my italics): The hills were like a lady’s dark eyebrows, and the flowers were like her cheeks. The gentle breeze was intoxicating as wine, and the ripples were as soft as damask silk. I had barely lifted my head before I felt drunk and overwhelmed. (“First Trip to West Lake”) Wild grass stretched far and wide like a mist into the distance, and frogs croaked as if they were wailing: riding a boat on a moonlit night here made us feel quite forlorn. (“Mirror Lake”) Our vision extended far and wide, and I felt like a swan out of a cage. On that day a thin skin of ice had just started melting. Water sparkled, and ripples moved in layers and layers like fish scales. The fountain was so clear that we could see its very bottom, shining like the cold light from a mirror that had just been taken out of its case. Mountain peaks were washed by the snow in sunshine, looking fresh and bright, like a beautiful girl who has just washed her face and made up her hair. Willow twigs were about to bud, but not quite yet, with their tender tips trembling in the wind. In wheat fields the short mane of seedlings was about an inch high. (“A Trip to Brimming Well”) In Hongdao’s travel notes, the description of nature is almost always intertwined with the emotional reactions of the author himself and his fellow tourists, as in the first and third citations. In “A Trip to the Six Bridges after a Rain,” from the very beginning, Hongdao makes the announcement to his friends that, with the rain, which “is here to wash away the red [flowers] at the West Lake, they should waste no time “in bidding farewell to the peach blossoms.” With such an opening, the falling of the peach flowers turns into a main theme through the piece. They go to the lake, where “the ground was covered by fallen petals more than an inch deep,” and to their delight, there are very few tourists. Then, all of a sudden, the scene is enlivened by something they have observed, recorded by the author as in a camera lens, and followed up by their immediate reaction: Suddenly someone in white silk flitted by on horseback; the splendor of the whiteness was dazzling. All my friends who were wearing white clothes inside took off their outer garments. Note the white color is thrown into sharp contrast by the red color of the peach flowers, and the “farewell to the peach blossoms” continues thenceforth: Feeling a little sleepy, we lay down on the ground and had a drink. To amuse ourselves, we counted the flower petals falling onto our faces: those who received more would have to drink, and those who received less would have to sing. So, is this the end of the trip, and Hongdao can simply call it a day? No, not before another interesting episode takes place: A small boat suddenly emerged from among the flowers. We called out and found it to be some Buddhist monks bringing tea from the temple. We all had a cup of tea and went home, rocking our boat and singing loudly. The two episodes, the passing of the horse-rider in white and the emerging of the boat of the monks, both made more alive with the reaction of the author and his friends, add to the drama of 395

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the otherwise rather commonplace outing. The ending reminds the reader, almost imperceptibly, of the famous passage in the Analects in which the Master asks his disciples to talk about their aspirations, when Zeng Dian describes his simple longing for an outing with friends in the spring wherein they would “take a bath in the Yi River, confront the wind at the Dancing Sacrifice Platform, and return singing.”

The Prose of Zhang Dai More than any of his predecessors, Zhang Dai (1597–1689) fully embodied the Late Ming zeitgeist in his vignettes. He lived for more than four decades after the Manchu invasion, during which he chose to lead a recluse’s life in the Zhejiang mountains and remained until his death a loyalist to the Ming. But, while continuing to write in spite of the hardships of his life, he devoted his pen almost exclusively to memories of the bygone days before the empire’s fall.12 These pieces, however, are presented in such a clear vision, and they have captured so much of the “moment” in description, that they have turned such memories into the “contemporary”—making them as vivid as if they had taken place right in front of the reader’s eyes. Following the convention of the Chinese literati, Zhang Dai took great pride in his work of history, Books in a Stone Casket, a comprehensive history of the Ming dynasty, modeled upon Sima Qian’s Historical Records, and he considered himself first and foremost a historian. A prolific writer, he claimed in his autobiographical essay, “An Epitaph for Myself,” to be the author of some fifteen publications, including history, biography, family genealogy, explication of Confucian classics and poetry, etc. However, the singular work by which he was, and will be, remembered, is Dream Memories from the Tao Hut, a collection of more than 120 short belles-lettres vignettes. Flowing from under his pen out of his traumatic experience of living through the social cataclysm, these pieces provide a panoramic picture of what life was like, in many and varied social strata, during the last forty years of the Ming dynasty before its downfall. Since the revival of interest in the genre of xiaopin in the 1920s, in the aftermath of the New Culture Movement, Dream Memories has become one of the most beloved works of Chinese readers and is widely and deservedly recognized as a small classic in its own right.13 Like many of his contemporaries, Zhang Dai made an early decision not to pursue an official career in his family tradition, but instead led an indulgent life enjoying its many and sundry pleasures, cultivating a connoisseurship in music, theater, gourmet cooking, and the drinking of homemade tea and wine. The Taoist pursuits of his youth might have helped him in coping with the hardship in his late years; they also provided him with a rich treasury of source material for his Dream Memories, a work that became one of the best manifestations, if not the very best, of the soul of the Late Ming period. Zhang Dai worked hard to find and establish his distinctive identity. In a preface to his own poetry collection, he offered an account of how he by turns attempted to write poems like those of Xu Wei, Yuan Hongdao, and other predecessors, much like what Robert Louis Stevenson calls “playing the sedulous ape,” but eventually made up his mind to speak in his own voice.14 This persistent search for individuality led to his “synthetic power” in the composition of his vignettes, and he has generally been considered a great “synthesizer” (ji da cheng zhe) in the prose genre.15 The entries in Dream Memories share a fascination with the trivial, found in the xiaopin writings of many Late Ming writers. Zhang Dai himself attributed the close attention to seemingly undramatic and insignificant subjects in his writings to his learning from Sima Qian. He noted: “There is much flavor in things like cloth and grains, which is inexhaustible to be munched and digested, and may be passed on for eternity. The blander the taste, the more wide-reaching they become.”16 The 396

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diversity of topics treated in the work extends to such ordinary and quotidian things as trips to the incense and joss-stick market, lantern shows, annual tomb-site visits, displays of fireworks, prostitution, matchmaking for concubines, dragon-boat regattas, and various kinds of food and drink (both tea and wine), many of which had never been touched upon in previous prose writing. In all these pieces, Zhang Dai’s style approximates that of modern reportage in terms of its close attention to detail, but excels in its colorful descriptive power. “An Inn at Tai’an” may serve as an illustration of such attention to what appear to be trivial details. It provides an almost matter-of-fact account of the author’s personal observation of the inns at the foot of Mt. Taishan, the Sacred Mountain of the East, in the town of Tai’an, not far from Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius. As Richard Strassberg has observed, the piece offers “a rare glimpse into the circumstances of commercialized travel in later Imperial China.” Zhang Dai follows therein a natural temporal order of narration. The speaker assumes the voice of a tourist guide, pointing out, and making comments on, scenes that his audience would approach step by step: the more than twenty stables for mules and horses, the more than twenty dwellings housing actors, and the “discreet doorways and concealed houses” belonging to courtesans and prostitutes serving just a single inn. Then, one enters the inn itself, where one pays the fees and taxes, in a detailed account. This is followed by a description of the three grades of rooms, each with a different level of amenities that include meals and entertainment. Some of the scenes may even remind modern American readers of their experience at one of the gigantic casinos in Las Vegas: There were also more than twenty kitchens and cooking places, and between one and two hundred people taking errands and rendering service. . . . Guests arrived day by day, but the rooms of the newcomers and the departed were never disrupted, the non-vegetarian and vegetarian meals were never messed up, and the staff members who took them in and those who saw them off were never the same. That was indeed rather incomprehensible.17 An otherwise simple and straightforward narrative notwithstanding, its minute details and sharp observation make it photographic in detail and memorable, as if from a modern “camera eye.” Many entries in Dream Memories, like “An Inn at Tai’an,” may fall into the category of travel notes; however, unlike previous works in the sub-genre that have come down from Li Daoyuan and Liu Zongyuan, Zhang Dai’s interest in Nature, similar to that of Yuan Hongdao, was only when it served as a stage for human activities. Zhou Zuoren (1885–1968), an early twentieth-century prose writer and a major promoter of the xiaopin, has observed: “Zhang Dai was an urban poet. He always pays attention to human affairs, not Nature. Mountains and rivers are nothing but the background to the human activities which he depicts.”18 This may be illustrated by “Viewing the Snow from the Mid-Lake Gazebo.”19 The subject of this note is the famous West Lake in Hangzhou, a popular tourist attraction then as well as today. In it, the author describes a trip to it following three days of heavy snow in the region and “when the last beat of the night watch was over” (just before dawn); i.e., the least popular day and time, when no one would visit. So, one might think that the description would be nothing but simply the beauty of Nature in a world devoid of human trace. Indeed, the first half of the extremely short piece (a total of a mere 158 Chinese characters in the original) is exactly like that: it adopts a painter’s language to appeal to the “inward eye” of the reader: “one inky stroke for the long embankment, one dot for the gazebo, one mustard seed for the boat, and the two or three jots for people in the boat.” The next scene, however, catches the reader by surprise as it seemed to have also done the author himself: when he arrived at the gazebo, he ran into two travelers from Nanjing who were warming up a pot of rice wine, and much to their mutual delight was invited to a hearty drink in their company. The 397

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note closes in a kind of theatrical aside, the murmuring of the author’s boatman: “Don’t say that our young master is crazy; there are people even crazier than he is!” In this vignette, as in all the travel notes in the entire collection. the beauty of Nature hardly, if ever, goes unnoticed, but it is all the more enhanced by the bustling of life within the scenery. One special feature that marks Zhang Dai as different from other xiaopin authors of the period— with the sole exception of Wang Siren (1575–1646), from whom he may have learned to perfect the art—is his masterful use of dialogue and dialect, even slang at times, side by side with archaic and allusive expressions. An outstanding example of this is “The Lean Mares of Yangzhou.” The euphemistic expression “lean mares” refers to young women trained and sold as concubines. The scene of the display of one of these miserable young women in front of the client and the matchmaker is presented simultaneously in visual and auditory ways. As soon as they sat down and when tea was served, the woman agent would come out with a “lean mare” and say, “Missy, bow to the guest!” The woman bowed. Next, “Missy, walk forward!” She walked. “Missy, turn around!” She turned around to stand in the light; her face was shown. “Pardon, missy, can we take a look at your hand?” The woman rolled up her sleeve to display her hand, her arm. and her skin. “Missy, look at the gentleman.” She looked from the corner of her eyes and her eyes were shown. “How old is Missy?” She replied, and her voice was heard. “Please walk again a bit.” This time the woman lifted her skirts to expose her feet.20 Step by step, the reader is transformed into an accomplice, a voyeur watching the humiliating experience of the young woman. The use of dialect and vernacular expressions such as “Missy” (in the original, guniang) and “a bit,” embedded in the context of classical prose, creates the effect of what the Russian formalist critics call “defamiliarization” or “enstrangement,” exerting an unforgettable impression in the reader’s mind. The skillful use of dialogue and dialect probably originated from the author’s lifelong interest in the theater, and is also evidence of the representation of the su (vulgar) found in popular literature, drama and fiction, of the age. By devoting his writing exclusively to the past, Zhang Dai provided a singularly realistic record of Chinese society just before the collapse of the Ming empire.

Notes 1 To give just a few examples of such works, see Xia Xianchun, Wan Ming shifeng yu wenxue [The Mannerism of the Literati and Literature in the Late Ming] (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1994); Wu Chengxue, Wan Ming xiaopin yanjiu [A Study of the Late Ming Vignettes] (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1998); Wu Chengxue and Li Guangmo, eds., Wan Ming wenxue sichao yanjiu [A Study of Literary Thought in the Late Ming] (Wuhan: Hubei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2002). For some of the best accounts of the political and economic history of the Ming dynasty both during and after Zhang Juzheng’s lifetime, see Frederick W. Mote and Denis Twichett, eds., The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 7: The Ming Dynasty: 1368–1644, Part 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Ray Huang, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981). 2 For biographical accounts of the men of letters discussed in this passage, see L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds., Dictionary of Ming Biography: 1368–1644, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976); also the introductions to each of the three authors in Yang Ye, tr., with annotations and introduction, Vignettes from the Late Ming: A Hsiao-p’in Anthology (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999). 3 Lin Yutang, From Pagan to Christian (Cleveland: The World Publishing Co., 1959), 111.

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Yuan Hongdao and Zhang Dai 4 See Yuan Hongdao’s “Gong Weichang xiansheng” [A Letter to Gong Weichang], in Yuan Hongdao’s Works: Edited and with Commentaries (Yuan Hongdao ji jianjiao), ed. Qian Bocheng, 3 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2018), 1.222–23. 5 For an English translation of the essay, see Ye, Vignettes from the Late Ming, 26–28. 6 Yuan Zongdao, Bo Su zhai lei ji [Collection of Writings in Various Genres from the Bo (Juyi) and Su (Shi) Studio], ed. Qian Bocheng (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chuban she, 1989), 283–86. 7 Yuan Hongdao, “Xu Xiaoxiu shi” [A Preface to Xiaoxiu’s Poetry], 1.187–90. 8 See Feng Menglong’s “Taixia xinzou xu” [Preface to Taixia xinzou], in Feng Menglong quanji [Complete Works of Feng Menglong], ed. Wei Tong xian, 43 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1993), 15.1–10. 9 See Zhou Hui, Jinling suoshi [Trivial Affairs in Jinling], cited in Xia, Wan Ming shifeng yu wenxue, 280. 10 Yuan Hongdao, “Xue tao ge ji xu” [A Preface to Collection from the Snow Wave Pavilion], 2.709–11. 11 Zhang Dai, “Ba Yushan zhu” [A Colophon to Notes on Lodge Hill], in Zhang Dai shiwenji [A Collection of Zhang Dai’s Poetry and Prose], ed. Xia Xianchun (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991), 306. 12 The year of Zhang Dai’s decease has not been historically validated. I have followed Xia Xianchun’s speculation, based upon a short biography of Zhang Dai by Shang Pan (1701–1767), a fellow native of the Kuaiji county and a poet, who compiled an anthology, The Airs from Yue (Yue feng), of works from the Yue region (Zhejiang), including those of Zhang Dai. See Xia Xianchun, Mingmo qicai Zhang Dai lun [A Study of Zhang Dai: The Genius at the End of the Ming Dynasty] (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1989), 4 and 29, note 3. 13 For the original of cited Zhang Dai texts, see Tao’an mengyi/Xihu mengxun [A Collection of Zhang Dai’s Poetry and Prose and Dream Memories from the Tao Hut/Searching for the West Lake in Dreams], ed. and annot. Xia Xianchun and Cheng Weirong (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2001). For a selection of Zhang Dai’s vignettes in English translation, including “An Epitaph for Myself,” see Ye, Vignettes from the Late Ming, 86–103. 14 From Zhang Dai’s “Langxuan shiji zixu” [The Author’s Preface to Poetry Collection from Langxuan], in Zhang Dai shiwenji, 406–7. 15 For a discussion of Zhang Dai as a “synthesizer” of the vignette, see Ye, Vignettes from the Late Ming, xxvii–xxviii. 16 From Zhang Dai’s “Da Yuan Yi’an” [A Letter in Reply to Yuan Yi’an], in Zhang Dai shiwenji, 230–31. 17 For an English translation of this piece, see Richard E. Strassberg, ed. and tr., Inscribed Landscapes: Travel Writing from Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 339–41. The cited passage is my translation. 18 Zhou Zuoren, “Tao’an mengyi xu” [Preface to Dream Memories from the Tao Hut], cited in Chen Wanyi, ed., Tao’an mengyi daodu [A Guided Reader of Dream Memories from the Tao Hut] (Taipei: Jinfeng chubanshe, 1986), 132–35. 19 For an English translation of the piece see Ye, Vignettes from the Late Ming, 90. 20 This piece found its earliest English rendition in Lin Yutang, Translations from the Chinese: The Importance of Understanding (Cleveland: The World Publishing Co., 1963), 229–31, under the title “Professional Matchmakers.” Lin, however, erroneously renders the term “lean mare” as “matchmaker” and attributes the piece to Searching for the West Lake in Dreams, another collection by Zhang Dai, when it is actually from Dream Memories from the Tao Hut. It has also been included in Victor Mair, ed., The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 597–98. A more recent translation appears in David Pollard, The Chinese Essay (London: Hurst, 2000), 90–92. The cited passage here is my translation.

Further Reading Chang, Kang-I Sun, and Stephen Owen, eds. The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. See especially Tina Lu, “The Literary Culture of the Late Ming” (2: 63–151), and Wai-yee Li, “Early Qing to 1723” (2: 152–244). Chaves, Jonathan. “The Expression of Self in the Kung-an School.” In Expression of Self in Chinese Literature, edited by Robert E. Hegel and Richard C. Hessney, 123–50. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. Chaves, Jonathan. “The Panoply of Images: A Reconsideration of Literary Theory of the Kung-an School.” In Theories of the Arts in China, edited by Susan Bush and Christian Murck, 341–64. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983. Chou, Chih-p’ing. Yuan Hung-tao and the Kung-an School. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature Hegel, Robert E. “Dreaming the Past: Memory and Continuity Beyond the Ming Fall.” In Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature, edited by Wilt L. Idema, Wai-yee Li, and Ellen Widmer, 345–71. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006. Kafalas, Philip A. In Limpid Dream: Nostalgia and Zhang Dai’s Reminiscences of the Ming. Manchester: Camphor Press, 2007. Li Zhi. A Book to Burn and A Book to Keep (Hidden): Selected Writings. Edited by Rivi Handler-Spitz, Pauline C. Lee, and Haun Saussy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. Owen, Stephen. Remembrances: The Experience of the Past in Classical Chinese Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986. Pollard, David. The Chinese Essay. London: Hurst, 2000. Spence, Jonathan. Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming Man. New York: Viking, 2007. Strassberg, Richard E., ed. and tr. Inscribed Landscapes: Travel Writing from Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Ye, Yang, trans. Vignettes from the Late Ming: A Hsiao-p’in Anthology, with annotations and introduction. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999.

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PART THREE

Drama

Editors’ Introduction Drama matured and became popular much later than verse and prose, and it also played a much more minor role in the history of Chinese politics and culture. Similarly to fiction, drama was never treated seriously by the royal house and elite literati, and, in such an atmosphere, sometimes not even by playwrights themselves. This differs drastically from Western culture, in which drama, fiction, and poetry are considered the three major literary genres. Chinese drama is deeply rooted in early Chinese culture, but it developed to its mature form much later. Religious sacrifices and shamanic ceremonies, which included singing and dancing, are often viewed as the origins of Chinese theater. As Wilt Idema observes, many martial plays in the repertoire of the traditional Chinese theater, in which great heroes of the past massacre multitudes of enemies and drive off foreign foes, can be seen as a direct continuation of the exorcistic tradition since the time of Confucius.1 In addition to religious ceremony, there was also a tradition of entertaining performances, starting probably from humorous performances by court entertainers (chang you) in the Eastern Zhou. The “hundred games” (bai xi) in the Han dynasty displayed martial and acrobatic skills. The Tang dynasty “adjutant play” (canjun xi), a performance similar to the later “crosstalk” (xiangsheng) genre, and the Song dynasty farce (yuan ben), a four-part presentation framed by a musical prelude and postlude, likely all developed from this tradition. This kind of entertaining performance is ostensibly the direct predecessor of Chinese drama.2 Prosimetric literature (shuochang wenxue), which became popular with the emergence of large metropolitan centers in the late Tang and the Song, is another progenitor of Chinese drama. It began with the transformation texts (bianwen), which feature both prose and songs, followed by a variety of storytelling and the “all keys and modes” (zhu gongdiao), a long narrative ballad written in the form of suites of arias interspersed with prose dialogue. This is obviously another important precursor of Chinese drama.3 The northern play (zaju) pushed Chinese drama to its first peak during the Yuan dynasty, the golden age of Chinese plays. Like all traditional forms of Chinese drama, zaju was composed of songs (or arias) to be performed by actors who were professionally trained in a particular role-type. The typical length of a Yuan zaju is four acts, each act essentially consisting of a song-suite— a series of songs written to pre-existing tunes set in the same musical mode (or gongdiao). 

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Occasionally, a demi-act or “wedge” (xiezi) could be added in the beginning, middle, or end of the play. What sets zaju apart from other dramatic genres is the rule that all songs in a play be assigned to the same role-type, either the male lead (zheng mo) or the female lead (zheng dan), and hence to the same actor, even though the characters (or dramatic personae) played by that actor could change from act to act—as is the case, for example, in the Orphan of Zhao (Zhaoshi gu’er), where the male lead plays four different characters: Zhao Shuo, Han Jue, Gongsun Chujiu, and, finally, the titular orphan Cheng Bo. Playscripts, as any texts designed for performance, are by nature unstable, and The Orphan of Zhao is an excellent example of this: it exists in drastically different editions, as will be discussed subsequently. Even so, one should always bear in mind that there is much more to the play as it is performed on the stage—such as the music, dance, acrobatics, pantomime, costume, and ad-libs—that is not captured in the playscript, no matter what edition one consults. Of the limited extant Yuan zaju (fewer than 200), the most notable include the four great tragedies, Guan Hanqing’s (1229–1241) Injustice to Dou E (Dou E yuan; see Chapter 33), Bai Pu’s (1226–1306) Rain on the Wutong Tree (Wutong yu), Ma Zhiyuan’s (1250–1321) Autumn in the Han Palace (Hangong qiu; Chapter 34), and Ji Junxiang’s The Orphan of Zhao (Chapter 35); as well as the two plays of romance, Zheng Guangzu’s (1247–?) The Detached Soul of Qiannü (Qiannü lihun)4 and Wang Shifu’s Romance of the Western Chamber (Xixiang ji; Chapter 37). While the northern zaju drama declined at the end of Yuan, the southern play (nanxi) became popular in the south. Nanxi include the four great plays: The Thorn Hairpin (Jingchai ji), The White Hare (Baitu ji), the Pavillion of Moon Worship (Baiyue ting), and Killing a Dog (Shagou ji). Actually, nanxi began to form during the transition between the Northern Song and the Southern Song through early plays such as Chaste Lady Zhao (Zhao Zhennü) and Wang Kui. The major features differentiating the southern play from the northern zaju are the use of southern tunes and the fact that all role-type players may sing. Because of these features, the text stretches much longer, typically to about fifty scenes.5 Among the more than 230 southern plays written, only nineteen are still extant. The earliest extant texts are three from the Yongle Encyclopedia: Top-Graduate Zhang Xie (Zhang Xie zhuangyuan), The Scion of an Official Family Opts for the Wrong Career (Huanmen dizi cuo lishen), and Little Sun the Butcher (Xiao Sun tu). Unfortunately, there is no internal evidence that can verify their exact dates of composition.6 The prominent theme of nanxi is the ungrateful scholar, reflecting a serious social issue of the time. Each of the three southern plays discussed in this volume, Top-Graduate Zhang Xie (Chapter 37), The Thorn Hairpin (Jingchai ji, Chapter 38), and The Lute (Piba ji, Chapter 39), provides a rumination on this issue from a unique perspective. In mid-Ming, alongside the development of the commercial economy, the emergence of ideological emancipation, and the rise of the townsmen (shimin) and literati classes (since the Song dynasty), chuanqi plays became popular. In the pursuit of spiritual freedom, the literati indulged themselves in materialistic and sensual pleasures. One such pleasure was their obsession with opera. Zhang Dai, a famous scholar in the southeast, stated in his “Self-made Epitaph” that in his life, he “loves exquisite houses, loves beautiful maidservants, loves catamites, loves new clothes, loves fine food, loves troupes and theater (liyuan), and loves playing musical instruments.”7 In such a milieu of freedom did Kunqu opera develop. Famous early Kunqu plays include Washing Silk (Huansha ji) and The Crying Phoenix (Mingfeng ji). The format of chuanqi (transmitting marvels) plays of the Ming and Qing derived from the southern drama. A chuanqi play typically includes thirty scenes in two volumes, with a prologue of two lyric stanzas. Any actor may sing, though the male lead (sheng) and female lead (dan) are usually predominant. Different from the nanxi, a chuanqi play is no longer limited to one tune,

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and northern and southern tunes can be used together. Also, the plots are more complex, and the language is more polished. The dominant theme of chuanqi plays is love. The most notable work is The Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting) by Tang Xianzu (1550–1616), in which he extols the generative power of qing (feelings) as transcending all boundaries of human principles or logical reasoning (li; see Chapter 40). In the early Qing, some Chinese literati refused to serve in the Qing court, and of these some dedicated themselves to playwriting. Engagement in historical and political events became a trend in plays. Li Yu’s (c.1595–c.1671) Registers of the Pure and the Loyal (Qingzhong pu) and Wu Weiye’s (1609–1672) Spring in Moling (Moling chun) are early examples. The most successful of such plays are beyond a doubt Hong Sheng’s (1645–1704) The Palace of Lasting Life (Changsheng dian) and Kong Shangren’s (1648–1718) The Peach Blossom Fan (Taohua shan). Hong’s play dramatizes events of the Tang dynasty and romanticizes the love story of the Xuanzong Emperor (685–762) and his consort Yang Yuhuan (719–756), through which he reflects on the rise and fall of dynasties, though he claims in the prologue that the play is about “love, and nothing else” (see Chapter 41). Kong’s play presents a critical and somber reflection on the fall of the Southern Ming dynasty, which was ruled by Han Chinese. He does this by “interpreting the complex dynastic transition through a love story and using the love-token to signify the fate of the Southern Ming,” creating “a novel story that stands out among chuanqi plays noted for original creation” (Chapter 42). After the Qianlong emperor, the rulers of the Qing dynasty further strengthened their ideological control over the scholar-officials and instituted a literary inquisition. The chuanqi play form gradually declined, to be replaced in status by the flourishing of various local opera styles.

Notes 1 See Wilt Idema, “Traditional Dramatic Literature,” in Columbia History of Chinese Literature, ed. Victor Mair (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 786–88. 2 Cf. Idema, “Traditional Dramatic Literature,” 790–92. 3 Cf. Stephen West, “Drama,” in Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, ed. William Nienhauser (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 13–15. 4 Guan, Bai, Ma, and Zheng are considered the four great Yuan playwrights. 5 Idema, “Traditional Dramatic Literature,” 819. 6 Idema, “Traditional Dramatic Literature,” 819. 7 Zhang Dai, Lang Qiong wenji [Anthology of Lang Qiong] (Zhongguo wenxue zhenben congshu, 1877), 5 138–39, https://taiwanebook.ncl.edu.tw/zh-tw/book/NCL-000799970/reader.

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SECTION XI

Tragedy and Romance in Yuan Drama

33 GUAN HANQING AND HIS INJUSTICE TO DOU E Hongchu Fu

Styling himself Yizhai or Yizhai sou, Guan Hanqing was a renowned playwright of the Yuan dynasty. Among the roughly 100 playwrights of his time, he is undoubtedly the most prolific, the most representative, and the most well-known. Guan Hanqing is often considered to be the originator of the Yuan zaju genre—literally “variety show,” the dominant dramatic form of the period—and sometimes even the father of Chinese drama in general; some scholars like to compare him with Shakespeare in England of the sixteenth century, and some even compare him to such founders of classic world theater as Aeschylus and Aristophanes.1 Guan Hanqing was active and already well known during the Yuan dynasty. Zhong Sicheng (c. 1279–c. 1360), a Yuan song writer and a dramatist himself, ranked Guan Hanqing first among all the playwrights of the dynasty in his influential A Register of Ghosts (Lu gui bu), and Zhou Deqing (1277–1365), another song writer of the time, put Guan at the head of the four major Yuan playwrights in his Rhymes of the Central Plains (Zhongyuan yinyun): Guan Hanqing, Zheng Guangzu (1264–c. 1320), Bai Pu (1226–c. 1306) and Ma Zhiyuan (1255–c. 1321).2 In modern times, Wang Guowei (1877–1927) revitalized interest in his work, and since then Guan Hanqing has enjoyed a reputation unsurpassed by any other premodern Chinese playwright. At the height of studies on Guan Hanqing in 1958 in Mainland China, for instance, major academic symposiums and artistic performances were organized and held all across China. Around ten of his plays were staged by eighteen theatrical troupes—simultaneously, in Beijing alone!—to commemorate the 700th anniversary of Guan Hanqing’s playwriting. At that time, at least 1500 theatrical troupes performed his plays in as many as a hundred regional dramas across the country.3

Guan Hanqing’s Life and Works The historical record offers little information about Guan Hanqing’s life. According to A Register of Ghosts by Zhong Sicheng, he was from Dadu,4 present-day Beijing, and once served as a member of the Imperial Academy for Medical Affairs.5 Originally a scholar, Guan became acquainted with many theatrical people, some of whom were fellow playwrights and song writers, and others were entertainers in theaters, especially women entertainers or courtesans such as Zhu Lianxiu, for whom he wrote a well-known poem. Guan also enjoyed mixing with people in the writing clubs (shuhui) of the time, and he joined in with some of the entertainers, helping with playwriting and  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-47

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participating in their performances. Sometimes he even “appeared on stage himself, with his face painted and powdered, considering this his profession and having no objection to being among actors and actresses.”6 Guan is believed to have been born towards the end of the Jin dynasty, between 1210 and 1214. He spent most of his life in Dadu, then the capital of the Yuan dynasty, taking part in various theatrical activities and writing plays. After the fall of the Southern Song dynasty, as the center of theatrical activities gradually moved south, he went to Yangzhou and Hangzhou, along with many other playwrights and theatrical entertainers, to continue his professional activities. He is believed to have remained there until his death, sometime in 1300–1305.7 Guan Hanqing was the most prolific of the Yuan dynasty playwrights, and the range of the subjects depicted in his plays is extensive. His zaju plays can be generally arranged in three categories. The first covers historical plays that portray various heroes in history in praise of their heroic deeds. The protagonists of these plays are usually real personages in history who, by virtue of their actions and deeds, have won popularity among the common people. The purpose of Guan’s historical plays was not to recreate historical facts but rather to use them to express what he deemed the passion for a just cause or a heroic spirit somehow lacking in his own time. The representative plays in this category include Xi Shu meng (The Dream of Going to the Western Shu) and Dan dao hui (Going to the Feast with a Single Blade). The second category contains plays of romance and marriage, which mostly portray the lives of women of lower social status or prostitutes and courtesans, and affirm their right to choose their own life partners through their native wit and ingenuity. During the Yuan dynasty, along with the amalgamation of people of various ethnicities, especially Mongols and Inner Asians who had reaped the fruits of trade, the rapid development of the economy greatly enhanced the social status of the thriving merchant class, while depriving literati of their erstwhile traditional influence, a theme best reflected in their love relationships with courtesans and prostitutes of the time. Many of Guan Hanqing’s plays deal with this subject. The most popular plays in this category are Jiu fengchen (Rescuing a Courtesan by Playing a Coquette), Jinxian chi (The Golden Thread Pond) and Wang jiang ting (The Riverside Pavilion). The third category includes plays about court cases that involve social injustices and various social problems. Many of the plays in this category accuse the corrupt court system and the “dark” society in which people suffered without hope of salvation. The best-known plays in this category include Dou E yuan (Injustice to Dou E) and Lu Zhai Lang (Court Gentleman Lu). Guan Hanqing’s plays include tragedies as well as comedies, and they have enjoyed a good reception ever since Yuan times. Studies on Guan Hanqing have been numerous since the Yuan dynasty. Now international conferences, symposiums, or festivities about Guan Hanqing and his plays are often held in China, Taiwan and elsewhere to commemorate anniversaries of his dramatic creativity, attesting to his reputation and accomplishments in Chinese drama. Over time, most drama critics have held a positive attitude towards Guan and his plays. Wang Guowei, the noted modern Chinese scholar cited previously, considered Guan “first among Yuan playwrights” and his play Injustice to Dou E one of “the great tragedies of the world.”8 The unadorned and natural language used in his plays and the wit and strategies employed by his characters win praise and appreciation from readers and critics alike. In addition to considerations of the writing, the social content—especially considerations of the seamy side of the society, in which injustice and inequality frequently occurred under the period’s Mongol rulers—is also the subject of many critical studies. There have been some detractors as well. Guan Yunshi (1286–1324) of the Yuan dynasty, for instance, considered Guan’s language “bewitching and coquettish” (yaojiao), whereas Zhu Quan (1378–1448) of the 408

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Ming dynasty regarded Guan as “someone who could be ranked either high or low.”9 Beginning with Wang Guowei’s reevaluation, however, assessments of Guan Hanqing have been mostly positive and appreciative. That Guan Hanqing is considered the best-known playwright of the Yuan is now beyond doubt. More than sixty plays have been attributed to Guan Hanqing, of which only eighteen survive, with three more in fragments. The eighteen extant plays are as follows:  1. Moving Heaven and Shaking Earth: The Injustice to Dou E (Gantian dongdi Dou E yuan);  2. Rescriptor-in-Waiting Bao Cleverly Executes Court Gentleman Lu (Bao Daizhi zhizhan Lu Zhai Lang);  3. Zhao Pan’er Rescues a Courtesan by Playing a Coquette (Zhao Pan’er fengyue jiu fengchen);  4. At the Riverside Pavilion in Mid-Autumn: A Female Slices Fish (Wangjiang ting Zhongqiu qie kuaidan);  5. Prefect Qian Wittily Marries Xie Tianxiang (Qian Dayin zhichong Xie Tianxiang);  6. Du Ruiniang Is Wittily Rewarded at the Golden Threat Pond (Du Ruiniang zhishang jinxian chi);  7. Lord Guan Goes to the Feast with a Single Blade (Guan dawang du fu dandao hui);  8. Wen Taizhen and the Jade Mirror Stand (Wen Taizhen yu jing tai);  9. Prefect Qian Cleverly Interprets a Word Dream (Qian Dayin zhikan feiyi meng); 10. In the Top Graduate Hall Mother Chen Teaches Her Sons (Zhuangyuan tang Chen mu jiao zi); 11. Rescriptor-in-Waiting Bao Thrice Investigates the Butterfly Dream (Bao Daizhi sankan hudie meng); 12. Deeply Grieved, Lady Deng Cries Over the Death of Cunxiao (Deng furen kutong ku Cunxiao); 13. The Dream of Guan Yu and Zhang Fei Both Going to the Western Shu (Guan Zhang shuangfu Xishu meng); 14. Boudoir Lovers Are United at The Pavilion of Moon-Worship (Gui yuan jiaren bai yue ting); 15. To Deceive a Maid and to Seduce a Woman (Zha Nizi tiao fengyue); 16. Lady Liu Celebrates and Provides an Award at the Banquet for Five Marquises (Liu furen qing shang wuhou yan); 17. Yuchi Gong Snatches a Long Spear with a Single Iron Staff (Yuchi Gong danbian duo shuo). This play has another title: Yuchi Jingde Surrenders to Tang at Jiexiu County (Jiexiu xian Jingde jiang Tang); 18. Pei Du Returns the Jade Belt at the Temple for the Mountain God (Shanshen miao Pei Du huan dai). The authorship of the last three plays remains controversial, either because they were not listed as Guan Hanqing’s works in Zhong Sicheng’s A Register of Ghosts or because the ideas expressed or the writing styles of these plays have been deemed different from those of other Guan’s plays. Guan’s plays in fragments, with little but a few songs remaining, are as follows: 1. Bright Emperor of the Tang Cries over the Sachet (Tang Ming Huang ku xiangnang); 2. Story of the Spring Shirt by a Romantic Clerk (Fengliu Kongmu chunshan ji); 3. Meng Liang Steals the Remains (Meng Liang dao gu). Among all of Guan Hanqing’s works, the issue that has caused the most controversy is the authorship of the popular zaju play Story of the Western Wing (Xi xiang ji), whose full title is Oriole Cui Waits for the Moon: Story of the Western Wing (Cui Yingying daiyue xi xiang ji). Since the 409

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original woodcut edition does not list the author, some drama critics think its author is Wang Shifu (c. 1260–c. 1336); others consider Guan Hanqing the author; still others think it likely that Wang Shifu is the principal author but that the play was unfinished and later continued and completed by Guan Hanqing. There are also those who regard the play as a collective work by some late Yuan dynasty playwrights, or simply by an anonymous author towards the end of the Yuan (Wang Gang, 20, 290–325). The controversy continues even today. In addition to his plays, Guan Hanqing wrote about fifty songs (sanqu) and song suites (taoshu), which express his aspirations and emotions, reflect on urban life and the lives of entertainers, or depict the emotions of men and women forced to part from each other at this period. Guan’s song lyrics are quite straightforward, using vernacular and colloquial language, natural and vivid. Since Guan apparently sympathized with women who either suffered from domestic violence at home or were discriminated against in society for one reason or another, he was particularly good at expressing women’s feelings and emotions, and at describing women’s psychology in distress and agony. This is reflected in certain individual songs and song suites, such as the song titled “Nanlü Sikuaiyu Bie Qing” or his oft-quoted song suite, “Nanlü Yizhihua Zeng Zhu Lianxiu.” In another of his song suites, titled “Bu fu lao,” he also reveals his pride in being “a leader among patrons of the entertainers and at the top of those bold and uninhibited in the world, who wants his red countenance to remain unchanged, as he freely picks among the flowers and forgets his worries in wine.”10 This song has caused a lot of controversy among Chinese drama critics. Some view it as an expression of Guan Hanqing’s “optimistic spirit toward life, his staunch attitude as a fighter against the evils of society,” whereas others consider this as Guan Hanqing’s “appreciation of a dissipated and unrestrained life,” which shows Guan’s “willfulness and resolution to follow the path towards engaging with prostitutes.”11 In fact, given its context and the social circumstances, it expresses vividly Guan’s unbridled feelings about and his iconoclastic attitude towards the society of his time. It is not that Guan Hanqing has resolved to indulge in a decadent life among prostitutes, but rather that he demonstrates his indignation and hatred for the times by showing that he defiantly chooses to escape into the world of wine and women rather than engage in society. It is now commonly believed that, as a man of talent who either refused to serve the Yuan court or who did not receive the respect and social status he deserved through his talent and achievements, Guan had to resort to such distractions, to vent his frustration and dissatisfaction with the society of his time.

Injustice to Dou E Injustice to Dou E is one of the group of plays Guan Hanqing wrote late in his life, and it is one of his best-known. The full title of the play is Gantian dongdi Dou E yuan (Moving Heaven and Shaking Earth: The Injustice to Dou E). It is also known as Liu yue xue (Snow in Midsummer). The play provides the background that a young girl named Dou Duanyun, at the age of seven, has been sold as a child bride to Grandma Cai (Cai Popo), in order for her father Dou Tianzhang to have the money to travel to the capital for a civil service exam. The action of the play begins after Dou E’s husband has died, two years following their marriage, leaving Dou E and Grandma Cai alone at home. When Grandma Cai is almost strangled to death by a quack doctor in an attempt to eliminate the evidence for the money he once borrowed from her, she is fortunately rescued by a man named Donkey Zhang (Zhang Lü’er) and his father. Seeing that Grandma Cai and Dou E are all alone at home, Donkey Zhang and his father then move in to “offer protection.” Soon afterward, however, Grandma Cai is persuaded to marry Donkey Zhang’s father, whereas Donkey Zhang, for his part, tries to coerce Dou E into marriage as well. Dou E flatly refuses Zhang, which 410

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infuriates him. One day Grandma Cai falls sick, so Dou E cooks a soup for her to drink to alleviate her symptoms. Secretly putting poison in the soup in an attempt to get rid of Grandma Cai, Donkey Zhang doesn’t realize that his own father will actually drink the soup instead, dying immediately. Surprised and infuriated, Donkey Zhang then accuses Dou E of murdering his father and sues her in a court. Dou E resists Donkey Zhang’s unprovoked accusation and refuses to admit guilt, until she sees that the court, presided over by Prefect Taowu, is about to inflict torture on Grandma Cai. Deciding to sacrifice herself to save Grandma Cai from torture, she is then sentenced to death by the court. As she is brought to the execution ground, she swears her innocence and states that it will be proven by three events that will occur after her death: one, her blood, instead of dripping down to stain the ground, will fly up onto the white silk hanging on the flagpole; two, there will be three feet of auspicious snow in the hottest days of summer to cover her dead body; and three, the Chuzhou district will suffer from three years of drought. All three events in fact occur after Dou E’s death, but her innocence is not acknowledged and her reputation rehabilitated until her father, Dou Tianzhang, who is the Imperial Surveillance Commissioner, returns at the end of the play and hears the appeal made by the ghost of Dou E. The play is often hailed as a play representative of Guan Hanqing’s dramatic creation and one of the great social tragedies in Guan’s oeuvre. In terms of dramatic structure, it follows the regular zaju pattern of four acts with one “wedge” (xiezi). There is one song suite for each act, which rhymes throughout the act. The plot is derived from a legendary story about a filial woman from the East Sea (Donghai xiaofu) first recorded in the Book of Han (Hanshu) and later expanded in In Search of the Supernatural (Sou shen ji).12 Guan Hanqing’s Dou E yuan is often read as his indictment of the social injustices represented by Dou E’s tragic life. The wrong verdict that Prefect Taowu gives at the court over Dou E’s case and the behavior of the quack doctor Lu and Donkey Zhang, all reveal a dark society in which the poor and the innocent suffer. However, critics’ opinions differ on many issues raised in the play. One of the main points of contention is its central theme. Some take the play to be an accusation against Mongol rule during the Yuan, citing instances of the conflict between the Mongols and Inner Asians with the Chinese southerners, and also the stipulation of some quite strict rules and regulations regarding public gathering and weapon-carrying by the common people in Yuan dian zhang (A Collection of the Legal Documents of the Yuan Dynasty) and Tongzhi tiaoge (Laws, Legal Documents and Cases).13 Others attribute the injustices that Dou E suffers to three specific problems common during Dou E’s time: exploitation with usurious loans, oppression by local thugs and bullies, and rule by corrupted officials.14 The existence of usury contributes to Dou Tianzhang’s sale of Dou E, his own daughter, to Grandma Cai as a child bride for her son, in order to make a living and sit for a civil service examination in the capital. Local bullies and evil people such as Quack Doctor Lu and Donkey Zhang directly cause Dou E’s tragedy by explicitly harassing, threatening, and oppressing Dou E and her mother-in-law in order to force the latter to accept their proposal. Here human dignity is not heeded, neither is there any protection of women’s proper rights. Lastly, corrupt officials like Prefect Taowu (Zhifu taowu), who does nothing to distinguish good from evil or to punish the criminals to save the oppressed, adds to Dou E’s suffering by his deliberate misjudgment and causes Dou E’s final tragedy. Here the play directs its spearhead towards the government’s corrupt agents and its inability to help common people (Wu Guoqin, 1555). Other issues that have caused heated debate are: evaluation of Dou E’s character in terms of revolt; the significance and use of Dou E’s three predictions or wishes before her execution; appraisal of Dou E’s ghost’s appearing at the end of the play; and whether or not Dou E’s adherence to her chastity necessarily signifies the duty to guard national integrity (minzu jieqi). Certain scholars have pointed out the limitations of Dou E’s revolt and fight against oppressive rule, since Guan’s plays, as they have argued, do not 411

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reflect the contradictions and fight between the main opposition classes of the time. Others look upon the appearance of Dou E’s ghost in the play as a negative element, relegating the coming of ultimate justice to the arrival of ghosts and deities. Still other critics take Dou E’s deep-rooted filiality as the root cause for her eventual death: Dou E does not feel much sympathy for Grandma Cai (to whom she was sold, to become a child bride), yet she is willing to falsely admit guilt in order to save Grandma Cai from being tortured. Dou E’s attitude and her subsequent actions, therefore, are seen as a reflection of her own feudal mentality, ultimately the real cause of her tragedy.15 Research and studies of the play have also been carried out in the West and other parts of the world. Chung-wen Shih offered pioneering work in providing a complete English translation and annotation of the play in the early 1970s, and she also wrote a comprehensive study, introducing in detail the relevant topics: Guan Hanqing and his time, the narrative tradition, the play’s source, the conventions of Yuan drama, Yuan Northern dialect, vernacular speech, the poetry, and music. More recently Yumin Ao has written a detailed study of the play’s themes, narrative style, and musical structure. There are at present four complete translations of the play into English. In chronological order, they are found in: Hsien-yi Yang and Gladys Yang’s Selected Plays of Guan Hanqing (1958), Chung-wen Shih’s Injustice to Tou O (Tou O Yüan): A Study and Translation (1972), Jung-en Liu’s Six Yüan Plays (1972), and Qian Ma’s Women in Traditional Chinese Theater: The Heroine’s Play (2005).16 A new trend in the study of Yuan zaju drama is that some scholars have started to turn their attention to different versions of Yuan zaju, paying special attention to the earlier editions. Cheng Ch’ien, a drama scholar from Taiwan, for example, did a comparative study of various zaju versions of Injustice to Dou E in the 1960s.17 Cheng compared Zang Maoxun’s (1550–1620) version in A Selection of Yuan Plays (Yuanqu xuan, also known as YQX) with one in the Zaju Plays by Ancient Famous Playwrights (Gu mingjia zaju, also known as GMJ) edition by the Xu family of Longfeng, and also with the Leijiang ji edition. The analysis goes into detail in considering their dialogs, songs, and different arrangements of song suites. More recently, Stephen West has also taken up the topic in a detailed study in Zang Maoxun’s YQX edition and the earlier GMJ edition, focusing on the ideological switch made in the popular YQX edition. Besides the many changes made in dialogues and songs in Zang’s version, as compared with the earlier GMJ version, West has found that the YQX version “foregrounds the concerns of orthodox Confucian morality and didacticism,” whereas the GMJ version emphasizes “metaphors of economic transaction and personal commodification reflective of the merchant townsmen who formed the larger part of Yuan audience.”18 Zang Maoxun, as West points out, “radically changes the master metaphors of earlier commercial texts—reciprocity, commodification, and economic transaction—to the myths of the relational ethics of orthodox Confucianism that dominate the polite literature (West 1991, 284–85). West argues that the play begins with economic transactions: Dou E is sold to Grandma Cai by her father to pay his costs for taking the civil service examination, to gain entry into officialdom. This economic transaction later evolves into specifically sexual transactions: Donkey Zhang wants Grandma Cai to be his father’s wife while Dou E becomes his own bride. According to West’s study, Zang Maoxun’s YQX version tries to remove the sexual desire expressed in the earlier GMJ version, which “is obviously a reflection of the real life at the time.”19 But the most significant changes that Zang’s YQX edition makes are “those that shift motivation for Dou E’s actions from the particularistic needs of karmic retribution to the exercise of filiality by a paragon of Confucian womanhood” (West 1991, 294). So, the metaphor of transactions, from that of pure economics to the transactions of human relations, and finally to transactions beyond this world, argues West, has been altered in Zang Maoxun’s YQY edition to promote Confucian ethics, reflecting the ideology of the Ming dynasty. 412

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Besides content analysis and character studies of the play, Injustice to Dou E has also led to several studies of the question of whether or not the play is a tragedy and, further, whether or not tragedies even exist in Chinese drama. In his A History of Drama of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, Wang Guowei remarks that “[in plays such as] Guan Hanqing’s Injustice to Dou E and Ji Junxiang’s (fl. 1270) Orphan of the Zhao Family (Zhao shi gu’er), . . . principal characters, who are willing to sacrifice themselves, all act out of their own will and determination. Such plays are worthy of being ranked even among great tragedies of the world” (Wang Guowei, 125). Since Wang’s remarks, many critics have argued for the play either as a tragedy in the Western sense of the term, or as a Chinese tragedy, embracing a Chinese conception of the word. There are also scholars who oppose applying a Western concept to Chinese drama.20 Whatever are the critical evaluations of Guan Hanqing and his play Injustice to Dou E, both seem certain to endure the test of time and to continue to be studied, and surely the play will also continue to be performed in the future. Owing to its importance and popularity, the play has been adapted repeatedly since the Ming dynasty. Ye Xianzu (1566–1641) adapted it into a chuanqi play with thirty-three scenes under the title Jin suo ji (Stories of a Golden Lock) during the Ming dynasty. It has also been adapted into quite a few modern regional dramas such as Beijing opera (Jingju) or Qin qiang under the title Liu yue xue (Snow in Midsummer). Outside of China, the play Injustice to Dou E was first translated into English in 1821 in London, but that was an abridged version of the play (Act III). The first complete translation of the play appeared in 1838 in French, which was published in Paris. Afterwards there have appeared translations in English, French, German, Russian, and Japanese.21

Notes 1 See Xu Shuofang, “Guan Hanqing he Shashibiya” [Guan Hanqing and Shakespeare], in Yuanqu tongrong [A Comprehensive Collection of Essays on Yuan Drama], 2 vols., ed. Zhang Yuezhong et al. (Taiyuan: Shanxi guji chubanshe, 1999), 2.1412–14; Xu Zifang, Guan Hanqing yanjiu [Studies of Guan Hanqing] (Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 2018), 319–29. 2 See Zhong Sicheng, Lu gui bu jiaoding [A Register of Ghosts], ed. Wang Gang (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2021), 7; Zhou Deqing, Zhongyuan yinyun zixu [Author’s preface to Rhymes of the Central Plains], in Zhongguo gudian xiqu lunzhu jicheng [A Collection of Works on Chinese Classical Drama], 10 vols. (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1959), 1.175. 3 See Zeng Yongyi, “Guan Hanqing yanjiu jiqi zhanwang” [Studies of Guan Hanqing and a Future Perspective], in Proceedings of International Conference on Kaun Han-ch’ing, ed. Guan Hanqing guoji xueshu yantaohui bianji weiyuanhui (Taipei: Wenjianhui, 1994), 8–10. 4 This is certainly debatable. Currently some consider Xiezhou, the present-day Yuncheng city of Shanxi province, whereas others regard Qizhou, the present-day Anguo city of Hebei province, to be Guan Hanqing’s birthplace. Still others think Guan was born in Xiezhou, later moved to Qizhou, and eventually was buried there. See Xu Zifang, Guan Hanqing yanjiu, 41–57; Xie Boliang, Xiju zongshi Guan Hanqing [Guan Hanqing, a Master of Drama] (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian chubanshe, 2002), 3–4. 5 It is still controversial whether Guan Hanqing held a title in the Imperial Academy of Medicine (Taiyi yuanyin or Taiyi yuanhu), and whether he once served as a medical doctor. In any case, Guan undoubtedly had some medical knowledge, which is reflected in many of his plays. See Wang Gang, ed., Guan Hanqing yanjiu ziliao huikao [A Collection of Research Materials on Guan Hanqing] (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1988), 3–8; Kim Bunkyō, “Guan Hanqing shenshi kao” [A Study of Guan Hanqing’s Life], in Yuanqu tongrong, 1.1227–30. 6 Zang Maoxun, Preface to Yuan qu xuan [Selected Plays of the Yuan], in Yuan qu xuan jiaozhu [Selected Plays of the Yuan, Annotated], annot. Wang Xueqi, 4 vols. (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 1991), 1.11. 7 For a detailed discussion of Guan Hanqing’s dates, see Xu Zifang, Guan Hanqing yanjiu, 34–41. 8 Wang Guowei, Song Yuan xiqu shi [A History of Drama of the Song and Yuan Dynasties] (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1930), 125.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 9 See Wang Gang, Guan Hanqing yanjiu ziliao huikao, 63, 67. 10 Xu Zheng, et al., eds. Quan Yuan qu [A Complete Collection of Plays and Songs of the Yuan], 12 vols. (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 1998), 1.703. 11 See Zhou Yunlong, “Yuandai sanqujia chuangzuo xintai chutan” [An Initial Exploration of the Creative Mentality of the Dramatists of the Yuan), in Yuanqu tongrong 2.1743–45; Qi Senhua, “Dui Guan Hanqing ‘Bu fu lao’ sanqu pingjia de zhiyi” [A Skeptical View About Critical Evaluations of Guan Hanqing’s Song Titled ‘Not Giving In to Old Age’], in Yuanqu tongrong 2.1745–47; Xiong Du, “Neng zheyang pingjia Guan Hanqing ma?—Du Nanlü yizhihua bu fu lao [Can We Thus Evaluate Guan Hanqing?—Reading ‘Nanlü yizhihua bu fu lao’], in Yuanqu tongrong 2.1747–51. 12 See Ban Gu, Han shu [History of Han], annot. Yan Shigu, 3 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1999), juan 71, 3.2281–82; Gan Bao, Sou shen ji [In Search of the Supernatural], ed. Wang Shaoying (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979), juan 11, 139. 13 See Wang Jisi, “Du Guan Hanqing jiqi zuopin Dou E Yuan he Jiu Feng Chen” [Reading Guan Hanqing and His Plays Injustice to Dou E and To Rescue a Courtesan by Playing a Coquette], in Yuanqu tongrong 2.1549–52. 14 See Wu Guoqin, “Guan Hanqing he ta de zaju Dou E yuan” [Guan Hanqing and His Play Injustice to Dou E], in Yuanqu tongrong 2.1553–60. 15 See, for instance, Feng Yuanjun, “Zenyang kandai Dou E yuan jiqi gaibianben” [How to Read Injustice to Dou E and Its Adaptations?], Literary Review 4 (1965): 42–50; Chen Yupi, “Guanyu Dou E yuan de pingjia wenti” [On the Issue of Evaluating Injustice to Dou E], in Yuanqu tongrong 2.1560–63; Li Shusi, “Guan Hanqing di Dou E yuan” [The Injustice to Dou E by Guan Hanqing], in Yuanqu tongrong 2.1546–49; Wang Weidong, “Cong Dou E Yuan de shuangchong jiegou kan Zhongguo gudai de beiju yishi” [From the Double Structures of Injustice to Dou E to the Chinese Ancient Tragic Mentality], Yunnan daxue xuebao 6 (2006): 58–63. 16 Hsien-yi Yang and Gladys Yang, Selected Plays of Guan Hanqing (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1958); Chung-wen Shih, Injustice to Tou O (Tou O Yüan): A Study and Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972); Jung-en Liu, Six Yüan Plays (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1977); Qian Ma, Women in Traditional Chinese Theater: The Heroine’s Play (Lanham: University Press of America, 2005). 17 Cheng Ch’ien, “Guan Hanqing Dou E yuan zaju yiben bijiao” [Comparison of Various Editions of Guan Hanqing’s Injustice to Dou E], Dalu zazhi [The Mainland Journal] 29, nos. 10–11 (1964): 423–27. 18 Stephen H. West, “A Study in Appropriation: Zang Maoxun’s Injustice to Dou E,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 111, no. 2 (1991): 283. 19 See Xi Rugu (Stephen H. West), “Zang Maoxun gaixie Dou E yuan yanjiu” [A Study of Zang Maoxun’s Revision of Injustice to Dou E], in Yuanqu tongrong 2.1563–70. 20 For details, see, for example, Gu Tianhang, “Beiju: Gantian dongdi Dou E yuan” [A Tragedy: Injustice that Moves Heaven and Shakes Earth], and Zhang Hanliang, “Guan Hanqing de Dou E yuan: yige tongsuju” [Guan Hanqing’s Injustice to Dou E: A Melodrama], both in Zhongguo gudian wenxue luncong: xiju zhibu [Studies of Classical Chinese Literature: Drama], ed. Zhongwai wenxue bianjibu (Taipei: Zhongwai wenxue yuekan she, 1985), 13–41; Joyce C. H. Liu, “The Protest from the Invisible World: The Revenge Ghost in Yuan Drama and the Elizabethan Drama,” Tamkang Review 19, nos. 1–4 (1988–1989): 755–83; also see Ch’ien Chung-shu, “Tragedy in Old Chinese Drama,” Tien Hsia Monthly 1 (1935): 37–46; Xie Boliang, Zhongguo beiju shigang [An Outline History of Chinese Tragedies] (Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 1993). 21 Zeng Yongyi, “Guan Hanqing yanjiu jiqi zhanwang,” 11.

Further Reading Ao, Yumin. A Study on the Thematic, Narrative, and Musical Structure of Guan Hanqing’s Yuan Zaju, Injustice to Dou E. New York: Peter Lang, 2015. Guan Hanqing guoji xueshu yantaohui bianji weiyuanhui, ed. Proceedings of the International Conference on Kaun Han-ch’ing. Taipei: Wenjianhui, 1994. Idema, Wilt L., and Stephen H. West. Chinese Theater, 1100–1450: A Source Book. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1982. Liu, Jung-en. Six Yüan Plays. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972.

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Guan Hanqing and His Injustice to Dou E Ma, Qian. Women in Traditional Chinese Theater: The Heroine’s Play. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2005. Perng, Ching-His. Double Jeopardy: A Critique of Seven Yuan Courtroom Dramas. Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 1978. Shih, Chung-wen. Injustice to Tou O (Tou O Yüan): A Study and Translation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972. Shih, Chung-wen. The Golden Age of Chinese Drama: Yüan Tsa-chü. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976. Sieber, Patricia, and Regina Llamas, eds. How to Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022. West, Stephen H. “A Study in Appropriation: Zang Maoxun’s Injustice to Dou E.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 111, no. 2 (1991): 283–302. Xu, Zifang. Gan Hanqing yanjiu [Studies of Guan Hanqing]. Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 2018. Yang, Hsien-yi, and Gladys Yang, trans. Selected Plays of Kuan Han-ch’ing. Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1958.

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34 AUTUMN OF THE HAN PALACE AND RAIN ON THE WUTONG TREES Li-ling Hsiao

Autumn in the Han Palace (Hangong qiu) by Ma Zhiyuan (1270–1330) and Rain on the Wutong Tree (Wutong yu) by Bai Pu (1226–1306) are two renowned plays that have been exalted as two of the four great tragedies of the Yuan drama, while both playwrights are celebrated as two of the four great Yuan playwrights. Henry W. Wells proposes that Autumn in the Han Palace is one of the most typical examples of Chinese tragedy.1 Wells further emphasizes that in this play “the moral dignity commonly associated with the Western conception of tragedy is achieved” (Wells, 65). Both playwrights were also celebrated poets. Ma Zhiyuan was one of the most famous sanqu-lyric poets, and his “Heaven Cleanses the Sand: Autumn” is the best known sanqu poem/ lyric. Biographical material for him is very sparse.2 Bai Pu was unique among the early Yuan playwrights in that he had an elite background, as he came from a family serving as high officials in the Jin dynasty (West and Idema, 105).3 After the fall of the Jin dynasty at the hands of the Mongolians, Bai was taken in by the famous poet Yuan Haowen (1190–1257), who treated him like a son and gave him a literary education (West and Idema, 105). These two plays are available in three English translations: by Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema, in Monks, Bandits, and Immortals: Eleven Early Chinese Plays; by Jung-En Liu, in Six Yuan Plays;4 and by Charles F. Horne, in Autumn of the Palace of Han: An Ancient Chinese Historical Drama.5

Synopsis of the Two Plays Both plays are based on history with some fictional twists. Autumn in the Han Palace is inspired by the story of Emperor Yuandi (r. 48–33 BC) of the Han dynasty and Wang Qiang (51–15 BC), more famously known as Wang Zhaojun. When Huhanye (58–31 BC) visited the Han court and asked for the hand of a Han woman, Emperor Yuandi married Wang to Huhanye, with whom she had a son.6 After Huhanye passed away, Wang petitioned to return to the Han, but Emperor Chengdi (r. 32–7 BC) ordered her to follow the nomads’ custom and marry Huhanye’s son, with whom she had two daughters (Ban, 94–2.13b). She died in 15 BC and was buried at Qingzhong in Inner Mongolia. Rain on the Wutong Tree is about a famous historical episode concerning Xuanzong (reign 712–756) of the Tang dynasty and his Imperial Consort Yang Yuhuan (719–756). Yang Yuhuan married Li Chang, Xuanzong’s eighteenth son, in 735, and their marriage ended in 740, when Yang DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-48 

Autumn of the Han Palace and Rain on the Wutong Trees

became a Taoist nun. Xuanzong then promoted Yang, making her the Imperial Consort in 745 and bestowing his favor on her.7 An Lushan (703–757) declared his rebellion on February 5, 756 (Liu, 9.26b), and on August 4, 756, on the way to Sichuan, Xuanzong ordered the execution of Yang Guozhong and the suicide of Yang Yuhuan (Liu, 9.28b). Yang Yuhuan was blamed for An’s rebellion and sentenced to death at Mawei Slope, in order to pacify the angry soldiers. Autumn in the Han Palace begins with the nomad chief Huhanye, who follows previous custom and sends an emissary to ask for the hand of a princess. Yuandi entrusts the painter Mao Yanshou (d. 33 BC) with the mission of recruiting court ladies. The beautiful Wang Zhaojun rejects Mao’s request for a bribe, however, and he then damages her portrait in revenge. After entering the court, Wang is banished to the Cold Palace where the disfavored court ladies reside. Yuandi is attracted by the sound of Wang’s pipa music and, after meeting her, bestows the title of Bright Consort upon her. Yuandi sentences Mao to execution, but Mao flees with Wang’s beautiful portrait. He gives the portrait to Huhanye, who then asks for Wang’s hand in marriage. With neither good generals nor sufficient military power, Yuandi is forced to give Wang up to Huhanye. Before crossing the border to the nomadic region, Wang throws herself into the Black River and dies. Huhanye regrets having made the Han his enemy, and so he sends Mao Yanshou back to the Han court for execution. After Wang has departed, Yuandi abandons his court duties and does nothing for a hundred days but lament her loss. Following her death, Yuandi dreams of Wang and grieves upon hearing the cries of a lone goose (West and Idema, 160–94). Rain on the Wutong Tree opens with the appearance of An Lushan, a general of nomadic origin, who was failing in his military campaign against the Xi and Khitan tribes. An is then sent to the Tang court for the emperor to decide his punishment. Due to his unusual appearance and stature and ability in dancing the “Sogdian twirls,” Xuanzong takes the recommendation of Precious Consort Yang Yuhuan and orders An to be her adopted son, against the advice of the officials and the prime minister. When Yang gives An a happy ‘new-born celebration,’ Xuanzong commissions him as the commander of Yuyang to lead a troupe of Han and nomadic soldiers to guard the frontier. While Yang misses the departed An, Xuanzong comes to celebrate the Valentine-like day together. At the frontier, An rebels, determined to seize both Yang and the throne. In the court, meanwhile, Yang dances for the emperor, while a special delivery of Yang’s favorite fruit, lychees, arrives from Sichuan. The party is disrupted by prime minister Li Linfu (d. 753), who brings news of An’s rebellion. Xuanzong follows Li’s suggestion to flee to Sichuan. Forced to do so by the angry civilians, Xuanzong orders the heir apparent to lead the defense against the rebels while he continues on his way to Sichuan. The soldiers again refuse to advance further unless the emperor rids the state of evil forces, Yang and her powerful brother Yang Guozhong (693–756). Xuanzong orders their execution at Mawei Slope. After pacifying the rebels, Xuanzong abdicates the throne and laments the loss of Yang over her portrait. He dreams of Yang but is woken by the sounds of the rain dropping on the wutong tree. As the rain continues to fall, he orders the tree to be chopped down. He is greatly saddened because he and Yang had made their vows by the tree (West and Idema, 112–54). Ma Zhiyuan altered the history and changed Wang Zhaojun’s ending from marrying two nomadic chiefs to committing suicide before leaving the Han territory. The play ends with Mao Yanshou being sent back to the court and executed and Huhanye asking for a peace treaty. Daphanie Pi-Wei Lei examines the discrepancies between the play and history,8 and Professor Kimberly Besio proposes that Ma’s play significantly reconfigured the Wang Zhaojun legend in two aspects: adding the tragic beauty of her departure and her loyalty to the emperor (Besio, 251).9 Bai Pu followed the history of Yang’s ending, but he added an incestuous relationship between An and Yang that departs from history and from renowned epic poem “Song of Everlasting Sorrow,” by Bai Juyi (772–846), which is the most celebrated version of Xuanzong and Yang’s love story. 417

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The Ironic Contrasts Between the Two Plays Autumn in the Han Palace and Rain on the Wutong Tree share many similarities that serve as the foundations for a comparative study. Both plays share the same structure that is typical of a zaju style drama of the Yuan dynasty, including an introductory scene (xiezi) followed by four scenes with all the arias sung by the male or female lead, in this case the emperors. The introduction and the four scenes of both plays feature analogous topics: the challenges of the nomads and origins of the conflicts in the introduction, the love scene of the emperors and their lovers in Scene One, the happy gatherings disrupted by bad news in Scene Two, the tragic death of both heroines in Scene Three, and the emperors’ lonely laments in Scene Four. Both plays also share many similar plot points in their telling of an emperor’s tragic romance, and both expose the weakness and corruption of the imperial courts. After the deaths of their respective consorts, both emperors dream of them, miss them while looking at their portraits, and are saddened by the sounds of nature— Yuandi listens to the sad cries of a lone goose, while Xuanzong listens to the rain on the wutong tree. Both plays end with each emperor lamenting the loss of his lover and suffering loneliness amidst court life. With these many similarities, the differences between the two plays become meaningful. Their differences show ironic contrasts in true versus fake devotions in many aspects, including the individuals’ sense of morality, the respective matrimonial relations, and the managing of the state affairs. Their most obvious differences are presented in the two female leads, both of whom have been celebrated as two of the four great beauties in Chinese history. However, in the plays Wang is virtuous, and Yang is licentious. Wang remains loyal to her lord despite being officially promised to Huhanye, but Yang betrays her lord by having incestuous relations with An. Yang’s immorality and licentiousness is reinforced by the fictional plot in which An becomes Yang’s adopted son, sanctioned by the imperial edict, and thus incestuous. Both female leads die, but their deaths show their opposing moral status. Wang commits suicide to show her loyal devotion, and her death brings peace to the state. But Yang is ordered to commit suicide by her lord (West and Idema, 141), in other words, she is punished with death, for being the cause of the rebellions threatening the safety of the state. In a difference from history, Ma Zhiyuan’s Wang Zhaojun becomes the symbol of loyalty not only to her lord but also to the state, while Bai Pu’s Yang Yuhuan is a femme fatale who betrays her lord, leading to his ruin and the downfall of the state. Wang is the true beauty in both appearance and virtue, while Yang is a fake beauty who possesses only the beauty of her appearance but who is corrupt inside. The connubial relations depicted in the two plays likewise contrast ironically. Wang goes through the phases of banishment, favor, and then the forced abandonment to another, but she keeps her true devotion and love. Yang is her lord’s favorite until the last moment, when her lord prioritizes his own life over hers, which shows that Xuanzong, like Yang herself, does not truly love his “beloved.” The true love in Autumn in the Han Palace contrasts with the false love in Rain on the Wutong Tree and renders the love and the lover’s death in the latter play ironic, as Yang’s death is not really for the sake of the state but rather for the personal safety of the selfish emperor. The lovers’ vows of lifelong love and fidelity made by Xuanzong and Yang in Scene One become particularly ironic when it is considered that he will abandon his love at the critical moment, while she has established illicit relations with another man (West and Idema, 126). The sovereigns in the two plays further form ironic contrasts. Both emperors reside over thriving states in great prosperity, but they are also the turning points at which the states begin to decline. At the prosperous climax of the two dynasties, both emperors turn to women for enjoyment. Comparing Scene One of both plays, Ma Zhiyuan’s Yuandi is infatuated with Wang’s beauty, but he 418

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expresses in his lyrics that he stills cares about state affairs. Yuandi realizes that he must choose between his love and the state and understands that, even as a sovereign, he does not have the liberty to choose only what he desires (West and Idema, 181). Bai Pu’s Xuanzong sings exclusively of Yang’s beauty and the joys he experiences being with her. His attention is devoted solely to his love rather than to the state. Moreover, Yuandi is more inclined to accept his official’s council, though with reluctance. When Huhanye asks for Wang’s hand in marriage, he heeds the council in its consideration of the safety of the state (West and Idema, 178). He is weak but tries to do his duty as the sovereign. Xuanzong, on the other hand, completely ignores his officials’ repeated advice until his own safety is threatened. Yuandi abides on his throne when the foreign threat arrives, while Xuanzong flees his. Yuandi is a true sovereign, while Xuanzong is a sovereign in appearance but without true devotion to his subjects and the state. The officials in the two plays likewise contrast ironically. The primary culprit responsible for the tragedy in Autumn in the Han Palace is court officialdom, while the officials in Rain on the Wutong Tree, except Yang’s brother Yang Guozhong (d. 756), are exonerated from blame. The primary evil-doers in the former are the egregious court painter Mao Yanshou and the incompetent officials who lack all ability to defend the state. The officials force Yuandi to give Wang up to Huhanye. They readily sacrifice Wang to ensure the safety of the state and their own, without exerting any effort of their own—to the extent that Yuandi refers to each of his court officials as having “become a Mao Yanshou” (West and Idema, 178). There are many culprits in the latter version, including An, who rebels against the court, Xuanzong, who neglects his duties as a sovereign, and Yang, who is licentious. The court officials here constantly offer good and right council, but Xuanzong completely ignores them. The officials in the plays form a reverse contrast: Yuandi’s court is full of false officials who hold the offices without performing any actual duties, while Xuanzong’s court has true officials who attempt to do the right thing for the state, even by forcing Xuanzong to execute his beloved consort. The threats to the state featured in both plays further present the contrasts between authenticity and inauthenticity. Autumn in the Han Palace opens with Huhanye seeking peace through the custom of marrying the Han princesses, as practiced by previous chiefs and emperors, while Rain on the Wutong Tree opens with the nomads revoking the peace treaty by murdering the princess who has married their chief for peace. This results in An Lushan’s attacking but losing the war against the Xi and Khitan tribes (West and Idema, 113). Huhanye and the Xis and Khitans here are no longer threats: the former sincerely seeks peace, while it is An Lushan who becomes the true threat to the Tang court. Autumn in the Han Palace is premised on peace as the accepted goal, while Rain on the Wutong Tree is premised on pursuing destruction and war for gain. The absence of military power in Yuandi’s court ironically makes it possible to keep the nomadic threats at bay, while Xuanzong’s court is destroyed by his own general. The intercultural marriage becomes the true force of peace, while the military power of the state is shown to be the false enforcer of peace, and ironically it becomes the cause of its own demise. Moreover, Huhanye is a true alien nomad, while An Lushan has a nomad origin but was domesticated as a Tang citizen, and thus he is a fake nomad. The journeys featured in the two plays likewise contrast ironically. Both villains, Mao Yanshou and An Lushan, are sent to the capital due to their crimes, but Mao is punished, while An is ironically rewarded with the general’s rank to command the station at Yuyang (West and Idema, 119). Wang Zhaojun and Yang Yuhuan also go on journeys, and both die before they reach their planned destinations. Both journeys aim to gain peace and security, but one is for the state and the other for the sovereign. At the end of Wang’s journey, the goal of peace is achieved, but at the end of Yang’s journey the war defending against the rebellions begins and is aggravated further. 419

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Holding Women Responsible Autumn in the Han Palace opens with the Han’s long-standing policy of using its princesses for inter-state marriages, to keep the northern borders in peace (West and Idema, 113–14). The burden of the state’s safety was thus placed on the shoulders of women, in both history and the play. Wang Zhaojun was one of the women whose sacrifices for peace’s sake were taken for granted. Wang’s shouldering this great burden contrasts with the incompetent state officials in the play. In both history and the play, women, such as Wang, have no say in their own fates. The play presents that the final peace is achieved by Wang sacrificing her own life, while the sovereign and the officials remain helpless and inactive. Women become responsible for the peace and safety of the whole state even at the cost of their lives. Wang is particularly tragic in this policy as the princesses enjoyed many privileges before serving as a peaceful agent by marrying the nomadic chiefs. But Wang is banished to the Cold Palace and enjoys the emperor’s favors only very briefly, and at the end she must win the peace with her own life. Her death makes it possible for the sovereign, the officials, and the citizens to continue their enjoyment of the peace and prosperity. Rain on the Wutong Tree holds Yang Yuhuan responsible for An Lushan’s rebellion, but it does not place the responsibility for securing the state’s security on her shoulders. Responding to An’s rebellion, Xuanzong and Yang flee the capital, making for the safety of Sichuan, but along the way, the angry soldiers hold Yang and her brother responsible for the crisis and are only pacified with their deaths. Portraying Yang as an immoral consort, Bai Pu also holds her responsible for An’s rebellion. Bai presents Yang as a culprit equivalent to An, sharing the equal blame for the rebellious war. Her death does not rescue the state from the disaster, and unlike Wang Zhaojun’s death, Yang’s death is trivialized: the former embodies the glory of having saved the state, while the latter saves only the disgraced and selfish emperor. Both playwrights present women as the sovereigns’ pastimes and distractions. In both plays, the emperors live in times of prosperity and peace, and they turn to beautiful women as providing a pastime and new excitements. But this pastime turns into distractions in both plays. When threats come, the officials and the government in both plays, lacking the capacity to deal with the crises, reveal their incompetence. This is reflected in the way the sovereigns neglect their duties and let the government fall into decline. The women then are blamed for the emperors’ distraction from their duties. Both playwrights refer to their female leads with the characteristic phrases of “state toppling” and “city toppling,” terms used to characterize these beauties as femme fatales. These phrases connect the women with the destructions of states and cities. Yuandi, on his first encounter of Wang Zhaojun, marvels that her smile is worth the cost of toppling cities. He further compares Wang to the famous beauty Xi Shi and her ability to topple a state (West and Idema, 168). The court officials likewise hold Wang responsible for the sovereign’s neglect of his duties and thereby the decline of the state (West and Idema, 176). Xuanzong likewise describes Yang Yuhuan’s beauty as “state-and city-toppling.” The soldiers escorting the emperor also hold Yang responsible for An’s disastrous rebellion and demand the lives of Yang and her brother as retribution. This kind of blaming has formed the long tradition of allocating the blame to women, when it is men who are infatuated with women’s beauty and sexual charms. Wang Zhaojun does not share this blame, as she sacrifices herself to rescue the state and her sovereign from the threats of the nomads. Thus, in the latter half of the play, Ma Zhiyuan replaces Wang’s city-toppling image with praise of her loyalty. Ma’s Wang Zhaojun reverses the beauty from the image of a femme fatale to a paragon of virtue. Yang Yuhuan clearly receives the opposite judgment under Bai Pu’s pen. After Yang’s death, Xuanzong repeatedly speaks of Yang as a femme fatale who “topples cities.” Bai’s Yang Yuhuan indeed shares the blame for toppling the state with her seductive nature. 420

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Agencies of Men and Women Both playwrights treat the agency of women, but they regard it differently. Ma Zhiyuan clearly rises above the idea of holding women accountable as the instruments for safeguarding the security of the state. Departing from history, Ma gives Wang full agency: she decides her own fate with her own free will. She rejects the coercion to bribe Mao Yanshou, even at the cost of being confined in the Cold Palace for the rest of her life. It is her musical skill, achieved by her own acts, that attracts Yuandi’s attention and frees her from the Cold Palace. She decides to take her own life instead of marrying the nomad chief, the fate prescribed by men. Although the cost is her life, she is the master of her own fate. Bai Pu, on the other hand, highlights the idea of women as objects who have no control over their own fate. It is Xuanzong’s favors and covetousness of her beauty that promote Yang Yuhuan and her family to high positions. In the lyrics of Xuanzong’s songs, Bai Pu repeatedly describes her bare shoulders and alluring visage, suggesting that Xuanzong is viewing Yang as a sexual object (West and Idema, 125–26). One might say that Yang’s illicit relationship with An Lushan shows her agency in attempting to challenge her prescribed fate of being the emperor’s consort. This action, however, is not taken to show her independent agency of fighting her own fate, but rather is a demonstration of the immorality that later justifies the soldiers’ demand for her death. Her death, in a sense, is caused by her own improper action. In other words, she deserves this capital punishment. Bai Pu’s Yang Yuhuan has no agency to decide her own fate. Both plays also show how limited is the agency the sovereigns enjoy, even as the most powerful men in the state. Both sovereigns demonstrate the powers they have: at the start of the plays, Yuandi recruits any woman he wants for his court, while Xuanzong exonerates a defeated general and promotes him to high status. But both are forced to give up their beloved consorts: Yuandi is forced by the foreign nomads who threaten him and his state, while Xuanzong is ironically forced by his own soldiers who protect him and his state. Ma Zhiyuan’s Yuandi seems to have less agency even than Wang Zhaojun, as he cannot keep his consort even when he desires to. In her death, Xuanzong is equally powerless as Yang Yuhuan. The choice is either her death or their deaths by the hands of the rioting soldiers. In this piteous state, Xuanzong shows his agency in deciding Yang’s death but also shows his lack of agency under the threat of his soldiers. Xuanzong thus cries by referring to Yuandi: “When he married Wang Zhaojun to the nomad chief, he only cried in the west wind with tears soaking the barbarian pipe. Who has ever seen a sovereign trampled by the armies and laid a corpse in the yellow sand?” (West and Idema, 143). Both plays highlight the irony that these sovereigns can keep their full agency and power only when they are not facing any military threat.

The Playwrights’ Political Criticisms Both playwrights were active during an era when China was ruled by an alien ruling class that rejected becoming Chinese and refused Chinese culture. Both plays represent what Daphanie Pi-Wei Lei argues is the close connection between history and nationalistic rhetoric.10 Regardless of whether the women are blamed for the decline of the state, both playwrights portray the corrupted and incompetent sovereigns and the officials of the governments that leave openings for military threats and insurgence as the reason for the decline of the state. Having full agency or not, both emperors neglect their duties as the sovereigns and this leads to the corruption of the governmental officials to the extent that both governments fail to respond effectively to military threats. Women are posited as the cause of the downfall of the sovereigns, but the corruption of men on all fronts is the true cause of the decline of the states. The men are so weak that they cannot even protect the 421

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love of their lives, let alone the nation. Wai Luk Lo, in his Ph.D. dissertation, views Autumn in the Han Palace as a national allegory and argues that Yuandi’s helplessness symbolizes China’s helplessness under the Mongolian regime.11 It is suggested by this criticism from the playwrights that the success of the Mongolians in conquering China was not solely because of their strong military forces but also resulted from the incompetence of the sovereigns and government of the Song dynasty. Women, then, in these plays, are metaphors for the states that the corrupted and incompetent sovereigns and government have no ability to protect. The loss of the women, and by metaphorical implication the loss of the states, has led neither historical lessons learned nor to behavioral change. After bidding farewell to Wang Zhaojun, Yuandi declares in Scene Four that he has not held any court meetings for a hundred days and devotes all his attention to thoughts of Wang and her beauty (West and Idema, 189). He continues to neglect the duties of a sovereign, and his negligence further suggests that the government officials continue to ignore their duties as well. Wang’s sacrifice might bring the peace, but the peace is temporary as her sacrifice introduces no awareness and brings no changes in the behavior of the sovereign and the officials. Xuanzong even abdicates his throne to devote his full attention, day and night, to thoughts of Yang Yuhuan, (West and Idema, 145). He laments that he wants to build Yang a temple, but he has no power, suggesting that if he were still on the throne, he would use his power as a sovereign to build this temple. Xuanzong has completely dissociated himself from any duty or even thoughts of being a sovereign. For example, a sovereign typically associates rain with the growing of crops and the empire being safe from droughts and famines (West and Idema, 150–51). But Xuanzong emphasizes that the rain he hears is not to “save the dry sprouts, moisten the withered grass, or open the flower buds.” He connects the sounds of rain with the dropping pearls and the music of banquets that he has shared with Yang. But he could not withstand the melancholy brought by the rain on the wutong tree and orders the tree to be chopped down (West and Idema, 151). The lover’s vows he previously made with Yang was done under the wutong tree; thus the act of chopping down the tree is symbolic of destroying both the place and the vows of truthfulness that the sovereign gives not only to his consort but also to his citizens, both of whom he has betrayed. The fall of the state to the foreign regime is a betrayal to both the beloved state and its citizens.

Notes 1 Henry W. Wells, The Classical Drama of the Orient (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1965), 68. 2 Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema provide accounts of Ma’s biography and his literary achievements in Monks, Bandits, Lovers, and Immortals: Eleven Early Chinese Plays (Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 2010), 155–59. 3 West and Idema also provide a brief introduction of Bai Pu’s biography, Monks, Bandits, Lovers, and Immortals, 105–11. 4 Jung-En Liu, trans., Six Yuan Plays (Penguin Classics; reissue edition, 1972). 5 Charles F. Horne, ed. and trans., Autumn of the Palace of Han: An Ancient Chinese Historical Drama (Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, 2010). 6 Ban Gu, “Yuandi benji” [The Chronicles of Emperor Yuan], Vol. 4 of Qin Hanshu [The History of Former Han], Qinzao Tang Siku quanshu huiyao [Qinzao Tang’s Essentials of the Complete Anthology of Four Treasures], in the collection of Zhejiang University Library, 9.17b. “Xiongnu zhuan 2” [Biography of the Huns 2], Vol. 49 of Qian Hanshu, 94–2.12a. 7 Liu Xu, “Xuanzong benji 2” [The Chronicles of Emperor Xuanzong], Vol. 4 of Jiu Tangshu [Old History of Tang Dynasty], in Qingding Siku quanshu [The Imperially Approved Complete Anthology of Four Treasures], in the collection of Zhejiang University Library, 9.14a.

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Autumn of the Han Palace and Rain on the Wutong Trees 8 Daphne Pi-Wei Lei, “Wang Zhaojun on the Border: Gender and Intercultural Conflicts in Premodern Chinese Drama,” Asian Theatre Journal 13, no. 2 (Fall 1996): 229–37. 9 Kimberley Besio, “Gender, Loyalty, and the Reproduction of the Wang Zhaojun Legend: Some Social Ramifications of Drama in the Late Ming,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 40, no. 2 (1997): 251–82. 10 Daphne Pi-Wei Lei, “Performing the Borders: Gender and Intercultural Conflicts in Premodern Chinese Drama” (Ph.D. diss., Tufts University, 1999), 17–29. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. 11 Wai Luk Lo, “The Tragic Dimensions of Traditional Chinese Drama: A Study of Yuan Zaju” (Ph.D. diss., City University of New York, 1994), 33. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Further Reading Bai Juyi, “Song of Lasting Pain.” In An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911, 442–47 (A Poetic Rendition of Xuanzong and Yang Yuhuan’s Story), translated by Stephen Owen. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. Besio, Kimberley. “Gender, Loyalty, and the Reproduction of the Wang Zhaojun Legend: Some Social Ramifications of Drama in the Late Ming.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 40, no. 2 (1997): 251–82. Hong Sheng. The Palace of Eternal Life (A Dramatic Adaptation of Xuanzong and Yang Yuhuan’s story). Translated by Yuanchong Xu and Frank M. Xu. Beijing: China Intercontinental Press: Zhonghua Books, 2012. Horne, Charles F., ed. and trans. Autumn of the Palace of Han: An Ancient Chinese Historical Drama. Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, 2010. “Kunqu Wutongyu Qian Zhenrong Gong Yinlei” [Kun Opera of Rain on the Wutong Tree performed by Qian Zhenrong and Gong Yilei]. Bilibili video, 2:26:46, Yinsuyusha, November 3, 2020, web. https://www. bilibili.com/video/BV1Da4y1s7XZ/. Lei, Daphne Pi-Wei. “Wang Zhaojun on the Border: Gender and Intercultural Conflicts in Premodern Chinese Drama.” Asian Theatre Journal 13, no. 2 (October 1996): 229–37. West, Stephen H., and Wilt L. Idema. Monks, Bandits, Lovers, and Immortals: Eleven Early Chinese Plays. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 2010.

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35 THE ORPHAN OF ZHAO Maria Franca Sibau

A tightly knit drama of bloody feud and heroic sacrifice, The Orphan of Zhao (Zhaoshi gu’er) is a perfect illustration of Rivka Galchen’s insight that babies are an ideal vector for a revenge plot.1 The play was originally based on a kernel of historical events that occurred during the early sixth century BCE, in the ancient state of Jin during China’s Spring and Autumn period. With its string of heroic suicides, mistaken identities, and elemental clash between good and evil, the play powerfully illustrates the meaning of loyalty and filial piety through the staging of memorable acts of patricide, filicide, and betrayal. It is also a play that, despite its relatively secondary place in the Chinese dramatic canon, enjoyed, beginning in the eighteenth century, a spectacular afterlife in the West through a series of influential translations and adaptations.

Authorship, Composition, Editions The Orphan of Zhao, titled Injustice Repays Injustice: The Orphan of Zhao (Yuanbaoyuan Zhaoshi gu’er) in the earliest Yuan edition and The Great Revenge of the Orphan of Zhao (Zhaoshi guer dabaochou) in late Ming editions, is written in the dominant dramatic form of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), known as zaju, a term that may be translated as “miscellaneous performance” or “variety play” and is also often used synonymously with Northern drama (beiqu) to distinguish it from later, more elaborate forms that flourished in the South, such as xiwen and chuanqi. Similarly to most Yuan playwrights, we know precious little about Ji Junxiang, to whom the play is attributed. According to Zhong Sicheng’s Lugui bu (Records of Ghosts, preface 1355), a major biographical source for Yuan dramatists, Ji hailed from the Yuan capital Dadu (modern-day Beijing) and was active between the second half of the thirteenth century and the early fourteenth century. He was the author of at least six plays. Of these, only the Orphan of Zhao survives, as well as a single song-suite from another play titled Songyin ji (The Tale of Pine-tree’s Shade). The titles of the other plays attributed to him showcase a versatile playwright with a thematically diverse oeuvre that included historical drama, romance, deliverance plays (plays featuring Buddhist and Daoist enlightenment), and court cases based on contemporary events.2 The Orphan of Zhao is a rare example of a play for which we have actual editions surviving from the Yuan dynasty. The comparison between the Yuan imprint and the late Ming version by Zang Maoxun (1550–1620) shows the extent to which late Ming editors altered and augmented the text.3 DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-49 

The Orphan of Zhao

Whereas the Yuan edition may be described as a production script, in that it only includes the arias to be performed by the male lead (zhengmo), the late Ming edition makes for more satisfying reading material by providing a “full” text of the lines assigned to the entire cast, including the spoken parts. The late Ming version also adds an entire fifth act, which significantly changes the dramatic resolution. Beyond these structural differences, the two editions also present significant differences in the text of the arias themselves. These differences, taken as a whole, may be described as a process of Confucianization of the original text and can indicate major shifts in audience taste and dramatic conventions from Yuan to late Ming.4

Synopsis and Major Themes The plot of the Orphan of Zhao can be summarized as follows: the villainous general Tu Angu (originally spelled Tu’an Gu) has usurped power in the state of Jin 晉, managing to exterminate the virtuous minister Zhao Dun and his entire clan. The last surviving member, Zhao Shuo, son of the late Zhao Dun, is killed in the opening scene of the play. Immediately after his death, his wife, sister of the reigning Duke Ling, delivers a baby boy (the Zhao orphan) and entrusts him to the physician Cheng Ying 程嬰. As Cheng Ying walks out of the palace with the baby concealed in the medicine chest, he is intercepted by Han Jue, a palace guard tasked by Tu Angu to seize the orphan. Han Jue in the end lets Cheng Ying pass and commits suicide to avoid compromising him. Cheng Ying then seeks the help of Gongsun Chujiu, a retired official and close friend of Zhao Dun. They agree to pretend that Gongsun is hiding the Zhao orphan, who has in reality been substituted with Cheng Ying’s own infant son. Falling for the ruse, Tu Angu searches Gongsun’s house, finds and kills the baby, and executes Gongsun. Out of gratitude for Cheng Ying’s help, Tu Angu adopts the orphan, whom he believes to be Cheng Ying’s son, and trains him in the martial and civil arts. After the orphan has reached adulthood, Cheng Ying reveals to him his true origins through a scroll that depicts the bloody events surrounding his birth. The orphan is shocked and enraged, and he determines to get revenge against Tu Angu. Part of the reason for the play’s enduring popularity is the undeniably gripping plot, saturated with intense conflict, heroic gestures, and dramatic recognitions. Ji Junxiang’s genius in reworking the historical materials from Sima Qian’s Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian) and other earlier sources was to change a few crucial plot elements to intensify the conflict: first and foremost, he turned the originally unrelated substitute infant into Cheng Ying’s one and only son, and he arranged for the Zhao orphan to be tenderly raised by the unsuspecting Tu Angu. He also had the princess and Han Jue commit suicide on the stage, while de-emphasizing the bond of friendship between Cheng Ying and Gongsun Chujiu. In the original Shiji account, after Cheng Ying has raised the orphan and assisted the latter’s revenge against Tu Angu, Cheng Ying commits suicide, to honor his departed friend. The moment is emphasized through a dramatic exchange between the now fully restored orphan (named Zhao Wu) and Cheng Ying, where Cheng Ying explains his reasons. By contrast, the play ends with the orphan eagerly anticipating his gruesome revenge against Tu Angu in the Yuan edition, and, in the late Ming edition, with the orphan being congratulated on the restoration of the Zhao clan and the demise of his archenemy, who has been arrested and executed with the blessing of the Jin government. Cheng Ying’s suicide (and the attendant emphasis on the intense friendship bond between him and Gongsun Chujiu) would not only have run against the zaju convention of a festive ending, but would also have distracted from the central Zhao revenge-and-restoration plot. Instead, in the play the relationship between Cheng Ying and Gongsun Chujiu is as little more than co-conspirators brought together by the concatenation of events.5 425

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Although the poignant detail about Cheng Ying’s replacing the orphan with his own infant son seems to have been Ji Junxiang’s original invention, there is a puzzling reference in some of the later historical sources. In the “prequel” expanded editions of Zhu Xi’s Tongjian gangmu, where the events around the orphan of Zhao are included under the reign of King Ding of Zhou (r. 606–586 BCE) and appear to closely follow the Shiji account, there is a curious note that reads: “According to [Liu Xiang’s] Xinxu, the [substitute] baby is Cheng Ying’s son.”6 However, the received text of Xinxu, which includes an entry on Cheng Ying and Gongsun Chujiu in the chapter dedicated to officials of integrity (jieshi), does not appear to contain such detail, but rather it faithfully follows the Shiji account. It could be speculated that the Tongjian gangmu editors either misquoted or had access to alternate, later editions of Xinxu, but in either case, the likelihood that the search for the ultimate source for this detail would still lead back to Ji Junxiang’s play remains very high, providing further evidence of the reach and popularity of the play.7 The play probes deeply into the concept of bao, which may be translated as revenge but also recompense, reciprocity, or retribution. While revenge—the Zhao family’s revenge at the injustice perpetrated by Tu Angu—is arguably the central theme and overarching narrative engine (as is borne out in the many modern adaptations of the play), the play also explores the other connotations of bao through the complex dynamics between the characters of Han Jue, Cheng Ying, and Gongsun Chujiu. It has been argued that the chain of suicides, while escalating the moral imperative to redress injustice that awaits the Orphan, also represents a series of actions that “increasingly become acts of free choice.”8 If the self-sacrifices by Chu Ni, Ti Miming, Ling Zhe, Cheng Ying, and Han Jue (the former three are narrated in the wedge and in Scene 4 of the late Ming edition)9 can be construed as precipitated by circumstances and sense of obligation, Gongsun Chujiu’s involvement in the plot seems more gratuitous and deliberate, given his status as a retired official physically removed from the center of the action. The play also explores the meaning of loyalty (zhong), filial piety (xiao) and rightness or moral appropriateness (yi). A character who compellingly embodies the tension between loyalty and rightness is Han Jue, the guard in charge of intercepting the Orphan. Being on Tu Angu’s payroll, Han Jue would be duty-bound to follow Tu’s orders. However, from the moment he steps on the stage it is clear that Han disapproves of Tu’s conduct. He thus rejects a petty notion of loyalty as blind subservience to a corrupt superior in favor of a higher sense of justice. The higher sense of justice is more explicitly merged with loyalty to the state in the late Ming edition, where the complicity of the Jin ruler is glossed over. Thus Han Jue can proudly declare “I can still keep Chu Ni company, twin souls of loyal men.”10 One of the most famous moments in the play is the revelation scene (Scene 4), carefully orchestrated by Cheng Ying to disclose to the now adult Orphan the truth about his origin. It is only after the Orphan is deeply stirred by the visual representation on a scroll that Cheng Ying begins to gradually reveal the identity of the characters depicted and the causal connections between the events. The Orphan is so overwhelmed at the discovery that he is none other than the infant at the center of the story depicted in the scroll that he faints (according to the stage directions in the late Ming version). Such careful staging is necessitated by the multiplication of filial bonds, real and fictive. Even so, modern readers have often found the Orphan’s reaction and resoluteness psychologically wanting.11

Ming and Qing Adaptations As is the case with other popular Yuan zaju plays, the stuff-material of the Orphan of Zhao was continuously reworked and adapted into other dramatic forms. While Ji Junxiang’s play continued 426

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to be circulated in print form, it is through the later genres of southern drama and Peking Opera that the story of the Orphan was performed on the stage during the Ming and Qing dynasties. In southern drama, there are several versions of a play based on the Orphan materials, all dating from the Ming dynasty. The most influential of these is Bayi ji (A Tale of Eight Righteous Heroes), a 41-scene chuanqi sometimes attributed to Xu Yuan, which was included in Mao Jin’s (1599–1659) widely circulated anthology of sixty Yuan and Ming plays.12 The titular righteous heroes are Chu Ni, Ti Miming, Ling Zhe, Han Jue, Gongsun Chujiu, Cheng Ying, Cheng Ying’s son, and Zhou Jian. This play greatly expands and fundamentally alters the scope of the original narrative by resituating the action in a vibrant urban setting, by adding a host of minor characters of humble origin, and by changing the original plot in significant ways in order to conform to the aesthetic conventions of southern drama (for example, Zhao Shuo and the princess do not die in this version, but rather go into hiding and are happily reunited with the “Orphan” in the end). It is also clear that, while the southern plays might have been directly influenced by the zaju version, they continued to draw inspiration from the original sources, by dramatizing anecdotes that did not appear in Ji’s version, such as Duke Ling’s infamous habit of shooting pellet at human targets just for fun. In the Peking Opera repertoire, the story of the Zhao Orphan was recast into Bayi tu (Painting of the Eight Righteous Heroes), out of which two scenes were most often performed, Sougu jiugu (Searching for the orphan, saving the orphan) and Cheng Ying shezi (Cheng Ying sacrifices his son).13

The Orphan of Zhao as Global Drama The Orphan of Zhao was the first play to be translated into a Western language, albeit in a severely abridged version. In 1735, a French translation of the play by the Jesuit missionary Joseph Henri Marie de Prémare (1666–1736) was included in the monumental Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique et physique de l’Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise by Jean-Baptiste Du Halde, which was one of the most influential compilations of the European Enlightenment and a major source of knowledge about China. Prémare’s translation, titled Tchao-chi-cou-ell ou le petit-Orphelin de la Maison de Tchao, Tragédie chinoise, was conducted on the basis of Zang Maoxun’s edition, but it omitted almost all the arias.14 Even so, the translation proved to be enormously influential in eighteenth-century Europe, both as written text and as a basis for stage productions. It was immediately translated into other European languages and reprinted independently. It inspired an Italian adaptation, L’eroe cinese (1751) by Pietro Metastasio, an English adaptation by William Hatchett, The Chinese Orphan: An Historical Tragedy (1741), and Voltaire’s L’orphelin de la Chine (1755), which was a great success on the stage. Voltaire’s play was in turn adapted by the Irish playwright Arthur Murphy as The Orphan of China (1759). Throughout these many adaptations and recreations, which take great liberties with the original text, the play became a tool to articulate ideas and arguments which were entirely alien to the original purport but offer rich material for scholars of cross-cultural migration, comparative literature, and the so-called intercultural theater.15 The framing of the play as “Chinese tragedy” in the early European translations and adaptations is intriguingly echoed in Wang Guowei’s (1877–1927) famous characterization of the Orphan of Zhao as a Chinese example of tragedy, which he constructed as a universal category in polemic with Chinese traditional drama criticism.16 Wang’s assessment about the tragic nature of the play, based on what he described as the acts of self-immolation resulting from the heroes’ assertion of the will,17 was later criticized by Qian Zhongshu, who deemed the competing forces of love and duty 427

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contrasted in the play to be of unequal strength, with no “apparent difficulty for the one to conquer the other.”18 The fascination with the Orphan of Zhao continues unabated to the present day, both in China and abroad. Numerous contemporary stage adaptations have been created since the turn of the twenty-first century, including two spoken-drama productions by Lin Zhaohua and Tian Qinxin, which both premiered in 2003.19 Both versions, despite their widely different approaches, featured a critical rejection of the traditional theme of revenge. The orphan’s tale is also the subject of a film by Chen Kaige, Zhaoshi gu’er (Sacrifice, 2010), which focuses on Cheng Ying’s interior turmoil.20 Outside of China, James Fenton’s adaptation The Orphan of Zhao, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2012, represents a compelling re-creation that draws on both the Yuan zaju and later Ming and Qing versions of the play. One of the most distinctive touches introduced by Fenton is the role assigned to Cheng Ying’s son, who returns as a ghost to reclaim his father in the play’s final scene.21 As the stream of recent productions and transmedia adaptations across the globe shows, the Orphan of Zhao continues to be a work of enduring fascination that has the power to “move, charm, instruct and entertain . . . appealing to minds of both Chinese and Westerners throughout the ages.”22

Notes 1 Rivka Galchen, Little Labors (New York: New Directions, 2016), 82–83. 2 Wilt Idema, “The Orphan of Chao: Self-Sacrifice, Tragic Choice and Revenge, and the Confucianization of Mongol Drama at the Ming Court,” Cina 21 (1988): 162–65. 3 Both editions are available in multiple English translations: for the late Ming edition by Zang Maoxun, see Jung-en Liu, trans., “The Orphan of Chao,” in Six Yuan Plays (London: Penguin, 1972), 41–81; Pi-twan Huang and Wai-yee Li, trans., “The Zhao Orphan,” in The Columbia Anthology of Yuan Drama, ed. C. T. Hsia, Wai-yee Li, and George Kao (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 20–55; Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema, trans., “The Orphan of Zhao Greatly Wreaks Vengeance, A Selection of Yuan Plays Edition,” in The Orphan of Zhao and Other Yuan Plays: The Earliest Known Versions, ed. Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), 73–111. For the Yuan edition, see Wai-yee Li, trans., “The Zhao Orphan in Yuan Editions,” in The Columbia Anthology of Yuan Drama, 55–68; Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema, trans., “The Orphan of Zhao, A Fourteenth-Century Edition,” in The Orphan of Zhao and Other Yuan Plays, 57–72. 4 See Wilt Idema, “The Orphan of Chao: Self-Sacrifice, Tragic Choice and Revenge, and the Confucianization of Mongol Drama at the Ming Court,” Cina 21 (1988). 5 The Orphan of Zhao’s reworking of earlier sources, most notably Zuozhuan and Shiji, has been assiduously discussed: see, for example, Liu Wu-chi, “The Original Orphan of China,” Comparative Literature 5, no. 3 (Summer 1953): 197–200; Shiao-ling Yu, “To Revenge or Not to Revenge? Seven Hundred Years of Transformations of The Orphan of Zhao,” CHINOPERL 26, no. 1 (2005): 129–30; Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema, The Orphan of Zhao and Other Yuan Plays: The Earliest Known Versions (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), 51–53; Shih-pe Wang, “The Orphan of Zhao: The Meaning of Loyalty and Filial Piety,” in How to Read Chinese Drama, ed. Patricia Sieber and Regina Llamas (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022), 128–31. 6 See Dingzheng Tongjian gangmu qianbian, comp. Nan Xuan, ed. Yang Guangxun, Ming edition accessible in digital format from the National Archives of Japan at https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/file/ en/3602609.html. The same note appears, with slightly different phrasing, in other Ming and Qing editions of Tongjian gangmu qianbian, including the Kangxi imperially sanctioned edition of 1708; for the latter, see the digitized edition preserved at the Harvard-Yenching library at https://id.lib.harvard.edu/ alma/990080920890203941/catalog. 7 As Liu Wu-chi notes, Zhu Xi’s Tongjian gangmu was quoted as the “primary source” (including the crucial detail of the substitute infant’s identity) in a “curious letter” by L. R. Deshautesrayes, included in the 1755 edition of Prémare’s translation, Tchao-Chi-Cou-Eulh ou L’Orphelin de la Maison de Tchao, Tragedie chinoise, 92–96; Liu, “The Original Orphan of China,” 200, fn. 20. Feng Menglong’s fictionalized retelling of the Orphan of Zhao events in Xin lieguo zhi, also known by its later revised title Dong Zhou lieguo zhi, while generally following the Shiji account, likewise maintains the detail about the identity of the substitute

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The Orphan of Zhao infant as Cheng Ying’s own son; see Feng Menglong and Cai Yuanfang, Dong Zhou lieguo zhi (Taibei: Sanmin, 1976; rpt. 2007), Ch. 57–59. For a condensed English translation, see Feng Menglong, Kingdoms in Peril: A Novel of the Ancient Chinese World at War, trans. Olivia Milburn (Oakland: University of California Press, 2022), 181–99. 8 West and Idema, The Orphan of Zhao, 53. 9 Chu Ni is an assassin hired to kill Zhao Dun; when he realizes Zhao Dun’s lofty composure, he commits suicide instead. Ti Miming, a palace guard, bravely steps in to save Zhao Dun from the attack of a vicious mastiff that had been especially trained by Tu Angu to devour Zhao. Ling Zhe is a strongman who was once rescued from starvation by Zhao Dun; when the latter is attempting to flee from the palace on his chariot, from which one of the wheels and two of the horses had been removed, Ling holds up the chariot and drives it to safety. These incidents are recounted, with varying detail, in Zuozhuan, Xuan 2, and in Sima Qian’s Shiji (although these appear in the “Jin shijia” and not in the “Zhao shijia” chapter). 10 West and Idema, The Orphan of Zhao, 84. For a discussion of this scene in the various editions of the play, see Wang, “The Orphan of Zhao: The Meaning of Loyalty and Filial Piety,” 132–34. 11 West and Idema, The Orphan of Zhao, 55. 12 Bayi ji, in Mao Jin Liushi zhong qu. For a detailed and insightful discussion of the “Southern Orphan,” see Yuming He, “Adopting The Orphan: Theater and Urban Culture in Ming China,” in The Ming World, ed. Kenneth Swope (London: Routledge, 2020), 161–84; see also Yu, “To Revenge or Not to Revenge?,” 133–35. 13 David Rolston, Inscribing Jingju/Peking Opera: Textualization and Performance, Authorship and Censorship of the “National Drama” of China from the Late Qing to the Present (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 593; Yu, “To Revenge or Not to Revenge?,” 135–36. 14 For a detailed discussion of Prémare’s translation in its historical context, see Li Sher-shiueh and Hsieh Pei-hsuan, “Maruose yu Zhongguo chuantong xiqu: Cong Mayi Zhaoshi gu’er tanqi” [The Orphan of Zhao in the Context of Joseph de Prémare’s Knowledge of Chinese Drama], Zhongguo wenzhe yanjiu tongxun 28, no. 4 (2018): 155–205. 15 See Liu, “The Original Orphan of China,” 193–212; Adrian Hsia, “The Orphan of Zhao in French, English, German and Hong Kong Literature,” Comparative Literature Studies 25, no. 4 (1988): 335–51; Shiao-ling Yu, “The Orphan of Zhao: Chinese Revenge Drama and European Adaptations,” Comparative Literature Studies 55, no. 1 (2018): 144–71; Shiamin Kwa, “The Orphan of Zhao on the World Stage,” in A Companion to World Literature, general ed. Ken Seigneurie, Vol. 3, 1451 to 1770, ed. Christopher Lupke and Evan Nicoll-Johnson (Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell, 2020), 1–12. 16 Wang Guowei, Song Yuan xiqu shi [A History of Song and Yuan Drama], in Wang Guowei quanji (Guangzhou: Guangdong jiaoyu chubanshe, 2009), 3.1–160. The work was first published serially in 1913–1914; see Yuming He, “Wang Guowei and the Beginnings of Modern Chinese Drama Studies,” Late Imperial China 28, no. 2 (December 2007), 129. 17 The translation is based on Yuming He, “Wang Guowei and the Beginnings of Modern Chinese Drama Studies,” Late Imperial China 28, no. 2 (December 2007), 136. 18 Ch’ien Chung-shu (Qian Zhongshu), “Tragedy in Old Chinese Drama,” T’ien Hsia Monthly 1, no. 1 (1935): 43. 19 Shiao-ling Yu, “To Revenge or Not to Revenge?,” 138–47; Wang, “The Orphan of Zhao: The Meaning of Loyalty and Filial Piety,” 142–43. 20 Wang, “The Orphan of Zhao: The Meaning of Loyalty and Filial Piety,” 144–45. 21 James Fenton, The Orphan of Zhao (N.P.: Faber and Faber, 2012), 68–70. For a discussion of Fenton’s adaptation, including the controversies surrounding the “color-blind” casting in the original production, see Yu, “The Orphan of Zhao: Chinese Revenge Drama,” 162–66; Wang, “The Orphan of Zhao: The Meaning of Loyalty and Filial Piety,” 143–44. 22 Sherry J. Mou, “The Orphan of Zhao: A  Child for All Ages,” Education About Asia 14, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 27.

Further Reading Editions, Translations, and Adaptations Hatchett, William. The Chinese Orphan: An Historical Tragedy. London: Charles Corbett, 1741. Huang, Pi-Twan, and Wai-yee Li, trans. “The Zhao Orphan.” In The Columbia Anthology of Yuan Drama, edited by C. T. Hsia, Wai-yee Li, and George Kao, 17–72. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature Idema, Wilt L., and Stephen West, eds. and trans. “The Orphan of Zhao.” In The Orphan of Zhao and Other Yuan Plays: The Earliest Known Versions, edited by Wilt L. Idema and Stephen H. West, 49–111. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. Ji Junxiang. Yuan bao yuan Zhaoshi gu’er. In Jiaoding Yuan kan zaju sanshi zhong. Edited by Zheng Qian, 169–79. Taipei: Shijie shuju, 1962. Ji Junxiang. Zhaoshi gu’er da baochou. In Xinjuan Gujin mingju leijiang ji, edited by Meng Chengshun. 1633. Rpt. in Guben xiqu congkan, 4 ji. Shanghai: Shangwu, 1958. Ji Junxiang. Zhaoshi gu’er da baochou. In Yuanqu xuan, edited by Zang Maoxun. 1620. Rpt. in Guben xiqu congkan, 4 ji. Shanghai: Shangwu, 1958. Julien, Stanislas, trans. Tchao-chi-kou-eul ou L’orphelin de la China: Drame en prose et en vers. Paris: Moutardier, 1834. Liu, Jung-en, trans. “The Orphan of Chao.” In Six Yüan Plays, edited and translated by Liu Jung-en, 41–81. London: Penguin, 1972. Metastasio, Pietro. L’eroe cinese. Dresden: Stössel, 1752. Murphy, Arthur. The Orphan of China. London: P. Vaillant, 1759. Prémare, Joseph Henri Marie de, trans. “Tchao chi cou ell, ou le petit orphelin de la Maison de Tchao, Tragédie chinoise.” In Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique et physique de l’Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise. Vol. 3, edited by Jean-Baptiste Du Halde, 339–78. Paris: P. G. Le Mercier, 1735. Rpt. as Tchao-chi-cou-euhl, ou l’Orphelin de la Maison de Tchao, Tragédie chinoise. Peking: 1755. Voltaire. L’orphelin de la Chine: tragédie représentée pour la premiere fois à Paris, le 20 août 1755. Paris: Michel Lambert, 1755.

Studies He Yuming. “Adopting The Orphan: Theater and Urban Culture in Ming China.” In The Ming World, edited by Kenneth Swope, 161–84. London: Routledge, 2020. Hsia, Adrian. “The Orphan of Zhao in French, English, German and Hong Kong Literature.” Comparative Literature Studies 25, no. 4 (1988): 335–51. Idema, Wilt. “The Orphan of Zhao: Self-Sacrifice, Tragic Choice and Revenge, and the Confucianization of Mongol Drama at the Ming Court.” Cina 21 (1988): 159–90. Kwa, Shiamin. “The Orphan of Zhao on the World Stage.” In A Companion to World Literature, general editor Ken Seigneurie. Vol. 3, 1451 to 1770, edited by Christopher Lupke and Evan Nicoll-Johnson, 1–12. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell, 2020. Liu Wu-chi. “The Original Orphan of China.” Comparative Literature 5, no. 3 (Summer 1953): 193–212. Wang Shih-pe. “The Orphan of Zhao: The Meaning of Loyalty and Filial Piety.” In How to Read Chinese Drama, edited by Patricia Sieber and Regina Llamas, 127–50. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022. Yu Shiao-ling. “The Orphan of Zhao: Chinese Revenge Drama and European Adaptations.” Comparative Literature Studies 55, no. 1 (2018): 144–71. Yu Shiao-ling. “To Revenge or Not to Revenge? Seven Hundred Years of Transformations of The Orphan of Zhao.” CHINOPERL 26, no. 1 (2005): 129–47.

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36 ROMANCE OF THE WESTERN CHAMBER Ying Wang

Wang Shifu’s (fl.1260–1300) Romance of the Western Chamber, composed in Yuan zaju genre, has enjoyed the love of many generations of audiences and readers. Regarded by the Chinese as among their finest artistic productions, the play’s merit lies in its intricate and touching story, creation of archetypal characters, refined and beautiful language, and well-designed and intense drama. Wang’s play is a creative rewriting of two earlier literary works, Yuan Zhen’s (779–831) classic tale “The Story of Yingying” and Dong Jieyuan’s Romance of the Western Chamber in All Keys and Modes (Xixiang ji zhugongdiao), renowned for their respective contributions to the Western Chamber1 story’s development and artistic refinement. If Yuan Zhen’s fiction creates a moving though sorrowful romance with a pair of memorable protagonists, Cui Yingying and Scholar Zhang, Dong’s ballad version of Western Chamber provides readers with a complete cast of characters, structured and dramatized plot advancement, and sophisticated narrative and performative technique. Nevertheless, Wang Shifu’s Western Chamber, benefitting from a long and continuous process of stage adaptation and textual editing, towers over the two earlier works. It stands as one of the pinnacles of Chinese literature both on stage and in reading, having survived the challenges of both imperial censorship and epochal change. “The Story of Yingying” was written during or just following the Zhenyuan period (785–805) of the Tang dynasty. It tells of a young scholar, surnamed Zhang, who falls for a stunning beauty, Cui Yingying, after rescuing her family from the clutches of a group of mutinous soldiers. Scholar Zhang, distantly related to Madam Cui, attends the feast the family gives to thank him. Much taken by Yingying’s beauty, he starts to pursue her. Yingying’s response to Zhang is puzzling: after writing him a poem of invitation, she rebukes him for his advances, but then soon suddenly and voluntarily consummates their relationship. The love affair ends when Zhang leaves for the civil service examination for which he has been preparing. Despite Yingying’s passionate expression of deep love when they part, Scholar Zhang decides to leave her, seeking to mend his ways, while he faults Yingying for being a ruinous woman, destructive to men. Yuan Zhen’s story of Cui Yingying and Scholar Zhang is rather short, only three thousand words. It provides the sketch of a romance with certain complexity and ambiguity. If the complexity comes from Cui Yingying’s character and fate, the ambiguity certainly stems from the narrator’s ambivalent voice in judging and commenting on Scholar Zhang’s ultimate abandonment of Yingying at the fictional denouement. On the one hand, Yingying’s immortal-like beauty and deportment,  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-50

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her mysterious and noble family background, and her superb literary and artistic talents make her extremely attractive and worthy of love, inducing infatuation in Scholar Zhang. On the other hand, Yingying’s contradictory behavior in first resisting and then volunteering to have sexual relations with Zhang surprises us, and her tragic ending prompts sympathy. The most perplexing aspect of this version is the narrator’s split point of view in telling the story and commenting on the fictional characters and events, expressing mixed admiration and censure, alternating between celebrating the romance and warning against it. The narrating voice actually has a triple identity: Zhang and his friend Yuan Zhen are the dramatized narrators, in addition to the narrator-author Yuan Zhen. Yingying is cast as a dangerous youwu (femme fatale), who would destroy men and topple states. Thus, Zhang’s discarding of her is seen as wise and correct, given that he is striving to mend his ways. The story starts as a romance of individual desire, challenging and breaking through Confucian ritual protocols, but it concludes as a cautionary tale, with both male and female protagonists returning to ritual propriety and Confucian moral codes. The plot of Yuan Zhen’s tale is simple, focused, and elliptical, leaving out even things we would expect to know. Cui Yingying and Scholar Zhang are the sole actors, and no other characters (not even Hongniang or Madam Cui) are necessary to the development of the story. Critics’ reactions to Yuan Zhen’s story have been mixed: on the one hand, they praise it for creating a pair of young lovers who are complicated but believable, tangled in desire and propriety, and for its poeticized language in prose and verse. On the other hand, they condemn Scholar Zhang’s self-serving defense for “shiluan zhongqi” (seducing her at first and abandoning her in the end). Many readers believe that the story is based on Yuan Zhen’s personal experience and is highly autobiographical. The well-known modern scholar Chen Yinke (1890–1969) thought that the person that Yuan Zhen had a love affair with was a courtesan, not someone from his own class, partially explaining why he “would feel compelled to abandon her.”2

Dong Jieyuan's Romance of the Western Chamber in All Keys and Modes Dong Jieyuan’s Romance of the Western Chamber in All Keys and Modes is a long and brilliant ballad, and it prepared a critical path forward in Yuan drama for Wang Shifu’s Western Chamber. Few written records exist about the author of this version of the Western Chamber story, and we do not even know the author’s full name. “Dong” is his family name, but “Jieyuan” is not his personal name, only an appellation for “unemployed literati” or “professional entertainers” widely used in the Song and Jin dynasties.3 According to Zhong Sicheng’s (ca. 1279–1360) Record of Ghosts, Dong Jieyuan lived and flourished during the Zhangzong reign of the Jin dynasty (1168–1208),4 and he is grouped with the famous sanqu (a fixed-rhythm form of classical Chinese poetry, or “literary song”) writers of the past in Zhong’s book. Despite the scarcity of sources for Dong Jieyuan’s life and personality, we know quite a bit about him from his only extant work, the ballad of Western Chamber, because, through the narrator’s voice, it is evident that Dong Jieyuan was well educated and led a bohemian life, with an uninhibited attitude.5 Zhugongdiao, or “all keys and modes,” is a type of oral story-telling performance that originated at the end of the Northern Song dynasty (early twelfth century), flourished during the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), and disappeared from the stage by the end of the Yuan dynasty (the second half of the fourteenth century). It is believed that this balladic genre grew out of Tang bianwen (transformation text) and Song ci poetry.6 Consisting of both verse and prose, the storytelling performance alternates between singing and speaking; however, the sung part dominates and is disproportionally large compared to the spoken part. The singing part, or musical structure, as the generic name indicates, is organized by multiple keys or modes.7 Dong Jieyuan’s Western Chamber, for example, 432

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uses fourteen keys (or modes), 191 tunes, and two stand-alone songs.8 Song lyrics under the same mode are patterned with the same rhyme, and each song with a particular tune has a fixed line structure and number of words. Chenzi (extra words, or literally “lining words”) are added to a line when necessary. Dong Jieyuan’s Western Chamber contains three typical lyric sections: (1) a single, two-stanza song without a coda; (2) a single, two-stanza song with a coda; and (3) multiple one-or two-stanza songs with a coda.9 The subject matter of all keys and modes varies according to the make-up of its intended audience. One popular subject of the genre seems to have been mocking scholars, and the showpiece entitled “shua xiucai” (poking fun at scholars) is mentioned in Dongjing menghua lu (The Eastern Capital: A Dream of Splendor). The written record of performance of all keys and modes can be traced back to Wang Zhuo’s Biji manzhi (Random Notes from Chengdu; preface from 1149), in which a certain Kong Sanchuan is praised as a famous performer in that style. Several later notes or memoirs include entries about male and female performers of this art, including Xia Tingzhi’s Qinglou ji (Green Mansions Collection, 1355), a collection of biographies of courtesans and female performers from the Yuan dynasty. A fictionalization of all keys and modes performance can be found in chapter 51 of Shuihu zhuan (The Water Margin), in which a female ballad storyteller, Bai Xiuying, tells of two lovers, Shuangjian and Su Qing, at an entertainment center at Yuncheng of Shandong province. The storytelling performance form thrived at public places of entertainment in the northern Song, Jin, and Yuan dynasties for about two hundred years, ebbing afterwards. Only three complete or partial texts remain; in chronological order: Liu Zhiyuan zhugongdiao (Liu Zhiyuan in All Keys and Modes by an unknown author), Dong Jieyuan’s Western Chamber, and Wang Bocheng’s Tianbao yishi zhugongdiao (Tales from the Tianbao Era in All Keys and Modes). In addition, a set of five-song sections of all keys and modes is inserted into the prologue of the earliest extant southern play, Zhang Xie zhuangyuan (Top Graduate Zhang Xie). Because only five of Liu Zhiyuan’s twelve sections are left, and only the verse part (sixty sets altogether) of the Tales of Tianbao Era exists, Dong Jieyuan’s Western Chamber stands as the only complete work in all keys and modes, granting it a valuable and irreplaceable status in the fields of Chinese literature and performing arts. Dong Jieyuan’s balladic Western Chamber altered its thematic focus, developed the story plot and characters, and enriched the native strategies of Yuan Zhen’s original. It also brought forth certain dramatic techniques that were developed to further sophistication in Wang Shifu’s drama Western Chamber. Dong Jieyuan’s Western Chamber in all keys and modes, containing eight chapters and over fifty thousand words, is an ambitious, extended adaptation of Yuan Zhen’s story. Except for the bare outline of Yuan’s version, most of the tale has been fundamentally changed: it is now a straightforward caizi jiaren (talented scholar and beautiful woman) romance, without the moralizing and self-contradictory overtones of the original. The narrator-ballad writer Do Jieyuan shows great and unequivocal sympathy for his male and female protagonists and portrays their love quest positively, able to move his readers when depicting the characters’ emotional ups and downs. In addition to the developed characters of Yingying and Zhang Gong, other characters, such as Hongniang, Madam Cui, Facong, Du Que, and the villains Sun Feihu and Zheng Heng are developed significantly, or even created, to carry out the ballad’s lengthened and more intricate plot. Some of the memorable and absorbing episodes added in Dong’s Western Chamber include “Sun Feihu besieges the Temple of Salvation,” “Yingying replies to Zhang Gong’s poem using the same rhyme,” “Madam Cui breaches Zhang Gong’s trust at her thanking banquet,” “Zhang Gong seduces Yingying by playing zither,” “Madam Cui interrogates Hongniang about Yingying’s affair,” and “Yingying parts with Zhang Gong at the roadside pavilion when Zhang leaves for examination.” Another critical change made by Dong Jieyuan is giving the story a happy ending: Zhang Gong passes the highest level of 433

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civil service examination as Number Three Candidate and finally marries Yingying, with the help of Du Que. Given that Dong’s Western Chamber was enlarged to about twenty times the length of the original, the enrichment of characterization throughout was vital for its success, and indeed, Dong Jieyuan did a commendable job in this respect. Cui Yingying and Hongniang under his pen are more rebellious in their own ways without losing other facets of their personalities. Yingying now is a daughter of a former prime minister with the most strict and proper upbringing and discipline under her mother’s watchful eye. She behaves as a docile young lady of the gentry until she falls for the dashing young man, Zhang Gong, who saves her and her family from the mutinous soldiers at the Temple of Salvation. Like her precursor in Yuan Zhen’s original, she undergoes tremendous struggles between her desire for love and what her education has taught her, reflected in her conflicting behaviors in treating Zhang Gong and their love relationship. But when Zhang becomes suicidal because of his lovesickness and almost dies, she decides to save his life by offering consummation, even if this means that she has to break accepted moral rules. In the ethical system she believes in, it is immoral to make someone else pay with their life for her sticking to dogma, and it is wrong to repay kindness with ingratitude. The most rebellious act of Dong’s Yingying is her elopement with Zhang Gong, after Madam Cui, believing Zheng Heng’s slander of Zhang, decides to marry her to Zheng. Some scholars have noted the use of satire or ridicule in the characterization of Zhang Gong in Dong Jieyuan’s ballad.10 Indeed, the talented and love-crazed Zhang Gong portrayed by Dong Jieyuan is no longer the self-promoting, self-contradictory, misogynistic, and pretentious Scholar Zhang of the Tang tale, placing himself on higher moral ground. Rather he is a young man completely absorbed by his desire and love object to the degree of obsession and foolishness. The audience of Dong Jieyuan’s version is shown Zhang’s emotional roller coaster ride, which dramatically changes with only a tiny bit of encouragement or hindrance from Yingying and her mother. Despite his boasting of erudition in Confucian and literary classics and his eventual high pass in the civil service examination, what is presented to the audience is mainly Zhang Gong’s crazy and laughable behaviors under the spell of love: his loss of interest in study and career, his smugness in believing Yingying is in his grip, his helplessness and even attempt to commit suicide when he feels hopeless, and his pennilessness when an engagement gift is due. Rather than admiration, this character invites pity and mockery from the audience. Hongniang, previously only a bystander during the love affair between Cui and Zhang in Yuan Zhen’s fiction, has turned into a sympathetic and efficacious go-between in Dong’s ballad: she treats Madam Cui’s ingratitude with a sense of justice and offers clever schemes to help the pair of frustrated lovers, a device that is taken mostly intact into the zaju version of the story. This character is already well on her way to becoming the archetype of the witty, bold, resourceful, and vivacious maid who dares to defy authority and propriety in Wang Shifu’s play. The ballad of all keys and modes combines narration with performance, alternately telling and showing; thus it was important to include expanded dramatic devices in its script. In the case of Dong Jieyuan’s Western Chamber, two instrumental strategies are used to create dramatic effect: first, building to an emotional climax through singing, and, second, creating dramatic tension by adding conflicts and suspense. As noted by Li-li Ch’en, there are two kinds of interior monologue in Dong’s ballad: one is the character’s own interior thought (e.g., Zhang Gong’s reaction to the grandeur of Temple of Salvation), and the musings of the lovers, “expressing pangs and longing for the beloved.”11 The latter is frequently used by Dong to create emotional drama. A good example of this is the depiction of Yingying’s inner thoughts and emotional turmoil after listening to Zhang Gong play the zither in chapter 4. In the key (or mode) of Zhonglü, with three songs and a coda, Dong 434

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Jieyuan uses the first-person voice to reflect on Yingying’s anxiety, resentment, misery, distress, and sorrow as she ponders the obstacles to marriage with her beloved. Her feelings are reflected in the coldness of her bedding and the desolation of her surroundings, and this inner storm makes her sleepless the whole night. A similar emotional climax is presented in Wang Shifu’s Yuan drama in the scene of “Qinxin” (feelings stimulated by music), the latter taking place at the time Yingying listens to the music. Another frequently cited example is the episode of the “farewell feast.” This parting scene in Wang Shifu’s play is famous for its blending of its humanly realistic treatment and poetic scenario, an enhanced and more sophisticated treatment of Dong’s version in chapter 6. The same chapter features one of the longest interior monologues (a total of seventeen songs), intended to expand on Zhang Gong’s psychology and his dream after parting with Yingying. In creating dramatic effects, Dong Jieyuan also adds character antagonisms that did not exist in Yuan Zhen’s original, including strife between Sun Feihu, who leads the mutinous soldiers, and the residents of the Temple of Salvation; between Madam Cui and the three young main characters; and between Zheng Heng and Zhang Gong. These were all included by Wang Shifu to generate intensified dramatic conflicts in his play. The two famous scenes, “Laihun” (breaking the marriage promise) and “Kaoyan” (interrogating Hongniang), in turn, also work as episodes of dramatic suspense, unresolved until the very end of the play. Another type of suspense skillfully used in Dong’s Western Chamber inspired later playwrights and fictional writers. This is the device of ending each chapter with a sudden emerging of information or a dramatic element left hanging (e.g., the sudden report of the mutinous soldiers’ attack at the end of Buddhist service for Yingying’s father) that heightens the audience’s anticipation of what will happen next. Expanded by all this reworking and rewriting, Dong Jieyuan’s ballad Western Chamber became a ready and rich source for Wang Shifu to draw upon for his dramatic adaptation.

Wang Shifu and Romance of the Western Chamber Play Despite various speculations and debates about its authorship and completion date, the Western Chamber play is generally attributed to a Yuan dramatist, Wang Dexin, with the courtesy name Wang Shifu, and is believed to have been completed around the end of the thirteenth century. We have limited information about Wang Shifu: according to Zhong Sicheng’s Record of Ghosts, Wang Shifu was born in Dadu (modern Beijing), wrote fourteen plays, among them the play entitled Cui Yingying daiyue Xixiang ji (The Story of Cui Yingying Waiting for the Moon in the Western Chamber). Jia Zhongming (1343–?) later added elegiac expressions for Wang in Zhong’s book by both commenting on Wang’s bohemian lifestyle and praising him: “In composing poetry and prose, his style was graceful,/His contemporary literati all felt inferior when compared with him./Of all new zaju and old chuanqi,/The Romance of the Western Chamber contends for the highest prize in the world.”12 Jia Zhongming’s praise is not an overstatement. If the Western Chamber play indeed was written by Wang Shifu, he must have been well versed in both popular arts and canonical literature, able to work with ease with different genres and materials, as the erudition and talents of the playwright are clearly demonstrated in the play. We know very little about how the zaju Western Chamber was performed on stage during its heyday. The earliest extant complete edition of the Western Chamber play is the Hongzhi edition published in Beijing in 1498 by Jintai Yuejia shufang (Golden Tower Yue Family Publishing House). The complete title of this version is Xinkan qimiao quanxiang zhushi Xixiang ji (A Newly Printed Deluxe Completely Illustrated and Annotated Romance of the Western Chamber). The text proper of the play contains five parts in twenty-one acts, accompanied by more than two hundred illustrations. The Hongzhi edition also provides a good number of annotations, mainly giving 435

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references for the allusions and explanations for word usage, and it also contains close to three hundred appended pieces, including sets of songs, collections of poems praising the playwright, and notes on the play’s characters, themes, and plots. This edition is valuable because “it precedes all other complete editions by nearly a century and on close reading proves to be a fine and reliable text: whenever its readings depart from later editions . . . they usually make perfect sense both as theater and as literature.”13 The dissemination of Western Chamber in the Ming dynasty was divided into the performance-oriented revision and reading-focused reprint, with mutual impacted. The former was represented by the so-called nan Xixiang (the southern version of Western Chamber), with the example of Li Rihua’s (fl.1550–?) Nan Xixiang ji (The Southern Romance of the Western Chamber), while the latter motivated a group of literati editors and compilers, including such famous playwrights and drama critics as Wang Jide (ca. 1560–1623) and Ling Mengchu (1580–1644), to issue their own editions of the Western Chamber. The emergence of the Western Chamber in a southern version was the result of the waning of zaju as a northern drama and the gradual flourishing of the chuanqi play (a later form of the southern drama) in the Ming dynasty. Along with some alterations made to fit chuanqi stage conventions, the major change of the southern version of the Western Chamber was the music—replacing the northern music with the Kunshan music that became popular in the south of China at the time. The repeated efforts of reissuing new editions resulted in a rich and complicated history of textual development in which Dong Jieyuan’s ballad Western Chamber sometimes coexisted with Wang Shifu’s zaju version, and other times the newly published edition claimed to be based on a more reliable earlier edition with further refinement and useful annotations. The large quantity of reissues was nothing short of stunning: “From the final four or five decades of the Ming dynasty alone nearly forty different editions of Wang Shifu’s masterwork have been preserved, and from the succeeding Qing dynasty another sixty or so editions are known.”14 Along with this surge of editions, a tradition of annotating and commenting on Wang Shifu’s Western Chamber play was well established by the beginning of the fifteenth century, which culminated in the early Qing work of Jin Shengtan (1608–1661), who published his bowdlerized edition of Western Chamber with commentaries in 1656. Jin Shengtan appeared on the scene of Chinese literature as a brilliant fictional and theatrical commentator who elevated “lowbrow literary genres” to the canon of Chinese classics. Consistently and systematically using similar editorial and commentarial strategies, he published his annotated editions of the vernacular novel The Water Margin and the drama script of Western Chamber. In both cases, his annotated texts became so popular and influential that they eclipsed all other editions published at then and afterward. Jin’s methods for bringing a work into the literary canon mainly relied on its thorough aggrandizement through reclassification, reinterpretation, and revision. Jin first categorized The Water Margin and the Western Chamber as two of the six “genius books” on par with four other canonical classics: Zhuangzi, Lisao (Encountering Sorrow), Shiji (The Records of Grand Historian), and Du Fu’s (712–770) poetry. He then adopted hermeneutical strategies for discussing the Confucian classics, employing concepts and vocabulary from the criticism of poetry and painting to interpret the novel and drama. Jin’s textual revision at the linguistic as well as the structural level was aimed at making the text more fitting and consistent with his own commentaries and interpretations. Jin Shengtan’s edition of Western Chamber contains five parts and twenty acts. The script proper is introduced with two prefaces and an essay entitled “How to Read the Sixth Genius Book Romance of the Western Chamber.” A general commentary is placed before each part and one before each act, and more detailed interlinear comments are inserted between the speaking lines and song lyrics. In 436

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reinterpreting Wang Shifu’s Western Chamber, Jin Shengtan challenged those who regarded it as an “obscene play” and defended Cui Yingying as impeccable in her moral standards. All of Cui Yingying’s acts, words, and inner thoughts as revealed in her singing parts and poems, after Jin’s revision and interpretation, became chaste and explainable as quite proper. Even when she enters a sexual relationship with Zhang Gong, Yingying is understood simply to be fulfilling a marriage promise that her mother made at first, but then later wrongly retracted. Since Zhang Gong, as a character, is written to mirror Yingying, he is also above the suspicion of indecency. In fact, to Jin Shengtan, the romance contains a deeper level of meaning with “implicit messages” and carefully crafted literary techniques that can only be decoded and appreciated with a close reading, resembling the reading of such Confucian classics as Chunqiu zuoshi zhuan (The Spring and Autumn Annals by Zuo Qiuming) and Sima qian’s (145 BCE–?) Shiji.15 In addition to the overstretched sanctification of Yinying’s character, Jin Shentan also intended to demonstrate the fine writing of Western Chamber to his readers, described as “having embroidered the mandarin ducks, the golden stitches of embroidery are also displayed.”16 Jin made a great effort to pinpoint and highlight the excellent characterization and dramatization in the play. In the course of reevaluating its aesthetic and artistic quality as well as its underlying philosophy, Jin Shengtan came to believe that the fifth part is inconsistent with the other four and that the play sequence should have ended in the very last act of the fourth part, with the nightmare Zhang Gong suffers when he is en route to the capital. To Jin, the nightmare motif implies the profound conclusion that “life is but a dream,” a tenet of Buddhist thinking,17 a theme that is also the conclusion of Cao Xueqin’s (ca. 1715–1763) eighteenth-century fictional masterpiece Honglou meng (The Dream of the Red Chamber). As Stephen West and Wilt Idema observe, “Jin Shengtain’s textual changes may well have enhanced the readability of the text and increased its general acceptability by downplaying its morally offensive aspects. The breadth and wit of his commentary, moreover, remains an attraction to readers even to the present day.”18

The Achievements of Wang Shifu’s Western Chamber Play In its trajectory from Dong Jieyuan’s Western Chamber ballad to Wang Sifu’s play, the story underwent a multifaceted makeover, including generic transformation, plot tightening, character development, linguistic refinement, and a change of the denouement. From a ballad script for one person playing the role of storyteller as well as all the characters to a zaju with its established role types and theatrical conventions, the change in genre was fundamental and important. In the case of Wang Shifu’s Western Chamber, this transformation was complicated by at least two factors. First, the form of Wang’s Western Chamber zaju play is very unusual in that it is five times as long (with twenty or twenty-one acts) as a standard zaju, which contains only four acts, and it also breaks the zaju’s rule requiring one character to sing in the entire play. Second, in the process of restaging and reprinting, particularly remaking and reinterpretation done by someone like Jing Shengtan, the characterization assigned to role types and social status is reevaluated, resulting in further changes. Although it still was written for zaju, Wang Shifu’s Western Chamber, even in the earliest extant Hongzhi version, was unconventional in its greater length, its elaborateness in terms of plot and characterization, and its richness and diversity in terms of music and singing. This made the story’s re-adaptation to other forms of theater (nanxi, chuanqi, and later local operas such as Beijing Opera and Yue Opera) much easier. In terms of story line and plot, Dong Jieyuan’s ballad provided sufficient materials for Wang Shifu’s rewriting, but some elements might not be fitting for theater or at least not suitable for the play that Wang wanted to write. Some intentional cuts from Dong’s version can be observed in 437

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Wang’s play. For instance, in Dong’s ballad, one-sixth of the text deals with the fight Monk Facong (Monk Huiming in Wang’s play) and Du Que engage in with Sun Feihu and his mutinous soldiers, followed by their rescue of people in the Temple of Salvation. This is eliminated in Wang’s play. Another intentional tightening was made at the end of the story: Dong Jieyuan used two chapters of his ballad (one-fourth of the narrative) to tell about Zheng Heng’s direct conflict with Zhang Gong. In it, Zheng appears at the temple and attempts to slander Zhang Gong and marry Yingying. Madam Cui’s belief in and siding with Zheng forces Zhang Gong and Yingying to elope. Advised by Facong, they seek help from Du Que, whose justified court decision leads to Zheng Heng’s suicide and the lovers’ happy wedding. This large portion of the ballad was curtailed in the fifth part of Wang’s drama script to accommodate the much-tightened plot. The plot was condensed, Wang’s Western Chamber was further dramatized by creating a climax for each of the parts: “Naozhai” (the service disturbed), “Laihun,” “Laijian” (repudiation), “Kuyan” (farewell feast), and “Tuanyuan” (union). Based on the characters’ different ages, gender, social status, and personality, two major dramatic conflicts—an overt one between Madam Cui and Cui Yingying, Hongniang, and Zhang Gong, and a covert one among the three young characters—are highlighted in Wang’s play through interaction with one another and taking turns in providing dramatic suspense and tension. The play employs sophisticated plotting techniques such as foreshadowing, use of foils, direct dealing versus implication, and economical treatment versus elaboration—winning praise from Jin Shengtan and other commentators. Although most of the plots were taken from Dong’s ballad, Wang Shifu’s play made them famous and memorable, and some were so influential that they were imitated or parodied by later playwrights.19 In discussing characterization in all three famous Western Chamber versions, C. T. Hsia made the following comment: If Yuan Chen has been the main creator of Ying-ying and if Tung Chieh-yuan has delineated Scholar Chang’s passion with a warmth and precision not surpassed in the play, then it is Wang Shih-fu’s primary distinction as the final shaper of the story that he should have chosen to give Hung Niang a role actually larger than Ying-ying’s and to compose for her some of the best scenes in the play.20 Indeed, if in Wang’s play Zhang Gong stands out as an archetypal love-crazed caizi and Yingying’s psychological conflict between desire and propriety is further heightened, Hongniang’s character is still more significantly altered. The role is elevated and celebrated as the model of the chivalrous, witty, resourceful, silver-tongued maid who was imitated or evoked by many later fictional and dramatic works in the Ming and Qing dynasties, including Honglou meng. It is not an overstatement to say that Hongniang is on a par with Zhang Gong and Cui Yingying as a major character: all three characters similarly and significantly advance the plot and intensify the drama. “Hongniang is certainly always on the go, and the lovers, when immobilized by lovesickness or despair, are goaded into action only because of her.”21 She is often the play’s commentator, at certain times giving the audience’s perspective and at others acting as a surrogate of the playwright, and her perspective adds a note of moral reflection to the play. In the scenes in Part Three particularly, in which Hongniang is assigned to sing, she constantly mocks Zhang Gong’s “ineffectuality and conceit,” Yingying’s “unsuspected slyness,” and Madam Cui’s “hypocrisy and stupidity,” holding up a critical mirror to all three main characters.22 In the act “Kaoyan,” Hongniang’s eloquent argument, intended to defend the lovers and place blame on Madam Cui, brings the audience to an emotional climax, with a poetic justice that reveals the playwright’s moral judgment and satisfies the audience’s psychological expectations. Such sophisticated self-reflection in the playwriting 438

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of Wang Shifu’s time is rare, perhaps unique; similar techniques appeared only about three hundred years later, in Li Yu’s (1611–1680) plays. The language of Wang Shifu’s Western Chamber play is “hauntingly exquisite, lyrical and evocative.”23 The play reused and refined many lines and expressions from Dong’s ballad, in addition to absorbing and borrowing poetic wording and sentences from such famous Tang and Song poets as Li Bai (701–762), Du Fu (712–770), Bai Juyi (772–846), Liu Yong (987–1053), Su Shi (1037–1101), and Li Qingzhao (1084–c.1155). No matter whether in verse or prose, the language of Wang’s play is lucid, concise, expressive, and graceful, and the language style and register fit well with each character’s age, gender, social status, and personality. The play is, among those Chinese classics, most highly praised for its language and most frequently quoted, with many famous lines generally known, thanks not only to Wang Shifu but also to the many editors and compilers who, over centuries, worked to refine the play. Wang Shifu also altered Dong Jieyuan’s denouement, tightening it and giving it a conventional happy reunion. Having passed the examination at a high level and then being appointed governor of Hezhong prefecture, Zhang Gong returns to the Temple of Salvation and, after exposing Zheng Heng’s evildoing, marries Yingying. Although this ending has seemed clichéd and less meaningful or interesting to many critics, it brings the drama to its comedic close in line with Dong Jieyuan’s ballad. Despite his vehement criticism of Part Five—its supposed inferiority in language and content, and particularly its ending—Jin Shengtan nevertheless preserved it in his annotated version, completing the highly sanitized but popular version of the drama that we have today.

Notes 1 Romance of the Western Chamber is referred to as Western Chamber hereafter. 2 Wilt L. Idema, “Story of the Western Wing: Tale, Ballad, and Play,” in How to Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology, ed. Patricia Sieber and Regina Llamas (New York: Colombia University Press, 2022), 35. 3 Wilt L. Idema, “Data on the Chu-kung tiao,” T’oung Pao LXXIX (1993): 81. 4 Although some scholars believe that Dong Jieyuan was a Southern Song personality, many have challenged this theory, citing internal and external evidence. Among these, Zhang Haimei’s monograph on the vocabulary study of the extant two major works (The Liu Zhiyuan Ballad and Dong Jieyuan’s Western Chamber) of all keys and modes is quite convincing, for Zhang’s study testifies that a good number of words used in both works only existed during Jin’s time and region (in the north part of China) and before the Yuan dynasty. See Haimei Zhang, Jindai zhugongdiao cihui yanjiu [The Vocabulary Study of All Keys and Modes of Jin Dynasty] (Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 2014), 26–77. 5 See Li-li Ch’en, Master Tung’s Western Chamber Romance (Tung Hsi-hsiang chu-kung-tiao): A Chinese Chantefable (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Reprint ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 1. 6 See Li-li Ch’en, “Outer and Inner Forms of Chu-kung-tiao, with Reference to Pien-wen, Tz’u and Vernacular Fiction,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 32 (1972): 124–49; Ch’en, Master Tung’s Western Chamber Romance, xxvii, and Hui Ye and Bing Zhang, Su wenhua de yahua: ci yu zhugongdiao de xingqi yu fazhan [The Refinement of Popular Culture: The Rise and Development of Ci Poetry and of All Keys and Modes] (Beijing: Xuelin chubanshe, 2010), 97–136. 7 Premodern Chinese musical modes, or gongdiao, correspond to the musical keys of C (gong), D (shang), E (jue), F (bianzhi), G (zhi), A (yu), and B (biangong); the music in gong mode (gongdiaoshi) is based on gong or the key of C, for example, and when based on D, or shang, it is referred to as shang mode (shangdiaoshi). In translating Chinese musical modes, using the English word “keys” would be easily understood by English readers. However, I placed the word “modes” in brackets because it is more frequently used to refer to gongdiao in actual translation practice. 8 As for the count of the modes and tunes, see Zhengmin Li, “Dong Jieyuan Xixiang ji de ticai jiqi minjian wenyi tese” [The Genre and Folk Art Characteristics of Dong Jieyuan’s Romance of the Western Chamber], Zhonghua xiqu 29, no. 2 (June 2003): 95. 9 Idema, “Data on the Chu-kung tiao,” 99.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 1 0 Idema, “Data on the Chu-kung tiao,” 74; Ch’en, Master Tung’s Western Chamber Romance, xvii. 11 Ch’en, Master Tung’s Western Chamber Romance, xxvi. 12 Zhong Sicheng, Luguibu, Vol. 1 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1978). Unless otherwise indicated, English translations are mine. 13 Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema, “The Status of Wang Shifu’s Story of the Western Wing in Chinese Literature,” in The Story of the Western Wing, ed. and trans. with an intro. Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 15. 14 West and Idema, “The Status of Wang Shifu’s Story of the Western Wing in Chinese Literature,” 7. 15 See Sally K. Church, “Beyond the Words: Jin Shengtan’s Perception of Hidden Meanings in Xixiang ji,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 59, no. 1 (June 1999): 5–77. 16 Wang Shifu, “Du Diliu caizishu Xixiang ji fa” [How to Read the Six Genius Book Romance of the Western Chamber], in Xixiang ji: Jin Shengtan pingdian, 5. 17 Qiancheng Li offers a different Buddhist interpretation of the tragic ending proposed by Jin Shengtan, suggesting that such an ending revolved on the concept of union and separation. See Qiancheng Li, “Between Union and Separation: Xixiang ji and the Tragic,” in his book Transmutations of Desire (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2020), 131–43. 18 West and Idema, “The Status of Wang Shifu’s Story of the Western Wing in Chinese Literature,” 9. 19 For example, Li Yu parodies Xixiang ji in his play Fengzheng wu, or The Mistake with the Kite. 20 C. T. Hsia, “An Introduction to the Romance of the Western Chamber,” in his C. T. Hsia on Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 96. 21 Hsia, “An Introduction to the Romance of the Western Chamber,” 96–97. 22 Hsia, “An Introduction to the Romance of the Western Chamber,” 97. 23 Qiancheng Li, “Between Union and Separation,” 117.

Further Reading Ch’en, Li-li. Master Tung’s Western Chamber Romance (Tung Hsi-hsiang chu-kung-tiao): A Chinese Chantefable. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Reprint ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Ch’en, Li-li. “Outer and Inner Forms of Chu-kung-tiao, with Reference to Pien-wen, Tz’u and Vernacular Fiction.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 32 (1972): 124–49. Ch’en, Li-li. “Some Background Information on the Development of Chu-kung-tiao.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 33 (1973): 224–37. Dong Jieyuan. Dong Jieyuan Xixiang ji [Dong Jieyuan’s Story of the Western Chamber]. Annotated by Ling Jingyuan. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1962. Hsiung, S. I. Hsi hsiang chi [The Romance of the Western Chamber]. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968. Idema, Wilt L. “Data on the Chu-kung tiao.” T’oung Pao LXXIX (1993): 69–109. Idema, Wilt L. “Story of the Western Wing: Tale, Ballad, and Play.” In How to Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology, edited by Patricia Sieber and Regina Llamas, 31–51. New York: Colombia University Press, 2022. Wang Shifu. Xixiang ji: Jin Shengtan pingdian [Romance of the Western Chamber with Annotations by Jin Shengtan]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2016. Wang Shifu. Xinkan qimiao quanxiang zhushi Xixiang ji [A Newly Printed Deluxe Completely Illustrated and Annotated Romance of the Western Chamber]. Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1955. West, Stephen H., and Idema, Wilt L. The Romance of the Western Wing. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Zheng Zhenduo. “Song Jin Yuan zhugongdiao kao” [The Study of All Keys and Modes in Song, Jin, and Yuan]. In Zhongguo wenxue yanjiu [The Study of Chinese Literature], edited by Zheng Zhenduo, 18–128. Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1927. Reprint ed., Vol. 2. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2000.

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SECTION XII

Southern Plays of Ethics

37 TOP GRADUATE ZHANG XIE Regina Llamas

Top Graduate Zhang Xie (hereafter Top Graduate) is the earliest play we have in the southern tradition. It was discovered by chance when the scholar Ye Gongchuo (1881–1968) found a lost volume of the Ming Yongle Collectanea in a secondhand bookstore in London. The Yongle was a monumental collection of full-length ancient and modern texts gathered from throughout the empire and compiled by imperial commission in 1403. Completed in 1408, it was preserved in two manuscript editions, one kept in Beijing, and the other in Nanjing. The Yongle volume Ye found, which is now preserved in the Rare Book Room of the National Taiwan Library, was not an original one but a copy made during the Jiajing era (1521–1567) to restore a lost volume. This volume includes the only three remaining dramatic texts of the thirty-three that were originally included in the collectanea. Of the three, Top Graduate is considered the earliest extant play genuinely representative of a southern theatrical tradition. The other two, Little Butcher Sun (Xiao Sun tu) and A Playboy from a Noble House Opts for the Wrong Career (Huanmen zidi cuolishen), are adaptations of northern zaju plays. All three of these plays can almost certainly be dated to the late Yuan dynasty and perhaps even earlier, making them among the earliest extant Chinese plays.1 When the manuscript of Top Graduate first appears in the early fifteenth century, early southern drama (nanxi), is already a fully formed dramatic genre. It has a distinctive musical style and a clear narrative structure organized into acts and scenes. It makes use of a set of roles distinctive to Chinese theater, and all roles can sing.2 By the time Top Graduate is included in the Yongle, the dramatic conventions of this form were well understood: this is evident not just from its dramatic structure but also from its playful use of self-referential allusions to the actor’s art (as when a character tells another not to disclose their artistic secrets to the audience) or through the disruption of established acting conventions, such as the use of a subordinate comic role to perform the character of a high-level official. In short, although Top Graduate is the earliest extant southern drama, it was likely preceded by many other plays that did not survive. We know very little about early southern drama before this play. The totality of the sources we have before the appearance of Top Graduate amount to a smattering of facts drawn from off-hand remarks (biji) written by thirteenth- and fourteenth-century scholar aficionados. These notes suggest a type of regional musical performance from the area of Wenzhou (in modern-day Zhejiang) that was popular among local youth. It included declaimed or spoken parts, incorporated some form of narrative storytelling, and required a certain amount of musical specialization. These earlier  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-52

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sources tell us nothing concrete about the structure or mode of the performance: if they were actual plays performed in the first person voice of characters or if they made use of roles, if actors wore makeup and costume, or what setting these performances used. By the time Ming aficionados and playwrights begin to pay attention to the origins of this southern tradition in the late fifteenth century, they are already far removed from their alleged sources, and Top Graduate had been incorporated into the Yongle Collectanea for over half a century.

Authorship, Preludes, and Plot Top Graduate is the work of a collective author, The Nine Mountain Society (Jiushan shuhui), a Southern Song association of writers from Wenzhou first mentioned in a thirteenth-century memoir of the city of Lin’an (modern-day Hangzhou). Writing societies were urban writing clubs composed of educated members of society; clerks; entry-level licentiates; or perhaps simply men with artistic ambitions, time on their hands and an interest in popular entertainment. The members of these societies were known as men of talent (cairen), or more generally “poets,” and were presumed to work in close relation with performers. But we cannot be sure if literary societies really wrote for these troupes or if troupes were simply trying to elevate their cultural status by associating themselves with men of talent. The authors of these societies seem to have composed plays collectively, as is the case of Top Graduate’s Nine Mountain Society. Top Graduate begins with two declaimed song-lyrics (ci) expressing the author’s outlook on life and summarizing the play. Before these two poems, there is a quatrain outlining the main events of the story called the Title (timu), but which is not read by any role. Top Graduate’s prologue represents our first instance of the two song-lyrics convention utilized by later southern drama, and perhaps one of the most memorable and original examples of this practice. The introduction is composed as if it were a marketing ploy for a performance of amateurs in a public competition with other troupes. The first lyric, Shuidiao getou, begins with a reminder to the audience of the ineluctable passage of time and the need to enjoy moments of leisure and pleasure. The second lyric, Manting fang, reinforces the troupe’s abilities, praising their innovative comic and musical prowess, and informing us that they will put on an innovative rendition of what is already a familiar and well-known piece: The Story of Zhang Xie. As the role of the fumo—who introduces the play—begins to hush the crowd in preparation for the inception of the play, it insinuates a raucous audience gathered for the performance and full of expectation. These two lyrics are followed by an All Keys chantefable (zhugongdiao) on the story of Top Graduate Zhang Xie. The All Keys is a type of story, alternating prose and song passages, generally written to different tunes and ascribed to different keys (gongdiao). However, Top Graduate’s All Keys is considered a “southern” All Keys, which makes use of the form but with no indication of the actual keys or music. Since the musical element in the All Keys was essential for its performance, what happens when one of its main features, the music, disappears? In this All Keys there are only five expressive songs of one single stanza each, describing either the natural scene or Zhang Xie’s emotions, but none of these songs reappears in the play. The end of the second introductory poem announces the summary of the story in the form of an All Keys, and the conclusion of the All Keys announces the theatrical performance of the play. Here we find a second introduction with two poems (also song-lyrics ci) that repeat the attributes and standards of the first one with some variation. Both poems establish the same benchmark of the first prologue: the comic acumen of the actors, the excellence of their makeup and costume, and the proficiency of their music with standards on a par with the Imperial Music Bureau. Why the writers or perhaps later editors felt a need to include two very similar prologues and twice inform the audience of the 444

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troupe’s skills is a mystery. But by the time Top Graduate was edited to be inserted in the Yongle collectanea, this format, which was clearly intentional and well woven together, may have been kept intact because of its creative nature and its aesthetic value. Its originality can be appreciated to this day. Top Graduate tells the story of a talented scholar who leaves his home to go to the capital and sit for the imperial examinations. On the way to the capital, he is robbed and beaten by a bandit and is forced to spend some time in a village temple to recover. Here, he meets Poorlass (Pinnü), who takes care of him and restores him back to health. Poorlass is a girl from a local wealthy family who was orphaned at a young age and, having lost all her property, now lives alone in the temple. She survives through the generosity of a well-to-do landholding village couple, Grandma and Grandpa Li, and by helping them and other villagers with odd jobs. When Zhang Xie recovers from his wounds, to show gratitude—and possibly to preserve her reputation—he asks Poorlass to marry him. Soon after, Zhang Xie leaves for the capital to sit for the exams. To cover his traveling expenses, Poorlass sells her hair. Zhang Xie leaves the village promising to come back and take her home to his parents in Sichuan. Once on the road, however, Zhang Xie berates himself for his impetuosity and explains that marriage was not part of his original plan. When Zhang Xie reaches the capital, he passes the exams as Top Graduate and soon becomes the chosen candidate to marry Shenghua, the young daughter of Wang Deyong, the military affairs commissioner, who has just come of age. Zhang Xie declines the offer, claiming that to accept this marriage without being able to inform his parents would be unfilial, but never mentions his former marriage to Poorlass. This unexpected nugget of information on the pressure licentiates bore from high officials to marry their daughters may reflect, to a degree, a popular sentiment at the time, but it was not a felicitous decision. When Shenghua, who has led a cushioned and comfortable life and is wholeheartedly anticipating the match, is met with Zhang Xie’s rejection, her humiliation is so profound it saps her strength and leads to her death. Her enraged father, the military affairs commissioner, swears to avenge his daughter and asks to be reappointed as a senior official to Zizhou, where Zhang Xie has been posted. In the meantime, Poorlass, back in the village, has had no news from Zhang Xie. She asks Xiao’er, the clownish son of the Lis who is on his way to town, to buy the booklet where the results of the metropolitan examinees are posted. When she finds out that Zhang Xie has taken first place in the exams, she decides to travel to the capital and look for him. After a harrowing, long trip, Poorlass reaches the yamen where Zhang Xie resides, but she is not allowed in. On the contrary, as he realizes that the destitute and ragged woman at his door is Poorlass, he disavows her and asks the guards to turn her out. Exhausted and penniless, she is forced to beg her way back to her village. When she arrives, she informs the Lis she could not find Zhang Xie and says nothing of the outcome of her trip. After Poorlass leaves the yamen, Zhang Xie, humiliated by her poverty, resolves to stop by the village temple on his way to take up his post and to “pull up the trouble by the roots.” One spring day, when Poorlass is picking tea leaves and waiting for Grandma Li to arrive, Zhang Xie arrives in the village, slashes her with his sword, and leaves, thinking her dead. However, Poorlass does not die. She is soon found by the Lis and taken back to the temple, where she slowly recovers under their care. Once again, she tells them nothing of what has passed between herself and Zhang Xie. On the way to Zizhou, Military Affairs Commissioner Wang Deyong and his wife spend a night at the local temple, where they find Poorlass. Astonished at the striking resemblance to their recently deceased daughter, the commissioner and his wife decide to adopt the young girl and take her with 445

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them to his new post. Hereafter, the story sets in motion a series of turns that lead to a surprising conclusion. If the summary of the plot points to a heart-rending story of ungratefulness and retribution, the reader is in for a surprise, since this play is primarily a farce destined for a happy ending. Every harrowing moment is balanced out by the playful antics of the comic roles, so that every act is resolved in a midpoint between pathos and glee. For example, the loneliness expressed by Poorlass in recounting her fate is balanced out by the endless absurdities of Grandma Li; when Poorlass learns of Zhang Xie’s success through Xiao’er, the Lis’ son, and is distraught that he has not sent her a letter, Xiao’er makes up a witty song about Zhang Xie’s ungratefulness; in ritual ceremonies, when gods are called for, the gods are more interested in the food and wine provided than in the protection of their constituents. Even after Shenghua dies, the ludicrous comments of her father Wang Deyong, the military affairs commissioner, immediately dispel any tragic sentiment incurred at that moment. The acts and scenes in Top Graduate Zhang Xie are organized as a succession of dramatic crises followed by a succession of comic skits that conclude with the reunion of Zhang Xie and Poorlass in a final fitting scene.

The Critique of the Ungrateful Scholar Story Top Graduate belongs to a group of early drama stories—about one third of the totality of extant nanxi plays—that relate the story of a young and talented provincial scholar who leaves his newly wedded wife and ageing parents and goes to the capital to sit for the metropolitan exams. He passes the examination with high honors and is named top graduate, immediately acquiring fame and attaining a position. Like Zhang Xie, the scholar is sought after by the elites of the capital because of his talent, and he is soon persuaded to discard his earlier provincial wife for a daughter of the nobility. Thereupon, his former wife goes to the capital in search of her husband and finds him only to be disavowed. The denouement of these other stories generally culminates in divine retribution or female revenge. Most of the ungrateful scholar stories exploit the tensions that accompany male ambitions for status and power, and the young scholar’s quest for prestige and success that often leads to betrayal. The plays question the aims of education, the examination system, the misuse of position and power, and the consequent disruption and destabilization of harmonious social relations. The imperial examination system is presented in the ungrateful scholar plays as the unquestionable legitimate means of access to power. Yet, at the same time, these texts call into question the motivation of scholars, reflecting one aspect of the neo-Confucian view on learning in which true worth was defined by one’s success in realizing one’s moral nature. Neo-Confucians viewed learning primarily as a means to improve one’s mind for the sake of individual growth, not for social advancement. But these plays clearly stress the opposite: while it is true that the young scholars express a desire to apply their knowledge and serve the emperor, this is immediately qualified by the material aspect of their desires, “to sell” one’s abilities in order to acquire rank and profit, and to improve the family’s status. The Confucian ideal viewed education as an instrument of moral reinforcement, but these stories present the scholar’s material quest for fame and power as a single-minded aim acquired at the expense of virtuous conduct. The scholar’s quest was not just the result of personal ambition, but of the conflicting demands placed on him by state and family. The plays illustrate how familial aspirations for status and the economic security the imperial stipend provided, pressured these sons of flawless filial principles to make the pursuit of wealth their primary goal. They are a critique of the impossibility of education to fulfill its goals, and they draw attention to the gap that existed between the moral and ritual codes of behavior in the formative process of scholars and their implementation. In other words, 446

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whereas the moral code could perhaps be learned, study did not instill in the scholar an ethical conscience. By contrast, the stories place a premium on female virtue and endurance. The plays are not specific critiques of individual figures but rather use the characters as synecdochic figures—where scholars stand for a failed education system, and female characters stand for orthodox moral values. Women are the scholar’s match and are used as a contrast to their male counterparts to call attention to the moral qualities distinctive to both roles. Poorlass is the equivalent of the “three-day wife,” so-called because she is separated from her husband a few days after she has been married. She is the archetype of female virtue and endurance, and it is always her cause we advocate throughout the story. Poorlass’ plight is established from the beginning when she recounts how she came to live alone in the village temple. While the Lis protect her and minister to her needs, the one single medium of exchange and most important property she possesses is her virtue, which she has kept intact throughout Zhang Xie’s recovery. Her anger at Zhang Xie when he proposes marriage to her further highlights her virtuous nature, and similarly, when Zhang Xie marries her, it seems to be on account of her virtue. But the demands made on the female character are superhuman: When Poorlass learns of Zhang Xie’s success, yet gets no message from him, she determines to go to the capital, search for him, and cause him to honor his marriage contract. When she is repudiated outside his yamen, she bears this humiliation with strength of character and resolves to return to her village and bear her lot with dignity. And when Zhang Xie tries to kill her on his way to take up his post, she once again decides to keep the attack and her misfortunes to herself. Why, one asks, does she not tell the Lis? The import seems to be that should she denounce Zhang Xie, their difference in status and her gender would make no difference in the outcome—there is no law to protect her. Poorlass’ predicament, which she bears with prodigious fortitude, underlines the remarkable endurance demanded of the main female role, and yet both her absolute virtue and strength of character are difficult, if not impossible, heroic models to emulate. Poorlass’ innate moral compass is clearly established in contrast to the scholar’s lack of ethics, which should have been shaped through his schooling in the Confucian classics. The female role’s inborn understanding of right and wrong is the precise opposite of the male role’s learned code of ethics, and this seems to be at the crux of the ideological discussion in this play—that a moral compass cannot be learned. The second female role is generally the daughter of a powerful official. Rather than an object of desire, she is a means for the scholar to access power. In later plays, the scholar’s rejection of his first wife is caused mostly by his personal ambition, but perhaps too, by a desire to repay his parents and change the family’s status. When Zhang Xie rejects the military commissioner’s offer of marriage to his daughter, her death trumps all expectations: Shenghua may have been his shortcut to power, but the humiliation he inflicts upon her family produces the opposite effect, projecting a bleak future for the ambitious scholar. Shenghua’s demise is Poorlass’ rise, and we soon understand the need to remove the commissioner’s daughter from the play, since the developing demands of the plot must assure the play a “just” and happy ending (datuanyuan). In other plays, the first wife exacts retribution from Heaven or avenges herself, but in Top Graduate, possibly due to the exigencies of an urban commercial audience, someone who has suffered such opprobrium demands to be compensated with status plus material benefits, showing an evolving interpretation of female sacrifice. Thus the play concludes with an ingenious but disturbing finale: in an unexpected twist of the plot, Zhang Xie’s despicable conduct and Poorlass’ moral stamina culminate in a conventional denouement wherein Poorlass’ social position is restituted, increasing her well-being and reducing the likelihood of more unnecessary suffering. 447

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Structure of the Play: Balance Scenes The plays contained in the Yongle edition were not divided into scenes, and the distinction in script sizes generally employed from the mid- and late Ming editions to differentiate singing parts (large) from the spoken ones (small) is not used. This is possibly due to a premium placed on space in the collectanea, which was large and expensive to compile. Stage directions, however, are written in smaller script and indicated by leaving a blank space between the characters, and song titles are included in brackets. The modern editor of the play, Qian Nanyang (1899–1987), divided the play into acts according to the entrance and exit of roles, the plot of the story, and the musical organization of the play. In addition to the entrance and exit of roles, another fundamental criteria for the composers of the play was a balance between the comic acts, generally played by the comic roles, and the serious ones mostly sung by the main male and female roles. Acts tend to begin with a role entering with a popular saying and leaving with a quatrain, sung by two or more roles. Qian’s division is based on the complete exit of roles in an act, but within the act, the number of roles can also change, creating smaller units or scenes. For example, act sixteen consists of three parts: (1) the large marriage scene with Zhang Xie, Poorlass, Grandpa Li and his son Xiao’er, as well as the officiating god; (2) at the end of this scene, all roles leave the stage, but Zhang Xie and Poorlass stay and sing a song promising to honor each other forever. In the last scene of this act, (3) all roles come back to celebrate the marriage feast.3 Although scenes within an act are bound by sequences of related events, there are cases where scenes are quasi-independent units unrelated to the main story. For example, act two is divided into three scenes: (1) Zhang Xie’s introduction to the play, (2) Zhang Xie and friends, and (3) Zhang Xie and his father. The first scene is necessary because it introduces the play, but the second scene could be removed without affecting the inner coherence of the act or the overall plot of the story. This type of segmented assembly is a recurring constitutive particularity of this play: for example, the structure of scene 2 in act 2 is repeated (without Zhang Xie) in scene 2 of act 8. The first and last marriage scenes also mirror each other. Like some scenes, acts are not seamlessly integrated but rather juxtaposed, following the needs of the action of the story and the characters. Each act functions like an autonomous unit of space and time that cannot be clearly linked to other acts. Thus, Zhang Xie’s parting scene, which occurs in his hometown in Sichuan, is followed by a short lyrical act where Poorlass in her village sings of how she met with her present condition as a lonely and destitute young orphan living in the village temple. This structure, alternating serious and comic scenes, is the mechanism employed to balance the mood of the play, or the more woeful moments with the humorous ones.

The Role System and Music The seven basic roles (jiaose or juese) of southern theater first appear in Top Graduate. At the end of act one, the mo role, who is about to exit after having introduced the play with an All Keys and Modes, states: “You performers (juese) backstage, boldly strike your drums to urge us on while the moni role (se) gives us a dance.”4 The mo is the role singing the All Keys and asking the main male role or sheng to enter the stage. In general terms a role is a method of performance. It refers to a set of competences—gestures, a language register, a singing manner, a specific costume and face paint, gait, and a general temperament—that an actor needs to represent a character on stage. Roles mediate between the actor and the character, and their relationship is one of skill. The role indicates what type of character or characters the actor is playing, whether it is a comic or serious one, and its relationship to other 448

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roles and characters. Character is exemplified by human traits, and it informs the role with whatever gender (male or female), age (old or young), status (rich or old) and disposition (good or bad) it needs to depict. Because so much of the role is conveyed by technique, there are no gender or age restrictions for actors, and a young female role can be represented by a middle-aged actor or actress. In Top Graduate, as in many of these early plays, characters are not well developed or concerned with psychological depth. They tend to reflect exemplary models of human conduct, displaying the most prominent and commonplace traits in a category of individuals. For example, Xiao’er, the middle-aged son of the Lis, is played by a chou role and consistently displays the human traits required of this role: gluttony, greed, laziness or meanness. Most chou roles, no matter their status, will perform their characters making ample use of these human flaws, which are what the role requires—thus, the robber, the military affairs commissioner, or the most insignificant of the mountain gods will play according to the norms of the role, exhibiting some or all of the same basic human traits. At this early stage, role norms predominate over the nuances of character, and character is generally played according to both the conventions of character delineation and the norms of the role. This may well be one reason why characters in the text are always introduced by their role type (e.g., sheng) rather than by their character name (e.g., Zhang Xie). In this modular system, the seven roles can be divided into two large categories—serious and comic roles—but this distinction is not clear cut. The main male (sheng) and female (dan) roles are serious, gender-specific and restricted to performing only the characters they have been assigned. There is a second female role (tie) who can play more than one character but only female characters. By contrast, the two comics: the comic (jing) and the clown (chou), can perform a number of characters, both male and female, menial or of high status. The comic jing, for example, performs thirteen characters, of which four are female, and the clown chou performs nine, of which one is female. The chou, which is the lowliest of roles, also performs the character with the most status, the military affairs commissioner, and has an important part as the robber. Perhaps the least specific of the seven roles is the mo, often called the second male role. It can play any number of characters (fifteen in Top Graduate), is gender specific, and is both serious and comic: it introduces the play and plays medium neutral roles, but more often this role participates in the comics’ routines, capping their jokes. The mo has a kind of omniscient position in the play, reining in the absurdities of the comics but also commenting on the actions of the main role. There is one other role, called the extra or wai, which can perform both male and female characters. Comedy in Top Graduate is farcical, both verbally and physically, and it has an unusually dominant role in the play. Typically, the verbal repertoire makes use of the ambiguity of language, puns, homophones, riddles, onomatopoeia, and incongruity both in the form of absurd remarks and discordant replies. There is also much slapstick, carried out by the jing and the chou roles in the form of stage chases or through martial arts. Mime, too, is another effective physical form of comic performance: before Zhang Xie reaches the temple, the temple god orders the other two minor gods to pose as doors, substituting for the tattered former ones. Zhang Xie enters, closing the door, and when Poorlass arrives, she knocks forcefully on the door (the back of one of the gods), with the ensuing groaning and complaining of the god.5 Farce mostly indulges the voracity of the sensual desires of the comics but also aims at the intersecting realms of the divine and the human, where the pleasure-seeking gods demand to satisfy their mundane desires in exchange for divine protection to the community. The mode also tangentially includes a political dimension, upending the status quo of figures in power. Comic scenes are generally conducted by three roles: the clown chou, the comic jing, and the mo who acts as intermediary. There is a very specific dialogic routine carried out between the mo role 449

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and one of the two comic roles (jing or chou) where the mo is constantly responding or capping the jokes of one of them. These two comic roles (jing and chou) are the genuine taboo breakers—they embody the basest human inclinations and desires: gluttony, sex, greed, vulgarity, indolence, and so on—and deride social inhibitions and conventions. The role in charge of curbing and restraining the antics of these two comics is the mo, who continuously reminds the crowd of the comic roles’ ill-judged and foolish actions. The superior wit of the mo exemplifies the detached voice of reason and authority and contributes to keeping the farce within permissible limits. The mo’s comments, generally directed at the audience, place the role at the threshold between the theater and its viewers, between drama’s intended act of deception and the real world of the spectators, and most importantly between containment and release. His continuous commentary on the antics of the comics incorporates the audience into the role’s viewpoint and compels it into assimilating his position. Thus, while the audience complicitly laughs at the tomfoolery of the comic’s representation of human imperfection –—our collective imperfection—the mo at the threshold reminds the spectators that these actions are socially proscribed. The mo is the most orthodox of roles, the one that reins in the comedy and establishes and ensures reasonable moral standards in the theater.6 A final and important aspect of comedy in Zhang Xie is theatrical self-referentiality. Theater’s allusion to itself is employed throughout the play as humor, often as a form of parody, for example, to upend status by making use of the lowliest role, the chou, to perform the character with the highest status, Military Commissioner Wang Deyong. Those moments of metatheatricality also underscore the fictional nature of the theater, where conventional gimmicks used in the theater are periodically disclosed, such as males playing female roles, by pointing to the large unbound feet under the female costume. To conclude, I will add a final word on music. Studying the music of theater is plagued by the same problems of ephemerality and transmission that affect other aspects of performance, since music was transmitted orally, from master to student, and playwrights and musicians did not have an adequate means of notation. All we now have left from this medium are the song forms as they appear in the plays, anthologies, and song formularies. One look at Top Graduate or any later southern dramatic text will immediately inform us of the importance of music and of its structural organization: texts are largely a collection of single songs and song suites interspersed with dialogue and declamatory pieces written in parallel prose. Still, these texts reveal nothing of the aural nature of the song, rendering reconstructing what the music actually sounded like with any precision impossible. In fact, we are still not even sure in what language these songs were sung. For example, the late Ming scholar Gu Qiyuan (1565–1628) pointed out that the Haiyan style, one of the four dominant musical airs at the time, was popular in Zhejiang and was in large measure performed in the official Mandarin language, or a local modification thereof: “Haiyan makes use of an abundance of official language and it is used [in performance] by people in both capitals.” (Haiyan duo guanyu; liang jing ren yongzhi).7 Yiyang, on the other hand, was sung in a local language and was very popular among the local gentry and the people. Over time, aficionados have confirmed the use of local language in southeastern theater. Although southern theater is native to the southeast, and Top Graduate is its earliest extant play, Top Graduate is not written in local dialect and makes little use of local dialect even in the spoken and comic parts where it is later conventionally used.8 One reason for this relative lack of dialect could be that our version of the play was edited to be included in an imperial encyclopedia, but it is also possible that this type of theater was produced in larger cities and intended for a literate and semi-literate group versed in a form of standardized vernacular. The register of language both in the spoken and sung parts is very close to a spoken vernacular and is occasionally sprinkled with local dialect. But the dearth of sources on early southern has not even allowed scholars to determine whether early southern theater was accompanied by musical 450

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instrumentation or not. In Top Graduate, when the main male role enters the stage, he requests the troupe to play an overture. But, it seems, not all southern theater included instrumental accompaniment, and there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Notes 1 All citations of the Chinese text refer to Qian Nanyang (1899–1987), Yongle dadian xiwen sanzhong jiaozhu [Collated and Annotated Three Southern Plays from the Yongle Collectanea] (Taipei: Huazheng shuju, 1985). Qian’s volume includes Little Butcher Sun and A Playboy from a Noble House Opts for the Wrong Career. For an English introduction and translation to Top Graduate, see Regina S. Llamas, Top Graduate Zhang Xie: The Earliest Extant Chinese Southern Play (Columbia University Press, 2021). 2 In addition to its designation as nanxi, other terms were used to label this tradition: play-songs (xiqu), Wenzhou drama (Wenzhou zaju) and play-texts (xiwen). 3 The exception is the god, which is played by a jing role. The role needs to leave in order for Grandma Li, who is also played by a jing role, to enter. See Qian, Yongle dadian xiwen sanzhong jiaozhu, act 16; Llamas, Top Graduate Zhang Xie, act 16. 4 Qian, Yongle dadian xiwen sanzhong jiaozhu, 4; Llamas, Top Graduate Zhang Xie, 94. 5 Qian, Yongle dadian xiwen sanzhong jiaozhu, 56–57; Llamas, Top Graduate Zhang Xie, 141–42. 6 See Llamas, Top Graduate Zhang Xie, 67. 7 See Gu Qiyuan, “xiju,” in Kezuo zhuiyu, SKQS, 3rd ser. (Jinan: Qilu Shushe, 1995), juan 9, 243.343. 8 Although it does not make widespread use of local dialect, it does use some expressions repeatedly. See Guo Zuofei, “Yongle dadian xiwen sanzhong jiaozhu sanshili” [Three Edited and Annotated Southern Plays from the Yongle Collectanea: Thirty Examples], Tushuguan zazhi 24, no. 12 (2005): 77–80, 96.

Further Reading Hu Xuegang. Zhang Xie zhuangyuan jiaoshi [A Collated and Annotated Edition of Top Graduate Zhang Xie]. Wenzhou wenxian congshu. Shanghai: Shehui kexue chubanshe, 2006. Llamas, Regina S. Top Graduate Zhang Xie: The Earliest Extant Chinese Southern Play. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022. Qian Nanyang. Hanshang yi wencun, Liang Zhu xiju jicun [Collected Essays by Hangshang yi; The Collected Plays of Liang Shanpo and Zhu Yingtai]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2009. Qian Nanyang. Xiwen gailun [An Introduction to Southern Theater]. Taipei: Muduo chubanshe, 1989. Qian Nanyang. Yongle dadian xiwen sanzhong jiaozhu [Collated and Annotated Three Southern Plays from the Yongle Collectanea]. Taipei: Huazheng shuju, 1985. Sun Chongtao. “Zhang Xie Zhuangyuan yu Yongjia zaju” [Top Graduate Zhang Xie and Yongjia Theater]. Wenyi yanjiu 6 (1992): 105–14. Yu Weimin. Song Yuan nanxi kaolun xubian [A Sequel to the Study of Song and Yuan Southern Drama]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004.

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38 THE THORN HAIRPIN Patricia Sieber

Considered one of the four masterpieces of early Southern drama (nanxi), Jingchai ji, or Thorn Hairpin, is an anonymously authored play dating to approximately the fourteenth century. It is a domestic drama whose theme is the adverse impact of the male lead’s examination success in the capital on his family in the countryside. The questions that this and other early Southern plays address and develop, with varying plot elements, include the following: Who should a young woman in the countryside marry? A wealthy suitor (merchant), a happy commoner (peasant), or a talented but poor student (scholar)? Should a family invest in an impoverished scholar in the hopes that everyone’s fortunes will improve upon his eventual examination success? Or should her family refrain from such a match for fear that he would abandon her once he becomes eligible to marry a woman of much higher standing? Will the successful scholar contact his family in the countryside, or would he, for one reason or another, stay incommunicado? Would he opportunistically seek to cast aside his country wife (as in Zhang Xie zhuangyuan, Top Graduate Zhang Xie)? Would he consent to a new marriage to a socially prominent wife, but incessantly long for family and wife in the countryside (Pipaji, The Lute)? Or would he want to stay faithful but become the victim of unscrupulous schemers (Thorn Hairpin)? In what follows, we will first consider Thorn Hairpin’s plot innovation before delving into two aspects of the play’s reception in the late imperial and modern periods: first, the discussion among late Ming critics of its language choices and, second, the potential reasons for its staying power in the repertoire, as it was adapted into later theatrical styles.

The Novel Plot of Mutual Marital Fidelity Thorn Hairpin distinguishes itself through a plot line that gives equal due to female and male marital fidelity. As in many other Southern domestic dramas, the object named in the title not only attests to the enduring nature of a marital bond but has both symbolic and diegetic value. Typical hairpins were made of precious metals like gold and were inlaid with precious stones (jinchai), usually serving as betrothal gifts. Accordingly, as a non-standard gift signaling “poverty,” the object named in the title of the play alerts viewers to the marital dilemmas surrounding male social mobility. At a diegetic level, it serves as the object that allows for an unexpected, but happy, reunion of the two main protagonists after many years of separation, thus serving as a love token DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-53 

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and emblem of marital devotion. Importantly, however, rather than simply dwelling on female devotion to a husband as a response to loss—a Confucian virtue advocated by Song dynasty philosophers—the play develops in equal measure the notion of male fidelity in the absence of the wife. The play comes off less as an exercise in Confucian behavior than as an appropriation of Confucian concepts in the name of marital love and devotion. Highlights of the plot include the following scenes: the young woman (cast as the young female lead, dan), Qian Yulian accepts the eponymous “thorn hairpin” as a betrothal gift, in lieu of the standard “golden hairpin” (jinchai), from impoverished scholar Wang Shipeng (cast as a young male lead, sheng), a move that is supported by her father but frowned upon by her stepmother. In contrast to The Lute’s Cai Bojie, who is loath to leave his family behind in the countryside, Wang Shipeng is eager to prove himself in the civil service examinations and sets out promptly. Upon passing the metropolitan civil service exam as the top graduate, Wang is invited to marry the daughter of the prime minister. Unlike the reluctant, but compliant Cai Bojie, Wang Shipeng turns down the offer on account of his devotion to Yulian, undeterred by the retaliatory prospect of a delayed and less favorable official appointment. When Wang sends a letter to request that his parents and his wife accompany him to his first official post, an erstwhile suitor of Yulian, the rich merchant Sun Ruquan, in a scheme to marry her himself, intercepts and falsifies the letter to make the family believe that Wang has divorced Yulian. Rather than submit to her family’s decision that she should remarry, Yulian seeks to commit suicide by drowning herself in the river. Unbeknownst to her family, she is rescued by the prefect Qian Anfu, who not only shares her surname but adopts her as his daughter. Meanwhile, Wang Shipeng steadfastly refuses to remarry, even at the risk of ending his family’s patrilineage, thus prioritizing his love for his (as he believes) deceased wife over the needs of his family. After many years, when Wang and Qian accidentally meet again, while both are offering sacrifices at a temple, they recognize each other and are reunited thanks to the eponymous “thorn hairpin” in her hair. In contrast to the male heroes of the other early Southern domestic dramas, Wang Shipeng neither reluctantly accedes to the prime minister’s proposal (The Lute), nor does he humiliate the prime minister’s daughter (Top Graduate Zhang Xie), but rather he is able to forestall the sway of the political powers controlling him. He had not reckoned with the ruthless rival in his hometown, but once he finds out the purported truth about Yulian’s suicide, his fidelity opens up a new plotline that would be developed in later plays and stories. Wang’s fidelity was occasionally also emulated in real life.1 In addition to its inspirational plot, the play also attracted attention on two other scores, that is, its language as well as its themes. These aspects are discussed in what follows.

The Ambiguous Charms of a New Literary Idiom One of early drama’s enduring contributions to Chinese literature is the crafting of a new literary idiom. If classical and medieval forms of literature prided themselves on drawing on lofty and refined rhetoric, drama and related song forms turned the mixing of all manner of registers into an art form.2 Building on the transformative experiments of translating the Buddhist canon into new forms of literary Chinese, by the Song, Jin, and Yuan periods, various forms of performance-related literary genres embraced the oral-centered language ideology of Buddhism. The emerging corpus of stand-alone songs (sanqu) and dramatic arias (zaju, nanxi), composed to preexisting tunes, took such experiments to new heights. In drama in particular, the incorporation of dialogue afforded new opportunities to make artistic use of everyday language beyond what narrative forms such as “all keys and modes” ballads (zhugongdiao) and the ci song lyrics had been able to accommodate.3 453

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Moreover, as Yuan critic Hu Zhiyu (1227–1293) noted apropos zaju drama, people from all walks of life found their way onto the stage.4 Insofar as lifelike resemblance to actual characters was an aesthetic criterion of mature zaju performance, varied speech registers entered into the literary language of the theater. Because most Yuan playwrights did not belong to the class of scholar-officials and likely wrote for a living in the entertainment quarters, they had fewer qualms about cross-fertilizing poetic diction with earthy idioms. The novelty of such mixed-register writing was not lost on later generations of bona fide literati and scholar-officials newly interested in popular forms of literature, as well as on modern academics. By the late Ming, men of letters with official credentials began to turn to dramatic composition and performance as an alternative route to building community among themselves and engaging a broader public. They believed that drama should be intelligible to all classes of society, while also be pleasing to the educated elite. One of their rallying cries became the notion of a “natural language” (bense, literally, “original color”). However, what exactly constituted the perfect blend between familiar and elegant, colloquial and classical elements in unaffected, yet satisfying dramatic writing was typically a subjective judgment. Still, there was a small cadre of early plays that critics selectively drew upon to illustrate their preferred idea of “natural language.” This clutch of contenders for the perfect embodiment of “natural language” included the following titles: The Story of the Western Wing (Xixiang ji), The Lute, The Story of Praying at the Moon Pavilion (Baiyueting ji), and Thorn Hairpin, among others. As critics stressed different criteria for what constituted good drama and natural language, they gravitated to one or another of these plays. Axes of differentiation included performability (Shen Jing) vs. literary qualities (Wang Shizhen), accessibility (Xu Fuzuo) vs. vulgarity, plainness (Xu Wei) vs. hybrid qualities (Wang Jide), diction vs. plot and dialog (Qi Biaojia, Li Yu).5 Among these critics, Thorn Hairpin elicited divided opinions. In his seminal critical work on Southern drama, Nanci xulu, Xu Wei (1521–1593), the playwright and painter, noted that The Lute was the exalted progenitor of the Southern tradition. However, he granted that Thorn Hairpin and Moon Pavilion ranked among the second tier of plays in that they exemplified a desirable quality of plainness.6 Xu Fuzuo, another critic, however, found fault with the very simplicity that Xu Wei lauded: In descending order from The Lute and The Moon Pavilion, Thorn Hairpin is notable for its tightly constructed plot; however, it is full of the vulgar language current in winding alleys. [While the diction is] coarse and uncouth in the extreme, [the prosody] nevertheless strictly abides by the rules. Thus the play at times meets and at others departs from the [criteria] of performability [danghang] and of natural language [bense].7 If we look at the extant play, however, Xu Fuzuo’s assessment does only partial justice to the range of registers encountered in Thorn Hairpin. Typically, the young female (dan) and young male roles (sheng) engage in relatively polite registers of language. For example, just before she decides to jump into the river, Qian Yulian provides a list of reasons for why this is the best course of action for her. Her litany of rationales is cast in a classical idiom of four lines of equal length governed by semantic parallelism: First, I am afraid that I will harm my husband’s path. Second, I fear that I will wrong my own name. Third, I worry that I will bring shame to the family’s reputation. Fourth, I fear that I will violate the conduct becoming a respectable wife. (Scene 26, “Jumping into the River”)

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However, generally, comic roles such as the comic (jing) and the clown (chou) define how far a given play descends into the realms of crude language. And indeed, if we examine some of the interchanges in which these role types engage, we can see why Xu might have felt the play ventured beyond what he considered good taste. For instance, when Yulian’s stepmother (cast in the role of the comic) and a matchmaker (cast in the role of the clown) discuss Yulian’s marriage prospects, they engage in a forthright, plain-spoken dialogue that goes beyond the polite decorum of the major roles. (Comic as stepmother): Just because my daughter is pretty, rich suitors want a marriage contract. You now make a good matchmaker. We will find some sense! Why should she be married to a poor devil! It is often said, “If you dig marriage, marry a peasant, if you don’t dig marriage, marry a man of talent! It is ridiculous that my old man betrothed our daughter to Wang Shipeng! You have come as a matchmaker from Wenzhou’s richest man, Sun Ruquan. Today, you talk to my daughter in the chamber about marriage. I hope that after you come, she will see the light! (Scene 10, “Being Forced to Marry”) If the comic ventures into the realm of folksy truisms, the clown’s rejoinder, replete with curse words and ad feminam attacks, more clearly borders on the vulgar: (Clown as matchmaker): Yulian, this nasty bitch, has no sense, getting me all worked up as my anger rises in my heart! This dumb piece of shit truly is a know-nothing! With a thousand obstacles and a myriad hindrances, she manhandles me time after time! (Scene 10, “Being Forced to Marry”) Irrespective of how tempted some literati might have been to relegate a work like Thorn Hairpin to the margins on account of its questionable language, as we shall see in the following, the play had currency in both ceremonial and literary contexts.

A Principled Rebuke of Parental Materialism In terms of its theme, Thorn Hairpin concerns itself with the virtues of integrity in the domestic realm. However, we should not rush to the conclusion that the play was designed to inculcate marital fidelity in young women. For one thing, in contrast to the modern reformist view that drama should and always had served a didactic function for the illiterate masses, traditional domestic drama operates within a different calculus. Such plays often center on the dilemmas that the younger generation encounter as they are confronted with the social expediency of their elders. In these scenarios, “virtuous conduct” or, to put it more generally, “human feeling” (renqing), is not put in the service of obeying the elders, but rather is the very means to defy their wishes. Examination of famous scenes from Thorn Hairpin that drew the most interest within sixteenth- and seventeenth-century contexts illustrate the socially disruptive use of virtue. In the performative domain, The Protocol for the Annual Festival for Welcoming Spirits, with Forty Pieces Arranged in Musical Modes (Yingshen saishe lijie zhuanbu sishi qu gongdiao; 1574), one the most important late Ming sources for plays performed on ceremonial occasions, provides us with some important clues. This text was found in the house of a villager in Southeast Shanxi in 1985. Having been copied on the thirteenth day of the first lunar month in 1574 from an earlier version in the possession of the scribe’s grandfather, the festivities described likely formed

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part of the village’s New Year’s celebrations. Interwoven with musical pieces and instructions for communal singing, The Protocol features many excerpts from the zaju and chuanqi tradition. Some plays, including the well-known Mulian Rescues His Mother (Mulian jiumu), were designed to exorcize noxious forces and destroy demons and ghosts; some took place on stage, others involved “silent processional dramas” (yadui xi) throughout the village to drive out pestilences and other evil.8 At the same time, The Protocol also encompasses scenes from domestic plays, including two from Thorn Hairpin, “Forced to be Married into the Wang Family” (“Bijia Wang men,” Scene 10) and “Yulian Drowns Herself in the River” (“Yulian toujiang,” Scene 26).9 The first of these dwelt on Yulian’s elders’ scheming to deter Yulian from marrying the impoverished scholar, the second on her suicide when the elders ignore her desire to abide by the principle of unequivocal marital fidelity after receiving the ostensible divorce papers. While the play as a whole has a happy ending, the juxtaposition of these two scenes in this performance context suggests that they formed a rebuke to the older generation rather than an exhortation to young women to commit suicide. Arguably, in light of the proximity to plays about quelling spirits and ghosts in the performance repertoire of the festival, the Thorn Hairpin scenes presented themselves as a cautionary tale for socially ambitious or overly pragmatic parents and parents-in-law: if you unduly pressure the young women in your care, you may well end up with vengeful ghosts that need to be propitiated, in the case that your family should not be so lucky as to have such desperate young women rescued by both divine and human intervention, as happens in Thorn Hairpin. In the literary domain, such a remonstrative reading is supported by a short story by Li Yu (1610–1680), the well-known litterateur, playwright, and lifestyle adviser, that he later reworked as a play entitled A Couple of Soles (Bimu yu).10 The story features the same two scenes from Thorn Hairpin as the key elements of a play-within-a-play (or story). Talented actress Liu Miaogu and Tan Chuyu, a young and impoverished student and theatergoer, fall in love. In order to be close to her, Tan joins her acting troupe when they look to fill a comic role (jing). Meanwhile, Miaogu’s mother is keen to capitalize on her daughter’s looks, either by her being sexually patronized by theater afficionados or, as a second best option, by marrying her off to a rich man keen to acquire Miaogu to attain his complement of “twelve golden hairpins” (shi’er jinchai, “concubines”). Unbeknownst to her mother, Tan and Liu have sworn love onto death to each other in front of a divine image. When Miaogu finds out about her mother’s plot to force her into concubinage, she cleverly transforms the play she is performing in into reality. By seemingly being willing to acquiesce to the impending marriage, Miaogu convinces her patron-to-be to give her the right to choose her final play. While he intuits that this choice puts him in the position of the schemer Sun Ruquan, he indulges her wish. Thereupon, she performs “Sending the Bride Away to Her Wedding” to great effect, before moving on to “Clasping a Rock and Plunging into the River.” In an act of bold improvisation, Miaogu begins to curse Sun Ruquan by name with a variety of epithets, while staring and pointing at the rich patron. Thereupon, instead of pretending to jump into the river, Miaogu actually flings herself off from the river-facing side of the stage, but not before having goaded the eager Tan into joining her in a double suicide. Cursing, followed by extreme physical acts, is a time-honored female rhetorical genre, intended to draw public attention to acts of injustice, and it had become a staple in drama as well. In Thorn Hairpin, the story is set among a respectable family of commoners, while in Li Yu’s telling, the social milieu is that of the floating world of entertainers; however, no matter the social background of the protagonists, the unscrupulous manner, in which mother-figures hawk their daughters, meets with fierce opposition from their young charges. Contrary to Marxist criticism that sees such angry

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tirades as an attack on a “feudal system,” we would be better advised to see such public lambasting not as a call to abolish Confucian values, but rather as an attempt to castigate those who place monetary considerations above human feelings. In this vein, the story also resorts to Thorn Hairpin for its denouement. After Tan and Liu have established themselves in the examination system, they return to the same temple at which they committed suicide. On the occasion of the temple festival, they act as undisclosed patrons and invite Miaogu’s mother to perform Thorn Hairpin. Cast in the role of husband Wang Shipeng, she breaks down when he makes libations to Yulian’s spirit, calling out for “her child” rather than the “wife” of the play. Thereupon, Tan and Liu reveal themselves to everyone on stage, retelling the story of their miraculous rescue. Accordingly, Thorn Hairpin’s scenes are not put in the service of filial subordination. Instead, such intertextual references are designed to validate the younger generation’s pursuit of non-orthodox, self-initiated marriage choices in defiance of the older generation’s ruthless materialism.

Modern Reception of Thorn Hairpin Many regional styles, including Cantonese opera, Chaozhou opera, and Sichuan opera, have embraced highlight scenes from the play, most notably, the suicide scene. In addition, in Kunqu, for the role type of “civil young male” (guan xiaosheng), another scene, “Meeting with Mother” (“Jian niang”), has also become one of three signature scenes of the “intense scenes” (fenghuo xi). In this scene, Wang Shipeng’s mother (cast as an old woman, laodan) arrives at her son’s official residence in the capital, accompanied by the trusted family servant Li Cheng (cast as an old male, laosheng), but without her ostensibly deceased daughter-in-law. Gradually, the mother has to reveal the circumstances that precipitated Yulian’s apparent suicide. The underlying tensions—the mother’s disbelief regarding her son’s divorce note, the son’s shock over his wife’s death, the trusted family servant’s presence—all create an emotional charge. In his remarks on his own performance of this scene, veteran Kunqu actor Cai Zhengren, a member of the acclaimed Shanghai Kunqu Troupe, with the nickname “Little Yu Zhenfei” (Xiao Yu Zhenfei) so named after the company’s renowned artistic director, teases out the nuances of this triangular constellation.11 It is clear that, even though the examination system has long since been abolished, the conflicts animating a play like Thorn Hairpin nevertheless have enduring appeal: the tensions between materialism, opportunism, and love are as relevant now as they were when the play first was written and performed.

Notes 1 Lu Weijing, Arranged Companions: Marriage and Intimacy in Qing China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2021). 2 Patricia Sieber, “A Flavor All Its Own: Some Theoretical Considerations on Sanqu as Mixed-Register Literature,” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 8, no. 1 (April 2021): 203–35. 3 Patricia Sieber and Regina Llamas, “Introduction: The Cultural Significance of Chinese Drama,” in How to Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology, ed. Patricia Sieber and Regina Llamas (New York: Columbia University, 2022), 16–17. 4 Patricia Sieber, “The Pavilion of Praying to the Moon and The Injustice to Dou E: The Innovation of the Female Lead,” in How to Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology, 81. 5 Jing Shen, “The Concept of Bense in Ming Drama Criticism,” CHINOPERL Papers 24 (2002): 1–33. 6 Xu Wei, Nanci xulu [A Record of Southern Lyrics], in Pipa ji ziliao huibian [A Compendium of Materials Relating to The Lute], ed. Hou Baipeng (Beijing: Shumu wenxian, 1989), 101. 7 Translation modified from Shen, “The Concept of Bense,” 15. 8 Benjamin Brose, Embodying Xuanzang: The Postmortem Travels of a Buddhist Pilgrim (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2023), 79–83.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 9 Wang Anqi, Mingdai xiqu wulun: Fu Ming chuanqi gouchen jimu [Five Essays on Ming Drama with an Appendix on Lost Chuanqi Plays] (Taipei: Da’an chuban she, 1990), 17–34. 10 For the short story entitled “Tan Chuyu Expresses His Love in a Play, Liu Miaogu Preserves Her Chastity With Her Life at the End of the Performance,” see Li Yu, Liancheng bi (Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 1988); for an English translation of the story, see Li Yu, “An Actress Scorns Wealth in Favor of Chastity and Honor,” in Silent Operas, ed. Patrick Hanan (Hong Kong: Research Centre for Translation, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1990); for the play, see Li Yu, Bimuyu [A Couple of Soles], in Li Yu quan ji [Li Yu’s Complete Works], Vol. 2 (Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 1998). For an English translation of the play, see Li Yu, A Couple of Soles: A Comic Play from Seventeenth-Century China, trans. Jing Shen and Robert E. Hegel (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020). 11 Cai Zhengren, “Jian niang” [Meeting with Mother], in Kunqu baizhong dashi shuoxi [One Hundred Masterpieces of Kunqu Explained by Star Performers], Vol. 4, ed. Yip Siu-hing (Changsha: Yuelu shushe, 2014).

Further Reading Jingchai ji. In Guben xiqu congkan chuji. Beijing: Beijing xiqu chubanshe, 1955. Jing, Shen. “The Concept of Bense in Ming Drama Criticism.” CHINOPERL Papers 24 (2002): 1–33. Yip Siu-hing, ed. Kunqu baizhong dashi shuoxi [One Hundred Masterpieces of Kunqu explained by Star Performers]. Print (5 vols.) and DVD (100 CDs). Changsha: Yuelu shushe, 2014.

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39 THE LUTE Patricia Sieber

Gao Ming’s (ca.1305–ca.1370) Pipa ji (hereafter The Lute) was a play of many “firsts.” Among late Ming critics, it was widely viewed as the first play to straddle the boundary between the early nanxi (lit. “Southern plays”) and the emerging chuanqi drama (lit. “transmitting the extraordinary”). It is also the first Southern play authored by a scholar-official, who is known to us from other historical and literary sources. In contrast to the typically shadowy playwrights of Yuan zaju drama (lit. “varied plays” or “wide-ranging plays”) or the collective writing clubs (shuhui) of early Southern drama, the life of the author of The Lute, Gao Ming, can be sketched in broad strokes. In its skillful blend of humorous and heartrending moments in a wide variety of linguistic registers, The Lute appealed to literary and popular audiences alike, much like the Northern-style romantic comedy, Xixiang ji (The Story of the Western Chamber), with which it was often contrasted and compared. Importantly, there is a substantial lag between the time The Lute is said to have been composed (fourteenth century) and the period when its performance, textualization, and critical appreciation reached its peak (mid-sixteenth through seventeenth century). Hence, whatever Gao Ming’s intentions might have been in writing this play, by the late Ming, as literati embraced the theater as a major expressive form more generally, new and divergent interpretive approaches to The Lute proliferated, a trend that would continue into the modern era. Thus, far beyond the storyline of the play itself, The Lute became a cultural touchstone in the emergence of theater as a literati art and eventually it ascended to the rank of an iconic play in the modern repertoire of traditional Chinese theater. In what follows, after relaying a synopsis of the central conflicts of the play, we will explore why the play may have made a new contribution to the treatment of filial and marital devotion when it first appeared. Thereafter we will consider some of the ways in which The Lute enriched the musical, dramatic, and publishing repertoires in the early modern and modern eras.

The Central Dramatic Conflicts Gao Ming was a native of Wenzhou (alternate name Yongjia, modern Zhejiang Province),1 the cradle of what was alternatively called Wenzhou zaju (“Wenzhou zaju drama”), Yongjia zaju (“Yongjia zaju drama”), xiwen (“drama text”), or nanxi (“southern plays”). Given that he only  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-54

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briefly lived away from his natal region, chances are that he was familiar with what are described as the two most popular early plays circulating there, that is, Zhao the Chaste Maid and Cai the Second Son (Zhao zhennü Cai Erlang) and Wang Kui. In Zhao the Chaste Maid, the ungrateful scholar is killed by a bolt of lightning, placing the story within a framework of divine retribution.2 Both of these stories deal with men who, once they pass the civil service examinations, abandon the women who had supported them in their early struggles. While these plays have not survived, a farcical play that provides a similarly unflattering portrayal of its aspiring scholar protagonist, Top Graduate Zhang Xie (Zhang Xie zhuangyuan, 1408) was collected into an imperial encyclopedia. Top Graduate ends with a grand reunion of scholar and humble wife, even if the scholar had at one point sought to kill her out of embarrassment over her humble roots.3 The Lute reworks these earlier plotlines through structural and thematic innovations that give the central tensions of these early stories—female endurance vs. male ambition, the joys of the simple life vs. the glamor of elite success—a new seriousness. The Lute systematically pairs two spatial settings, that is, the rural village of Chenliu4 and the capital. The alternation between the two places creates a rhythm of emotional extradiegetic synchronicity and resonance between the two main protagonists, Cai Bojie, a young scholar (cast as sheng/young male) and Zhao Wuniang, his newly wed wife (cast as dan/young female), even if they are not in diegetic communication for long stretches of the play. The play does not lionize one locale over the other (idyllic village vs. affluent metropolis), but, apart from two happy scenes in the village bookending the play, both village and capital turn into venues of acute suffering for the two protagonists. The play starts in the village on a festive note when the whole family gathers and drinks some wine to celebrate the arrival of spring. It is arguably the only unequivocally merry scene of the play. Cai Bojie and his new wife Wuniang feel fortunate to be able to commune with Cai’s octogenarian parents. The chorus at the end of the scene echoes this celebratory mood, underlining the evanescence of life and the joys of family life:  hen you come upon the opportunity, have some wine and W loudly sing with others. MOTHER CAI: After all, how long does anyone’s life last? CAI BOJIE AND ZHAO WUNIANG: Myriad catties of gold should not be treasured, a family’s peace and happiness are worth far more than cash.5 FATHER CAI:

Driving the plot development is the dilemma of whether Cai should stay home and look after his parents together with his lovely wife or whether he should follow his father’s command to search for wealth and fame in the capital. Despite resisting vigorously and martialing The Analects and The Book of Rites in defense of staying home to attend to his parents, Cai Bojie is forced to relent and unhappily submit himself to his father’s appeal to The Classic of Filial Love to serve the ruler in order to improve the family’s standing in the world. After Cai leaves, the fate of Zhao Wuniang and her in-laws is inextricably bound up with the vicissitudes of village life. A famine devastates the village, driving Wuniang to resort to desperate means to uphold some semblance of humanity. To provide what food she can scrape together for her in-laws, she forces herself to eat inedible husks. To enable a burial for her parents-in-law when they succumb to death, rather than abandoning their corpses to the depredations of wild animals as her father-in-law had suggested, she cuts off her hair and peddles it on the street of the village. And while her neighbor Zhang Guangcai (cast in the role of mo/additional male) offers some much-needed funds for basic provisions, she nevertheless begins to dig their grave with her bare

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hands and paints her in-laws’ ancestral portraits herself, still too poor to commission anyone to assist. Then, braving all the uncertainties of the road, Zhao sets out for the capital, begging as she sings songs accompanied by the eponymous lute. Meanwhile, the capital is the place where the story of Cai Bojie unfolds. Rather than being a fount of leisure and wealth, the capital is portrayed as a place of corruption and coercion, save for the good graces of the woman who becomes Cai’s second wife, Ms. Niu (cast as a tiedan/secondary female). What starts out as Cai’s forced quest for family advancement turns into a series of unwanted opportunities—the successful passage of the civil service examination, the marriage to the prime minister’s daughter, and the need to serve the emperor. Cai cannot find any joy in his newly acquired markers of elite status. The play not only redeems Cai Bojie from the taint of being a heartless opportunist, who abandons his countryside family at the first blush of official success, but through Cai’s arias offers a jaundiced view of the realities of official service: Come to think of it When I was little, I read the esteemed writings. In serving the parent as a son, they noted, one had to conduct oneself in an exemplary manner. But they never touched on the reality. How could I have known that I would run into so many obstacles? Coerced by the father to attend the examinations, Coerced by the ruler to serve as counselor, Forced to wed a mate— Who can I talk to about the pain of having been forced against my will three times? It is hard to fend off recriminations from either side. Here, they say I am a shameless smooth-talker. There, they say I am a fickle and heartless player. (Qian, 174 [Scene 23]) On the surface, Cai goes through the motions of submitting to the will of the men with more authority and power than him (father, prime minister, emperor), but at heart, he resists and mulls over how he feels constrained and cowed by the fear of a misstep. Cai concludes that “the three refusals by parents and ruler tore apart the bonds between parents and son” (Qian, 272 [Scene 36]), a verdict (san bucong) that famously became synonymous with the play itself. Eventually, after many instances of being prompted by his new wife, Ms. Niu, Cai gains an accidental confidante: she overhears his lament about what truly ails him and very kindly wants to look after both Wuniang and his parents, but she initially cannot secure her father’s permission to go back to the Cai’s natal village. Eventually, after Wuniang’s unexpected arrival in the Niu mansion, the older Niu relents. The play ends where it began, in Chenliu. After Cai and Zhao have been reunited in the capital thanks to Ms. Niu’s help, they all return to Chenliu together and begin mourning for the requisite twenty-seven months. The play’s denouement features two women from different social backgrounds, one from an impoverished rural family, the other from the very pinnacle of social power, dedicated to the sincere performance of familial love and forgiveness, with the more privileged one ceding pride of place to the more filial one. Before long, an imperial commendation is issued at Prime Minister Niu’s behest, and, eventually, the gravesite is surrounded by auspicious symbols, indicating that the Heavens have thought it fit to bestow their approval of the threesome’s expression of filial devotion.6

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The Ethical Innovations of the Story Interpretations of The Lute diverge, depending on what aspect of this highly synthetic form of drama a critic chooses to focus on. Nevertheless, among modern scholars, there is some agreement that this play has a strong ethical dimension, particularly with regard to what is alternately called “filial piety,” “filial devotion,” or “filial love” (xiao). To support such a view, we can take note of several interpretive frames within the play. The folk belief in resonance and retribution between humans and Heaven creates one frame of reference. More specifically, at the level of plot, Heaven, moved by Wuniang’s bare-handed tomb building, sends two spirits to finish constructing the grave site, while she takes a nap and dreams about this divine assistance. Similarly, in the final scene, auspicious signs surrounding the grave site also signal heavenly approval of Cai, Wuniang, and Niu’s extended mourning for the parents. On another level, we find Zhao Wuniang’s repeated appeals to Confucian notions of historical memory—both of filial figures in the past and prospectively of herself—serve as a source of inspiration for the extraordinary lengths to which she goes to assist her in-laws.7 Finally, we can also point to Gao Ming’s innovative and famous prologue, where the persona of a playwright explicitly ruminates about the purpose of dramatic composition. He submits that stories (gushi) should concern themselves with “the transformation of mores” (fenghua); similarly, plays (chuanqi), as he notes, should not solely entertain with music, rhymes, and jokes, but should also move people. He also explicitly raises the question of whether the protagonists should serve as embodiments of particular virtues: Consider only whether sons are filial and the wives worthy. Once Hualiu has advanced alone, How would the myriad horses dare to push ahead? (Qian, 1 [Scene 1]) This kind of prologue was a novelty in the history of Southern drama—instead of simply offering a plot summary, it sets up an interpretive framework around the two young protagonists as moral exemplars.8 However, the prologue’s twin emphasis on moral transformation and emotional appeal should enjoin us to consider that this play is not simply a “didactic” piece designed to instill a foregone morality of forbearance and obedience in the audience, but rather in light of the dramatic conflicts discussed previously, as a complex meditation on enduring questions of how to live a life well-lived. Theater afforded unique rhetorical tools to explore how to reconcile the demands of domestic and professional obligations for men and women alike. For one, the play subtly instates itself, particularly its songs, as a privileged form of communication in the face of what are repeatedly described as “unspeakable moral dilemmas.” As one of the earliest plays in the Southern tradition, it is not farfetched to suggest that The Lute offers an implicit apologia for why drama might be uniquely suited to shed new light on serious matters. The emphasis on the younger generation’s ability to sing about and cleave to unspeakable priorities made this play a standout among texts that dealt with filial piety. Much ink has been spilled over Cai Bojie’s failure to keep in touch with his family back home. Typically, scholars consider this either a weakness of the plot or as evidence of a character flaw (Mulligan, “Introduction,” 17). However, given the consistently expressed theme of failed written communication throughout the play, we might be well-advised to treat this topic as an integral part of the play’s expressive agenda, namely, as a pointed shift of the locus of expressive power from a vaunted literati genre—the letter—to the novel form of the aria. Early in the play, when the couple

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say farewell to each other, Cai’s song opens the cleavage between the potential unreliability of written communication and the true nature of his feelings: I am only afraid that across myriads of mountains and passes It will be even more difficult to get letters relayed. Listen up! Even if I cannot help that our bonds of love are torn apart, Who could bear to be heartless and inconsiderate? (Qian, 48 [Scene 5]) In a rhetorical gesture reminiscent of other song literature that gives songs pride of place over letters,9 here Cai anticipates what he will repeatedly express in song throughout his time in the capital, namely the unreliability of letters to keep abreast of how he truly feels. The play time and again frustrates anyone’s attempt to communicate between the two locales— capital and countryside—by letter. At one point, Cai is too afraid to send a letter for fear of being found out by his father-in-law. What he cannot express in writing, he communicates in song instead: I think of that day when I left my hometown I remember how disconsolate we felt when we were about to part. We held hands and did not let go of each other. I told her to take good care Of Mom and Dad; I imagine that she has not forgotten! I hear of famine and barrenness there, And fear they cannot make it through and survive for any length of time. When they in vain expect a letter from me, on whom can they rely? (Qian, 174 [Scene 23]) When Cai finally resolves to send a letter via a stranger, a swindler takes advantage of this situation, claiming to deliver a genuine inquiry from his parents. Cai reciprocates in kind, entrusting his sentiments in a missive that he passes to the impostor. That conman picks up a motif that has run through many of Cai’s arias, when he intimates that “I fear that the post carried by a wild goose may never reach your hometown” (Qian, 189 [Scene 25]); in this instance, this amounts to a diegetic hint that acknowledges the dramatic irony of the situation. Once Ms. Niu finds out about the true nature of Cai’s depression, he once again sings about his dilemma of not being able to relay his feelings: It wasn’t that I swallowed my words and suppressed my anger; It’s just that I was compelled by your Dad’s power to stay put. I feared that if he knew that I wanted to return home, He would confine you here. I wanted to say something, but then clammed up . . . The other day, I’ve sent a letter home, But fear that neither the goose nor the fish messengers will deliver it. (Qian, 218 [Scene 29]) If the male hero of The Story of the Western Wing saves the day thanks to his letter writing skills, this route is not open to the male hero of The Lute. Instead, he ultimately prevails through

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his steadfast utilization of arias to remind himself and the audience of what he feels to be unspeakable and largely uncommunicable truths. A similar concern with incommunicability runs through Wuniang’s lines. While some may underline the “uncomplaining nature” of a protagonist like Zhao Wuniang, one of the striking aspects of her characterization is that she does not suffer in silence, instead giving voice to the typically voiceless in vivid and moving detail. In this regard, nanxi drew on the innovative rhetorical contributions of mature zaju, that is, the creation of a morally authoritative female voice in the form of the dan (旦, female lead) roles.10 Hence, rather than lauding the female heroines of Guan Hanqing’s zaju as “rebellious heroines” and relegating those of early Southern tradition to the status of “moral exemplars,” the recognition of the novelty of this role type allows us to see a direct line running from female portrayals in certain zaju to those in Southern drama. As Wuniang sings, she too makes use of the aria to share what otherwise cannot be expressed: Alas, all that earnestness of yours notwithstanding, I simply fear that amidst miles and miles of red pavilions, You will end up hankering after power and wealth. Even though you might forget this lowly wife of yours, Surely you will think of your parents?! There is no one with whom I can speak about this— This bone chilling loneliness—how can I bear it? (Qian, 65 [Scene 8]) On a diegetic level, the kind of ruminations that Wuniang shares are not communicable to the people with whom she interacts—she has no means to send a letter to her husband, and even if she did, the doubts that she voices are hardly the kind of thought that would be proper to share on such an occasion. The parent-in-laws whom she serves are enfeebled to the point where she cannot bear to burden them with her own troubles. Hence at the extradiegetic level, the play creates exteriority for what at the level of the plot is characterized as “unsayable:” “Amidst the thousands and myriad people, whom could I bear to tell this to?” (Qian, 65 [Scene 8]). This rhetorical tactic of making the audience the implied confidante allows for the “emotional resonance” that Gao Ming aspired to, since viewers and readers are interpolated and valorized, while possibly feeling similarly pressed in their own everyday lives. The issue of unspeakable feelings also characterizes Ms. Niu. She tries in vain to convince her father to let her and Cai return to his natal village; even when she prevails on him to send a reluctant messenger to bring the parents to the capital, she sings: The matters in my heart—there is no one that I can entrust them to, Over the last few days, I have grown sad. (Qian, 253 [Scene 34]) In the dialogue, she comments that “in life, eight or nine out of ten things don’t go as one wishes, and out of those, we can barely talk about even two or three with other people” (Qian, 253 [Scene 34]). Interestingly, the play features one successful written communication, namely, the encomium that Wuniang writes at Ms. Niu’s behest on the back of the ancestral portrait that she has painted— it is a poem naming historical figures confronted with the same dilemmas as Cai (service to parents vs. rulers; old wife vs. new wife). She intends for it “to move Cai Bojie’s heart” (253) to test his

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affections. Accordingly, in this play, the one successful written piece is a collaboration between the two wives: Ms. Niu suggests it, Wuniang writes it, and Ms. Niu instigates Cai’s exegesis. Through his explication, Cai reveals his deep devotion to the parents and to Zhao Wuniang, something that the audience has been aware of all along, thanks to the consistent use of arias to express the unspeakable longings. In an interesting upstaging of masculine ideals, the authorial power of writing in the play is reserved for the female characters, in the idiosyncratic genre of a funerary poem-cum-riddle that catalyzes the sentiments expressed previously in arias and brings together all three protagonists in the service to the parents. In addition, the play availed itself of theatrical tools to underscore the failings of the older generation in bringing about the quandaries that precipitate the unspeakable suffering in the first place.11 While the younger generation occupy the morally authoritative roles, Father Cai is cast as an additional male (mo). Mother Cai as a comic role (jing), and Prime Minister Niu as a clown (chou). While the elders eventually recognize the errors of their ways, the play never lets the audience forget that the younger generation struggles on account of their “coercion”: the father pressures the son to leave the family behind; the mother-in-law famously suspects that the husk-eating Wuniang keeps all the best bits of rice for herself; Prime Minister Niu resists any thought of not taking Cai as his son-in-law on account of his overweening social ambition; he and the emperor at first fail to honor Cai’s filial desire to return. In what appears to be a pointed inversion of the notion of the “three obediences” (sancong) for a woman, the play popularizes the notion of “three disobediences”—but since Cai Bojie on the face of it goes through the motions of submitting to the elders’ coercive requests, it is squarely the older generation’s fault to “refuse to honor” the bonds of familial devotion. In short, the younger generation embraces certain virtues not because they blindly submit to their elders, but because they manage some semblance of goodness and integrity despite the pervasive recalcitrance and social opportunism of the older generation. Accordingly, The Lute is poised to elicit an affective response from the audience for articulating the otherwise unsayable difficulties of being a filial child, while also remonstrating with the powers-that-be. When we turn to the many ways in which The Lute was reproduced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we see that the play was not only appreciated for its memorable protagonists and language, but was also put to many other cultural uses.

Reception in Ming and Qing China Scholars have noted that The Lute was central to sixteenth-century singing culture.12 As Hu Yinglin‎ (1551–1602), the well-known bibliophile and cultural observer, noted: Today each and every household learns and practices it [The Lute], and that’s how it engages people easily. In the future, when customs and tastes change drastically and when theater styles change, people of later generations will have access to it only through printed editions and they will read it on the [muted] text.13 But commoners were not the only people interested in The Lute. Leading figures intent on transforming singing culture and notational practices for musical theater also lavished praise on the play. In the texts associated with Wei Liangfu (fl. 1522–1573), the master singer and music teacher who pioneered the new Kunqu singing style, The Lute is held up as the musical text to master if one wanted to aspire to the highest level of singing proficiency (guogong, “the best

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professional”): One must be able to sing the play “from start to finish,” memorizing “every single word.”14 That recommendation helped to ensure that certain scenes from The Lute would gain entry into the new Kun-style musical theater. Similarly, Shen Jing (1553–1610) the literati pioneer most closely associated with seeking to improve singability of dramatic arias, through attention to prosody, musical rhythm and dialectal notation, instructed his fellow playwrights “to research and savor The Lute word for word.”15 In his influential Nanjiu gongpu (The Formulary of the Southern Nine Key Modes), Shen included excerpts from The Lute and marked them up with the new rhythmic form of annotation known as “dotting the beats” (dianban). This kind of notation emerged in the late Ming dynasty as an intermedial means to capture the rhythm of singing within the context of the printed page.16 Only with the appearance of The Peony Pavilion (1598) did interest in musical editing shift from The Lute to that new play.17 Another indicator of the play’s popularity is the many drama miscellanies that include rearranged highlight scenes from The Lute.18 Running the gamut from popular to literati miscellanies, these collections allow us to gauge which scenes emerged as audience favorites over time. As Xu Wei (1521–1593), the author of the first major treatise on Southern drama noted, some critics might favor festive (“Qingshou,” “Celebrating Longevity,” Scene 1) or lyrical scenes (“Tanqin,” “Plucking the Zither,” Scene 21; “Shangyue,” “Appreciating the Moon,” Scene 27)—in other words, scenes that could be performed at celebratory family gatherings or as part of a literati get together. However, scenes that aligned with the convivial demands of social life gained the most currency neither in elite nor in popular sources. Xu Wei himself opted for the emotive scenes (“Shikang,” “Eating the Husks,” Scene 20; “Changyao,” “Tasting the Medicine,” Scene 22; “Zhufen,” “Building the Tomb,” Scene 26; “Xiezhen,” “Painting the Portrait,” Scene 28) because, in his words, “they flowed from people’s heart” (cong renxin liuchu) and were “the most difficult to attain” (zui buke dao).19 In a similar vein, when Wang Shizhen (1526–1590), one of the towering literary critics of his time, praised The Lute as the foundational chuanqi play par excellence, he remarked on its emotional resonance: “Its form harks close to human feelings in all their intricacies .  .  . and in its descriptions, it is as vivid as though drawn from life.”20 Likewise, when we examine which female-focused scenes were repeatedly selected across nearly thirty miscellanies from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the choices echo Xu Wei’s preferences. Scenes replete with laments were favored, most notably, “Painting the Portrait” (“Miaorong,” Scene 28), “Cutting the Hair” (“Jianfa,” Scene 24), “Eating the Husks” (“Chikang,” Scene 20), and “Facing the Mirror” (“Linjing,” Scene 8).21 In popular performance, such emotional verisimilitude might be enhanced through the incorporations of everyday conventions such as a professional actor’s imitation of an ordinary housewife’s wails when Zhao Wuniang chants in front of the ancestral portrait of the dead in-laws.22 By the seventeenth century, dozens of full-blown editions of The Lute had appeared, some more closely preserving performance traditions, others seeking to approximate an original edition, others still intent on providing a complex and varied reading experience.23 Typically, such editions made extensive use of paratextual features to not only reproduce the play, but to also interpret and amplify the play through emendation, glosses, and ancillary materials. One noteworthy example of this convergence of disparate elements is an edition of The Lute published in 1610 by the notable Hangzhou firm Rongyutang. In one of several plays-with-comments attributed to the notorious critic Li Zhuowu (1527–1602) (but more likely authored by an obscure literatus), three major components of the publication—the play itself, the textual annotations, and the illustrations— seem to be at odds with one another, all offering different points of view on the quandaries of filial conduct.24

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In a different vein, with the rise of the genre of playful examination essays (youxi baguwen) in the late seventeenth century, much like The Story of the Western Wing, with which it was sometimes published in tandem, certain play editions began to include essays exploring various characters with mock seriousness.25 And thanks to the commentatorial labors of the father and son team of Mao Lun and Mao Zonggang (1632–1709), the play ascended to the ranks of “the books of genius” (caizi shu), an alternative canon originally conceived by the literary maverick Jin Shengtan (1606–1661) and subsequently marketed by Qing publishers as a series of ten classics.26 Meanwhile, highlight scenes from the play were anthologized in miscellanies more closely related to the performance tradition, particularly in Kunqu and other musical styles.27

Epilogue: The Lute in Modern Times The Lute continued to be featured in traditional and neo-traditional Chinese musical theater, while also finding its way onto the global stage. Via the accession of Mao Zonggang’s edition into the Chinese collection of the French royal library, The Lute became the first chuanqi drama to be translated into a European language (1841).28 The Lute was also among the first plays named in records about Cantonese opera performances in the American West (1900s).29 Overseas Chinese students in Boston produced an English-language version of the play as part of amateur experimentation with the new spoken drama (1924).30 Inspired by Cantonese opera and the French translation, a well-known non-Chinese journalist and theater afficionado produced an adaptation of The Lute under the title The Lute Song on Broadway (1946). The performance ran for 142 shows. While the reviews were mixed and the casting relied on the now notorious “yellow face” convention, the play nevertheless represented an earnest attempt to grapple with one of the iconic plays of the Chinese tradition.31 In the twenty-first century, the play has received renewed attention in different performative traditions in the Chinese-speaking world, including in “Yongjia-style Kunqu” (Yongkun) and in regular Kunqu.32

Notes 1 On Gao Ming’s life, see Huang Shizhong, Pipa ji yanjiu [A Study of The Lute] (Guangzhou: Guangdong gaodeng jiaoyu chubanshe, 1996), 10–45. 2 On the sources for the play more generally, see Huang, Pipa ji yanjiu, 46–58, Regina Llamas, “Retribution, Revenge and the Ungrateful Scholar in Early Chinese Southern Drama,” Asia Major, Third Series 20, no. 2 (2007): 75–101 and Jean Mulligan, “Introduction,” in her The Lute: Kao Ming’s Pi-p’a-ki (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 9–12. 3 In another play from this period, the title of this story is given as Zhang Xie Slays Poorlass (Zhang Xie zhan Pinnü). See Regina S. Llamas, “Introduction,” in her Top Graduate Zhang Xie: The Earliest Extant Chinese Southern Play (New York: Columbia University Press, 2021), 13. 4 Chenliu was the hometown of the historical Cai Yong. On Gao Ming’s attention to place, food and clothing, as well as seasonal cues, to create structural unity, see Mulligan, “Introduction,” 12–17. 5 Translations are my own unless otherwise noted. Gao Ming, Pipa ji, annot. Qian Nanyang and Li Diankui (hereafter Qian, Pipa ji) (Taipei: Renli shuju, 1998), 9. 6 These are the same symbols that appeared in the lore surrounding the historical figure Cai Yong (133–192), who, despite his filial conduct, had morphed into the avatar of the villainous version of Cai Bojie. See Mulligan, “Introduction,” 10–11. 7 See for example: “Why not just become a filial daughter-in-law and a virtuous wife, and have my name recorded in the history books so that my lonesomeness won’t be totally in vain?” (Qian, Pipa ji, 65 [Scene 8]). 8 Regina Llamas, “Top Graduate Zhang Xie and The Lute: Scholar, Family, and State,” in How to Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology, ed. Patricia Sieber and Regina Llamas (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022), 177–78.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 9 For another example of this song-centric understanding of genuine communication, see Patricia Sieber et al., “In Search of Pure Sound: Sanqu Songs, Genre Aesthetics, and Translation Tactics,” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 8, no. 1 (2021): 169. 10 Patricia Sieber, “The Pavilion for Praying to the Moon and The Injustice to Dou E: The Innovation of the Female Lead,” in How to Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology, ed. Patricia Sieber and Regina Llamas (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022), 78–100. 11 On the conflict between younger and older generation from a comparative perspective and the author’s endorsement of the younger generation’s critique of their elders, see Mulligan, “Introduction,” 6, 21–23. 12 Peng Xu, “Editing Pipa Ji for the Late Ming Popular Theater: The Identity of the ‘Singing Hermit’ and His Editorial Work,” Late Imperial China 41, no. 1 (2020): 159–201. 13 Quoted in Xu, “Editing Pipa Ji for the Late Ming Popular Theater,” 179. 14 Quoted in Xu Peng, “The Music Teacher: The Professionalization of Singing and the Development of Erotic Vocal Style During Late Ming China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 75, no. 2 (2015): 270. 15 Quoted in Xu, “Editing Pipa Ji for the Late Ming Popular Theater,” 178. 16 Yihui Sheng, “Performative Readings of Printed Southern Arias in Late-Ming China,” CHINOPERL 43 (2024 forthcoming). I am indebted to Prof. Sheng for sharing her forthcoming essay with me and allowing me to cite it. 17 Xu, “Editing Pipa Ji for the Late Ming Popular Theater,” 179, and Catherine C. Swatek, Peony Pavilion Onstage: Four Centuries in the Career of a Chinese Drama (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2002). 18 The titles of the scenes are not uniform across different editions. For some of the variability in the titles of scenes twenty through forty, see Zhao Xingqin, “Pipa ji banben tanyi” [A Consideration of Issues in Editions of The Lute], Jiangsu shifan daxue xuebao 40, no. 2 (March 2014): 15. 19 Xu Wei, Nanci xulu, in Hou Baipeng, Pipa ji ziliao huibian [A Compendium of Materials Relating to The Lute] (Beijing: Shumu wenxian, 1989), 101–2. 20 Wang Shizhen, Yiyuan zhiyan, in Hou, Pipa ji ziliao huibian, 103. 21 For the titles of the scenes in the major miscellanies, see Jin Yingshu, Pipa ji banben liubian yanjiu [A Study of the Evolution of the Editions of The Lute] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2003), 17–21. 22 See Xu, “Editing Pipa Ji for the Late Ming Popular Theater,” 174. 23 For an overview, see Jin, Pipa ji banben liubian yanjiu. 24 Hsiao Li-ling, “Political Loyalty and Filial Piety: A  Case Study in the Relational Dynamics of Text, Commentary, and Illustration in Pipa ji,” Ming Studies 48 (2004): 9–64. For the exploration of another illustrated edition among the dozen or so with images, see Jiang Wei and Li Ye, “Wanhu xuan kan Yuanben chuxiang Pipaji banhua de fengge tezhengyiji zai wan Ming banhuashi de zhuyong” [The Style and Characteristics of the Illustrations in the Wanhuxuan Edition of The Fully Illustrated Yuan Edition of The Lute and Their Role in the History of Late Ming Woodblock Illustrations], Beifang meishu 5 (2019): 78–82. 25 Yinghui Wu, “Constructing a Playful Space: Eight-Legged Essays on Xixiang ji and Pipa ji,” T’oung Pao 102, nos. 4–5 (2016): 503–45. 26 On Jin Shengtan’s life and work, see Patricia Sieber, “Jin Shengtan,” in Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography, Vol. 2, ed. Kerry Brown and Karen Christensen (Barrington: Berkshire Publishing, 2013), 899–910. 27 On the changes to nineteenth-century Kunqu scenes, see Zhao Xiaohong and Hou Xueli, “Cong ‘Shuguan’ kan Qian Jia yilai Kunqu Pipa ji zhezixi de jicheng yu yanbian” [On the Transmission and Changes of the Kunqu-style Lute in the Qianlong and Jiaqing Eras in Light of the Scene ‘In the Study’],” Zhongguo xiqu xueyuan xuebao 36, no. 2 (2015): 28–31. On a late Qing/early Republican Zheijiang-based “Diaoqiang” version that descended from the late Ming Yuyao style, see Yu Weimin, “Diaoqiang ben Pipa ji kaolun,” Jiangsu yishu zhiye xueyuan xuebao 13, no. 4 (2015): 1–12. 28 Le pi-pa-ki: ou, L’histoire du Luth: drame chinois de Kao-Tong-Kia représenté à Péking, en 1404 avec les changements de Mao-Tseu, trans. M. Bazin Ainé (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1841). 29 Josh Stenberg, “How Far Does the Sound of a Pipa Carry? Broadway Adaptation of a Chinese Classical Drama,” Studies in Musical Theatre 14, no. 2 (2020): 176. 30 Zhang Yi, “Liu Mei xuesheng gongyan huaju Pipa ji” [Chinese Students in the US Publicly Perform The Lute], in Pipa ji taolunhui lunwenji [A Collection of Essays on The Lute], ed. Wenzhoushi wenhua guangdian xinwen chubanju (Shanghai: Shanghai chubanshe, 2008): 321–25. 31 Stenberg, “How Far Does the Sound of a Pipa Carry?”, 177, 184.

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The Lute 32 Some of the leading Kunqu actors explain the art of bringing scenes from the play alive in the lectures and videos published and recorded through the Kunqu Masters’ Studio series (Kunqu bazhong dashi shuoxi). Specifically, three scenes from The Lute by veteran Kunqu stars are included, namely, #17, Ji Zhenhua on his role as an “older male role” (laosheng) in “Sweeping the Pine Needles” (“Saosong”); #49, Zhang Jiqing in the “young female role” (dan) in “Eating Husks” (“Chikang”); and #87, Liang Guyin in the “young female role” (dan) in “Painting the Portrait and Taking Leave of the Grave” (“Miaorong biefen”).

Further Reading Gao Ming. Pipa ji [The Lute]. Ann. Qian Nanyang and Li Diankui. Taipei: Renli shuju, 1998. Guo Yingde, Wenbo Chang, Patricia Sieber, and Zhang Xiaohui, eds. “Lesson 04: The Lute.” In How to Read Chinese Drama in Chinese: A Language Companion, 74–92. New York: Columbia University Press, 2023. Hou Baipeng, ed. Pipa ji ziliao huibian [A compendium of materials relating to The Lute]. Beijing: Shumu wenxian, 1989. Huang Shizhong. Pipa ji yanjiu [A study of The Lute]. Guangzhou: Guangdong gaodeng jiaoyu chubanshe, 1996. Jin Yingshu. Pipa ji banben liubian yanjiu [A study of the evolution of the editions of The Lute]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2003. Llamas, Regina. “Top Graduate Zhang Xie and The Lute: Scholar, Family, and State.” In How to Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology, edited by Patricia Sieber and Regina Llamas, 171–90. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022. Mulligan, Jean, intro. and trans. The Lute: Kao Ming’s P’i-p’a chi. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. Sieber, Patricia. “The Pavilion for Praying to the Moon and The Injustice to Dou E: The Innovation of the Female Lead.” In How to Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology, edited by Patricia Sieber and Regina Llamas, 78–100. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022. Stenberg, Josh. “How Far Does the Sound of a Pipa Carry? Broadway Adaptation of a Chinese Classical Drama.” Studies in Musical Theatre 14, no. 2 (2020): 175–91. Yip, Siu-hing, ed. Kunqu baizhong dashi shuoxi [One Hundred Masterpieces of Kunqu explained by Star Performers]. Print (5 vols.) and DVD (100 CDs). Changsha: Yuelu shushe, 2014.

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SECTION XIII

Chuanqi Plays of the Ming and Qing

40 THE PEONY PAVILION Liana Chen

Ever since its inception in 1598 (the twenty-sixth year of the Wanli reign of Ming), the fifty-five-scene play Mudanting huanhun ji (The Peony Pavilion: The Return of the Soul; hereafter The Peony Pavilion) has enjoyed enduring popularity. Its author, Ming-dynasty playwright Tang Xianzu (1550–1616), followed the path taken by many late-imperial Chinese intellectuals: he participated in the civil service examination, served in various governmental positions at the central and provincial level, and retired from public service in 1598. Tang Xianzu is famous for his four dramatic works collectively known as Linchuan Simeng (The Four Dreams of Linchuan).1 In these works, Tang Xianzu extolled the generative power of qing (love, feelings, or emotions) as transcending all the boundaries of human principles or logical reasoning (li). The Peony Pavilion is emblematic of the endeavor of Tang and other late-Ming literati to reinstate qing, in the dichotomy of emotion and reason, as the primal experience of humanity.

Synopsis Drawing inspiration from the classical-language tale “Du Liniang ji (The Story of Du Liniang)” and possibly some earlier Song-dynasty classical tales,2 The Peony Pavilion traces the love-seeking journey of its heroine, Du Liniang, the daughter of Prefect Du Bao of the Nan’an County of the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279). The story begins as Liniang, returning from her leisurely stroll in the family garden, drifts into a dream in which she consummates her love with a refined young scholar (scene 10, “The Interrupted Dream”).3 Upon awakening, Liniang remains haunted by the mysterious encounter and paints a self-portrait on which she inscribes a poem referencing the dream lover. Consumed by unfulfilled longings, Liniang pines away, eventually succumbing to death (scene 20, “Keening”). Meanwhile, Du Bao receives an order from the imperial court to assume the position of Pacification Commissioner for Huaiyang. Before departing Nan’an in haste, the family buries Liniang beneath an apricot tree in the garden and asks Liniang’s tutor Chen Zuiliang and Sister Stone, a Daoist nun, to maintain the “Apricot Shrine” in which Liniang’s spirit tablet is preserved. The once insurmountable spatial distance between Liniang and the destined dream-lover is gradually closed in the subsequent scenes. Tang Xianzu introduces Liu Mengmei, the male protagonist, in the second scene, but it is not until the second part of the play (scenes 21–35) that the playwright  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-56

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develops this character. A young scholar of humble origin from the south, Mengmei left his hometown to seek support for his career advancement from powerful patrons. On his way to the north, Mengmei suffers from a cold and falls into a stream. Fortunately, he is saved by Chen Zuiliang, who invites Mengmei to spend some time at Apricot Shrine. During his recuperation there, Mengmei discovers Liniang’s self-portrait in the deserted garden. Awestruck by its ethereal beauty, Mengmei scrutinizes the painted image day and night, calling to it incessantly. The lingering spirit of Liniang receives special permission from the judge of the underworld to return to the human realm to look for her dream lover (scene 23, “Infernal Judgement”). Deeply moved by Mengmei’s heart-felt calls, Liniang visits him nightly, engaging in a secret and intensely passionate affair with him. She eventually reveals her story to Mengmei, who promises to excavate her body from the tomb and revive her (scene 32, “Spectral Vows”). With the help of Sister Stone, Mengmei fulfills his promise. The third section of The Peony Pavilion, which unfolds from scene 36 (“Elopement”) onwards, extends beyond the idyllic garden and the blossoming affection between Liniang and Mengmei into the intricacies of events happening in the real world. The resurrected Liniang elopes with Mengmei, and the two relocate to Hangzhou (the capital city), because it is time for Mengmei to participate in the imperial civil service examination. A cluster of scenes in this section establishes Du Bao as a clever military strategist who uses false promises as a ploy to persuade rebel Li Quan and his wife to withdraw their troops from Huaian. Liniang sends Mengmei to investigate the whereabouts of her parents, which leads to conflicts between Mengmei and Du Bao in scene 53, “Interrogation under the Rod,” as Du Bao doesn’t believe Mengmei’s story and takes Mengmei as both an imposter and grave robber. In the final scene, “Reunion at the Imperial Court,” Tang Xianzu adopts the chuanqi convention to stage a reunion for the principle and secondary characters: Liniang reunites with Mengmei and her parents, and the male characters receive imperial recognition for their service to the court. The focal point of the climactic action, however, is the conflict that arises between Du Bao, Mengmei, and Liniang. Despite the court’s declaration that Liniang is a mortal being, Du Bao refuses to acknowledge either her or her marriage with Mengmei. Crushed by her father’s determined rejection, Liniang faints, and only then does Du Bao accept her as his daughter. Notably, the play challenges the conventional resolution—a happy ending—by maintaining ambiguity regarding whether the conflict between Du Bao and Liu Mengmei is ultimately reconciled.

A Journey in Pursuit of Qing: The Cases of Du Liniang and Liu Mengmei It is clear from the outset that Tang Xianzu wrote The Peony Pavilion to celebrate the subjective experiences of humans and how such experiences may be shaped by the transformative power of qing. As Tang explains in the author’s preface: “Qing is of a source unknown, yet it grows ever deeper. The living may die of it, by its power the dead lives again. Qing is not qing at its fullest if one who lives is unwilling to die for it, or if it cannot restore to life one who has so died. And must the qing that comes in dream necessarily be unreal?”4 Scholars conjectured that Tang and his contemporaries intended to counter the tendency in popular late-Ming works to associate qing with physical desire.5 Qing, in The Peony Pavilion, is a transcendental experience; it encapsulates a natural impulse and instinctive desire within human beings, and it embodies a profound yearning for the sublimation and fulfillment of one’s own existence. It is indeed the play’s concern for, and affirmation of, human capacity to surpass physical limitations in pursuit of individual aspirations that distinguishes The Peony Pavilion from the chuanqi of the same era with similar thematic focus. In The Peony Pavilion, the pursuit of qing is materialized through the extraordinary life journeys of the two principal characters, Du Liniang and Liu Mengmei. Liniang’s pursuit of love 474

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and her fight to reclaim her personhood, and Mengmei’s devotion first to Liniang’s portrait and subsequently to her ghostly and the resurrected human forms, represent two telling examples of the power of qing that overcomes temporal and spatial constraints, and even shatters the boundary of life and death. The first few scenes portray Liniang as a naïve girl, a daughter protected by her family from worldly affairs, spending time on idle pursuits. We soon see a very different side of Liniang, as she follows the instruction of her father to study the Book of Songs with the newly appointed tutor Chen Zuiliang. In scene 7, “the Schoolroom,” Liniang’s precociousness enables her to look beyond the classical interpretations offered by the pedantic tutor and to appreciate the romantic undertone of the poem “Guanju.” Also in the same scene, her worldly sophistication is shown in her stepping forward to “pretend” to admonish Chunxiang, her maid, as Chunxiang challenges the authority of Tutor Chen.6 Liniang as a character is generally praised for her audacious and relentless pursuit of the love of her life, and yet her sensibility is also revealed to us, in scenes where she cautiously safeguards her burgeoning feelings and inner desires from her maid.7 Her concerns and priorities shift in the second part of the play towards how her identity as a resurrected woman can be established in the real world. One senses Liniang’s unease about how their fate will change once she and Mengmei step out of the Apricot Shrine and enter the real world. She is determined to seek as much the fulfillment as possible, to ensure that their love can survive the limitations of social norms and expectations. This explains her insistence that she and Mengmei must adhere to proper etiquette and wait for her parents’ approval to tie the knot (Scene 36, “Elopement”). It is precisely because Tang candidly presents Liniang’s vulnerable side, portraying her as an ordinary person, that her courage in the final scene to strive for recognition from her father and the world, disregarding everything else, becomes profoundly relatable and moving. Tang Xianzu spent no less effort in the portrayal of Liu Mengmei. Liu recounts his dream in scene 2, “Declaring Ambition,” of a girl who comes to tell him that his path to love and a successful career will take place when he finds her. The dream conveys Liu’s worldly aspirations more than anything else: “Some day spring sun will touch in the dimness/the willow to yellow gold/and the snow’s approach burst open/the apricot blossom white as jade./Ah, then shall I ride in pride before the palace,/accept the tasseled whip of betrothal,/take for my own the star queen of all flowers” (The Peony Pavilion, 5). This leaves the readers/audience with the impression that Liu falls into the stereotype of a talented and ambitious scholar, whose sole focus at the present moment is on achieving fame and fortune. A notable transformation happens in scene 24, “The Portrait Recovered,” where the playwright zooms in on Liu’s “obsessiveness” (chi): as he strolls through the garden of the Apricot Shrine, Liu observes the dilapidated scene. Despite the forgotten corner of the world with its “lakeside pavilion leans askew,/painted boat lies on its side,/girl’s sash dangles from motionless swing” (The Peony Pavilion, 137), he can still imagine the garden’s former glory. A few arias in this scene create a spiritual resonance between Mengmei and Liniang, hinting at their encounters in the following scenes. In the subsequent part of the play, Liu’s picking up the painting, calling to the female depicted in the portrait, and his execution of the resurrection illustrate Liu’s extraordinary commitment to Liniang. Liu Mengmei as a character embodies the youthful recklessness of a young scholar: full of confidence in his own abilities, innocent, and yet daring in pursuit of lofty ideals. Tang didn’t choose a simple path but instead strived to present to the readers and audience various facets of Liniang and Mengmei’s personality, while demonstrating that the two are the ultimate embodiment of one who has lived a well-rounded life of qing (youqingren). At the most fundamental level, Tang Xianzu’s exploration of a shared, universal experience is established within the context of human beings and their connection to nature. The imagery of spring permeates the entire play. The abundant life force nurtured by spring plays an enlightening role in the major characters’ pursuit of their dreams. It thus makes much sense to render the family 475

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garden a key site where major actions of the play take place. It is in the garden where Liniang’s dream encounter with the scholar is initiated and overseen by the flower deities. Later, the dying Liniang asks to be buried under the apricot tree in the garden, only to be revived and reborn in the same place. In a sense, the garden serves as a juncture where the dreamscape and the physical world converge, embodying the characteristics of both realms. The natural scenery of the family garden is more than a mere backdrop but integral to the dramatic actions: it acts as a catalyst for Liniang’s desires and reflects the character’s emotional states. One senses Liniang’s dismay at her own youthful beauty being unable to find a suitable match and the futility of squandering her youth as time swiftly passes in scene 10, “The Interrupted Dream,” through such lines as “See how deepest purple, brightest scarlet, open their beauty only to dry well crumbling” (The Peony Pavilion, 44); “However fine the peony, how can she rank as a queen coming to bloom when spring has said farewell!” (The Peony Pavilion, 45) Scene 12, “Pursuing the Dream,” juxtaposes the lush and fruit-bearing apricot tree with the weary Liniang, who commits her “fragrant spirit,/though rains be dank and drear,/to keep company with this apricot’s root” (The Peony Pavilion, 61). The sights and scenes that Liniang encounters in her second visit to the garden—the peony pavilion, the Taihu rockery, the balustrade, the swing, and the apricot tree—prompt Liniang’s recollection of the dream, and further allow her memories to be recounted and reconfigured as she makes sense of the connection between her mysterious rendezvous and her mortal self. The presentation of the two realms—the dreamland and the Underworld—within the context of the play, assumes a profound significance. These realms represent alternative states of existence, detached from the realities of the mundane world, thereby creating a stark contrast with the mortal realm. The dramatic actions revolving around the romance of Liniang and Mengmei predominantly unfold within these otherworldly realms. The dreamland serves to free individuals from the constraints of moral reasonings, allowing the deepest desires of the human psyche to manifest in their most unadulterated and intense forms. Du Liniang’s experiences in the dreamland signify the commencement of her self-awareness and sexual awakening. Liu Mengmei’s self-introduction and arias in the opening scene about his own dream reveals his aspirations for an ideal life, wherein worldly success and romantic love coexist. It is also noteworthy that, in the second part of the play, right before each clandestine rendezvous between the spirit of Liniang and Mengmei, the stage directions incorporate hints suggesting Liu falling asleep or delveing into the realm of dreams. This arrangement effectively enhances the ethereal ambiance surrounding their passionate encounters, encapsulating the essence of the sentiment shared by Tang Xianzu in his preface: “must the love that comes in dream necessarily be unreal?” on the power of qing. The Underworld in The Peony Pavilion operates through a more intricate mechanism within the context of the play. The principles of the divine justice diverge significantly from those guiding mortal affairs. These principles are not contingent upon moral conscience but instead stem from the inherent nature of humanity. In scene 23, “Infernal Judgement,” Judge Hu, the acting judge in charge of the tenth tribunal of hell, passes sympathetic judgment on spirits incarcerated within the underworld, assigning individuals such as Zhao Da the joyful singer to be reborn into a yellow oriole and Sun Xin the squanderer into a butterfly. Judge Hu assumes the authoritative persona of a conventional judge, reproaching flower deities of the Du family’s garden for enticing Du Liniang with flowers, ultimately leading to her indulgence and her tragic death. However, in a surprising turn of events, after hearing her pleas, Judge Hu rescinds his decision, permitting Liniang’s resurrection and granting her the freedom to pursue her beloved. It is interesting to note that the last name of the infernal judge—Hu—also carries the meaning of muddle-headedness.8 The scene on Judge Hu’s deliberations could thus be viewed as a parody on the corruption of the Ming-dynasty bureaucratic system. Nevertheless, Judge Hu’s seemingly capricious judgments remarkably align 476

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with intuitive, genuine human desires. During the climactic finale, Liniang is asked by the court to recount her encounters and present evidence proving that she is indeed Du Liniang in the resurrected, mortal form. Accused of committing a crime only in the scene “Infernal Judgement” and presenting herself at the imperial court mainly as a witness,9 the drastically different treatments that Liniang receives from the infernal judge and the court prompts her to lament that “ruffians so fierce/ screaming at me:/ah, in Yama’s palace in Hades were/blue-faced demons, jutting tusks,/yet not so fearful as these!” (The Peony Pavilion, 328) validating the compassion of the infernal judgement that fundamentally transforms her life.

Structure and Language The length of the chuanqi plays usually ranges from twenty to forty scenes; this puts The Peony Pavilion among the lengthiest of its kind. The sheer magnitude calls for a careful balancing between character development and the interweaving of multiple storylines. In terms of structure, The Peony Pavilion offers its audience an organic, cohesive story, with complex subplots that are closely interconnected, while dramatically it maintains a high level of intensity. Tang employs several storytelling techniques familiar to the chuanqi audience to create narrative unity. One technique is to make use of secondary characters to connect dramatic events. Chen Zuiliang, for instance, seems to have been created not so much to give us a real person as to serve as a dramatic device, a nexus linking various major and minor plotlines.10 For example, it is Chen who advises Mengmei to seek lodging at the Apricot Shrine (scene 22, “Traveler’s Rest”), thereby connecting the storylines of Mengmei and Liniang. Later in the play, Chen acts as a mediator between Du Bao and Li Quan, and he eventually persuades Li Quan to withdraw his troops. Chen Zuiliang mistakenly reports the theft of Liniang’s grave and the murders of Madame Du and Chunxiang by the rebels. His false reports serve to reestablish the connection between Du Bao’s and Liangniang’s storylines and to set the stage for subsequent misunderstandings and conflicts between Du Bao and Mengmei. An equally important technique involves the reappearance of an object that can establish connections between preceding and subsequent scenes. Liniang’s self-portrait is among the most meaningful material symbols employed by Tang to create narrative coherence. As contemporary critics have elucidated the issue,11 the self-portrait is more than a mere double of or substitute for Liniang’s physical body, but rather is a truer version of Liniang, as she sees it. It is through Mengmei’s calling to the image in the portrait—the pictorial representation of Liniang’s essence—in scenes 27, “Spirit Roaming,” and 28, “Union in the Shades,” that connects Liniang’s wandering spirit to him. The portrait’s role as a structuring device becomes more pronounced in later scenes, when it ceases to represent Liniang after her resurrection. In scene 44, entrusting the mission of finding her parents to Mengmei, Liniang asks him to bring the self-portrait as a proof of evidence that she has been revived. Ironically, in scene 53, “Interrogation,” the self-portrait becomes the evidence that Du Bao uses to accuse Mengmei of committing tomb robbery. Not all of the recurring physical objects Tang used to weave the plotlines serve the function of enhancing narrative coherence. The apricot (mei 梅), an image that bears symbolic and structural weight similar to that of the self-portrait, is a good example. “Apricot” is, first and foremost, a reference to Mengmei’s name, which literally means “dreaming of the apricot.” Catherine C. Swatek’s close readings offer a nuanced understanding of Tang’s unconventional take on apricot as an image of nature: the apricot tree’s reappearance in scene 12, “Pursuing the Dream,” serves simultaneously as a reference to the dream lover (“its shade like a parasol reaches full around”), to Liniang’s sexual maturity (“great flowering apricot, beautiful with its thick clusters of fruit”), and Liniang’s current state of mind (“its full round fruit hides bitter heart”).12 The use of apricot to reference both 477

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male and female sexuality continues to develop in later scenes: in scene 20, “Keening,” the dying Liniang asks to be buried beneath the apricot tree and for her destiny “to be a pretty skeleton in apricot blossom’s ancient cave.” In scene 27, “Spirit Roaming,” Sister Stone’s comparison of Liniang’s dead body and a “faded spray of apricot . . . rootless . . . still brings a fragrance to our senses” seems to foretell Liniang’s eventual rebirth (The Peony Pavilion, 150). The ambiguity afforded by Tang’s creative deployment of material symbols demonstrates the playwright’s mastery in creating a complex yet interconnected narrative that transcends the simplistic solutions found in many other scholar-meets-beauty plays. Tang Xianzu’s unconventional approach reveals a great deal about his overall views on the spontaneity of literary inspiration. To Tang, the spontaneous overflow of feelings not only serves as the driving force for Du Liniang’s dream and resurrection, but also plays a vital role in the process of drama composition for himself as a playwright. Tang Xianzu was apparently aware of the critique that some Ming dramatists had on his works, that he didn’t care to abide by the prosodic rules of Kunqu. Tang’s response to such criticism was bold and straightforward: “What do you know about the idea of songs? When I write, my principle is to follow where my mind leads me; I could not care less whether it twists and breaks the throats of those who sing my songs.”13 In another passage, Tang further explicates his priorities in the process of composing qu poetry: “Ideas, interest, spirit, and color are the primary concerns in writing. When these four are in hand, the writer may have flowery words and handsome tones at his disposal. How, then, is it possible for him to care for the nine modes and four tones?”14 Tang believes that once external stimuli stir up something within, one will experience an urge to let the ideas flow; inspirations externalize themselves in the forms of “flowery words” and “handsome tones,” and the aesthetic experience attained through this rare combination cannot be achieved by strictly following prosodic rules. Tang discusses his idea in yet another statement: “The subtlety of literary works does not come from patterning ourselves after others but from natural inspiration that comes to us before we realize it.”15 Tang’s philosophy in drama composition contributed to the reason his works were widely recognized among his contemporaries and the playwrights of the subsequent eras. Most critics acknowledged Tang Xianzu’s extraordinary genius, his remarkable ability to express emotion, and his unrestrained and unconventional language. In An Evaluation and Classification of Southern Drama, Lü Tiancheng commends Tang Xianzu’s natural inclination towards profound emotions, attributing it not only to Tang’s innate talent but also to his receiving influences from the ornate literary style of the Six Dynasties (220–589 AD) and his familiarity with Yuan-dynasty dramatic works.16 Mao Xianshu, in his Random Notes on Fourteen Types of Poetry, praises The Peony Pavilion for offering fresh perspectives and its distinctive combination of traditional and innovative elements; Mao maintains that Tang’s occasional lapses in prosody do not diminish the musicality of its lyrics.17 Wang Jide, in his work Rules of Drama, speaks highly of Tang’s ability to strike a delicate balance “between the shallow and profound, subtlety and intensity, elegance and vulgarity,” achieving a unique state of enlightenment, while others may suffer from lack of originality when seeking literary refinement, or may lapse into vulgarity when focusing on plain, unembellished language.18 We may apply Wang Jide’s comments in examining Tang’s theatrical language and its impact. The production of chuanqi plays since its early stage of development catered to the needs and tastes of a diverse audience with different social backgrounds and levels of literacy. Most dramatists of late Ming supported the idea of crafting a style of dramatic language representing the “true color,” coining the term bense 本色 to denote registers used in everyday life easily understood by illiterate members of society. Wang Jide’s comments present a unique case in which drama theorists, prompted by Tang’s unconventional and poetic style, revised their assumptions, expanding the boundaries of bense.19 Tang Xianzu’s approach entailed employing language registers that 478

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could be readily understood by an audience of diverse backgrounds, while offering profound and thought-provoking implications that would be appreciated by an educated audience. An example of Tang’s style can be found in the widely performed scene “The Interrupted Dream.” The first aria, written to the tune “Bubujiao,” reveals to us a Liniang who is eagerly anticipating the major event of the day, the garden excursion. Freshly awakened from her spring slumber, Liniang sings “the spring a rippling thread/of gossamer gleaming sinuous in the sun/born idly across the court” (The Peony Pavilion, 43), as she looks out to observe the only signs of spring discernable from her quiet chamber. The first three characters of this aria pun on the homophone of the sunlit, floating gossamer thread (qingsi 晴絲) and lingering affections (qingsi 情絲); the pun adds an additional layer of implication, suggesting that Liniang’s secret yearning arises from the sights of spring.20 The next line carries forward this tender feeling towards spring, while the dramatic action shifts to Liniang’s adorning herself in front of the mirror with the help of her maid Chunxiang. Liniang’s line, “pausing to straighten/the flower heads of hair ornaments,/perplexed to find that my mirror,/stealing its half-glance at my hair,/has thrown these ‘gleaming clouds’ into alarmed disarray” (The Peony Pavilion, p. 43), informs readers how Liniang imagines herself to appear, through the gaze of the Other. This is made clear by the personification of the mirror, Liniang’s imagining its admiring gaze (“stealing its half-glance”), and her instinctive reaction (her hair thrown into “alarmed disarray”). Liniang’s concern that the mirror might inadvertently disclose her exquisite glance leads to her hesitation and subtle coyness, conveyed in the last line of the aria, “walking here in my chamber, how should I dare let others see my form!” (The Peony Pavilion, p. 43). The second aria, written to the tune “Zuifugui” is indicative of Liniang’s ardent yearning for all things beautiful. Liniang’s line “see how vivid shows my madder skirt, how brilliant gleam these combs all set with gem” (The Peony Pavilion, p. 44) evokes the image of the ‘gleaming clouds’ from the previous aria which works as a synecdoche for Liniang. Liniang’s self-reflexive statement in the following line, “it has been/always in my nature to love fine things” (The Peony Pavilion, 44), serves as her response to Chunxiang’s praise on her choices of outfit, while signaling a progression in her growing self-knowledge. The choice of the word for “my nature” (tianran) allows for a smooth transition into the next line, where spring reappears as a metaphor for Liniang’s physical beauty. “This bloom of springtime no eyes have seen” prepares the audience for what will soon take place—Lianiang’s springtime garden excursion, while revealing Liniang’s melancholic sentiments, albeit subtly. The next two arias, written to the tunes of “Zaoluopao” and “Haojiejie,” begin with Liniang and Chunxiang’s entering the garden, where they encounter a desolate scene of ruined wells and crumbling walls. This evokes Liniang’s lament for the world’s failure to appreciate the splendors of spring (“see how deepest purple, brightest scarlet/open their beauty only to dry well crumbling”).21 In these arias, the delineations of the spring scenery unfold progressively, transitioning from proximity to distant vistas, and from the visual to the auditory. Each layer serves as a vehicle into Liniang’s lingering and subdued emotions. Readers are introduced to the sights and sounds through the perspectives of Liniang, and as such, the line between the real garden and the imaginary one is made obscure.

Tang Xianzu’s Directorial Vision Stage directions in theatrical texts encompass various design elements that contribute to the overall theatrical experience. These include the portrayal of characters through gestures and movements, blockings, costumes, visual techniques, and sound effects. While chuanqi writers may not consider 479

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these on-stage details as essential elements to be included in the playtext, the inclusion of stage directions enhances the three-dimensionality of the characters and dramatic actions, thereby ensuring a more precise delivery of the intended result. Tang Xianzu’s close collaboration with professional actors was well-documented. One supporting evidence could be found in the famous treatise that he wrote, titled The Epigraph for Master Qingyuan—Theatre God of the Yihuang County, in which he advised aspiring actors to “observe the movement of the universe, of human beings and ghosts, and of all living creatures . . . sever oneself from family ties, disregard sleep and meals”22 to perfect their performance skills. Tang’s directorial vision and his knowledge of theatrical practice are particularly evident in his adept and effective use of stage directions, giving concise yet effective instructions on the facial expressions, hand gestures, or stage movements to convey the thoughts and feelings of the characters. These stage directions serve as pivotal and illuminating elements, rendering the work complete. A good example could be found in the soliloquy of Liniang in “the Interrupted Dream.” After the visit to the garden, Liniang returns to her chamber, where her ruminations give way to melancholy. The stage directions inserted here play a crucial role in bridging the gap between lines: Liniang “looks around” and then “lower her head in deep contemplation,” revealing what is not being disclosed about Liniang’s shift in thoughts and emotions. Furthermore, the inclusion of emotion or action-oriented stage directions serve to highlight the contrast between characters, thereby heightening the dramatic tension. An example of such contrast could be observed in the last scene, when the emperor summons Liniang to present her testimony so as to verify her identity. This leads to her reunion with Du Bao and Liu Mengmei at the imperial court. Liu Mengmei’s response, “(looks at Liniang sorrowfully) My dear wife, Liniang!” sharply contrasts with Du Bao’s retort, “(glances at Liniang angrily) How can she be exactly the same, bold, bold!” The divergence in perception between the father-in-law and the son-in-law is distinctly portrayed, and the actors’ interpretation of these contrasting emotions enhances the dramatic conflict, evoking an imminent clash. In both cases, the stage directions play a pivotal role in guiding the direction of the performance.

From Page to Stage: Ming and Qing-Dynasty Adaptations While Tang Xianzu’s masterpiece has emerged as the most monumental scholar-beauty romance among the chuanqi plays, it faced severe criticism for its unconventional prosody and its dense, often obscure lyrics. The sheer length of the original work also presented a major challenge for theatre-makers to bring the complete work to the stage. There were no fewer than a handful of adaptations of The Peony Pavilion by late-Ming literati-playwrights. Some modified lyrics to conform to rhymes and replaced ornate words with colloquial ones, while others reduced the number of scenes and reorganized the storylines to shorten the performance time. Most of the known revisions were tailored to fit the tunes of Kunqu, an operatic genre originated in the present-day Jiangsu Province that, since the late 16th century, had significantly expanded its influence across the country. Ming literati considered Kunqu, with its melodious and refine attributes, as the most suitable genre for theatricalizing chuanqi scripts. With the intention to establish Kunqu as the orthodox style for interpreting chuanqi, most plays that were not originally written to fit the tunes of Kunqu underwent revisions. While most of the adaptations by late-Ming literati playwrights were not successful commercially, these works reflect how The Peony Pavilion was received among Tang’s contemporaries. Two examples could be given here. An earlier adaptation by Zang Maoxun (1550–1620), significantly abridged the original text. Zang and Tang were old acquaintances from their time serving official positions in Nanjing. Zang was a member of the Nanjing Poetry Club, where many 480

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members also knew Tang personally and were familiar with his works. Teasing that Tang Xianzu seemed to never have watched any performance and thus had no knowledge of Kunqu, Zang took up the mission of adapting all the four plays by Tang to suit the style of Kunqu. Mindful of the delicate, slow-pacing quality of the genre, Zang reorganized the play into thirty-six acts. Storylines deemed irrelevant were cut, and the number of arias included were significantly reduced. The second example, titled The Romantic Dream by the renowned late-Ming dramatist Feng Menglong (1574–1646), had much greater influence on the Kunqu theatre. Feng claimed in the preface of the Romantic Dream that his main purpose was to rectify the issues caused by Tang’s lack of knowledge in the prosodic rules of Kunqu. A closer look, however, reveals that Feng in fact adopted a more extensive approach. In terms of language, there was a notable simplification in imagery in The Romantic Dream. Feng made a deliberate choice to directly convey the connection between spring, flowers, and Liniang in the garden strolling scene, thus overtly expressing Liniang’s melancholy on the transience of spring. Feng also straightened out the ambiguity in Tang’s use of apricot and willow as natural imagery, thereby circumscribing the potential for them to evoke other symbolic, often sexually suggestive, nuances. While Feng’s lucid and unambiguous approach enables a meticulous exposition of the plot’s progression, it nevertheless evinces a different, more socially oriented paradigm, constraining the interpretive latitude for the audience and readers.23 The art of Kunqu theatre reached its maturity during the reigns of Emperor Qianlong (1738–1795) and Emperor Jiaqing (1796–1820) of the Qing dynasty. The practice of performing zhezi xi was widely adopted by commercial and private troupes alike. Zhezi xi refers to the highlights of a play that resonated best with the audience; these highlights were eventually singled out and performed as an artistic form in its own right. The zhezi xi pieces need not be focusing on crucial events in the original story; a zhezi xi could be adapted from a transitional scene, with lively displays of acrobatic stunts, or from minor but entertaining comic scenes. The excerpts that eventually evolved into full-fledged zhezi xi possessed inherent qualities that rendered them more appealing than the rest of the play. Freed from the need to move along events in the overall story, a zhezi xi allows for more space to showcase the skills of individual performers. A masterpiece like The Peony Pavilion could not escape this revolution. Several scenes in the original work were eventually adapted into zhezi xi. A widely circulated drama anthology of the mid-Qing, Patching the White Fur Cloak (Zhui baiqiu), shows that major transformations of The Peony Pavilion on stage occurred when zhexi xi became a mainstream practice. For example, the scene “the Interrupted Dream” was divided into two zhezi xi units, the first zhezi centering on Liniang and Chunxiang’s garden stroll, and the second on Liniang’s dream. This division is musically and thematically appropriate, since the original scene had separate song-sets for each sequence within the same scene, with a short last aria (“Gewei”) concluding Liniang and Chunxiang’s stroll in the garden and introducing the dream scene. A surprising new mode of presenting “the Interrupted Dream” is documented in another zhezi xi anthology, A Record of Parsing Musical Notes and Mirroring the Past (Shenyin jiangu lu), also published around the mid-Qing. In this anthology, the flower deities are given a much stronger stage presence. This is marked by the increased number of songs assigned to the them (increasing from one to five) and a much larger cast impersonating the different flower deities (fourteen in total). Existing records of the performance of flower deities reveal complex group dance formations, including the formation of “flower towers” (duihua). Kunqu troupes, owned by wealthy salt merchants, were said to have spent a fortune on elaborate costumes for the “flower towers dance.” This gradual shift of focus towards theatrical grandeur and visual spectacle reveals the profound influence Kunqu exerted on the performance history of The Peony Pavilion. 481

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Notes 1 The other three chuanqi plays in Linchuan Simeng are The Purple Hairpin (Zichai ji), The Dream of Nanke (Nanke ji), and The Dream of Handan (Handan meng). 2 For an extensive discussion of the various hypotheses regarding the direct and indirect sources for The Peony Pavilion, see Wilt Idema, “ ‘What Eyes May Light upon My Sleeping Form?’: Tang Xianzu’s Transformation of His Sources, with a Translation of ‘Du Liniang Craves Sex and Returns to Life,’” Asia Major 16, no. 1 (2003): 111–45. 3 Unless noted otherwise, I follow the translations by Cyril Birch for all the titles of scenes and arias quoted in this chapter. Tang Xianzu, The Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting), 2nd ed., trans. Cyril Birch (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002). 4 Tang Xianzu, “Mudanting ji tici,” in Tang Xianzu quanji (Complete Works of Tang Xianzu) (Beijing: Beijing guji chubanshe, 1999), 2.1153. Translation quoted here is by Cyril Birch, with the insertion of the term qing to replace “love” in Birch’s translation. See Birch, “Preface to the Second Edition,” The Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting), ix. 5 Martin W. Huang, Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard East Asia Center, 2001), 44. 6 After Chen leaves the room, Liniang reprimands Chunxiang: “Stupid creature, ‘a tutor for a day is a father for a lifetime’; don’t you understand he has the right to beat you?” Tang, The Peony Pavilion, 30. 7 Scene 12, “Pursuing the Dream”: after a sleepless night, Liniang decides to seize her chance to dodge Chunxiang and search the garden alone. Tang, The Peony Pavilion, 57. 8 John Y. H. Hu, “Through Hades to Humanity: A Structural Interpretation of The Peony Pavilion,” Tamkang Review 10, no. 3 (Spring 1980): 591–608. 9 Thomas Kelly, “Putting on a Play in an Underworld Courtroom: The ‘Mingpan’ (Infernal Judgment) Scene in Tang Xianzu’s Mudan Ting (Peony Pavilion),” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 32, no. 2 (December 2013): 132–55. 10 Jamie Greenbaum, Chen Jiru (1558–1639): The Background to Development and Subsequent Uses of Literary Personae (Brill, 2007), 187. 11 Tina Lu, Persons, Roles, and Minds: Identity in Peony Pavilion and Peach Blossom Fan (Stanford University Press, 2001), 28–62; Martin W. Huang, Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China, 80. 12 Tang, Peony Pavilion, 60. For a detailed analysis of the symbolism of the apricot, see Catherine C. Swatek, Peony Pavilion Onstage: Four Hundred Years in the Career of a Chinese Drama (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2002), Chapter 3: “Three Containments of Imagery in Fengliu meng.” 13 Tang’s remark is quoted by Wang Jide in his critical work The Principle of Qu (Qulü), no. 39 in the section called “Miscellanies (Zalun),” in Qulü, ed. Chen Duo and Ye Changhai (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1983). 14 Tang Xianzu, “My Response to Lü Jiangshan (Da Lü Jiangshan),” in Tang Xianzu shiwenji, ed. Xu Shuofang (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1982), 1337. 15 Tang Xianzu, “Preface to ‘Matching the Uncanny’” (Heqi Xu). 16 Lü Tiancheng, Qupin. Included in Zhongguo xiqu yanjiu yuan, ed., Zhongguo gudian xiqu lunzhu jicheng, Vol. 6 (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1982). 17 Mao Xianshu, Mao Zhihuang shisi zhong: shi biandi, Vol. 4, “On poetry (ciqu).” 18 Wang Jide, Qulü, no. 90 in the section “Miscellanies (Zalun).” 19 Jing Shen, “The Concept of Bense in Ming Drama Criticism,” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 24 (2002): 1–33. 20 John C. Y. Wang, “ ‘ Multiflorate Splendour’: A Commentary on Three English Translations of Scene 10 of The Peony Pavilion,” Journal of Oriental Studies 46, no. 1 (2013): 1–33. 21 Tang, The Peony Pavilion, 44. 22 Tang Xianzu, Epigraph for the Theatre God Master Qingyuan in the Yihuang County Temple (Yihuang xian xishen Qingyuan shi miaoji), in Tang Xianzu quanji, ed. and annot. Xu Shuofang (Beijing: Beijing guji chubanshe, 1999), 2.1188–90. 23 See Swatek, Chapter 2: “The Musically Grounded Adaptations of Zang Maoxun and Feng Menglong.”

Further Reading Hsia, C. T. “Time and the Human Condition in the Plays of T’ang Hsien-tsu.” In Self and Society in Ming Thought, edited by Wm Theodore de Bary, 249–79. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.

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The Peony Pavilion Idema, Wilt L. “ ‘What Eyes May Light upon My Sleeping Form?’: Tang Xianzu’s Transformation of His Sources, with a Translation of ‘Du Liniang Craves Sex and Returns to Life.’” Asia Major 16, no. 1 (2003): 111–45. Kelly, Thomas. “Putting on a Play in an Underworld Courtroom: The ‘Mingpan’ (Infernal Judgment) Scene in Tang Xianzu’s Mudan Ting (Peony Pavilion).” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 32, no. 2 (December 2013): 132–55. Lu, Tina. Persons, Roles, and Minds: Identity in Peony Pavilion and Peach Blossom Fan. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. Swatek, Catherine C. Peony Pavilion Onstage: Four Centuries in the Career of a Chinese Drama. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2002. Tan, Tian Yuan, and Paolo Santangelo, eds. Passion, Romance and Qing: The World of Emotions and States of Mind in Peony Pavilion. 3 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Tang Xianzu. Mudan ting. Edited by Xu Shuofang and Yang Xiaomei. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959. Tang Xianzu. The Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting). 2nd ed. Translated by Cyril Birch. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. Volpp, Sophie. Worldly Stage: Theatricality in Seventeenth-Century China. Chapter 3: Pedagogy and Pedants in Tang Xianzu’s Mudan ting. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2011.

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41 THE PALACE OF LASTING LIFE Jessica Moyer and Guojun Wang

The Author and the Play Hong Sheng (1645–1704), courtesy name Fangsi, style name Baiqi, came from an established family in Qiantang, Zhejiang province, and studied with renowned scholars, including Wang Shizhen (1634–1711). He entered the Directorate of Education as a student with a government stipend around 1668 but failed to acquire higher degrees through the examination system. After spending more than two decades (ca. 1668–1691) in the capital, Beijing, he was deprived of his student status when his drama was staged during the mourning period of an empress. He spent the last decade of his life traveling near his hometown and died from drowning after drinking.1 Surviving poems by Hong Sheng are included in Collection of the Building of Moonlight Whistling (Xiaoyue lou ji), Collection of a Field of Weeds (Baiqi ji), and Sequel to the Collection of a Field of Weeds (Baiqi xuji). Of ten dramas composed by Hong, only three have survived: a zaju drama entitled Four Beauties (Si chanjuan) and two chuanqi dramas, A Landscape of Colorful Brocade (Jinxiu tu, authorship under question) and The Palace of Lasting Life (Changsheng dian, hereafter Palace). Palace dramatizes events of the Tang dynasty, notably the An Lushan rebellion (755–763 CE). This rebellion lasted eight years and was a sociopolitical cataclysm whose effects reverberated for centuries afterward. It was extensively treated in both history and literature starting from the eighth century.2 “Song of Lasting Sorrow” (“Changhen ge”) by Bai Juyi (772–846) was an early and influential poem romanticizing the love story of the Xuanzong emperor (personal name Li Longji, 685–762) and his consort Yang Yuhuan (719–756). Representative theatrical works include Rain on the Wutong Tree (Wutong Yu, Yuan dynasty), The Colorful Writing Brush (Caihao ji, Ming dynasty), Tale of the Startled Geese (Jinghong ji, Ming), The Tune of Peace and Purity (Qingping diao, Qing), and Drama History of the Tianbao Era (Tianbao qushi, Qing).3 Before the completion of Palace, Hong had composed two plays related to Tang history: around 1673, Hong wrote The Incense Pavilion (Chenxiang ting), which represented the experiences of the Tang poet Li Bai (701–762); around 1679, he completed Dance of the Rainbow Skirt (Wu nichang), which focuses on the pacification of the An Lushan rebellion. In 1688, Hong revised the earlier plays into Palace, which interweaves the mythic love story of Li and Yang with scenes of the political crisis. Most Qing dynasty editions of the drama include fifty scenes in two volumes. The play opens with an elderly emperor joyfully welcoming Lady Yang into his harem. Subsequent scenes DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-57 

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alternate between romance and politics. The emperor promotes Lady Yang’s relatives, especially her brother Yang Guozhong, to powerful positions; we also see how An Lushan rises from a disgraced general to a favored one through corruption and flattery, all while harboring rebellious ambitions. Meanwhile, the emperor is distracted by his love for Lady Yang and his dalliances with other women; the latter fill Lady Yang with grief and jealousy, but eventually she and the emperor swear eternal love and exchange tokens: a hairpin and a decorated box. She is granted a visit with the moon goddess during which she learns the musical tune “Rainbow Skirts, Feathered Robes” and brings it back to earth, where she rescores and improves it, then dazzles the emperor by dancing to the new musical suite. Their idyll is uninterrupted at first by An Lushan’s rebellion, but when a catastrophic error by Yang Guozhong allows An to break through the near-impregnable Tong Pass and march on the capital, the terrifying news reaches the emperor and Lady Yang in the midst of a feast. They are forced to flee the capital, and only a short way outside the city, the soldiers—who rightly blame Yang Guozhong for the disastrous defeat—refuse to march any further unless Lady Yang is executed. The emperor refuses, but Lady Yang begs to be allowed to commit suicide to save him and the empire; at last he reluctantly agrees. Her death marks the midpoint of the play. In the second half of the play, Lady Yang’s spirit wanders sadly around earth, repenting of her misdeeds during life. Eventually, her repentance wins her absolution, and she is reinstated to her position as an immortal; it is revealed that she was originally an immortal temporarily banished to earth. Meanwhile, the bereaved emperor abdicates the throne in favor of his son; he too is depressed, mourning Lady Yang and grieved that she does not appear even in his dreams. At last, he asks a Daoist practitioner to go on a soul journey to find her soul and speak to her. The Daoist finds her in the immortal realms and brings back the message that her love for the emperor has never wavered. At last, the emperor himself dies, and he is reunited with Lady Yang, to live as immortals together forever. They leave the stage to the accompaniment of “Rainbow Skirts, Feathered Robes.” Around the time Hong Sheng died, in 1704, the drama had already appeared in woodblock prints. Its publication was overseen by Hong’s friends and possibly himself as well. Additional print editions of the drama appeared in the nineteenth century. The turn of the twentieth century saw multiple productions of the drama using modern lithography and lead typesetting. In addition to print editions, Palace circulated in manuscript throughout the Qing dynasty. Many editions include commentary; some also include illustrations and portraits of Consort Yang. Throughout the Qing dynasty, playwrights composed sequels to the drama, such as Supplement to the Palace of Lasting Life (Changsheng dian buque) by Tang Ying (1682–1756). The late Qing era saw the appearance of more dramatic works inspired by Palace. Upon its completion in 1688, Palace was immediately performed by theater troupes in Beijing, mostly at private gatherings in noble households. Some records indicate that even the Kangxi emperor watched and praised its performance. However, the drama’s performance during the mourning period of Empress Tong in 1689 violated ritual protocols and caused more than fifty participants to be punished, including Hong himself. Scholars have speculated on possible reasons for the punishment, linking the performance to factional conflicts in the Qing court.4 After a brief hiatus, staging of the drama resumed in the capital and various areas of China. Throughout the Qing dynasty, numerous scholars left poetic works recording their experience of watching those performances. Sporadic records indicate that Palace was staged in its entirety during the half century after its completion. After the mid-Qianlong era (r. 1735–1796), performances of the entire play became scarce, but selected scenes from the drama remained popular onstage. In general, nine scenes from the drama were most frequently included in opera anthologies such as the Patched White Fur 485

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(Zhui baiqiu, 18th century) and A Record of Investigating Sounds and Antiquity (Shenyin jiangu lu, 19th century), as well as opera scores such as the Newly Edited Standard Rules for the Southern Arias (Xinbian nanci dinglü, 1720). Among those scenes, “A Visit to the Pavilion” (“Xuge”), “The Alarm” (“Jingbian”), “Hearing the Bells” (“Wenling”), and “The Rhapsody” (“Tanci”) have maintained their popularity up to today.5 Performances took place in the imperial palace, private households, and commercial theaters. The early performances of Palace were produced by kun opera troupes. As Palace spread to different areas of the Qing empire, its scenes were adapted by various performance genres such as Sichuan opera and Beijing opera. In 2007, Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe performed the entire play.6 The drama has also been performed in various contexts outside Mainland China.7 There are three especially rich ways to approach The Palace of Lasting Life: analyzing the play as history, as romance, and as art. The three are ultimately connected, for Hong Sheng romanticizes history in order to use it as the raw material for his own self-conscious dramatic artistry.

The Play as History Palace dramatizes events of the Tang dynasty, notably the An Lushan rebellion. Traditional historiographers took it as their duty to assign praise and blame,8 and Hong Sheng does so in many scenes throughout the play. He criticizes not only An Lushan but the emperor and his officials for the failures in good government that allowed the rebellion to happen, and he emphasizes the suffering of the common people before, during, and after the rebellion. In scene 25, for example, the emperor is in flight from his defeated capital, mourning for Lady Yang, when the loyal peasant Guo Congjin comes to present the emperor with a bowl of coarse boiled grain and some equally hard-to-swallow political criticism. He blames the emperor for giving Yang Guozhong so much power, and the emperor admits: Yes, I have been much to blame. A ruler should be all-seeing, all-knowing. And should understand conditions in his country.9 It is tempting to imagine the peasant as the author’s mouthpiece, directly assigning blame for the An Lushan rebellion to the emperor whose distraction with Lady Yang’s charms blinded him to the brewing catastrophe. Guo Congjin speaks with the voice of the historian as judge. It is important to note the social position of the character who speaks these lines. In this moment of upheaval, the peasant has both access to the emperor and the right to criticize him directly. In seventeenth-century literature, it is not uncommon for a supporting character of a lower social class “to embody values and qualities that are traditionally considered the prerogative of the elite.”10 Hong Sheng uses this device at several points throughout his play, not only with Guo Congjin but also with the musician Lei Haiqing, who is executed after heroically denouncing the rebel An Lushan to his face (scene 27). Like the heroically chaste courtesan so common in late imperial vernacular literature,11 the heroically loyal peasant or entertainer character vocalizes ideas and aspirations that represent literati projections and fantasies rather than historical reality. Neither is the peasant’s speech a simple statement of Hong Sheng’s verdict on history. Palace presents a range of judgments on the events it depicts, and the particular narrative voiced by Guo Congjin, in which the emperor is to blame for letting love (or lust) distract him from duty, is not necessarily the view endorsed by Hong Sheng the playwright. We can see the deliberate multivocality of the opera especially clearly in scene 35, when several characters view a silk stocking 486

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that once belonged to Lady Yang: the loyal peasant Guo Congjin, a Daoist abbess, and the young scholar Li Mo. Their disparate reactions to the stocking allow the playwright to present a full range of opinions. Li Mo is struck by the exquisite beauty of the stocking and its rare perfume. Guo Congjin scoffs at the “stinking thing” and reiterates his political critique: “Just because he doted on Lady Yang, our former emperor spent all his time in pleasure and neglected affairs of state, with the result that there was a rebellion and the people suffered unspeakably.” And the Daoist abbess reflects on the fleeting dream and illusion of both feminine beauty and a kingdom’s splendor. Both Li Mo and the abbess are given privileged epistemological positions. Li Mo appears throughout the play as one of the key hearers of the musical piece “Rainbow Skirts and Feathered Robes” (discussed in more detail subsequently), and the abbess correctly identifies Lady Yang as an immortal, not a mere human seductress. Their presence and differing reactions to the stocking prevent the audience from seeing Guo Congjin’s system of values, in which political duties take precedence over private pleasure, as the only legitimate one. Li Mo’s aesthetic appreciation of beauty and the Daoist’s philosophical distancing of both politics and pleasure are presented as equally serious interpretive claims. This privileging of philosophy and aesthetics on par with or even above historiographical judgment is possible in part because, by the seventeenth century, when Hong Sheng was writing his play, its action was no longer an event in living memory but a catastrophe of the distant past. This distance allows Palace to take a very different approach to its source material, compared to plays that depict the more recent upheaval of the Ming-Qing dynastic transition, such as the equally well-known seventeenth-century drama Peach Blossom Fan (Taohua shan). For one thing, though it is certainly possible to read the play as an indirect reflection on the Ming-Qing transition, the play itself does not seem to have been particularly politically sensitive. But more important even than the question of whether the play was (or was perceived as) anti-Qing is the question of how political, in a broader sense, the drama is meant to be. Are the political events it depicts really the focus of the play, or simply the backdrop against which an intimate love story unfolds? To answer this question, we can start by comparing this play’s treatment of the An Lushan rebellion to extant historical records and other literary works. Hong Sheng read historical and literary sources extensively, but he used them selectively, deliberately omitting what he called “indecorous records”—particularly the story that Lady Yang had had an affair with the rebel An Lushan.12 Importantly, Hong Sheng stated in his preface to the play that this omission was “not for the purpose of concealing defects but for maintaining the honesty and integrity of a poet.”13 Comparing portrayals of Lady Yang in five different dramas, Chen Fan Pen shows that Hong Sheng’s depiction of Lady Yang hews most closely to the literary demands of the romantic opera, making her the perfect romantic heroine.14 This suggests that ultimately, Hong Sheng’s self-identification as a poet drove his search for aesthetic unity in characterization, which took precedence over the historian’s role of providing a trove of information and assigning praise and blame.

The Play as Romance Hong Sheng declares his theme to be love in the opening aria of the very first scene, stating that Palace is about “love and nothing more.” But the term “love” (qing), in his world as in our own, could mean many things. To understand the romantic ideal that he shapes in his opera, the discourse on qing in the seventeenth century provides important context. In philosophy before the Han dynasty, the term qing referred to factual phenomena as opposed to falsehood, to the essence of persons as opposed to their reputations, and, finally, to human emotions as expressions of moral essence. Within what is loosely termed Confucian thought, there had 487

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always been a tension around the idea of human feeling in general. On one hand, passions and emotions were often seen as fleeting, dangerous, tending to lead one astray. From this perspective, sexual desire was only one of many potentially misleading emotions that must be kept in check. On the other hand, emotion was recognized as a powerful and ineluctable aspect of human life, and thus also of the virtuous life: rituals were meant to express and fulfill the emotions as well as guide them and were never to be performed insincerely. Indeed, many sayings of Confucius emphasize the priority of emotional sincerity over outward action in ritual (without, however, suggesting that the two can be separated). Emotion, then, was in productive tension, rather than direct conflict, with ethical and ritual norms. Later philosophers in the Confucian tradition varied in their approach to human passions. Starting in the Song dynasty, the Cheng-Zhu school of Neo-Confucianism emphasized the restraint of qing, including romantic passion and lust. In the late Ming dynasty, Wang Yangming and other members of the Taizhou school emphasized the capacity of every individual to attain sagehood and the right of every individual to self-expression and self-fulfillment.15 As a corollary, they gave freer reign to individual desires.16 But it was in literature that the new “cult of qing” flowered most vividly. In fiction, drama, and poetry, romantic passion had always been valorized, but in the late Ming it enjoyed a new and even higher level of attention and respect. Some authors portrayed passionate romances between scholars and courtesans. Others sought to harmonize qing with ritually sanctioned family structures, featuring companionate marriages rather than courtesan romances.17 The famed plays Story of the Western Wing (Xixiang ji) and Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting), for example, each feature a passionate romance between a youthful scholar and a young woman of good family, culminating in marriage. The popularity of domesticated portrayals of qing intensified after the fall of the Ming dynasty, when many thinkers saw the stability of the family order as central to the stability of the state and blamed late Ming decadence for the dynasty’s collapse.18 The rise of the chaste caizi jiaren (scholar-beauty romance) genre in the early Qing, in which young scholars meet and marry beauties both virtuous and talented, speaks to the desire to harmonize qing with ritual norms.19 So too does the well-known eighteenth-century statesman Chen Hongmou (1696–1771), who throughout his extensive collection of conduct literature framed qing as “the affective, empathetic urge which prompts moral behavior.”20 In short, by Hong Sheng’s day, the term “qing” could cover everything from sexual passion for courtesans to passionate political loyalty to one’s sovereign. Hong Sheng’s prologue offers not only a definition of his romantic ideal, but also a pointed intervention in an ongoing debate about the role of passion in human experience: On passion’s stage, in olden times as now, Whose hearts stayed true until the end? If only lovers keep their faith and never fail, At last they will be joined again. No separation troubles them, though miles in thousands lie between from north to south; And life or death for two such hearts is no concern. I scorn those men and women of this world who complain of harshness in their fate—this is lack of love. Love stirs even stone, And can turn the Earth and Heaven. It stands revealed in light of sun, It lasts in histories. 488

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Think of the loyal subject, think of the filial child— All come to this because of love.21 From the prologue, we can see that Hong Sheng’s vision of qing encompasses both romantic passion and the more traditional virtues of filiality and loyalty, and that it is defined by fidelity to death and beyond. In Palace of Lasting Life, Hong Sheng transforms the emperor and Lady Yang into perfect lovers, the better to present his vision of qing. The differences between his drama and earlier portrayals of the story reveal the nuances of his romantic ideal: the play provides an explicit correction to both earlier portrayals of Lady Yang and earlier dramatizations of qing itself. Hong Sheng’s portrayal of Lady Yang follows all other sources in making her seductively beautiful. Scene 3 describes her drowsy charm while she is exhausted after a night of lovemaking with the emperor, scene 15 describes her lissome movements in the dance, and scene 20 depicts the emperor and Lady Yang bathing together while two enraptured palace maids spy on them. But Hong Sheng’s treatment of Yang differs from earlier sources in several important respects. First, following Bai Juyi’s well-known poem “Song of Lasting Sorrow,” Hong gives no details about her previous romantic history. In historical fact, Yang Yuhuan was married to one of the emperor’s sons before the emperor saw her and took her for his own; in scurrilous historical anecdote, she had an affair with An Lushan before his rebellion.22 But for Hong, Lady Yang is perfectly devoted to the emperor. Her dominant fault is not infidelity, but jealousy. Hong Sheng devotes far more space than other sources to a discussion of Yang’s jealousy. Scenes 5 through 8 tell the story of how Lady Yang becomes jealous when her sister gains the emperor’s favor, after which the emperor banishes her from the palace; eventually Lady Yang repents in tears and the lovers reconcile. Scenes 17 and 18 describe another episode of jealousy, in which the emperor sneaks a night with the Plum Blossom Consort behind Lady Yang’s back; in these scenes, however, the emperor goes to comic lengths to conceal his lapse and eventually must coax Lady Yang out of her anger when she sees through his machinations. Hong Sheng presents Lady Yang’s jealousy in such a way as to gain the reader’s sympathy, particularly in the second episode. He depicts it as a forgivable, human fault. Nevertheless, the love depicted in the first half of the play is not Hong Sheng’s ultimate vision of love, even though it is accompanied by vows of eternal fidelity. For one thing, it is bound up with the sensual delights of banquets and music, drunkenness and dance, which he clearly links to the emperor’s retreat from his political duties. In scene 1, the emperor introduces himself by saying that since he has governed the realm well and appointed able ministers, “Why should I not spend my days in pleasure?” In scene 2, Yang Guozhong introduces himself as Lady Yang’s cousin and takes bribes from An Lushan. These early scenes set the political tragedy of the rebellion in motion and link it to the emperor’s obsession with Lady Yang. Lady Yang’s jealousy, too, shows that her love is still flawed and not yet perfected. For Hong Sheng, human love contains the germ of ideal love, but only through an extended and arduous purification process can it become true love.23 This purification process begins with Lady Yang’s death in scene 24. When the emperor’s troops demand her death, she agrees at once: “If Your Majesty can make it safely to Shu, then I am content to die.” The emperor refuses: “Let the empire be destroyed and my family die, I refuse to abandon you.” But Lady Yang begs: “If you persist in trying to hold onto me, then the good will be destroyed with the bad, and the wrongs for which I am responsible will be multiplied.” At last, the emperor relents: “Let my Lady do as she will.”24 In this version of events, the emperor values Lady Yang above his empire, but she places both his life and his responsibilities above her life, sacrificing herself for both him and his dynasty. 489

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After Lady Yang’s death, the lovers remain true to one another but repent of many aspects of the past. The emperor repents of placing his trust in corrupt officials and being ignorant of the real political situation (scene 25) but also of having given up Lady Yang so easily to death (scene 49). He grieves for her until the end of his life. Lady Yang’s spirit repents of nearly all her past actions, particularly her “scent and powder” (scene 26) and the way she enabled her cousin and sister’s greedy ambitions (scene 29) but maintains “Only my love I can never repent, for I am still drowning in a sea of love; and even if I cannot be reborn, I will go on loving the emperor in hell” (scene 29). When Lady Yang is restored to her position as an immortal, the goddess Weaving Maid tests her love: “Now that you rank as an immortal you should free yourself of earthly desires; because if you allow them to entangle you, you may be banished to the world of men.” But Lady Yang replies: “If only we could love again, madam, I would gladly be banished from heaven” (scene 46). Thus, the lovers repent of nearly every aspect of their life together but remain true to their love itself, symbolized by their pledge of eternal togetherness.25 Taking pity on them because of their lasting devotion to each other, the Cowherd god and Weaving Maid goddess reunite the emperor and the consort as immortal man and wife in heaven, free to love eternally. But their love has changed here in scene 49: they are now “without the lingering desire for body’s pleasure, childish folly” (Owen, 1098). The closing aria, sung by the moon goddess Chang E, reiterates the difference between earthly and heavenly love: Unions in this world of dust pass with anxious haste, but there’s a Heaven of Heart’s Desire where love goes on forever. This differs from that common dream, beguiled by grief and joy alike, where gentle care and passion come at last to emptiness. (Owen, 1101) The arc of purification and progression from earthly sensual romance to pure, immortal passion is Hong Sheng’s ultimate dramatic statement of qing. Hong Sheng’s vision of immortal love is very different from late Ming ideals of qing, not only from scholar-courtesan romances, but even from Story of the Western Wing and Peony Pavilion, the masterpieces of Yuan-Ming drama that end with marriage. Those earlier dramas concentrate on “the process of the lovers’ courtship and their struggles against an unsympathetic environment,” while Hong Sheng begins with the couple’s marriage and dramatizes “their spiritual progression in love as they elevate their affection from desire to total devotion through purification” (Li, Ch 4). The lovers must conquer not family opposition nor even the obstacles of physical separation and death but their own baser desires in order to be reunited in triumph. Ultimately, then, Hong Sheng subordinates history to romance in the dramatic arc of the play as a whole. The political machinations of courtiers and generals, like the sexual machinations of the emperor’s consorts are dismissed as the “world of dust.” The opera is more romantic than historical. But we should still take a hard look at Hong Sheng’s assertion in the prologue that the play is about “love, and nothing more.” The play is also self-consciously about artistry, about the creative process, and about beauty.

The Play as Art Chuanqi drama is a “composite art” that must combine music, poetry, and narrative in perfect balance to succeed as an artistic unity.26 Palace features both an elaborately structured narrative and delicate lyrical artistry. Furthermore, Hong Sheng prided himself on the musical skill of his composition. Musical performance itself takes center stage throughout Palace of Lasting Life.

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Hong Sheng uses scenes of performance-within-a-play to develop both the historiographical and romantic themes we have already discussed: music drives the romantic narrative, and onstage performances model both approaches and audience responses to historical narrative. Finally, Hong Sheng uses performances within the world of the play to reflect self-consciously on his own work as a playwright. A recurring leitmotif throughout Palace is the musical suite “Rainbow Skirts and Feathered Robes.” This song indeed existed in the Tang dynasty and was associated with Lady Yang, but its actual melody had been lost before Hong Sheng began to write. Hong fleshes out the story of this song and includes scenes of its performance onstage throughout the drama. Initially, it furthers the romantic plot as Lady Yang uses it to outshine her rival Lady Plum Blossom and gain favor with the emperor. But Lady Yang’s composition also pushes the emperor to elevate his love, for the first time, above the sensual: “My darling is not only unmatched in beauty, but the genius she shows here has never been surpassed. With intelligence alone she can outshine all the beauties in the palace” (scene 11). The music is itself a sensual delight that furthers their sensual relationship, but even in this early scene, it also represents the deeper love that will emerge fully only in the immortal realm. These hints of the song’s deeper meanings are realized in scene 39, when the Moon Goddess requests Lady Yang to give her a copy of the version of “Rainbow Skirts” she had made on earth: though the Moon Goddess was the original source of the music, she values Lady Yang’s tearstained copy even more highly. It is this newly scored version of “Rainbow Skirts” that is played as the immortal lovers are led out to their new heavenly palace in the final scene. Thus, the journey of the musical suite “Rainbow Skirts” mirrors that of the lovers themselves: both originate in the immortal world, descend to the mortal world, and finally return to the world above, first enriched by their sojourn in the world of tears and red dust and then purified to ascend above it again. Music serves also as the means by which Hong Sheng mediates and reflects on history throughout the play. In “The Rhapsody” (scene 37), the leader of the palace musical troupe, Li Guinian, performs a suite of twelve songs about the An Lushan rebellion to an audience of various characters, each of whom responds differently. The scene itself represents the playwright’s work of creative variation on existing song tunes, and its performance history shows the ongoing creative work of performance that begins once a script has left the playwright’s hands.27 It dramatizes not only the work of the author, but a wide range of audience responses.28 In such scenes, “music is overtly thematized . . . as part of a sustained reflection on the nature of the playwright-composer’s craft and its relationship to performance.”29 Music, indeed art itself, is the subject to which the playwright directs the audience’s attention. If historical record is the substance with which Hong Sheng builds his perfect romance, it is equally true that this romantic story is the raw material of the playwright’s aesthetic achievement. And if we may venture a guess about Hong Sheng’s own truest passion, we suspect it was neither history nor love in any form, but the glory of art itself.

Notes 1 See Zhang Peiheng, Hong Sheng nianpu (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1979). 2 For a discussion of Chinese literature featuring this period of Tang history, see Zeng Yongyi, Hong Sheng jiqi Changsheng dian (Taipei: Guojia chubanseh, 2009), ch. 5. 3 For a discussion of dramas featuring Li and Yang, see Meng Fanshu, Hong Sheng ji Changsheng dian yanjiu (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1985), 98–123.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 4 See Zhang Peiheng, “Yan Changsheng dian zhihuo kao,” in Hong Sheng nianpu, 371–404. 5 For a recent study of the circulation of Palace, see Rao Ying, “Changsheng dian jieshou yanjiu” (PhD diss., Nanjing shifan daxue, 2020). 6 On modern-day performances, see Ye Changhai, Liu Qing, and Ding Sheng, eds., Changsheng dian yanchu yu yanjiu (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 2009). 7 See Zhu Jinhua, “Changsheng dian yanchu shi yanjiu” (PhD diss., Shanghai xiju xueyuan, 2007). 8 For one example, see Liu Yinbai, Hong Sheng yanjiu (Shijiazhuang: Huashan wenyi chubanshe, 1991), ch. 4. 9 Translated in Yang and Yang, The Palace of Eternal Youth. All translations are from Yang and Yang unless otherwise noted. This translation includes forty-nine scenes, a prologue, and an epilogue. All scene numbers in this chapter refer to this translation’s numbering. Other editions (including Chinese-language editions and the bilingual edition published by Beijing Foreign Language Press) number the prologue as scene 1 and include the epilogue in scene 50. 10 Maria Franca Sibau, “Maids, Fishermen, and Storytellers: Rewriting Marginal Characters in Early Qing Drama and Fiction,” CHINOPERL 35, no. 1 (2016): 26. 11 Hsu Pi-Ching, “Courtesans and Scholars in the Writings of Feng Menglong: Transcending Status and Gender,” Nan nü 2, no. 1 (2000). 12 Ayling Wang, “Interaction Between the Reader, the Critic and the Author: The Qing Dramatist Hong Sheng’s Historical Play Changsheng dian and Wu Yiyi’s Commentary,” in True Lies Worldwide: Fictionality in Global Contexts, ed. Anders Cullhed and Lena Rydholm (Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter, 2014), 115–17. 13 Hong Sheng, “Author’s Preface to Changsheng dian,” trans. Ayling Wang, “Interaction Between the Reader, the Critic, and the Author,” 115. 14 Fan Pen Chen, “The Many Faces of Yang Guifei in Chinese Drama,” CHINOPERL 16, no. 1 (1992). 15 Dorothy Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), 79. 16 William Theodore De Bary, “Individualism and Humanitarianism in Late Ming Thought,” in Self and Society in Ming Thought, ed. William Theodore De Bary and the Conference on Ming Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), passim. 17 Maram Epstein, Competing Discourses: Orthodoxy, Authenticity and Engendered Meanings in Late Imperial Chinese Fiction (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001), 87–92. 18 Richard E. Strassberg, The World of Kʻung Shang-Jen: A Man of Letters in Early Chʻing China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 260–62. 19 On the caizi jiaren, see Keith McMahon, Misers, Shrews, and Polygamists: Sexuality and Male-Female Relations in Eighteenth-Century Chinese Fiction (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), 99–125. 20 William Rowe, “Women and the Family in Mid-Qing Social Thought: The Case of Chen Hongmou,” Late Imperial China 13, no. 2 (1992): 31–32. 21 Translated in Stephen Owen, An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), 975. 22 Fan Pen Chen, “The Many Faces of Yang Guifei,” 96–97. 23 Ayling Wang, “Interaction Between the Reader, the Critic and the Author,” 118. 24 Stephen Owen, An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to, 1044–45. 25 For a discussion on Hong Sheng’s purist revision of the drama and the depiction of Li and Yang’s repentance, see Qiancheng Li, Transmutations of Desire: Literature and Religion in Late Imperial China (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2020), Ch. 4. 26 Ayling Wang, “Music and Dramatic Lyricism in Hong Sheng’s Palace of Eternal Life,” in Text, Performance, and Gender in Chinese Literature and Music: Essays in Honor of Wilt Idema, ed. Maghiel van Crevel, Tian Yuan Tan, and Michel Hockx (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 233. 27 Lam, “A Kunqu Masterpiece and Its Interpretations: Tanci (the Ballad) from Hong Sheng’s Changsheng Dian (Palace of Lasting Life),” CHINOPERL 33, no. 2 (2014). 28 Lam, “A Kunqu Masterpiece”; Ayling Wang, “Music and Dramatic Lyricism,” 246. 29 Zeitlin, “Music and Performance in Hong Sheng’s Palace of Lasting Life,” in Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature, ed. Wilt Idema, Wai-yee Li, and Ellen Widmer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), 456.

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Further Reading Editions of the Drama Hong Sheng. Changsheng dian. Edited by Xu Shuofang. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1983. Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, trans. The Palace of Eternal Youth. South San Francisco: Sinomedia/China Books, 2014. (Original publication, Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1955)

Secondary Studies Chen, Fan Pen. “The Many Faces of Yang Guifei in Chinese Drama.” CHINOPERL 16, no. 1 (1992): 95–132. Lam, Joseph. “A Kunqu Masterpiece and Its Interpretations: Tanci (the Ballad) from Hong Sheng’s Changsheng Dian (Palace of Lasting Life).” CHINOPERL 33, no. 2 (2014): 97–120. Wang, Ayling. “Interaction Between the Reader, the Critic and the Author: The Qing Dramatist Hong Sheng’s Historical Play Changsheng dian and Wu Yiyi’s Commentary.” In True Lies Worldwide: Fictionality in Global Contexts, edited by Anders Cullhed and Lena Rydholm, 111–36. Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter, 2014. Wang, Ayling. “Music and Dramatic Lyricism in Hong Sheng’s Palace of Eternal Life.” In Text, Performance, and Gender in Chinese Literature and Music: Essays in Honor of Wilt Idema, edited by Maghiel van Crevel, Tian Yuan Tan, and Michel Hockx, 233–62. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Wang Limei. Quzhong jubo–Hong Sheng zhuan. Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 2007. Zeitlin, Judith T. “Music and Performance in Hong Sheng’s Palace of Lasting Life.” In Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature, edited by Wilt Idema, Wai-yee Li, and Ellen Widmer, 454–87. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006. Zeng Yongyi. Hong Sheng jiqi Changsheng dian. Taipei: Guojia chubanseh, 2009.

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42 THE PEACH BLOSSOM FAN Jing Shen

A sixty-fourth-generation descendant of Confucius serving in the Qing (1644–1911) government of the alien Manchus who had conquered China in the seventeenth century was not a common case. In 1684, when Emperor Kangxi (r. 1662–1722) visited Confucius’ home in Qufu, Kong Shangren (1648–1718) lectured on the Confucian classics and impressed the emperor, who granted him an official position in Beijing.1 What is even more remarkable is the play Kong completed during his tenure of office: The Peach Blossom Fan (Taohua shan), which presents a critical and grieving reflection on the fall of the Han Chinese Ming dynasty (1368–1644). It created such a sensation that even the Manchu emperor was eager to read it.2 It has been speculated, however, that Kangxi’s attention to this play on such a sensitive topic cost Kong Shangren his official position, for he was dismissed from office a year later, following an obscure accusation, whose cause was never established. Peach Blossom Fan stands out among historical plays in Chinese dramatic literature for its careful composition and complex profundity. It has inspired many adaptations beginning in the early twentieth century.3 Despite his meticulous efforts to create a coherent historical drama, as indicated in its prefatory material,4 Kong’s reticence about asserting that Manchu forces were an agent causing the end of the Ming contributes to the ambiguities in the text of the play. Peach Blossom Fan was part of a trend in the early Qing of reflecting on the role of Ming scholars-officials in the overthrow of the Ming dynasty. But among these it was a strikingly unusual undertaking owing to its comprehensive evaluation of the roles taken by historical personalities in the last years of the dynasty and its regional continuation in the Southern Ming, through the medium of romantic chuanqi (lit.: transmitting marvels) drama. This masterpiece demonstrates that Kong Shangren’s experiment with the dramatic and musical form also enabled him to negotiate between history and interpretation.

Synopsis With the play’s prologue dated 1684, the main story is set at the end of the Chongzhen reign (1643–1644) and during the subsequent short-lived Hongguang court of the Southern Ming (1644–1645). The romance between a mainstay of the literary club called the Restoration Society, Hou Fangyu, and Li Xiangjun, a beautiful courtesan residing on the banks of the Qinhuai DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-58 

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River in the southern capital, Nanjing, drives the dramatic narrative. The romance is interwoven with an account of the factional and military strife that eventually precipitates the collapse of the Ming empire.5 Disgraced official Ruan Dacheng and governor-general of Fengyang Ma Shiying, representing the political opponents of the Restoration Society in the play, meddle with the romantic relationship through the agency of retired magistrate Yang Wencong, Ma’s brother-in-law and Ruan’s sworn brother. Ma and Ruan act like typical disrupters of a romantic relationship in chuanqi, but their destructive role takes on a political dimension. As the young lovers’ matchmaker, Yang proposes that Ruan provide a dowry for Hou, the son of Ruan’s classmate, to smooth over Ruan’s troubled relationship with the Restoration Society that has prevented him from joining the sacrifice at the Temple of Confucius. Ruan’s problem with the Society was caused by his association with the Grand Eunuch Wei Zhongxian (1568–1637), who persecuted upright ministers. When Ruan’s gifts sway Hou, Xiangjun rejects the trousseau, warning Hou to make a clean break with Ruan. This righteous act draws admiration from Chen Zhenhui and Wu Yingji, leaders of the Society, but aggravates Ruan’s enmity toward Hou. To vent his personal spite, Ruan falsely accuses Hou of instigating General Zuo Liangyu (a protégé of Hou’s father), who garrisons the upper reaches of the Yangtze River (Wuchang), to invade Nanjing. Ma threatens to have Hou arrested, and the frameup forces Hou into exile, separating the lovers. While Hou is away, Yang Wencong recommends Xiangjun for Tian Yang, the newly appointed director of military supplies, to take as a concubine. Faithful to Hou and unmoved by Tian’s betrothal gift of a large sum, Xiangjun firmly rejects the proposal and condemns Tian for his association with Wei Zhongxian’s clique. Ruan Dacheng leaks the aborted deal to now-Prime Minister Ma Shiying and goads him to force Xiangjun to marry his fellow provincial Tian, seeking another act of vengeance upon Hou. To defy the marriage to Tian, Xianjun uses a fan (Hou’s love keepsake, inscribed with his poem) to fight off any attempts to dress her up for the litter sent by Ma and knocks her head against the floor until she is found unconscious and bleeding, her fan spattered with blood. Her foster mother, Li Zhenli, has to pose as Xiangjun and go with Ma’s retainers to marry into Tian’s family—Yang’s “brainwave”—taking advantage of the fact that Tian, Ruan, Ma, and his attendants have never met Zhenli and Xiangjun. Afterwards Yang paints a few green leaves and branches around the bloodstains on the fan to transfigure them into peach blossoms. The eponymous peach blossom fan, a pledge of love, now becomes Xiangjun’s self-portrait, and she entrusts it to her music teacher, Sun Kunsheng, to deliver to Hou Fangyu. Before the fan reaches Hou, however, Xiangjun is taken to the imperial palace by force to perform Ruan Dacheng’s The Swallow Letter (Yanzi jian),6 a romantic comedy that delights the Hongguang emperor (formerly Prince Fu). After escaping Ruan’s false accusation, Hou Fangyu spends eight months serving as staff adviser to Minister of War Shi Kefa, who commands armies north of the Yangtze.7 Later, when Shi sends garrison general Gao Jie to reinforce the defense of the Yellow River front, Hou accompanies Gao to supervise the operation. There, heedless of Hou’s cautioning, Gao insults and unnerves Xu Dingguo, the neighboring army’s general. Gao’s arrogance and foolhardiness eventually make him fall into a death trap contrived by Xu’s resourceful wife. Hou Fangyu flees by boat, and on the Yellow River he encounters Su Kunsheng, who has been searching for him to deliver Xiangjun’s peach blossom fan. This message from her brings Hou back to Nanjing, only to find that she has already been removed to the palace.8 At this time, Ruan Dacheng, in power again as vice-minister of war in the new Hongguang regime, is attempting to strike back at his foes in the Restoration Society when he discovers Hou meeting with Chen Zhenhui and Wu Yingji in a large bookshop and has the three scholars arrested. Zhang Wei, Commander of the Imperial Guard, hears the case and intends to release them, knowing they are wrongly accused 495

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of rebellion, but Ma and Ruan’s decrees, which begin a reign of terror dedicated to eradicating dissidents, compel him to reconsider his decision: staying in temporary custody is safer under the circumstances. Zhang’s disillusionment with the justice system strengthens his resolve to retire. Su Kunsheng appeals to Zuo Liangyu to rescue Hou. In response, Zuo declares that he will lead his armies to rebuke Ma and Ruan in Nanjing, and he submits a request for their impeachment to the throne. The celebrity storyteller Liu Jingting, an acquaintance of Hou, volunteers to deliver the declaration to the capital, but there he is thrown in jail, where he finds himself in the company of Hou, Chen, and Wu. While making his expedition eastward, Zuo finds his way blocked by troops led by Huang Degong and Liu Zeqing and Liu Liangzuo (the two Liu) that Ma and Ruan have sent. Making the situation worse, Zuo’s son Menggeng, participating in military operations, is recklessly ravaging cities, tarnishing Zuo’s loyalist reputation. Shocked, Zuo tries to reach the capital but dies on the way, essentially of despair. Meanwhile, after Ma and Ruan dispatch the troops defending the Yellow River plains to the upper Yangtze region to oppose Zuo, Manchu armies exploit this opening to reach the capital’s last line of defense at Yangzhou—a consequence that Ma and Ruan had foreseen. Ma echoes Ruan’s position and declares: “I would rather yield to the northern soldiers than be butchered by the southern rebels.”9 Their deployment of the troops means that Shi Kefa has to hold the position in Yangzhou alone. At this critical moment for the nation, the Hongguang emperor and his court ministers abandon the Ming empire and flee the capital. Taking refuge in Huang Degong’s headquarters, he encounters a sinister design: the two Liu offer Hongguang to the Manchu court in Beijing as a prize, over Huang’s strong objections. Hongguang’s exile and the flight of Ma and Ruan, however, turn out to be a blessing for the separated lovers: Hou and fellow detainees escape while Xiangjun and other performers leave the palace in confusion. They find each other at Qixia Mountain on the outskirts of Nanjing, where they take shelter from the battles raging north of the Yangtze. What befalls them next, however, is not the happy reunion chuanqi conventions would predict. During the memorial service for the late Emperor Chongzhen taking place there, Zhang Wei, now a Daoist abbot, awakens them to the realization that indulgence in romantic love at the juncture of national doom aggravates an illusory perception of the world. Thereupon, Hou and Xiangjun withdraw from the mundane world and enter separate Daoist temples in the hills. The play concludes three years later (the year Kong Shangren was born) in this same mountainous area, in the Shunzhi reign: Su Kunsheng (now a woodcutter) and Liu Jingting (now a fisherman), along with the Master of Ceremonies, narrate stories of the Hongguang reign that had lasted only one year and bemoan the desolate scene in contemporary Nanjing. Their reminiscence is interrupted by a yamen runner, sent by authorities to search out Ming survivors-turned-recluses and make them leave their retreats. They run away from arrest, disappearing into the mountain deeps.

Chuanqi Evaluating History Kong Shangren’s two prefaces to Peach Blossom Fan address the genre of chuanqi drama and its ability to assess what ruined the Ming monarchy. In his “Short Preface to The Peach Blossom Fan” (Taohua shan xiao yin),10 the comparison of this dramatic form to the ancient canonical works underscores its capacity to facilitate political commentary on, and moral evaluation of, historical events. References to Confucian classics, The Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu) in particular, lend an authoritative voice to appraising historical figures’ role in the collapse of the Ming empire through musical drama Peach Blossom Fan. This suggestion comes to light in the Prologue, when the Master of Ceremonies introduces the author of the play and traces Kong Shangren’s lineage 496

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back to Confucius: “Suffice it that in distributing praise and blame he follows the tradition of his ancestor, the author of the Spring and Autumn Annals; by melodic means he revives the lofty style of the classic Odes [The Book of Songs], and demonstrates the quality of his upbringing” (Chen et al., 2). This point about using music and, by extension, musical drama as a vehicle to commend and censure in the spirit of Confucius further comes through in scene 1, where Liu Jingting performs a drum song based on a chapter of Confucius’ Analects about the Sage’s reform of music in the state of Lu. On his first appearance in scene 2, Su Kunsheng, portrayed by a jing (painted face) actor, presents himself as a righteous celebrity musician who makes a clean break with his patron Ruan Dacheng for Ruan’s connection with Wei Zhongxian, reminiscent of performers in Lu abandoning their treacherous masters after being enlightened by Confucius’ rectification of music. Contrasting with the praises sung of the Kangxi reign in the prologue, the main narrative of Peach Blossom Fan underlines the corruption of the Ming regime at various levels, from the imperial authority to government officers, both civil and military, while touching in ambiguous language upon the Manchus’ occupation of Beijing and movements to attack the south. It should be noted, however, that Shi Kefa’s description of northern troops massacring the Yangzhou populace in scene 38 makes a thinly veiled reference to Manchu aggressors. Scene 18 mentions both “dashing bandits” (chuangzei) and “roving bandits from the north” (liukou bei lai):11 the former refers to the leader of peasant rebels Li Zicheng (aka “Dashing King”), whose army broke into the palace in Beijing and ended the Ming dynasty, with Chongzhen’s suicide, whereas the latter seems to allude to Manchu soldiers (who soon superseded them there), but the differentiation of the entities is vague—an example of textual tension in the play. Within the Ming establishment, factions centering on the issue of imperial succession become a scourge. Ruan Dacheng and Ma Shiying endorse Prince Fu’s candidacy. In scene 14, Ruan eagerly offers the prince to Shi Kefa as a “rare commodity worth hoarding” [qihuo ju] (Wang et al., 98, 100), which foreshadows the later moment when the two Liu, defecting from the Ming regime, present this emperor to the Manchu court as a treasure. On the other hand, Hou Fangyu enumerates Prince Fu’s vices to Shi Kefa and exposes his immorality. The detailed discussion about the qualities of an heir fit for the throne is rare in chuanqi drama. In Peach Blossom Fan, supporting a competing prince courts disaster, as mass arrests and secret executions took place, intended to eliminate supporters of rival heirs and confine the alleged crown prince. Ruan arrests Hou, Chen, and Wu on the pretext of their association with “rebellious” ministers Zhou Biao and Lei Yinzuo, who have attempted to enthrone the Prince of Lu, an act for which Ma harbors a grudge, and he puts them to death in prison. The dispute over successors to the imperial line problematizes the concept of loyalty. A relevant matter of contention concerning the military personnel is the motif of rebellion, which unfolds when Ming generals confront one another. Passages on Hou’s service in Shi Kefa’s army, in scenes 18, 19, 20, and 26, depict the feuds of military leaders. Hou Fangyu’s pursuit of public service is consistent with the conventional profile of a romantic hero in chuanqi drama, but in this case it does not lead to an official honor that a typical chuanqi male protagonist achieves. The historical reality of the Southern Ming undermines the chance of reproducing that convention. Rather, Hou’s experience in the army provides a perspective on the loss of strategic posts as the result of factional struggles. The central antagonist of the feud is the bandit-turned-general Gao Jie, who clashes with three other garrison generals, Huang Degong and the two Liu, and lapses back into rebellion. “This wavering between rebellion and surrender” (Chen et al., 140) is a critical commentary on the policy of mollification grounded in expediency when the country is in dire peril. To end the clash, Shi sends Gao away to defend the Yellow River. Gao and Xu Dingguo should have fortified the area 497

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together against “roving bandits” (liuzei) from the north (Wang et al., 131), yet Gao continues behaving like a brigand and meets his end there. In scene 26, ironically, Xu’s wife schemes to offer Gao’s head to the northern court in return for their reinforcements to defeat Gao’s troops, and this maneuver opens the door of the Yellow River for Manchu armies to advance south. Scene 26, in which Gao is invited to enjoy the forthcoming Lantern Festival in Xu’s camp—a ruse to lure him into a trap—also insinuates the negative influence of the monarch’s behaving unworthily. The mention of the Lantern Festival associates this scene with the preceding one, depicting the emperor’s untimely indulgence in pleasures. What worries Hongguang at this moment of national crisis is that the Swallow Letter production may not be ready on time for the imminent festival. This association is affirmed in the poem ending scene 26: “Enjoying the night of lanterns, the southern court/Offers up its General to our slaughter at the feast.”12 The episodes on internal military conflicts paint a complex political scene in which officers of opposing factions are flawed yet can be loyal to the Ming, despite their allegiance to different princes. Scene 34 is a good example. Ma and Ruan dispatch Huang Degong to stop Zuo Liangyu’s march on the capital, enticing Huang with the pretence that Zuo aims to enthrone the Prince of Lu. Huang devotes his loyalty to Hongguang, determined to recover the occupied part of the country for this emperor. Zuo also wishes to recover north China, but he pledges loyalty to the late Chongzhen and intends to rescue his crown prince in Nanjing. Endorsing different princes to become the sovereign complicates the definition of rebellion. Huang holds that he carries out orders to check the “invading” Zuo (Zuo kou) coming from the west (Wang et al., 224). Zuo is aware of the risk of leaving a name as a rebel. When Su Kunsheng volunteers to be Zuo’s envoy to negotiate with Huang, Zuo and his ally ask Su to emphasize their loyalist mission to Huang: “he must admit that such as we could never be rebels” (Chen et al., 252). To whom one proclaims loyalty, Chongzhen and his crown prince or Hongguang, determines one’s opinion of Zuo’s advance on the capital. All generals of Peach Blossom Fan except Shi act like rebels at some point in the play. That the two Liu betray Hongguang is a more extreme case, for which Huang curses them: “Rebellious traitors!” [fanzei] (Wang et al., 240, 241). Internal strife occurs in almost every camp, from the discord between Gao and Xu to the confrontation within Huang’s group, intensifying the isolation that Huang, Zuo, and Shi feel, as they fight their lone battle for the Ming empire, unsupported by any concerted war effort. Scene after scene of internal dissension points to the corruption and malpractice of the Ming regime itself as the root of its collapse, even though the implied reference to roving bandits and the northern court would not be lost on the Manchu emperor.

Chuanqi Transmitting Marvels “Short Notes on Peach Blossom Fan” (Taohua shan xiao zhi) emphasizes the importance of novel subject matter to chuanqi drama and elucidates the originality of the story about the peach blossom fan created in the play: Chuanqi transmits marvelous things; things that are not marvelous should not be transmitted. What is so marvelous about a peach blossom fan? A courtesan’s fan inscribed by a prodigal and painted by a visitor is a trivial matter; a woman making herself beautiful for her lover and willingly cutting her face to take a vow are also trifling; a man and woman bantering and using bloodstains to dye flowers are also frivolous actions; a personal accessory that expresses a woman’s feelings, to be delivered as a secret letter, is a vulgar detail too, not worth mentioning. Then what makes the peach blossom fan marvelous? The factors making such ordinary things extraordinary are these: peach blossoms are on the covering of the fan; 498

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the peach blossoms are made by the beauty’s bloodstains; the bloodstains came from her smashing her head, causing it to drip blood—so that she can remain chaste for her betrothed and preserve her honor untainted by the powerful and treacherous court officials. These powerful and treacherous court officials are the remaining evil elements of eunuch Wei, and they do wrong by presenting music and women [to the emperor], gathering goods and money, and forming a clique for revenge. They thus destroy the three-hundred-year imperial enterprise. The imperial enterprise now no longer exists; and what has become of the powerful and treacherous court officials? Only the beauty’s bloodstains and the peach blossoms on the covering of the fan remain, coming clearly to notice and causing admirers to click their tongues. This is making ordinary things extraordinary and making things that need not be transmitted, merit transmission.13 It is a common device in chuanqi drama to structure a romantic story around the central image of a love-token. Transmuting the love-token into a locus of investigation of the toppling of the Ming state is a surprising innovation, yet this novel conception portends the disintegration of the pledge of love. Since Xiangjun and Hou’s union and separation stand for the final days of the Ming empire, and “the rise and fall of the Southern Ming hangs from the base of the peach blossom fan,”14 their romance cannot survive Manchus’ historic conquest of south China. The ending poem of scene 40 points out the correlation symbolized by the peach blossom fan, which Zhang Wei tears off: White bones and black dust are grown with weeds; At the base of the peach blossom fan, the southern court concludes. Had it not been for reviving dreams of rise and fall, Where would love between man and woman have dissolved? (Wang et al., 258) Alternation of sorrow and happiness, separation and union, between a man and a woman, is a pattern that The Lute (Pipa ji), a nanxi (southern drama, the predecessor of chuanqi) play, sets for chuanqi drama, but in Peach Blossom Fan, this corresponds with the rise and fall of the state through depiction of historic figures and events on a scale so extensive that the theme permeates the play. In The Swallow Letter, with the same device of lovers separated at a time of turbulence, the turmoil serves only as a narrative technique to facilitate and dramatize the development of the romantic plot. At the same time, the balanced contrast between the poetic romance and the grave dynastic tragedy separates Peach Blossom Fan from those plays that center on recent political history of factional strife, as represented by The Singing Phoenix (Mingfeng ji).15 In Peach Blossom Fan, Kong Shangren also presents a moral evaluation of theater through the enaction of The Lute, Singing Phoenix, Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting), and Swallow Letter.16 In scene 31, on the night of a full moon near Zuo Liangyu’s barracks, Su Kunsheng starts to sing arias about enjoying a beautiful full moon from The Lute, when he remembers that Ruan, a connoisseur of fine music, loves the song; Su disapproves of Ruan’s dishonorable conduct and hence stops singing it. But soon, Su resumes singing the arias in hope of attracting Zuo’s attention, intending to approach him and ask him to help rescue Hou Fangyu from prison. Those arias in The Lute express the male protagonist Cai Bojie’s longing for his first wife, but here, when sung by Su, they are politicized. Xiangjun is a main actor in performing the chuanqi plays within the play. She denounces Ma and Ruan to their faces in the heroic manner of Singing Phoenix when she is ordered to entertain them. 499

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Ruan is a gifted dramatist, and his dramas are the only plays mentioned in the “Reference List” (Kaoju) of source texts for Peach Blossom Fan, but not a single line is quoted from Swallow Letter, though the lyrics of arias from the romantic comedy Peony Pavilion that Xiangjun performs are cited in the text of Peach Blossom Fan; the way Ruan indulges Hongguang’s partiality for Swallow Letter casts a negative light on this play. The “Short Notes” also indicates that, as a structural and thematic intermediary, Yang Wencong is instrumental in transforming the conventional scholar-beauty romance into a remarkable legend that centers on the creation, transmission, and signification of the peach blossom fan.17 Yang reveals a playful and aesthetic attitude toward life, and he improvises theatrical scenarios in the play. As he states at the end of scene 22, he acts like a director of the drama and masterminds a unique solution to the problem of the marriage he has arranged for Tian Yang and Xiangjun: “Now Zhenli will be married into a respectable family, and Xiangjun will keep her chastity. Brother Ruan is avenged, and Brother-in-law Ma’s prestige is saved. Substituting the plum tree for the peach tree gains four ends at once, thanks to my brilliant plan!”18 Meanwhile, Yang interprets Xiangjun’s action for the audience when she resists being married off to Tian: “You are behaving as you did when you refused the trousseau, scattering your hairpins, tearing your dress, and cursing old Ruan” (Chen et al., 165). This observation brings out the connection between the two scenes and its implications: both Tian and Ruan have joined Wei Zhongxian’s clique. “She uses a poem-inscribed fan as a sharp sword for self-defense” (Wang et al., 151). At this moment, Yang puts his finger on the figurative meaning of Xiangjun’s physical struggle that weaponizes the love-token, usually used in chuanqi drama only as a key poetic emblem or romantic keepsake underlying the evolving love story. Although he treats Xiangjun and Hou’s romance as merely a fling, Yang’s ingenuity regenerates the peach blossoms on her fan and starts Su off on the journey to bring Hou the token. A fair number of newly appointed high officials in the Hongguang court are either kinsmen, fellow countrymen, or sworn brothers of Yang Wencong. Kong Shangren utilizes Yang’s equivocalness to cast him as a go-between among conflicting political groups,19 which gives this character, played by a mo (supporting male role), a pivotal part in furthering the theatrical development of the plot and facilitating Kong’s expansion of chuanqi’s thematic capacity. When the Southern Ming was crumbling, Yang fought against Manchu conquerors.20 In scene 36 of the play, however, Yang, having planned to take up the post of Governor of Suzhou-Songjiang, decides instead to return to his native place, after learning that the emperor has fled and that Manchu troops have crossed the Yangtze. There is no mention of his whereabouts in scene 40, a scene that passes judgment on the ministers—a glaring omission, given that all others involved in Hou and Xiangjun’s relationship are present. Fictionalizing Yang’s character in Peach Blossom Fan evades mention of the sensitive fact that the historical Yang died a martyr in the hands of Manchu troops.

Chuanqi Transcending Romance Chuanqi drama normally portrays a romance between sheng (young male lead) and dan (young female lead), whose twists and turns involve secondary roles such as jing, chou (clown), wai (secondary male role), xiaosheng (extra male lead), and mo.21 Peach Blossom Fan reforms this standard hierarchy of chuanqi role types and taps the potential of malleable supporting roles questioning the categorization of characters’ intrinsic qualities based on facial makeup, as noted in its “Editorial Principles” (Fanli)22 and “Basic Principles” (Gangling).23 Making mo, jing, and chou more prominent than chuanqi conventions ascribed to their roles allows them to shape 500

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significant events in the historical drama as commentators, mediators, or leaders. In scene 25, Ruan Dacheng casts the dan character Xiangjun in the chou role for the palace performance of Swallow Letter to take deliberate revenge for her denunciation of him, while letting a chou character play the young heroine. After a brief rehearsal, the emperor switches their roles and fixes the mismatch, which now conforms to the norms of chuanqi romance. However, the fact that Liu Jingting, a chou, figures as a moral and serious character, lecturing to the young hero Hou Fangyu (sheng) in scene 1, betokens the breadth of the Peach Blossom Fan world that transcends and transforms romance. Also setting Peach Blossom Fan apart from chuanqi norms is the device of bringing military personages played by supporting roles (wai, xiaosheng, mo, and fujing) into the theatrical spotlight. Of the officers, Huang Degong, portrayed by a mo actor, is a multifaceted character. He makes his initial appearance in scene 16, escorting Prince Fu to his ascension of the throne, along with Huang’s confidant Ma Shiying. At the enthronement ceremony, Huang appears manipulable, answering Shi Kefa’s call to the strategic defense of the Yangtze—a public duty—and then accepting Ma’s proposal to form a close liaison to reinforce their personal power. One conversation succeeds the other, with the second one taking place after Shi exits. The two parallel interactions present a contrast between Shi and Ma and show the two facets of Huang’s character. Every episode in which Huang participates heightens the dramatic effect of the play. In scene 18, he and the two Liu gang up on Gao Jie at the conference Shi has summoned, which ironically was intended to unite forces against the bandits. This early, rash action catches up with Huang in scene 37. The two Liu, whom he considers his brothers, and Tian Xiong, whom he regards as his “trusted aide” (Chen et al., 267) in the feud with Gao Jie, now stab him in the back when he needs their support if he is to fulfill his duty as a loyal servant to the Hongguang emperor. Huang expects the three garrisons to unite in protection of the emperor as northern forces press on towards the southern capital, but Liu and Tian carry off Hongguang to the Manchu court, offering him in exchange for wealth and rank. In this tragic situation, Hongguang, impersonated by a xiaosheng, acts like a clown. This whimsical, violent, action-packed scene renders a farcical presentation of an emperor in dire straits, which further diminishes his status. Deaths of the military leaders (Zuo Liangyu, Huang Degong, Shi Kefa, and, to a lesser degree, Gao Jie) are moving and tragic moments. In scene 26, although Gao Jie (fujing, secondary painted face) falls for a trick like a buffoon, he dies in a bold manner: “How I regret that I did not heed Master Hou’s advice, thus coming to this end today! [Stretches out his neck] I’ll make you a present of my head.”24 Likewise, in scene 37, blind to the deception of Tian Xiong and the two Liu’s feigned brotherhood, Huang Degong is unaware of Tian’s underhanded assault. Tian shoots an arrow from hiding at Huang, to disable him from blocking their kidnapping of the emperor. They laugh at his misfortune and perplexity as if he is a simpleton. Still, his suicidal action after trying in vain to save the emperor is not lacking in solemn and stirring pathos: “My life is all I have left to offer my country. [Draws his sword and calls]: Officers and men! Come and behold a headless general! [With a single slash he cuts his throat.]”25 Nevertheless, at the very beginning of this scene, he derides Zuo Liangyu’s demise and claims to have frightened him to death. In scene 34, Zuo (xiaosheng) futilely aims to rescue the crown prince and rid the emperor of corrupt ministers in the capital; instead, he dies of indignation at the riot induced by his son (which makes him appear guilty of rebellion), following a failed attempt to cut his own throat. Shi Kefan (wai) also pins his last gleam of hope for preserving the Ming on the emperor in the palace. He leads his three thousand soldiers into a bloody battle against Manchu troops to defend Yangzhou. When it falls, he does not take his life immediately but escapes the besieged 501

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city to head for Nanjing to help protect the emperor. The martyrdom of Shi Kefa ensues when he approaches the capital and learns Hongguang has fled; he removes his official robe and throws himself into the river.26 The scenes in which the generals die because of their loyalty to the Ming constitute some of the highlights in the thematic and theatrical discourse of Peach Blossom Fan, an elaborate conception confirmed in the memorial service in scene 40. As Abbot Zhang meditates on the altar, he perceives the wandering spirits of Shi, Zuo, and Huang manifest one after another to assume celestial positions. In the Epilogue, Liu Jingting’s ballad “Nanjing Autumn,” which relates happenings in the recent past, recounts the brave and loyal deeds of Shi, Zuo, and Huang. Then he reminisces with the Master of Ceremonies and Su Kunsheng about the burials that they gave each of the three fallen heroes. Martial valor displayed in the face of death enriches the connotation of romanticism in Peach Blossom Fan and masculinizes the chuanqi genre.

Conclusion Interpreting the complex dynastic transition through a love story and using the love-token to signify the fate of the Southern Ming are distinctive elements of a story that stands out even among chuanqi plays noted for their originality. By reorienting role types, dramatizing military camps, and politicizing southern dramas, Kong Shangren broadens the scope of the chuanqi form to include intricate topics. Loyalty to the monarch, moral evaluation of members of society during the Hongguang reign (in the tradition of The Spring and Autumn Annals and appropriately for a descendant of Confucius), and faithfulness to history are the matters that lead to the tension in the play, centered on the theme of rebellion. While these issues are being played out on an otherworldly stage, in scene 40, the romance of Hou and Xiangjun dissolves offstage, on Abbot Zhang’s awakening words: “Where now is the nation, where the home, where the prince, where the father?” (Chen et al., 296). Corresponding to this sharp warning, human ties presented by supporting roles in Peach Blossom Fan, including the relations of father and son (Zuo Liangyu and Menggeng), mother and adopted daughter (Li Zhenli and Xiangjun), husband and wife (Xu Dingguo and his wife), and sworn brothers (Huang Degong and the two Liu), are all, to varying degrees, devious or twisted. Southern drama, traditionally focused on romantic or familial relationships, in this play drops one of its key elements, and, with Hou and Xiangjun’s enlightenment, mutates into a broader, more ambitious form.

Notes 1 Kong recounts this whole experience and his feelings of gratitude towards Kangxi (e.g., “I will serve like a dog or a horse seeking ways to return His Majesty’s kindness,” 438) in “Chushan yishu ji” [A Record of Leaving the Mountain and Receiving the Grace of the Emperor], in Kong Shangren shi wen ji, ed. Wang Weilin (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), 425–38. 2 Kong Shangren, “Taohua shan benmo” [The Origin and End of Peach Blossom Fan], in Taohua shan [The Peach Blossom Fan], annot. Wang Jisi, Su Huanzhong, and Yang Deping (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2005), 5–6. 3 For recent studies of Peach Blossom Fan adaptations, see Xiaowen Xu, “Early Modern Drama: Hong Shen, Ouyang Yuqian, Xia Yan,” in Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature, ed. Ming Dong Gu (New York: Routledge, 2019), 186–89; Kun Qian, “Gendering National Imagination: Heroines and the Return of the Foundational Family in Shanghai during the War of Resistance to Japan,” Frontiers of Literary Studies in China 8, no. 1 (2014): 88–93; Yuan Yuan, “Everlasting Love in the Middle Kingdom: An Ancient Chinese Love Story, Popular for Over 300 Years, Experiences a Theatrical Revival,” Beijing

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The Peach Blossom Fan Review 52, no. 50 (December 17, 2009), 43; Jiangsusheng Yanyi Jituan, The Peach Blossom Fan (1699): The Chinese Chuanqi Pinnacle (1699. Taohua shan: Zhongguo chuanqi dianfeng) (Nanjing: Jiangsu meishu chubanshe, 2007); Jiang Xingyu, Taohua shan yanjiu yu xinshang [Study and Appreciation of Peach Blossom Fan] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2008), 176–203. 4 For a study of Peach Blossom Fan’s paratextual material, see Xiaoqiao Ling, Feeling the Past in Seventeenth-Century China (Cambridge, MA: The Harvard University Asia Center, 2019), 248–96. 5 As seen in memoirs about the Qinhuai pleasure quarters written in the aftermath of the Manchu conquest, celebration of courtesans’ independent spirit and political stand often interweaves with reflection on the downfall of the Ming and nostalgia for late Ming romantic culture. Wai-yee Li, “Introduction,” in Plum Shadows and Plank Bridge: Two Memoirs about Courtesans by Mao Xiang and Yu Huai, trans. and ed. Wai-yee Li (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020), xxiii, xxviii–xxx. 6 For plot summaries of Swallow Letter, Peony Pavilion, and Singing Phoenix, see Jing Shen, Playwrights and Literary Games in Seventeenth-Century China: Plays by Tang Xianzu, Mei Dingzuo, Wu Bing, Li Yu, and Kong Shangren (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010), 279–80. 7 It was common for scholars who failed in the civil service examination to serve as staff advisors to officials in the late Ming. Li, “Introduction,” xxvii. 8 Scene 28, in which Hou looks for Xiangjun in her former house, is rich in the symbolism of peach blossom, including the peach blossom fan and Peach Blossom Spring (a utopian haven of peace). 9 Translation modified from The Peach Blossom Fan, trans. Chen Shih-hsiang and Harold Acton with Cyril Birch, reprinted with a new introduction by Judith T. Zeitlin (New York: New York Review Books, 2015), 242. 10 For the preface, see Shen, Playwrights and Literary Games in Seventeenth-Century China, 213–14. 11 Kong Shangren, Taohua shan [The Peach Blossom Fan], annot. Wang Jisi, Su Huanzhong, and Yang Deping, 123. Up to scene 13, dated the third month of 1644, “bandits” clearly refers to the peasant revolters led by Li Zicheng. Then the referent gradually becomes vague. The interlude supplement to scene 20 begins to mention the Manchu entity, as troops entering the pass and defeating the bandits during the fifth month of that year. Scene 26, dated the first month of 1645, shows the abrupt entrance of Manchus as forces from the northern court invading south. 12 Translation modified from Chen et al., The Peach Blossom Fan, 197. 13 Wang et al., Taohua shan, 3. 14 Kong, “Taohua shan benmo,” 5. 15 Moreover, Singing Phoenix does not deal with dynastic transition. 16 On the contextualization of the three Ming chuanqi plays in Peach Blossom Fan, see Shen, Playwrights and Literary Games in Seventeenth-Century China, 218–43. 17 Jiang Xingyu notes that Yang Wencong, appearing in 15 scenes, second only to Hou Fangyu, is a character that Kong Shangren has carefully portrayed, 126–27. 18 Translation modified from Chen et al., The Peach Blossom Fan, 167. 19 Yang Wencong’s uneven record in history justifies his portrayal as morally dubious to some degree. His controversial record in office and association with Ma Shiying tarnished his reputation, in Jiang Xingyu’s analysis, 264, 296, 300–1. 20 Liang Qichao and Kong Shangren, Liang Qichao pizhu ben Taohua shan [Liang Qichao Commentary Edition of The Peach Blossom Fan], ed. Cheng Ning (Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2011), 175. 21 For more information on chuanqi role types, see Jing Shen, “Role Types in The Paired Fish, a Chuanqi Play,” Asian Theatre Journal 20, no. 2 (2003): 226–36. 22 See Lei Chen’s translation and interpretation of “Editorial Principles” items in “Authorship and Transmission in Kong Shangren’s Self-Commentary of the Peach Blossom Fan,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 40 (2018): 78–85. 23 For a study of creative reorientation of minor characters in drama and literature from the second half of the seventeenth century including Liu Jingting, see Maria Franca Sibau, “Maids, Fishermen, and Storytellers: Rewriting Marginal Characters in Early Qing Drama and Fiction,” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 35, no. 1 (2016): 1–27. 24 Translation modified from Chen et al., The Peach Blossom Fan, 196. 25 Translation modified from Chen et al., The Peach Blossom Fan, 272. 26 On the episode about Shi Kefa’s suicide, see Allison Bernard, “ ‘Making History’: Metatheatre in The Peach Blossom Fan,” CHINOPERL 40, no. 2 (2021): 121–26.

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Further Reading Hu, Siao-Chen. “Cultural Self-Definition of Southwest Chieftains during the Ming-Qing Transition.” The Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 7, no. 1 (2020): 167–91. Wang, Guojun. “Dressing Self and Others in the Poetry of Kong Shangren (1648–1718).” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 41 (2019): 59–81.

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PART FOUR

Fiction

Editors’ Introduction to Chinese Fiction Chinese fiction is traditionally classified into two categories: classical language tales (wenyan xiao­ shuo)—including primarily “strange tales” (zhiguai) and “transmission of marvels” (chuanqi)— and vernacular fiction (baihua xiaoshuo), which originated from the storytelling tradition of the Song and Yuan dynasties and includes both short stories and chapter novels. The term xiaoshuo first appeared in Zhuangzi and meant “small talk.” It was also the name of one of the schools of the masters during the Eastern Zhou period. According to research by modern scholars, the fifteen lost works listed as xiaoshuo in the “Treatise on Literature” (Yiwen zhi) of the Han shu (History of the Han) are narrative in nature, including anecdotes, historical stories, and strange tales. But these may not all be fictional and therefore are quite different from their Western counterparts. In the study of Chinese literature, however, the term xiaoshuo is used to mean “fiction” in the modern sense, a usage adopted a century ago.1 There have been numerous theories regarding the origin of Chinese fiction. Among these, Lu Xun’s (1881–1936) has been the most influential. Following Hu Yinglin’s (1551–1602) ideas, Lu Xun classifies Six Dynasties tales into two genres, strange tales (zhiguai) and anecdotal stories (zhiren),2 and he considers these the earliest forms of Chinese fiction (see Chapter 43). Lu Xun’s views were established as authoritative with the initial publication of his book, though their dominance has been challenged in recent years.3 As a substantial achievement, the chuanqi tales of the Tang established the first peak of classical Chinese tales (short fiction). Song dynasty scholar Hong Mai (1123–1202) remarked that the Tang tale is indeed something that one must be familiar with: even minor love affairs in it can be depicted so as to cause an inconsolable melancholy. Truly there is something one can encounter with one’s spirit but not be aware of consciously. Together with the regulated poetry, it can be called the wonder of the dynasty.4 Tang tales were widely read, owing to their themes (such as romance between scholars and courtesans, dream adventures, knights-errant, and the supernatural), as well as fascinating plots, elegant style, and polished language. During the Song dynasty, classical tales continued to thrive, 

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with the addition of other unique features. Ming dynasty scholars such as Qu You imitated the style of Tang tales and produced fascinating stories. Qu You’s tales are written in a compact, graceful language, aimed at the educated elite, in contrast with the more broadly popular and widely disseminated stories found in the storytelling (huaben) and plain tales (pinghua) traditions, which were written in vernacular language. But both Song and Ming tales have been considered inferior to Tang tales and thus have generally been neglected. However, in recent years this has begun to change, with studies drawing more attention to their unique characteristics and meaning (Chapter 44). It is widely believed that Strange Tales from Liaozhai (Liaozhai zhiyi), by the great writer of the Qing dynasty Pu Songling (1640–1715), reaches the zenith of classical Chinese tales. This is a collection of almost 500 tales about ghosts, spirits, demons, and their interactions with human beings, among which tales of romance between a man and a beautiful goddess, ghost girl, or female fox spirit, are the most fascinating. The collection also describes events in the human world in which the author expresses his love and hate, as well as joy and sorrow (Chapter 45). In the wake of a booming economy and the subsequent city culture that formed in the late Tang and the Song, storytelling became popular in the major cities, especially in the capital of Northern Song, Bianjing, and the capital of Southern Song, Lin’an. Storytelling is most commonly classified into four different types: short stories (xiaoshuo), armored horsemen (tieji er), historical storytelling (jiangshi), and religious storytelling (jiangjing). All of these greatly influenced the vernacular fiction of later times (see Chapter 46). Lu Xun held that storytellers used scripts (huaben) in telling their tales and that collections compiled or written later by Ming scholars, such as Feng Menglong (1574–1646) and Ling Mengchu (1580–1644), are imitations of such scripts. His argument has been challenged by Western scholars Patrick Hanan and Wilt Idema, who call the storytellers’ scripts and their imitations “vernacular short stories.” Chinese scholars such as Hu Shiying and Cheng Yizhong still firmly follow Lu Xun. Among vernacular short stories, Feng Menglong’s “Three Words” (san yan) has been well received (Chapter 47). Among works by Feng’s followers, Ling Mengchu’s “Two Slappings” (er pai) stories are the most popular (Chapter 48). The golden age of Chinese novels took place in the Ming and Qing dynasties. These novels are written mainly in vernacular Chinese with some literary Chinese mixed in. Important features are that the novels are divided into chapters and commonly end with the stock phrase “If you want to know what happens, please listen to my next chapter,” showing the impact of the storytelling tradition. Based on their themes and function, novels of the Ming and Qing are conventionally classified into four categories: heroic romances, novels of spirits and devils, novels of manners, and novels of satire. Two great heroic romances appeared in early Ming. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi), conventionally attributed to Luo Guanzhong, is a matchless historical novel mainly portraying the tragic heroes of the Three Kingdoms period such as Liu Bei, the emperor of Shu, his sworn brother Guan Yu, and his prime minister Zhuge Liang. They are respectively the incarnations of the human ruler, the loyal and worthy vassal, and the dutiful friend, in a system of ideal personalities that had been popularly admired since the Song and Yuan dynasties.5 This novel has influenced almost every aspect of Chinese culture and is popular in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam as well (see Chapter 49). Shi Nai’an’s Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan) is another influential masterpiece, telling the story of 108 bandit-heroes and how they were forced by the corrupt officials of the period to join the rebels in Mount Liangshan (Chapter 50). Under the influence of the Three Kingdoms and the Water Margin, many historical romances appeared in the middle and late periods of the Ming. Among them, Yuan Yuling’s (1599–1674)

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Fiction

Forgotten Tales of the Sui (Suishi yiwen) and Qidong Yeren’s Merry Adventures of Emperor Yang (Sui yangdi yanshi) are especially vivid. Early Qing writer Chu Renhuo (1635–1682) used these as the basis for writing the well-received Romance of the Sui and the Tang (Sui Tang yianyi) (Chapter 51). Wu Cheng’en’s (1504–1582) Journey to the West (Xiyou ji), appearing in the middle of the Ming, initiated the novel of spirits and devils. It concerns the monkey spirit, Sun Wukong, who helps the Tang monk Xuanzang on his journey to India in quest of Buddhist sutras, but the immense appropriation of the teachings from the Three Religions (sanjiao) makes it a unique text in the history of Chinese novels and enables it to be read in different ways. Besides the Buddhist notion of salvation or enlightenment and the Neo-Confucian goal of rectification of the mind, the author or the editor added Daoist immortality as the distinctive goal of the pilgrimage (Chapter 52). Xu Zhonglin’s Canonization of the Gods (Fengshen yanyi) is another well-known novel of spirits and devils. It elaborates on the historical campaign of kings Wen and Wu against the deluded and increasingly depraved King Zhòu/Zhow. Both parties rely heavily on assistance from various helpers, including divine warriors known as “celestial generals,” Daoists who possess impressive magical weapons, and supernatural creatures. All the battles waged throughout the story are part of a celestial plan meant to result in the “canonization of the gods” (Chapter 53). Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng’s The Plum in the Golden Vase (Jinping mei), written in mid-Ming, is an excellent early novel of manners that portrays the domestic sphere and the quotidian details of daily life in the Ming dynasty. Its impact on later works is profound (see Chapter 54). The representative novel of manners, Cao Xueqin’s (c.1715–c.1763) The Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng), or The Story of the Stone (Shitou ji), is arguably the best-known Chinese novel. It is much more than a lengthy story of love or even a family saga; it has also been celebrated as an encyclopedia of premodern Chinese culture (Chapter 55). The Scholars (Rulin waishi) by Qing writer Wu Jingzi (1701–1754) is a novel portraying the lifelong fans of imperial civil service examination (keju), the snobbish people and morbid society around them, and their abnormal mental states. It was praised by Lu Xun as the first and only successful example of satirical fiction in traditional China (Chapter 56). Alongside the novels of knights-errant (xiayi xiaoshuo), two groups of novels became popular in late Qing: the novels of indictment (qianze xiaoshuo)—represented by Liu E’s (1857–1909) The Travels of Lao Can (Lao Can youji) and Li Baojia’s (1867–1906) Exposure of the World of Officials (Guanchang xianxing ji; see Chapter 57), and the courtesan novel (xiaxie xiaoshuo), represented by Chen Sen’s (ca. 1796–1870) homoerotic romance, A Precious Mirror for Judging Flowers (Pinhua baojian; Chapter 58), and Yu Da’s (d. 1884) The Dream in the Green Chamber (Qinglou meng).

Notes 1 Cf. Ming Dong Gu, Chinese Theories of Fiction: A Non-Western Narrative System (Albany: SUNY Press, 2006), 17–42. 2 Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue [A Brief History of Chinese Fiction] (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1973), 29–44. 3 Robert Campany, for example, argues that the major feature of zhiguai is “historical,” not “fictional” (Strange Writing, 178). His evidence includes: (1) early medieval zhiguai compilers saw their enterprise as a branch of history, and (2) both these works’ narrative forms and the generic suffixes incorporated into their titles—ji (records), zhuan (traditions), and zhi (accounts)—were drawn from historical writings. In fact, however, Chinese fiction and history are too close to be distinguished absolutely from one another.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature If we use the evidence Campany cited to evaluate all traditional Chinese fiction, including such masterpieces as Honglou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber), none of them would be considered fictional. 4 From “Preface” of Tangren shuohui. 5 See Zhang Zhenjun, “On the Tragic Features of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” Journal of Peking University 5 (1988): 52–61.

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SECTION XIV

Classical-Language Tales

43 STRANGE TALES AND ANECDOTAL STORIES OF THE SIX DYNASTIES Zhenjun Zhang and Nanxiu Qian

Strange Tales The zhiguai (strange tale) tradition is rooted in the pre-Qin period of China. Early individual records of anomalies were included in the historical texts. When they were separated from history and spread independently, the zhiguai as a genre emerged.1 This explains why some scholars consider zhiguai a branch of history.2 Zhiguai collections first appeared independently as early as the Warring States period.3 The genre developed during the Han dynasty, flourished during the Six Dynasties, and continued until the end of the Qing dynasty.4 During the Han, Wei, and Six Dynasties period, a variety of collections appeared in large numbers. According to their contents, Li Jianguo classifies the zhiguai collections into three categories: (1) Records of anomalies associated with specific sites, such as the Comprehensive Charts of Terrestrial Phenomena (Kuo di tu) and Zhang Hua’s (232–300) A Treatise of Curiosities (Bowu zhi); (2) miscellaneous biographies, such as Liu Xiang’s (ca. 77–6 BC) Biographies of Exemplary Immortals (Liexian zhuan) and Wang Jia’s Uncollected Records (Shiyi ji); and (3) miscellaneous records of anomalies, such as Chen Shi’s (104–187) Records of Marvels Heard (Yiwen ji), and Cao Pi’s (220–226) Arrayed Marvels (Lieyi zhuan). The last category flourished during the Six Dynasties period, and Gan Bao’s (fl. 335–349) In Search of the Supernatural (Soushen ji) and Liu Yiqing’s Hidden and Visible Realms are the most important and famous ones.5 It can also be useful to divide zhiguai collections based on their relationship to religion, namely: (1) those collections that tend to especially promote a single religion or religious idea, such as the Records of Manifest Miracles, Signs from the Unseen Realm, and Biographies of Exemplary Immortals; and (2) those that do not have such a tendency, including In Search of the Supernatural and Hidden and Visible Realms. Almost no zhiguai collection survives in its original form.6 Fortunately, however, from the fourth century forward important zhiguai were widely quoted in the Leishu, reference works arranged by category, which have become invaluable sources of early zhiguai. Lu Xun’s Collected Lost Old Stories (Guxiaoshuo gouchen), a monumental work first published in 1938, was the earliest attempt to recompile early zhiguai collections from the quotations in Leishu or collectanea.7 Today it is still the most important text for zhiguai studies.

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The term zhiguai first appears in the early Daoist classic Zhuangzi (ca. 320 BCE) and was later used as the title of several supernatural tales collections during the Six Dynasties period. Zhiguai xiaoshuo (fiction) was first mentioned by Duan Chengshi (803–863) of the Tang (618–907).8 But as early as the Six Dynasties, Yin Yun (471–529) named his tale collection (which includes numerous strange tales) xiaoshuo. Zhiguai were widely viewed as historical works during the Tang dynasty, and many pieces of zhiguai are included in the official histories compiled in this period. The bibliographic treatise of History of the Sui (Sui shu), compiled by Wei Zheng (586–643) in the early seventh century, includes zhiguai texts under the category of history in a section devoted to works labeled “miscellaneous biographies” (zazhuan). This situation changed during the Song dynasty. In the bibliographic treatise of the New History of the Tang (Xin Tangshu), compiled by Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) and Song Qi (998–1061), zhiguai is included under fiction (Xiaoshuo), instead of history. Ming dynasty scholar Hu Yinglin (1551–1602) considers zhiguai one of the six categories of xiaoshuo in his classification system. Of course, the term xiaoshuo used in this classification can be confusing because its original meaning in Chinese tradition was “minor talk,” a kind of gossip,9 similar in nature yet not equivalent to the modern concept of fiction. The nature of zhiguai as a cultural phenomenon is also significant, and it is closely related to the compilers’ sources. Gan Bao says in his “Preface to In Search of the Supernatural,” “I inspected the previously recorded [stories] in old books and collected the lost anecdotes of the time.”10 This is a clarification of the sources of the zhiguai: besides selecting stories from a variety of earlier texts, the compilers of zhiguai recorded local folktales that were widespread at that time as well as stories directly told by individuals. For this reason, zhiguai stories are often considered to be from oral tradition and related to popular culture.11 Strictly speaking, zhiguai differ from the supernatural and fantastic literature in the Western tradition in many ways,12 but they share at least one commonality: an “otherness” in contrast to this human world and the general, mundane ways we perceive this world. This is also the most prominent feature of the anomalies [guai] in zhiguai. Anomalies in zhiguai can be classified into numerous types, and all of them are rooted deeply in ancient Chinese culture. The following are some of the important ones found in the zhiguai collections of the Wei and Jin periods:13 1. Other Species (yilei): Supernatural Beings a. Deities (shen): rooted in ancient Chinese religion and developed in Daoism. b. Ghosts (gui):14 derived from the belief that a person becomes a ghost after death (Liji).15 c. Monsters (yao) and Goblins (jing): an animistic phenomenon.16 The original meaning of yao was anomaly, resembling the guai. After the Qin and Han, however, its meaning changed to demon, spirit, or goblin. d. Immortals (xian): derived from the Daoist classics, Laozi and Zhuangzi, and from the theory of immortals of the Qin and Han. 2. Other Spheres (tajie): the Realms beyond the Human World a. Heavens (tiancao): the realm of gods and deities, as well as the dead. b. Underworld (difu): the realm of the dead. The indigenous Chinese netherworld includes both the heavens and the underground. Those realms that are located under earth include Yellow Springs (Huangquan), Land of Darkness (Youdu), Mount Tai (taishan), and the ghost state of Fengdu. 512

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c. Immortal Land (xianjing): the realm of immortals. d. Exotic Territories (shufang yiyu): mythical exotic territories appeared in The Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shanhai jing), Qu Yuan’s (c. 340–c. 278 BCE) “Summons of the Soul” (“Zhaohun”), and the Records of Penetration into the Mysteries.17 3. Cross-Boundary Oddities a. Omens (zhao): messages from other species. b. Thaumaturgy (shushu): quest into the other spheres. c. Metamorphoses: demonstration of the supernatural power. d. Trafficking between Humans and Supernatural Beings. e. Interactions of Humans with Humanized Beasts: including animals understanding human words or speaking in human words, animals’ revenge for being killed by human beings, and animals’ repayments of debts of gratitude to human beings. 4. Human World Oddities a. Legendary Figures: including those featuring extraordinary courage, virtue, or skills. b. Strange Creatures: including those with odd shapes, features, or feelings. c. Natural Wonders: including legendary mountains and stones, strange springs, and marvelous trees. d. Other Marvels: such as flying cash and becoming pregnant through a dream. Liu Yiqing’s (403–444) Hidden and Visible Realms (Youming lu) was one of the most important zhiguai collections in early medieval China. This collection is distinguished by its varied contents, elegant writing style, fascinating stories, and by the fact that it is among the earliest of the collections that were heavily influenced by Buddhism. Besides the traditional themes that appear in the genre of zhiguai, many new themes bearing Buddhist beliefs, values, and concerns appear for the first time in this collection. Besides traditional anomalies that appeared in prior zhiguai collections, many new anomalies appear in Hidden and Visible Realms: 1. Karmic retribution. 2. Reincarnation. 3. Buddhist concepts of Hell. 4. Buddha as a savior. 5. Buddhist ghosts: ox-headed and raksasas. 6. Buddhist magical arts: self-mutilation and predicting events in the future. It seems easy to find the motive behind and aim of a zhiguai collection if it is explicitly promoting Buddhist or Daoist teachings, but it is harder to know the aims of the collections with miscellaneous contents that were compiled by general intellectuals, though some compilers might be followers of Gan Bao, who claimed that he was attempting “to make clear that the way of spirits is not a fabrication.”18 Some scholars also read zhiguai for entertainment. For instance, Tao Qian (365–427), the compiler of the Sequel to In Search of the Supernatural (Soushen houji), writes in a poem: I skim through the Story of King Mu, and view the pictures in the Classic of Seas and Mountains. 513

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A glance encompasses the ends of universe— where is there any joy, if not these?19 Both the “Story of King Mu” and the Classic of Seas and Mountains he mentions in the poem are noted early zhiguai. Since Tao Qian loves zhiguai so much, the purpose of his compiling of the zhiguai collection, the Sequel to In Search of the Supernatural, was most likely entertaining himself as well as his readers. Gan Bao addresses readers of his zhiguai collection as “curious gentlemen” (haoshi zhishi), indicating that curiosity, or interest, was at least one of the major reasons for the circulation of the zhiguai texts. In other words, the readability (the quality of attracting curiosity) of the works is essential to their survival. Gan Bao also directly talks about his motivation of collecting and reading zhiguai—“youxin yumu,” which was rendered by DeWoskin and Crump as “enlighten by their hearts and fill their eyes.” It may also be rendered as “set their minds wandering by filling their eyes,”20 referring to the free and relaxed status of mind in the process of enjoying literary works, instead of observing historical events or obtaining information. Additionally, in ancient China collecting and reporting anomalies to the authorities was considered essential to governance (Campany, 101–59), undoubtedly another reason for the circulation of zhiguai.

Anecdotal Stories From the late third century on, anecdotal stories had become trendy among the intellectual class in Han, and later in We-Jin China. These stories focused on daily life, yet they were categorized as xiaoshuo (petty talk or minor persuasions), a pejorative classification analogous to what Confucians described as the xiaodao or the “petty path”—activities that did not measure up to Confucian standards of scholarship and/or moral attainment. The stigma of xiaoshuo, with its connotations of triviality and incoherence, was not the only thing blurring the distinctive identity of this group of literature: it is itself already an amalgamation of various categories, especially its major work, the Shishuo xinyu (A New Account of Tales of the World), and its numerous imitations in China and in Japan, which constitute a distinctive subgenre with its own features, also dimming the glory of the Wei-Jin spirit encapsulated in the Shishuo xinyu. Complicating matters further is the fact that in modern China the term xiaoshuo has come to be used as the equivalent of the Western notion of “fiction,” specifically the novel. These anecdotal stories, especially its major work the Shishuo xinyu, thus occupy a strange position in Chinese literary life. When treated as a collection of Wei-Jin cultural references and historical anecdotes, it has been highly regarded, placed in a central position, and hence well studied; but, when considered as xiaoshuo, it has been ignored, marginalized, and hence underexamined. Paradoxically, the term xiaoshuo, as a label of inauthenticity, has often undermined the academic reputation of the Shishuo xinyu, and yet the undeniable academic value of the Shishuo xinyu as a historical source clearly challenges the modern definition of xiaoshuo as “fiction.” The result is that scholars both in China and the West have failed to see the work for itself. By forcing the Shishuo xinyu into one or another inappropriate category, they have created a gap in our understanding of its proper place in the Chinese literary tradition. Focusing specifically on the Shishuo genre, which provided the starting point in China for a systematic literary construction of the self (see subsequently), allows us to see that, contrary to certain Western assertions of a timeless Chinese “tradition,” an authentic understanding of issues such as personhood and gender in China was never static; rather, it changed continually and often significantly in response to changing historical and cultural circumstances. 514

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What is the Wei-Jin spirit? This question goes side-by-side with another: what caused the emergence of the Shishuo ti, or the Shishuo genre along with the compilation of the Shishuo xinyu? In his effort to trace the origin of genres within world literature, Tzvetan Todorov points out that “each era has its own system of genres, which is in relation with the dominant ideology. . . . Genres, like any other institution, reveal the constitutive traits of the society to which they belong.”21 Accordingly, the Shishuo emerged from, and reciprocally embodied, the Wei-Jin spirit. This spirit evolved from the close interaction and mutual reinforcement of three aspects of Wei-Jin intellectual life: namely, the dominant ideology, Xuanxue (dark learning or abstruse learning), the practice of renlun jianshi (judgment and recognition of human [character] types, more succinctly translated as “character appraisal”), and the growth of self-awareness. An important reason for us to focus on the Shishuo xinyu and its genre as we study anecdotal stories is, as Lu Xun said in chapter 2 of his “Historical Changes of Chinese Fiction,” “Liuchao shi zhi zhiguai yu zhiren” (Strange Tales and Anecdotal Stories in the Six Dynasties), there existed anecdotal story collections such as Yulin (Forest of Language) and Guozi (Master Guo),22 but they are not extensive. Shishuo xinyu came into being through the authors’ compilation of old books from Late Han to Eastern Jin. Later, Liu Xiaobiao added extensive notes to the Shishuo xinyu, quoting from as many as 400 books, and most of these have been lost. The generations to follow have paid special attention to the Shishuo xinyu, making it still popular to this day. In other words, anecdotal stories are still widely known among China scholars, even though they as actual books mostly are not in existence nowadays, thanks largely to the compilation and preservation of the Shishuo xinyu. Compiled by the Liu-Song (420–479) prince Liu Yiqing (403–444) and his staff around 430 CE, the Shishuo xinyu consists of more than 1,130 historical anecdotes about elite life in the late Han (ca. 150–220) and Wei-Jin (220–420) periods. Together, these beautifully written and artfully constructed anecdotes express what came to be known as the “Wei-Jin spirit,” an outgrowth of new intellectual trends that emerged during one of the most creative and iconoclastic periods of Chinese imperial history. The Shishuo anecdotes narrate stories about late Han and Wei-Jin elite life, ranging from state affairs to philosophical and poetic gatherings, from public relationships to trifling domestic matters. Most of the episodes focus not so much on recounting the details or progression of an event as on capturing the emotional and personal characteristics of the participants. This concern with human personality types is further elaborated in the structure of the entire book, which classifies all the episodes into thirty-six categories. All these categories are related to the observation and evaluation of people: their physical appearance, innate abilities, moral qualities, psychological traits, and emotions emerging from their political and social contact with others. This system of classification sets the Shishuo xinyu apart from any other collection of brief narratives in the Chinese literary tradition, thus establishing a genre known to later generations as the Shishuo ti, or the Shishuo genre, which focuses primarily on the categorization of human character types and the characterization of “persons.” The Shishuo xinyu and its genre emerged from, and reciprocally embodied, three aspects of Wei-Jin intellectual life: the dominant ideology, Xuanxue (Abstruse Learning); the practice of renlun jianshi (judgment and recognition of human [character] types, more succinctly translated as “character appraisal”); and the growth of self-awareness. Within these categories the anecdotes variously illustrate the ability to act and to act firmly according to what one understands or feels 515

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right, or what one takes as his/her right path, the Dao 道 or the Way, and the Wei-Jin emphasis on human, inner ability and the social, political, and cultural context of the time, a range of interactions that embody feeling, emotion, passion, and affection, and those that suggest a heightened sensitivity toward qing and its role in human relationships during the Wei-Jin period. Liu Yiqing was a native of Pengcheng (today’s Xuzhou, Jiangsu province) and a member of the Liu-Song royal family. He inherited his father’s title, the Prince of Linchuan, and served both at court and in local offices, in both civil and military posts. According to Liu Yiqing’s biography in the Song shu, q.v., the important positions Liu held included nine years as the mayor of the capital, and then eight years as the governor of Jingzhou, the border state on the upper Yangtze River that possessed half of the court’s resources. For his good services, he received high honorific titles such as the Commander Unequalled in Honor (kaifu yitong sansi). The Shishuo was conventionally attributed to Liu Yiqing since its first official entry in the Sui shu’s bibliographic monograph, completed in 656. In Liu’s biography in the Song shu,23 Liu Yiqing’s affection for literature is applauded, but at the same time, it says that Liu did not “accomplish much in creating refined words” (wenci buduo), and Liu’s writings are not recorded in his biography. This account has cast doubt on Liu Yiqing’s literary achievements for later scholars. Lu Xun, for one, questioned Liu Yiqing’s authorship of the Shishuo xinyu in his Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue. He suggested that Liu might have only sponsored the work of his staff, since, also according to Shen Yue, Liu assembled men of letters from far and near, including distinguished names such as Bao Zhao (?–466), Lu Zhan, and He Zhangyu. Lu Xun’s argument has been broadly accepted by modern scholarship of Chinese literature. The Shishuo xinyu is listed in the Sui shu bibliography under the title Shishuo and has since remained in the category of xiaoshuo in the sense of “petty talk” or “minor persuasions.” There are two entries in the Shishuo, one in eight juan and the other, expanded by Liu Jun’s (462–521) extensive commentary, in ten juan. These entries are repeated in the bibliographic monographs in the Jiu Tang shu and the Xin Tang shu. To distinguish it from an earlier work of the same name, now lost, by Liu Xiang (ca. 77–76 BC), the title soon acquired the added words “New Writing” and became Shishuo xinshu, as cited in the ninth-century miscellany Youyang zazu (IV, 7a) by Duan Chengshi (ca. 803–863). “This title” as Richard B. Mather points out, is confirmed by the oldest surviving manuscript fragment of the work, the so-called ‘Tang fragment [of the Shishuo xinshu]’ written in the calligraphic style of the eighth century and covering most of the sixth juan of the ten-juan version (Chapters X through XIII).24 The present title, Shishuo xinyu, as Mather has also pointed out, seems to appear for the first time in the Tang historian Liu Zhiji’s (661–721) Shitong, published in 710. Liu Zhiji severely criticized the Tang compilers of the Jin shu, q.v., for having incorporated “inauthentic historical accounts” from the Shishuo xinyu. Liu Zhiji’s argument, however, confirmed the transmission of the text and the transformation of the name of the Shishuo xinyu, as well as its strong influence in his time. The present title, except for being mixed up with the other two in the early Song, has remained consistent in later citations of the work.25 The earliest commentary extant is by Jing Yin (ca. fifth century), as included in Wang Zao’s “Kaoyi” (Alternate Readings), appended to his edition of the Shishuo xinyu. According to Wang Zao, Jing Yin has commented on fifty-one entries, among which three are not included in the text proper of Wang Zao’s Shishuo xinyu edition, and Jing Yin’s commentary is very different from Liu Jun’s. Wang Zao believes Jing Yin’s dates to be earlier than Liu Jun’s (462–521), because Jing Yin refers to people of the Song-Qi transition (late fifth century) as his contemporaries (jinren). 516

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Liu Jun’s (462–521) commentary is considered the best among the such works on the Shishuo xinyu. It cites relevant passages—passages which were often drastically abridged by eleventh-century editors—from over 400 works (unofficial histories and biographies, family registers, local gazetteers, etc.) from the Later Han through Liu Jun’s own times. Since most of these works are now lost, the quotations from them in Liu’s and other similar commentaries, such as Pei Songzhi’s commentary on the Sanguo zhi [Records of the Three Kingdoms], q.v., provide valuable supplementary material and occasional corrections to the idiosyncratic accounts in the Shishuo xinyu.26 The Shishuo xinyu left to later generations a twofold legacy. It transmitted a spirit that continued to inspire Chinese intellectuals to find (and express) their authentic “self.” It also created a literary genre that yielded dozens of imitations from the latter part of the Tang dynasty (618–907) to the early Republican era (the early twentieth century). Most of these imitations were Chinese works, but a few were written by Japanese. These imitations dutifully categorized collections of historical anecdotes following the Shishuo system of classification. They also modified this model in order to conform in a more satisfactory way to their own understandings of the “self” and their respective social environments and cultural purposes. The Shishuo xinyu thus offered to later generations (and other societies) something other than a piece of China’s mute and passive cultural heritage; instead, it made the Wei-Jin spirit an active factor in the formation (or at least expression) of the cultural values and systems of later periods.

Notes 1 See Li Jianguo, Tang qian zhiguai xiaoshuo shi [A History of Pre-Tang zhiguai Story] (Tianjin: Nankai daxue chubanshe, 1984), 1–85. 2 See Liu Yeqiu, Wei Jin Nanbeichao xiaoshuo [Fiction of the Wei Jin Northern and Southern Dynasties] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961), 21. 3 Suoyu (Minor Sayings), for example, is considered “a book of phenomena concerning divinations, dreams, deviations and anomalies, and physiognomic techniques from various realms” (Li Jianguo, Tang qian zhiguai xiaoshuo shi, 92). 4 Cf. Li Jianguo, Tang qian zhiguai xiaoshuo shi; Alister D. Inglis, Hong Mai’s Record of the Listener and Its Song Dynasty Context (Albany: SUNY Press, 2006); Judith T. Zeitlin, History of the Strange: Pu Songling and the Chinese Classical Tales (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993); Leo Tak-hung Chan, The Discourse on Foxes and Ghosts: Ji Yun and Eighteenth-Century Literati Storytelling (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998). 5 Important studies of Six Dynasties zhiguai include Li Jianguo, Tang qian zhiguai xiaoshuo shi; Wang Guoliang, Wei Jin nanbeichao zhiguai xiaoshuo yanjiu [A Study of Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties Fiction] (Taibei: Wen shi zhe chubanshe, 1984) and Liuchao zhiguai xiaoshuo kaolun [A Study of Six Dynasties zhiguai Stories] (Taibei: Wen shi zhe chubanshe, 1988); Robert Ford Campany, Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China (1996); Liu Yuanru, Shenti, xingbie, jieji: Liuchao zhiguai de changyi lunshu yu xiaoshuo meixue [Body, Sex, and Class: Discourse of the Normal and Abnormal and Fictional Aesthetics in the Anomaly Accounts of the Six Dynasties] (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan Zhongguo wenzhe yanjiusuo, 2002); Xie Mingxun, Liuchao zhiguai xiaoshuoyanjiu shulun: Huigu yu lunshi [A Review of the Studies of Six Dynasties zhiguai Story: Retrospection and Interpretation] (Taibei: Liren shuju, 2011); Zhenjun Zhang, Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China: A Study of Liu Yiqing’s Youming lu (2014). 6 Two works, Liu Jingshu’s (fl. early fifth century) Yiyuan (A Garden of Marvels) and Xie Fu (fl. mid-late fourth century) and Fu Liang’s (374–426) Guangshiyin yingyan ji (Responsive Manifestations of Avolokitesvara), are considered by some scholars as original texts. See Campany, Strange Writing, 68–69, 78–79.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 7 Lu Xun completed his recompilations of 36 lost works of pre-Tang literature in 1911, and one year later his preface on Guxiaoshuo gouchen was published in the first (and only) issue of Yueshe Series (Yueshe congkan), but it was not until after his death that the work itself was published, as part of the first edition of Lu Xun quanji (Complete Works of Lu Xun) in 1938. See Lu Xun’s preface with annotations, in Guji xuba ji [A Collection of Prefaces and Colophons to Ancient Texts] (Lu Xun quanji, 10: Beijing: Renmin wenxue, 1981), 3–5. 8 Duan Chengshi, “Self Preface,” in Youyang zazu [Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), 1. 9 Hu Yinglin classified xiaoshuo into six categories: 1) zhiguai, 2) chuanqi (transmission of marvels), 3) zalu (miscellaneous records), 4) congtan (collected talks), 5) bianding (documented sources), and 6) zhengui (exhortatory writings); among which only the first three are narrative in nature. See Hu Yinglin (1551–1602), Shaoshi shanfang bicong [Collected Notes from the Study of Shaoshi Mountain] (Taibei: Shijie shuju, 1963), 29.374. 10 See Gan Bao, Soushen ji [In Search of the Supernatural] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979), ed. Wang Shaoying, 2. 11 As Karl S. Y. Kao says, “Originating mainly in folk traditions, the CK [chih-kuai] narratives are legends and stories associated with popular culture and reflecting the belief systems of the people.” See “Introduction,” in Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic, ed. Karl Kao (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 4. 12 Based on Karl Kao’s observations, tales of the supernatural and fantastic in Chinese tradition differ from their Western counterparts in three ways: (1) In the Chinese tradition, the distinction between the supernatural and fantastic is mainly based on the nature of the “facts” recorded, instead of the author’s creative perception; (2) in the West the fantastic is distinctly a later product than the supernatural in literary history and was a product of an uneasy, “pulverized” consciousness resulting from the loss of faith in the unity of man and nature; (3) the Chinese supernatural and fantastic never engage in the experience of alienation from nature, and rarely inspire horror, nor are they tormented by any indeterminacy in the character’s or the reader’s attitude towards the supernatural manifestation in the human world that characterizes the Western fantastic. See the “Introduction” in his Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic, 1–4. 13 For a typology of the guai phenomena, cf. Karl Kao, Classical Chinese Tales, 4–16. 14 Karl Kao calls it “necromantic communion” (Kao, Classical Chinese Tales, 7–8). 15 Liji zhengyi, in Ruan Yuan (1764–1849), ed., Shisanjing zhushu (Thirteen Confucian Classics with Notes and Commentaries) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980), 46.1588. 16 Cf. Karl Kao, Classical Chinese Tales, 8–9. 17 For a study of the other world in zhiguai, see Ye Qingbing’s “Liuchao zhi Tang de tajie jiegou xiaoshuo” [Stories About the Other World in the Six Dynasties and the Tang], Taida zhongwen xuebao [Chinese Journal of Taiwan University) 3 (1989): 7–28. 18 See “Preface,” in Gan Bao, 2. 19 James Robert Hightower’s translation, “On Reading the Seas and Mountains Classic,” in The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature, ed. Victor Mair (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 82–83. 20 Cf. Cai Meghan, “The Social Life of Texts: Reading Zhuang Chuo’s (fl. 1126) Jilei bian (Chicken Rib Chronicles)” (PhD diss., Arizona State University, 2016), 32. 21 Tzvetan Todorov, “The Origin of Genres,” New Literary History 8 (1976): 163. Todorov did not give a clear definition of the term ideology in this essay. Judging from the context, his understanding seems similar to that of Terry Eagleton, who defines ideology as “a body of ideas characteristic of a particular social group or class” (Terry Eagleton, Ideology: An Introduction [London: Verso, 1991], 1). 22 Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue [A Brief History of Chinese Fiction] (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1973), 274–79. 23 Shen Yue (441–513), ed., Song shu [Song History] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974), 51.1417. 24 Richard Mather, trans., Shih-shuo hsin-yü [Shishuo xinyu]: A New Account of Tales of the World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976), xxii. 25 For a list of the principal editions in the transmission of the text, see Qian Nanxiu, Spirit and Self in Medieval China: The Shih-shuo hsin-yü and Its Legacy (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2001), 475–77. 26 Richard Mather, “Shishuo xinyu,” in The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, ed. William H. Nienhauser, Jr. et al. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), xxx.

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Further Reading Editions and Translations Kao, Karl S. Y., ed. Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985. Liu Qiang. Shishuo xinyu huiping [Collected Commentaries on A New Account of Tales of the World]. Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2007. Lu Xun, ed. Guxiaoshuo gouchen [Collected Lost Stories]. In Lu Xun quanji [Complete Works of Lu Xun]. Vol. 8, 353–436. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1973. Mather, Richard, trans. Shih-shuo hsin-yü [Shishuo xinyu]: A New Account of Tales of the World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976. Yang Yong, ed. Shishuo xinyu jiaojian [Annotated Text of A New Account of Tales of the World]. Hong Kong: Dazhong shuju, 1969. Yu Jiaxi. Shishuo xinyu jianshu [Commentary on A New Account of Tales of the World]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983. 2nd ed., 2 vols. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1993. Zhang, Zhenjun. Hidden and Visible Realms: Early Medieval Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018.

Studies Campany, Robert Ford. Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. Gong Bin. Shishuo xinyu suojie [Interpretation of the Shishuo xinyu]. Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 2016. Li Jianguo. Tang qian zhiguai xiaoshuo shi [A History of Pre-Tang zhiguai Story]. Tianjin: Nankai daxue chubanshe, 1984. Qian, Nanxiu. Spirit and Self in Medieval China: The Shih-shuo hsin-yü and Its Legacy, 478–501. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2001. Xiao Hong. Shishuo xinyu zhengti yanjiu [A Complete Study of the Shishuo xinyu]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2011. Zhang, Zhenjun. Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China: A Study of Liu Yiqing’s Youming lu. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014.

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44 TALES OF THE TANG, SONG, AND MING Jing Wang and Zhenjun Zhang

Tang Dynasty Tales Terms and Origin During the Tang dynasty (618–907), the genre of chuanqi (Transmissions of the Extraordinary), or “tale,” thrived alongside poetry in Chinese literary circles. These fascinating stories were composed in classical Chinese by literati writers. Although tales of this kind appeared in early Tang times, the genre reached its peak in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. The term chuanqi was first used in a collection of tales compiled by Pei Xing (fl. 860) and became a generic term during the Song dynasty (960–1279). Zeng Cao (d. 1155) used the term to refer to a masterpiece of the Tang tale, “Yingying zhuan” (The Tale of Yingying) by Yuan Zhen (779–831) in his anthology Leishuo. The term was later borrowed by Lu Xun (1881–1936), who edited a collection of forty-five tales from the Tang and Song dynasties in the 1920s, called Tang Song chuanqi ji (Anthology of Tang and Song Tales). Compared to narrative genres of “talks of transformations and the other world” (bianyi zhitan),1 or zhiguai (Records of Anomalies), from the Six Dynasties (220–589), this genre made substantial advances in terms of richness of theme, length, language, and form. As Lu Xun commented in his oft-cited and seminal argument: Fiction was also like poetry—there was a complete change when it came to the Tang era. Although it still could not divorce itself from collecting the strange and recording that which had been left out [of historical accounts], the signs of evolution in the complexity of narrative accounts and the resplendence of style and diction, in comparison to the crudely arranged, abridged structures of the Six Dynasties, are evident. What is especially manifest is that only from this time do we have fiction written with intent.2 Lu Xun was likely influenced by Ming dynasty scholar Hu Yinglin in his argument that Tang literati began to write tales “with intent.” To support this claim, Lu Xun quoted Hu Yinglin’s opinion that “When it came to the men of the Tang, they applied their intent to their fondness for

DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-62 

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the unusual, relying on fiction in which to lodge their points in writing” (Hu Yinglin, 36. 486). While some famous Tang tales demonstrate the literati-authors’ intent through the story or commentary coda, and modern scholars have interpreted these pieces as political or social allegories, there are many works that are records of anomalies, extraordinary figures, or fascinating events that the author heard from storytelling at private gatherings or obtained from other oral or written sources. Scholars have proposed various theories for the emergence and development of the Tang tale. Chen Yinke (1890–1969) made a significant contribution by pointing out the interaction between the genre and the Ancient Style Prose Movement during the Tang dynasty. Lu Xun argued that the Tang tale’s flourishing after the mid-eighth century was closely related to the Jinshi Civil Service Examination. Students who came to the capital for the examination would present their literary works to influential figures in the hope of seeking political patronage. This practice was called xingjuan (circulating scrolls), and tales were included as part of the presented work.3 In addition to xingjuan, there was also wenjuan “warming scrolls,” as mentioned by the Song dynasty scholar Zhao Yanwei’s (fl. 1195) in his Yunlu manchao.4 The Recommended Men during the Tang dynasty had their names known by the examiner first through introduction by eminent figures of the time, and then presented their writings to the examiner. Several days later, they presented their writings again. This was called warming scrolls. For example, works in Youguai lu and Chuanqi are of this type. This kind of writing includes various genres, through which the authors’ talent in historical writing, poetic composition, and commentary can be seen. One unique feature of the Tang tale is the combination of multiple genres in a single text. The well-known and representative tales feature narration of extraordinary events, poems, and the authors’ discussion and reflection. This creates a colorful and diverse reading experience for the audience. Although classical Chinese tales continued to evolve in the Song dynasty and saw a revival in later imperial periods, the Tang iteration of the genre stands out for its vitality, intricate plots, and refined language, and has thus garnered the most attention from both Chinese and Western scholars.

Categorization and Representative Works Taiping guangji (Extensive Gleanings of the Reign of Great Tranquility), a collection of stories compiled in the late tenth century under the imperial edict of Emperor Taizong of the Song dynasty, contains over five thousand classical language narratives. However, the number of tales considered to be chuanqi varies dramatically among scholars, ranging from about thirty in Lu Xun’s Tang Song chuanqiji to several hundred suggested by modern scholar Li Jianguo. The major texts widely accepted as canonical within the genre were generally written between the late eighth century and mid-ninth century. Tang tales cover a wide range of themes and topics, such as romance, history, politics, knight-errants, retribution, karma, dream, and more. While some pieces are records of actual occurrences and figures, many others represent a mysterious world of abnormal incidents, gods and spirits, Buddhist and Taoist beliefs, strange people and things, immortals, and ghosts. These works reflect the diverse religious beliefs of the people during the Tang, their curiosity about the exotic and novel, and the long history of zhiguai before the Tang. The following

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is a brief introduction to five major thematical categories of the Tang tale and representative works within each category. 1. Romance. Romance is undoubtedly the most important theme of the Tang tale, and it has produced some of its most well-known pieces. Many of these romantic stories feature the traditional model of “scholar and beauty,” such as Yuan Zhen’s (779–831) “Yingying zhuan” (The Tale of Yingying), Bai Xingjian’s (776–826) “Li Wa zhuan” (The Tale of Li Wa), and Jiang Fang’s (792–835) “Huo Xiaoyu zhuan” (The Tale of Huo Xiaoyu).   “The Tale of Yingying” focuses on scholar Zhang’s seduction and eventual abandonment of Yingying. It portrays a callous male lover and introduces the concept of the femme fatale.   “The Tale of Li Wa” is a highly influential Tang tale due to its enigmatic plot twists, problematic gender discourse, portrait of a shifting social order, rich allusions to classic texts, etc. The tale traces the romantic relationship between Li Wa, a goddess-like courtesan in the Tang capital city Chang’an, and Zheng, a young scholar from a prestigious family. Zheng comes to the capital for the Civil Service Examination and falls in love with Li Wa. When he has squandered all his fortune, the courtesan abandons him, leaving the young man in dire straits. Zheng is forced to become a professional dirge singer. Upon discovering Zheng’s situation, his father beats him almost to death and swears never to see him again, as he believes that Zheng’s behavior tarnishes the family’s reputation. As a result, Zheng is severely wounded and is forced to make a living by begging. One day, he coincidentally stumbles upon Li Wa’s house. Upon seeing Zheng’s terrible condition, Li Wa blames herself for his predicament. She takes care of Zheng and supports him in his preparation for the Civil Service Examination. Eventually, Zheng passes the exam in the first rank and is granted an official position. The tale concludes with a happy ending in which the father and son are reconciled, and Zheng marries the courtesan through proper rituals. Li Was is even enfeoffed with an imperial title and established as a model of virtue.   Hu Yinglin asserted that “The Tale of Huo Xiaoyu” was “the most brilliant and touching” Tang tale. This intriguing story is a patchwork of several motifs found in other famous Tang tales. The framework of the story centers around the romance between a courtesan, Huo Xiaoyu, and a Jinshi scholar, Li Yi, a famous historical figure, in the capital city of Chang’an, which is similar to the tale of Li Wa. The scholar’s initial infatuation with and eventual abandonment of the courtesan echoes the plot in the Yingying story. Furthermore, all three stories share a common theme of the same tension between cultural norms and personal emotions. Li Yi betrays Xiaoyu and marries a daughter from a prestigious family, which would bring fortune to his family and benefit his career development. Xiaoyu’s dream, which predicts her final meeting with her lover and her death thereafter, reminds readers of how dreams function in knight-errant stories and in more elaborated dream adventure stories.   While it employs these familiar motifs, this love story is unique in the incorporation of two narrative elements toward the end of the story. First, the introduction of a heroic figure, who abducts the scholar to take him to see the courtesan, completely alters the story’s pace from slow to fast. Second, the description of the scholar’s married life, haunted by the death of the courtesan, adds humor to the overall melancholy atmosphere of the story. The collective nature of the narrative structure and the male protagonist’s transformation from a refined and affectionate scholar to a pitiful laughingstock support some scholars’ interpretation that the story was a criticism of the frivolity of Jinshi candidates.5 2. Dream Adventure. The subgenre of dream adventures typically explores how the dreamer’s life would unfold if he were to achieve his worldly goals. Scholars suggest that “the form may 522

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originally have come from India in the collections of allegories which were translated into Chinese during the Period of Disunion (180–589), and it certainly has Buddhist and especially Taoist overtones.”6 “Nanke taishou zhuan” (The Governor of the Southern Branch) is the representative tale of this category, attributed to Li Gongzuo (c. 770–c. 878), one of the most famous Tang tale authors. The protagonist, Chunyu Fen, is an unrestrained knight-errant who is fond of drinking and is dismissed by his military superiors. After getting drunk under an old locust tree, he dreams of a second career in the world of ants, marrying the princess of the State of Locust Peace and enjoying a life of fame and fortune. However, he experiences military defeat and the death of his wife. He is slandered and banished from the court. Upon awakening, he discovers that the state in his dream was merely an ant colony under the southern branch of the locust tree. The narrator in the coda comments on the vanity of worldly fame and power and promotes the Taoist pursuit of a simple life. Bian Xiaoxuan (1924–2009) argues that the tale can be read as a political allegory that ridicules the practice of marrying royal princesses to regional military governors to secure their loyalty during the mid-to-late Tang period.7   “The Governor of the Southern Branch” is an elaboration of an earlier work with a similar theme and plot, namely “Zhenzhong ji” (“Record Within a Pillow”) by Shen Jiji (740–805), historian and renowned Tang tale writer. 3. Knight-errant. In Taiping Guangji, there are four juan devoted to the subgenre of “haoxia” (gallant knights-errant). Although it is not the most prominent or voluminous theme in the collection, the knight errant story has been the most well-received sub-genre of the Tang tale in the modern era. Several famous pieces, such as the stories of “Curly-Bearded Guest,” “Nie Yinniang,” and “The Kunlun Slave,” have been adapted to movies and dramas.   “Qiuran ke zhuan” (The Tale of the Curly-Bearded Guest), attributed to Du Guangting (850–933), a Taoist during the transitional period between the Tang and Five Dynasties, portrays three extraordinary characters: Li Jing, a talented military strategist, a young woman with a red whisk who can identify true talent, and the curly-bearded guest, who possesses the wisdom to assess a situation. They travel together to seek the true lord, ultimately paying a visit to Emperor Taizong (r. 626–649). Their unique experiences at the critical historical moment of dynastic change are used as evidence for the legitimacy of the Tang royal house and Emperor Taizong. The tale also reflects the aspirations and efforts of literati at the end of the Tang dynasty to bring an end to the military chaos and restore peace and cultural refinement.   “Xie Xiao’e zhuan” (“The Tale of Xie Xiao’e”) is another tale attributed to Li Gongzuo. It tells the story of the female protagonist’s revenge against the bandits who murdered her father and husband, while she narrowly escaped. With the help of the narrator, Xiao’e deciphers the riddles her father tells her in her dream, which reveals the murderers’ names. Xiao’e hires herself out as a servant to one of the murderers and kills him while he is drunk, avenging her family. She is exempted from the death penalty and eventually becomes a nun.   Almost identical plots and narrative elements can be found in two other texts, namely “Xie Xiao’e” composed by Li Shen (772–848) and “Ni Miaoji” (The Nun Miaoji) included in Li Fuyan’s (775–833) Xu Xuanguai lu (Sequel to Xuanguai lu). That there are such different treatments of the same theme in these texts provides evidence for the possible interpretation that the Xie Xiao’e story originated in local gossip and demonstrates the transmission of private knowledge across different communities.8 4. The Supernatural. “The supernatural” is a broad category encompassing themes such as immortals and gods, ghosts, demons, and various kinds of animal spirits. Of these themes, fox stories form a unique category that carries rich cultural, religious, and historical connotations, making them a subject of considerable scholarly interest. 523

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  Shen Jiji’s “Renshi zhuan” (The Tale of Miss Ren), written in 781 during his political exile, is a representative work on fox spirits that draws upon the familiar themes of these creatures’ trespassing into human society and using their sexual allure to harm men. This tragic story portrays Miss Ren, a beautiful fox lady, in a romantic relationship with an indolent rascal named Zheng. The story opens in the traditional encountering mode, where Zheng is seduced by the fox demon and spends a night with her. Although Zheng soon discovers Miss Ren’s true identity, his affection for her does not diminish. Miss Ren is ashamed of her fox origin and repays Zheng’s love with her intelligence and fidelity. She helps him make money in business with her superpower and guards her chastity when Zheng’s more powerful patron tries to rape her. At the end of the story, Miss Ren dies under the claws of a hunting dog when she travels with Zheng to his official post.   As a historian, the author provides his moralistic commentary at the end of the tale, emphasizing Miss Ren’s virtue in preserving her chastity and praising her being more virtuous than human beings in upholding the way of righteousness. Furthermore, he criticizes Zheng for being superficial and lacking a deeper understanding of the principles of transformation. Scholars have approached this tale from various perspectives. Glen Dudbridge, for instance, drew parallels between the fox lady in the tale and Consort Yang (719–756), both of whom were buried at Mawei after their tragic deaths. He then discussed the moral ambiguity in the story and elaborated the concept of youwu, which refers to beautiful creatures that pose a moral danger to the integrity of men and even dynasties.9 5. Religious Beliefs. Among the many tales that demonstrate great influence from Buddhism, Taoism, or other local cults, “Du Zichun,” preserved in Niu Sengru’s (779–847) Xuanguai lu, is a good example of a story that blends Indian, Taoist, and even Confucian messages.10 The plot of the tale follows the titular character as he goes through seven stages of trials of illusions to achieve transcendence. Du is selected by a Taoist priest to help him make elixirs for immorality. At the priest’s mountain grotto, Du is given drugs which induce a visionary trance. He is instructed not to speak during the trance because nothing he sees is real. Du holds to his oath and passes seven trials of horrific visions without speaking a word. In the eighth vision, he is reborn as a girl who gets married and gives birth to a son. After two years, her husband becomes enraged because she never speaks and violently kills their child. Du cannot help crying out and thus breaks his silence. The Taoist priest tells him that even though he has forgotten the emotions of joy, anger, sorrow, fear, disgust, and desire, he cannot reach the level of perfection necessary to free himself of love.   The themes and motifs in the Tang tale are not limited to the five categories discussed previously, and, often, one tale can have multiple themes and be listed under different categories. There are various approaches to categorizing Tang tales and anecdotes.11 One of the charms of Tang tales is that they offer diverse perspectives and possibilities for interpretation.

Translation and Anthologies English translation of Tang tales can be traced back to as early as the late nineteenth century. The first known English translation of a Tang tale was probably “Nanke taishou zhuan,” which appeared anonymously in The China Review, or Notes and Queries on the Far East in 1877.12 Herbert Giles’s (1845–1935) translation of “Zhenzhong ji” in 1911 was another early English translation of a Tang tale with a similar plot.13 During the early twentieth century, there were several important English translations of Tang tales. British sinologist Arthur Waley (1889–1966) translated “Yingying zhuan” and “Li Wa zhuan,”14 while German missionary and sinologist Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930) edited a 524

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collection of Chinese folk tales and fairy tales in 1917, which was later translated into English by his collaborator Frederick H. Martens (1874–1932).15 The collection contained several Tang tales, which were revised, retold, and given new titles. Most early translations of Tang tales during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were driven by translators’ curiosity about the “exotic note” and “oriental glow” of these stories, rather than a commitment to serious research.16 In the mid-twentieth century, a group of Chinese scholars who had received an education in the West began translating and introducing Chinese literature and culture to English readers. Lin Yutang (1895–1965) and Chi-Chen Wang (1891–2001) were among the most successful and influential people in this group. Lin’s Famous Chinese Short Stories, published in 1948, continued Wilhelm’s tradition of thematically arranging and retelling original stories in this collection of twenty pieces, half of which are from the Tang dynasty. Lin’s selection criteria went beyond “the strangeness and exotic charm of a remote atmosphere and background.” He instead included stories that “have a most nearly universal appeal” and “answer more to the purpose of a modern short story.”17 Chi-Chen Wang was well-known for his translations of Lu Xun’s stories and the first abridged English version of Honglou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber). In 1944, he compiled Traditional Chinese Tales, which includes twenty stories, fourteen of which are from the Tang dynasty. In Mainland China, Yang Xianyi (1915–2009) and his wife Gladys Yang (Dai Naidie, 1919–1999) published Dragon King’s Daughter: Ten Tang Dynasty Stories in 1954. Starting in the late 1970s, there was a flourishing of translation and research on Tang tales. In addition to the translation of individual stories, Tang tales have become an essential component of various anthologies of classical Chinese literature. The following are just a few examples, arranged chronologically: Y. W. Ma and Joseph S. M. Lau compiled Traditional Chinese Stories: Themes and Variations, published in 1978. This anthology includes twenty-six stories from the Tang dynasty. The translations are primarily based on the Taiping guangji texts and are lightly annotated. The “explanations” section provides a brief introduction of the genre, including its categorization of themes, features, and development in later dynasties. Karl S. Y. Kao (1940–2011) published Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic in 1985. The anthology includes thirty-six stories from the Tang. After each translation, a brief note on the story’s theme, plot, narrative technique, later adaptation, and other aspects of the story is provided. The introduction, “which endeavors to apply modern narrative theory to Chinese tales”, offers a comprehensive overview of the genre. This anthology remains one of the most important sources of translations of Tang tales even today. Victor H. Mair’s 1994 volume The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature devotes a small section to “Classical-Language Short Stories,” featuring five texts from the Tang dynasty. Two of the most recent significant contributions to the translation of Tang tales are Nienhauser’s two-volume set, Tang Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader, and Victor H. Mair and Zhenjun Zhang's 2020 Anthology of Tang and Song Tales. Nienhauser’s work includes translations of seventeen tales with diverse subjects, themes, and structures, carefully annotated, intended to be read alongside the analysis in the translators’ notes. Mair and Zhang’s anthology is the first complete English rendition of all forty-five of tales from Lu Xun’s Tang Song chuanqi ji, with contributions from such leading sinologists as Hightower, Dudbridge, Wilt Idema, Nienhauser, and Paul Kroll, as well as younger scholars. About one-third of the tales are translated into English for the first time.

Studies The publication of various anthologies and collections featuring Tang tales allowed the genre to reach a wider audience and sparked an interest in the genre among Western students. However, 525

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it was not until the mid-1970s that serious scholarship on the original texts began in the U.S. Initially, the scholarship took the form of in-depth studies of individual tales. Hightower’s 1973 article “Yüan Chen and ‘The Story of Ying-ying’”18 was the first scholarly rendition of a Tang tale and laid the foundation for the scholarly study of Tang tales in the U.S. This article not only provided a heavily annotated translation of “Yingying zhuan,” but also conducted a thorough study of the relationship between the author Yuan Zhen and the protagonist of the tale. Three years later, in 1976, Nienhauser explored the subgenre of Tang pseudo-biographies through a complete translation and close reading of “Mao Ying zhuan” in his article “An Allegorical Reading of Han Yü’s ‘Mao Ying chuan’ (Biography of Fur Point).”19 In 1983, British sinologist Dudbridge published The Tale of Li Wa in which he paid careful attention to the details of the history, author, and dating of the text, and interpreted the tale as a veiled attack on contemporary figures. The works of these three scholars from 1973 to 1983 set the model for textual analysis, criticism, and annotated translation of Tang tales. Their contribution continues to have a broad impact on students and scholars to this day. To many scholars, Tang tales are more than just fascinating stories. Scholars have sought to discover significance beyond the plot and to interpret the texts within a broad social and cultural context. Echoing the ideas of Hong Mai (1123–1202) and Miao Quansun (1844–1919),20 a group of modern Chinese scholars, including Chen Yinke, Wang Mengou (1907–2002), and Bian Xiaoxuan, have adopted the methodology of historiography in the study of Tang tales and read the stories as political critique and allegory. These scholars have reconstructed the scholar-literati’s compositional motives and uncovered the hidden meanings behind the texts. Western sinologists, “aided by various databases that may allow (even encourage) over-reading of resonances,”21 also follow this approach. Dudbridge and Nienhauser attempted to imagine themselves in the shoes of the contemporary audience of the tales, who were members of the elite and “obviously could recognize even the most erudite allusion.”22 In 1993, Madeline Spring’s book Animal Allegories in T’ang (Eisenbrauns American Oriental Series) was published. This book stems from extensive research on fictional biographies and fables, primarily found in the writings of members associated with the Guwen Movement. Thanks to the research by these scholars, the allegorical reading approach has been widely accepted and has become an essential method in the study of Tang tales. Feminist and gendered approaches have also influenced the study of the Tang tale. In his 2008 book Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction, Daniel Hsieh explored heterosexual romance in Tang tales. He observed a shift from relative reticence about love and romance in the elite literary tradition prior to the Tang to explosive interest in and common depiction of such themes in the late eighth and ninth centuries. Hsieh argued that the brief popularity of these themes was closely related to the change in the political and social climate following the An Lushan (703–757) rebellion, as literati started to lose confidence in the imperial court and question traditional values. Manling Luo’s article “Gender, Genre, and Discourse: The Woman Avenger in Medieval Chinese Texts” examines representations of the woman avenger in three types of medieval Chinese writings: official biographies, Music Bureau poetry, and anecdotes. Luo observed the porous boundaries among the three types of writing. The discourse in these accounts expressed literati interest in and ambivalence about the potentially dangerous power of women as moral agents and revealed tensions between a woman’s wifely and maternal duties in the Tang era. Dudbridge’s 1995 book Religious Experience and Lay Society in T’ang China: A Reading of Tai Fu’s Kuang-I chi (Cambridge University Press) demonstrates the value of classical tales and anecdotes for understanding a broad spectrum of society and culture, especially in terms of historical

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reality and popular religion. Dudbridge examined the records in Guangyi ji to reconstruct the non-elite religious culture of Tang through critical analysis of anecdotes and contextualization of tales to local cults. He also emphasized the importance of oral accounts as they provide important supplementary information. The idea that Tang tales are not concerned with intentional fictionality but instead with representation of private life is a significant departure from Lu Xun’s influential argument attempting to find the origins of modern fiction in the pre-modern era. The oral transmission of stories and the role of gossip in the transmission have drawn much scholarly interest over the past two decades. Sarah M. Allen in her Shifting Stories: History, Gossip, and Lore in Narratives from Tang Dynasty China (2014) argues that most of the Tang tales emerged from hearsay among scholars, and that the stories share conventions of plot, language, and narrative perspective. The collective interest in anecdote and gossip in classical Chinese literature is reflected in Idle Talk, Gossip and Anecdote in Traditional China, edited by Jack W. Chen and David Schaberg in 2014. The volume gathers essays on literary and historical genres from the Han to the Qing dynasty, including three studies on Tang tales and anecdotes. Sarah Allen discusses the coexistence of the empire of the text and communities of talk, Graham Sanders examines anecdotes about poetry, and Anna Shields argues for anecdotal representations of the Yuanhe reign period (806–820) in three Tang anecdote collections.23 Tang anecdotal collections and miscellanies and their cultural influence have recently become an attractive research topic. Echoing Carrie Reed’s work on Youyang zazu twenty years ago,24 Anna Shield’s 2017 article “The ‘Supplementary’ Historian? Li Zhao’s Guo shi bu as Mid-Tang Political and Social Critique” departs from the traditional study of individual tales and explores how anecdotes and “miscellaneous” histories shaped official accounts of the Tang dynasty through analysis of the organization, underlying themes, and structure of individual anecdotes of the Guo shi bu.25 Shields adopts quantitative analysis of topic frequency and distribution in the collection to shed light on Li Zhao’s techniques for depicting political features of the reigns of Tang emperors. Scholars in the U.S. and China have been collaborating on the study of classical fiction, as seen in a co-authored article by Li Jianguo and Rania Huntington.26 The article investigates a unique narrative mode found in Tang and Song dynasty tales in which the authors provide supplementary historical facts, offer political criticism, and express their feelings about the rise and fall of a dynasty through dialogue between the living and the dead. Women, particularly members of the royal family and palace ladies, were often assigned dual roles as both protagonists and narrators in these tales. The article analyzes twelve tales, six from Tang and six from Song, from the perspective of narrative distance, the effect of historical verisimilitude, and the interplay of individual and collective memory. Interdisciplinary research and a comparative perspective have provided new and intriguing insight into the composition, transmission, and interpretation of Tang tales. Scholars no longer view these tales solely as strange and extraordinary stories but recognize them as a unique repository of social, political, cultural, and religious data that are crucial for understanding Tang society and its literati. As interest in Tang tales continues to grow in both Western and Chinese academic circles, it is to be hoped that more exchanges of ideas and international collaborations will lead to high-quality research that challenges and expands our perceptions of these refined narratives.

Song Dynasty Tales Classical tales continued to thrive with the addition of other unique features during the Song (960–1368); nevertheless, Song tales have long been neglected or minimized. The idea that “Song

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dynasty tales are not as good as Tang tales” appeared in the Ming dynasty.27 The following commentary by Hu Yinglin is perhaps the most well-known and influential: Tang and earlier fiction mostly narrate fictional matters. The stories are elegant and polished; but the fiction since the Song is mostly based on real events and especially lacks literary elegance.28 In terms of beauty in writing, Hu Yinglin considers Song tales to be inferior to Tang tales. Their different orientations of Tang tales “mostly narrate fictional matters” and Song tales “mostly talk about real events,” however, may be understood as the difference between “imaginary” and “realistic.” As the forerunner of classical fiction studies in modern China, Lu Xun also undervalues Song tales: The tales of the supernatural by Song dynasty scholars were flat and insipid, while their longer prose romances usually avoided contemporary topics and dealt with the past; they were neither good imitations of earlier works nor yet original tales.29 Lu Xun’s comments are worth considering, especially in his assessment that Song tales are “simple and unadorned” (pingshi) and contain a lot of moral teaching. However, the claim that Song tales “avoided contemporary topics and dealt with the past” and are “insipid” is doubtful. As for the propensity for scholars to negate Song tales as a whole, doing so only inhibits an objective evaluation of them. As Li Shiren has pointed out, “The studies of Song dynasty tales have consistently neglected the dynamic of their development, their setups, their styles, as well as the creative aspects within them.” This comment is extremely pertinent, as it gets to the heart of the matter.30 Over the past three decades, studies on Song dynasty tales have drawn much attention in academic circles in China,31 and more and more critics lay particular stress on identifying the characteristics and explaining the meanings of Song tales. It is clear that Song dynasty tales not only established their own patterns but also exhibit their own unique attributes and merits. Secularization is the most important trait of Song dynasty literature. With the demise of the aristocracy since the mid-Tang and the rise of Song literati,32 the Song experienced dramatic changes in politics, society, culture, and arts. In his “Zhongguo chuantong wenhua zhi yanjin” (The Evolution of Traditional Chinese Culture), Qian Mu (1895–1990) argues that the arts before the Tang can generally be classified into two categories: aristocratic art and religious art. Song art, however, shows a tendency toward secularization in both subject matter and style.33 This is also true for Song tales.34 “The Sung era was a time of dramatic growth in population, urbanism, commercialization, monetization, and technology.”35 This became one of the important underlying environmental factors that led to the secularization of literature, including these tales. The first indication of Song tales’ secularization is the appearance of large numbers of works depicting people’s real lives at the time. Limited by the tales he observed and his neglect of the dynamic of Song tales’ development, Lu Xun argues that Song dynasty tales “avoided contemporary topics and dealt with the past,”36 which is, in fact, inaccurate. As Li Shiren observes, by using the works of Yue Shi (930–1007) in early Song and Qin Chun in mid-Song to support his argument previously, Lu Xun is taking a part for the whole. In contrast to early Song tales, there are not many mid-Song and late Song works that deal with the past, though exceptions exist. Many notable tales, such as “Wang Kui zhuan” (The Tale of Wang Kui), “Wang Youyu ji” (The Record of Wang Youyu), “Zhang Hao,” and “Su Xiaoqing,” are all derived from contemporary events. The “marvelous recent events” narrated in Li Xianmin’s Yunzhai guanglu (Extended Records from 528

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Yunzhai), a tale collection compiled during the Zhenghe reign (1111–1118) of Emperor Huizong, all took place during the Northern Song; the twelve tales in volumes 4–8 all depict current events. Even fewer Southern Song dynasty tales deal with the past; rather, many collections depict events of the Southern Song.37 Beyond traditional protagonists like emperors, generals, ministers, and literati, new figures such as abject scholars (“The Tale of Wang Kui”), petty shop owners (“Chasi zhuren” [The Tea House Owner]), prostitutes (“The Record of Wang Youyu”), maidens (“Lüzhu zhuan” [The Tale of Green Pearl]), Taoist priests (“Wang Ji zhuan” [The Tale of Wang Ji]), acrobatic performers (“Fangji” [Acrobatics]), and butchers (“Wang Shi zhuan” [The Tale of Wang Shi]), all become protagonists in the Song tales. Numerous pieces directly describe the life of ordinary townspeople. For example, “Zhang Hao” tells a young man’s love story, “Di shi” (Lady Di) depicts an affair and a tryst, “Yutiaotuo” (A Jade Bracelet) describes how a wealthy man’s irresponsible words cause the death of a girl from a poor family, “Yanshang houde” (The Virtue of a Salt Merchant) praises the virtue of a businessman, “The Tale of Wang Shi” depicts a butcher as a knight-errant, and “Yang er guanren” (The Second Young Master of Yang Family) narrates a deceitful trick. Besides drawing on material from the life of commoners, secularization also means the popularization and commercialization of aesthetic attitudes and tastes. Many Song dynasty tales reflect the townspeople’s thoughts and tastes. For example, “Sun shi ji” (The Record of Lady Sun) expresses the desire for sexual liberation, while “A Jade Bracelet” reveals admiration for the nobility and desire for wealth; both the “Zhao Feiyan biezhuan” (Supplementary Biography of Empress Zhao: The Flying Swallow) and “Li Shishi waizhuan” (An Unofficial Biography of Li Shishi) reveal the townspeople’s attitude towards and interest in the imperial house’s sexual and everyday affairs; “The Virtue of a Salt Merchant” shows a new, positive attitude toward businessmen that differs greatly from the conventional view in Chinese culture;38 the ungrateful Wang Kui from “The Tale of Wang Kui” differs from Li Yi from the Tang tale “Huo Xiaoyu,” and Guiying’s revenge differs from Xiaoyu’s, demonstrating the marked impact townspeople’s thoughts had on Song tales. The general style of Song dynasty tales is pingshi, or “simple and unadorned,” in contrast to exaggeration and the “deliberate pursuit of novelty” (zuoyi haoqi) of Tang tales. As a narrative style, “simple and unadorned” is related to the conventional idea of “valuing a realistic record” (chongshang shilu) in historical writings. This reflects the tendency to follow the style of written histories, which differs from the “deliberate pursuit of novelty” in Tang tales. Valuing reality and objectively recording real events in a plain style may also suggest more careful observations and more detailed depictions. “Simple and unadorned” is also related to the aesthetic pursuit in vogue at the time: a taste that is simple, unadorned, and natural.39 As Cheng Yizhong comments, “Song tales value a ‘realistic record,’ and are closer to real life, like the Jin dynasty saying that ‘the strings of a musical instrument are not as good as bamboo, and bamboo is not as good as flesh (human voice)’—because it is closer and closer to nature (Zhang and Wang 2017, xviii).” “Simple and unadorned” does not necessarily mean rigid or insipid. As Wang Jisi observes, “In Tang tales, emotions are overflowing in language, while in Song tales aftertastes are left beyond the narration of events.”40 The formation of the “simple and unadorned” style was probably also due to the language transition that occurred during the Song dynasty. As some scholars have noticed, it might be a direct result of vernacular Chinese melding into classical Chinese as classical language tales and storytelling mutually influenced each other. In the eyes of critics like Hu Yinglin, such a mixed language lacked purity, and this is likely the reason behind Hu’s conclusion that Song tales “especially lack literary elegance.”41 529

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The general style of “simple and unadorned” can also be understood from the perspective of imagination, but it does not necessarily mean that Song dynasty tales “lacked imagination” (Li Jianguo 1997, 4) or “had nothing to do with originality” (Lu Xun). While it is generally true that most Song tales do not contain many imaginative elements and do not have the fantastic coloring that is found in Tang tale collections like Pei Xing’s Chuanqi and Niu Sengru’s (780–849) Xuanguai lu (Accounts of Mysterious Marvels), yet there are some stories that “deliberately pursue novelty.” For example, Zhang Shi’s “The Record of a Drifting Red Leaf” narrates a miracle: a palace girl and a scholar’s love through a unique intermediary—the drifting red leaf. Its novelty has attracted numerous readers, including Lu Xun himself. Qian Yi’s “The Black-Clothing State” is derived from the Tang poet Liu Yuxi’s (772–842) poem, taking the “Wang” and “Xie” in the poem as the name of a man and creating the swallows’ unique Black-Clothing State. Even Li Jianguo, a follower of Lu Xun’s scholarship on Song tales, says, “This is truly unique and creative! The things Wang Xie meets in the Black-Clothing State are full of unseen intrigue, and the swallow is hidden everywhere. It is fascinating” (Li Jianguo 1997, 61). In the anonymous “An Unofficial Biography of Li Shishi,” the image of Li Shishi is no longer a historical courtesan who cares only about “the heads and tails of coins;” instead, she is depicted as an aloof beauty who belittles even the wealthiest businessmen. In its tragic ending, Shishi is described as a heroine instead of a woman fleeing to the south, destitute in her later years. Obviously, the author does not stick to history; instead, he creates this new image through deliberate imagination based on his own ideals. Other works in this selection, such as “The Tale of Wang Ji” and “The Tale of Wang Shi,” are equally creative and novel. Moreover, Song tales do not lack “elegant and polished” (zaohui keguan) stories. Even without mentioning those collected in the Yunzhai guanglu, such as the “Xi Shu yiyu” (Adventures in West Shu), “Sihe xiang” (Four-fold Blended Incense), “Shuangtao ji” (The Tale of Double Peaches), and “Qiantang yimeng” (A Strange Dream at Qiantang), which were spoken highly of by Cheng Yizhong in his publications in recent years, those more popular Song tales can also verify this conclusion. The language in Qin Chun’s “Supplementary Biography of Empress Zhao: The Flying Swallow,” for example, is fairly beautiful and vivid. Even Hu Yinglin praises its picturesque depiction of the Lady of Bright Deportment bathing, and he says that imagery such as “the hot orchard water rippled and sparkled, and the Lady of Bright Deportment sat in it, resembling a piece of bright jade immersed in three feet of cold spring water” very well “may suddenly enthuse readers even a hundred generations later” (Hu Yinglin, 29: 377). In terms of the format, almost all Song tales are a combination of multiple genres: narratives, poems, and commentary. This format is found in some Tang tales but became popular in Song tales. It is believed that it stemmed from the practice of xingjuan (circulating scrolls) and wenjuan (warming-up scrolls) among the Tang civil service examinees. This practice waned during the Song dynasty, but the format remained: both poetry and commentary became a part of the tales. This format was likely also a result of the mutual influence between classical tales and storytelling. In storytelling, poems are chanted before the story is told and used to depict scenery and the appearance of characters in the story. In Song tales, poems are used for communication between characters as well as to show off the author’s knowledge and talent. Needless to say, the poems and rhapsodies in some Song tales are well-polished and full of sincere emotion and genuine concern. Such tales include those found in this anthology such as “The Record of Tan Yige,” “The Record of Wang Youyu,” “The Tale of the Plum-Blossom Consort,” and “The Black-Clothing State.” For example, the poem “Xie ci zhenzhu” (Thanks for Bestowing Pearls) by the Plum-Blossom Consort in “The Tale of the Plum-Blossom Consort” shows the talent of the poet, which is on a par with that of any talented woman throughout Chinese history; 530

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the poem was even included in the authoritative Quan Tang shi (Complete Tang Poetry).42 The Plum-Blossom Consort’s “Loudong fu” (Rhapsody from East of My Chamber) has also been considered an excellent poetic composition. The practice of appending critical comments (yiyue) at the end of a tale originated from historical writing, such as the “Taishigong yue” (The Grand Scribe’s Remarks) editorializations in Sima Qian’s (145–86? BCE) Shiji (The Grand Scribe’s Records). In Song tales, the comments are a medium through which authors can transmit moral teachings. This practice was followed by Pu Songling (1640–1715) in his masterpiece Liaozhai zhiyi (Strange Tales from Liaozhai).43

Ming Dynasty Tales During the first hundred years of the Ming dynasty, Chinese literature was mainly dedicated to praising the empire’s military achievements and the virtue of the emperor, as well as presenting a false picture of peace and prosperity while promoting such Confucian teachings as loyalty, filialness, chastity, and righteousness. This trend was challenged by Qu You’s (1347–1433) Jiandeng Xinhua (New Stories Told while Trimming the Wick) and the works of his followers, such as Li Changqi’s (1376–1452) Jiandeng yuhua (Supplementary Stories Told while Trimming the Wick, 1419), Shao Jingzhan’s (fl.1560), Mideng yinhua (Stories Told while Searching for the Lamp), and Song Maocheng’s (1569–1622) Jiuyueji (The Collection of Nine Yue). The classical tales in these anthologies are mostly filled with realistic emotions and vivid, detailed narration concerning a variety of social subjects, including love and marriage. As the representative work of Ming tales, Qu You’s New Stories is known for its novel plots, unique style, and nuanced depictions—the latter two likely derived from the vernacular storytelling traditions. It also has the distinction of being the first officially banned yet internationally acclaimed work of fiction in China. Since the fifteenth century, it has been widely disseminated throughout Asia, especially in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. A prominent theme or motif of Ming dynasty tales is romantic love. “Cuicui zhuan” (The Tale of Cuicui) in Qu You’s New Stories, “Fengweichai ji” (The Records of a Phoenix-Tail Pine Tree), “Furong ping ji” (Records of the Lotus Screen), and “Qiuqian huiji” (The Swing-play Gathering) in Li Changqi’s Jiandeng yuhua, and many others are all romantic love stories. While some of these love stories feature traditional themes, such as parents’ breaking a promise (“The Swing-play Gathering”) and romantic tragedy due to the different social status of the lovers (“The Records of a Phoenix-Tail Pine Tree”), a prominent, new characteristic of these tales is portraying the pain of youth brought about by social turbulence and warfare during the transition from the Yuan to the Ming dynasty. In “The Tale of Cuicui,” the love between Cuicui and her husband Jinding is destroyed by warfare as she falls into the hands of the rebel General Li. Qu You’s “Qiuxiangting ji” (Autumn Fragrance Pavilion) also tells of a tragic love story during this turbulent time. Through the ghost girl, Qu You’s “Lüyiren zhuan” (The Lady in Green) directly gives voice to the miserable suffering of women during warfare. Love between ghost girls and humans is a noted sub-theme of Ming tales, though this theme is found in tales since the Six Dynasties. In Tang tales, for example, “Li Zhangwu zhuan” (The Tale of Li Zhangwu) is a touching love story between a man and a ghost lady; but this motif did not really become popular until the Song and Ming dynasties. Ming tales like “Jinfengchai ji” (The Golden Phoenix Hairpin) and “The Lady in Green” are both good examples. A variant of this theme, involving a girl who cannot marry her lover until she dies, is found in “The Tale of Cuicui” from Qu You’s New Stories. 531

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Quite a few Ming dynasty tales feature important and influential motifs. Noted examples include the “detached soul” motif in “The Golden Phoenix Hairpin,” a “couple’s reunion” motif in “Lotus Screen” and “The Pearl Shirt,” and the “faithless lover” motif in the “Faithless Lover” (Fuqingnong zhuan). All of them had a significant impact on literary works of later times, especially on vernacular short stories in the storytelling tradition and drama. In terms of writing style, Ming dynasty tales mostly tend to mimic the language and narrative style of Tang tales. Some of them, especially those in Qu You’s collection such as “The Tale of Cuicui,” “The Lady in Green,” and “Teng Mu zuiyou Jujingyuan ji” (Teng Mu’s Drunken Excursion to Assembled Scenery Garden) are all excellent works. However, Ming dynasty tales, in general, have been undervalued since Lu Xun’s assessment of Qu You’s New Stories in his Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue: “Both its literary form and artistic conceptions come close to those of Tang writers, but its writing style is extremely verbose and weak. In this, it does not match [Tang tales]” (22. 178). What Lu Xun saw as “verbose” was likely the inclusion of poems, lyrics, and rhapsodies, which is a prominent feature of Ming dynasty tales. Following Lu Xun, modern scholars such as Sun Kaidi have also criticized this writing style: [When Qu] You wrote New Stories Told while Trimming the Wick, he added redundant poems and lyrics to the narrative. One story has a total of thirty poems in it! Actually, these are not necessary and make it seem like Qu is just showing off. [Li] Changqi adopted the same style in writing Supplementary Stories Told while Trimming the Wick.44 This observation is not an accurate assessment of Qu You’s collection for the following reasons: first, not all of his tales include poems and lyrics; and second, most of the included poems and lyrics are necessary. Our observation is that the poems and lyrics inserted in Qu You’s collection are not superfluous at all; on the contrary, they perform at least the following functions: depict the scenery, a character’s appearance, actions (including the intimate actions of lovers), and the psychological state of characters. Most of these are also found in vernacular fiction but are rarely found in Tang tales; the last two are virtually absent in vernacular fiction, which opts for concrete, direct baihua (vernacular prose) depictions instead. Examples of this include the poems in “The Story of Cuicui” and “Teng Mu’s Drunken Excursion to Jujing Garden.” This unique feature is one of the reasons why they piqued the interest of both scholars and idlers in the marketplace. Regarding Lu Xun’s second criticism, it is apparent that “extremely . . . weak” is certainly not true of Qu You’s tales. Some of them are quite vivid and moving. For example, “The Story of Cuicui” exhibits a conciseness that complements its passionate narration and compelling rhetoric when imitating the narrative style of Tang tales. The use of parallel lines and a plethora of allusions imbues it with a sophisticated literary flavor. Furthermore, there are many emotive scenes that add to the pathos of the stories. One such scene is when Cuicui is finally reunited with her husband, only to hold him as he dies: When Ding received the poem, he knew that Cuicui was promising him to die, so he lost all hope, feeling progressively more depressed till he succumbed to a serious and protracted illness. Cuicui made a request to the general, and only then was she able to go to Ding’s bedside to comfort him. But by then, Ding was already critically ill. She took his arm and helped him sit up, and as he raised his head to glance over at her, tears filled his eyes. He heaved a long sigh, then suddenly died. 532

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The previous discussion shows that, as a bridge between the brilliant Tang tales and Pu Songling’s Strange Tales from Liaozhai in the Qing, Ming dynasty tales are much better than some have assessed them, and they deserve more attention and credit than they have received thus far.

Notes 1 Hu Yinglin (1551–1602), Shaoshi Shanfang bicong [Collected Notes from Shaoshi shanfang Studio] (Taipei: Shijie shuju, 1980) 36.486. 2 Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue [A Brief History of Chinese Fiction] (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1973). Translation is from William H. Nienhauser, Jr., “Creativity and Storytelling in the Ch’uan-ch’i: Shen Ya-chih’s T’ang Tales,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) 20 (1998): 32. Fiction, in this context, is defined as “a composition written mainly in prose that creates an imaginative rather than factual reality” (Y. W. Ma’s essay on “Fiction,” in The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, Vol. 1, ed. William H. Nienhauser, Jr. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986). 3 Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo de lishi de bianqian [Historical Changes of Chinese Fiction] (Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian, 1996). For expanded discussion on the xingjuan practice, see Chen Qianfan, Tangdai jinshi xingjuan yu wenxue [Circulating Scrolls and Literature of Presented Scholars in the Tang Dynasty] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1980). 4 Zhao Yanwei, Yunlu manchao [Casual Notes from the Cloudy Foothill] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1996), 8.135. 5 Liu Kairong, Tangdai xiaoshuo yanjiu [A Study of Tang Tales] (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1947), 64–82. 6 William H. Nienhauser, Jr., Tang Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader (Singapore: World Scientific, 2010), 170. 7 Bian Xiaoxuan, Tangdai wenshi luncong [Collected Essays on Tang Dynasty Literature and History] (Taiyuan: Shanxi Renmin chubanshe, 1986), 27–47. 8 Xin Zou, “Private Knowledge and Local Community in the Xie Xiao’e Stories,” Studies on Asia, Series IV, 2, no. 2 (2012): 66–83. 9 Glen Dudbridge, The Tale of Li Wa: Study and Critical Edition of a Chinese Story from the Ninth Century (London: Ithaca Press, 1983), 61–69. 10 Carrie Reed’s study of this tale presented evidence from Indian texts and proposed that the Indian legend documented in the Da Tang Xiyuji (The Great Tang Record of the Western Regions) was not the inspiration for “Du Zichun,” as generally is accepted. By tracing its divergence from other Chinese analogues, Reed argues that “Du Zichun” actually carries an anti-Taoist and pro-Confucian message (Reed, “Parallel Worlds, Stretched Time, and Illusory Reality: The Tang Tale ‘Du Zichun,’” HJAS 69, no. 2 (2009): 309–42. 11 Manling Luo, in her book Literati Storytelling in Late Medieval China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015), identifies four prominent story themes: sovereignty, literati sociability, sexuality, and cosmic mobility. 12 The China Review, or Notes and Queries on the Far East 5, no. 6 (1877): 344–49. 13 Herbert Giles, Chinese Fairy Tales (London and Glasgow: Gowans & Gray, 1911), 5–6. 14 The two tales appeared in Arthur Waley, More Translations from the Chinese (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1919), 101–13, 117–34. They were often incorporated into later anthologies of Chinese classical literature, such as Cyril Birch’s Anthology of Chinese Literature: From Early Times to the Fourteenth Century (New York: Grove Press, 1965). In addition to Wiley’s translation of the two tales, Birth provided his own translation of “The Curly-bearded Hero” (Qiuranke zhuan). 15 R. Wilhelm, ed., Frederick H. Martens, trans., The Chinese Fairy Book (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1921). 16 Wilhelm and Martens, Chinese Fairy Book, “Preface,” 5. 17 Lin commented on the characteristics of Tang tales in the introduction to his collection. He wrote: “Men’s imaginations were bolder, as in Elizabethan England; their fancy was a little freer and livelier, and their hearts were a little lighter, when the pedestrian realism of later generations did not prevent the winged flight of their fancies. By the time, Buddhist tales had already penetrated deep into Chinese society, Taoism was officially revered, and nothing seemed strange or impossible. Theirs was a world of magic,

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature chivalry, war, and romance.” Lin Yutang, Famous Chinese Short Stories (New York: The John Day Company), xi. 18 HJAS 33 (1977): 99–123. 19 OE 23, no. 2 (1976): 153–74. 20 Hong Mai in the preface to Yijian zhi [The Records of Yijian] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), 243, claimed that Tang anecdotes carried “implied messages.” Miao Quansun in his preface to Zuixing shi pointed out that some tales attacked contemporary politics by innuendo. Miao’s opinion was quoted by Li Jianguo in Tang Wudai zhiguai chuanqi xulu [Annotated Catalogue of zhiguai and chuanqi of the Tang and Five Dynasties] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2017), 1.10. 21 See p. 94 in William H. Nienhauser, Jr., “A Third Look at ‘Li Wa zhuan,’” Tang Studies, no. 25 (2007): 91–110. 22 Nienhauser, “A Third Look,” 95. 23 Sarah M. Allen, “Oral Sources and Written Accounts: Authority in Tang Tales” (71–87). Graham Sanders, “I Read They Said He Sang What He Wrote: Orality, Writing, and Gossip in Tang Poetry Anecdotes” (88–106). Anna M. Shields, “Gossip, Anecdote, and Literary History: Representations of the Yuanhe Era in Tang Anecdote Collections” (107–31). 24 Carrie Reed, A T’ang Miscellany: An Introduction to Youyang zazu (New York: Peter Lang, 2003). 25 TP 103–5 (2017): 407–47. 26 Li Jianguo and Rania Huntington, “Wangling yiwang: Tang Song chuanqi de yizhong lishi guanzhao fangshi” [The Dead Recall the Past: A Way of Historical Criticism Used in Tang and Song Dynasty Tales], Nankai Journal 3 (2004): 1–11, and 4 (2004): 97–105. 27 Volume 71 “Xiaoshuo” in Yang Shen, Sheng’an quanji [Complete Works of Yang Sheng’an]. Cited from Li Jianguo, Songdai zhiguai Chuanqi xulu [An Annotated Catalogue of Song Dynasty Tales] (Tianjin: Nankai daxue chubanshe, 1997), 1. 28 Hu Yinglin, Shaoshi shanfang bicong [Collected Notes from the Shaoshi Shanfang Studio] (Taibei: Shijie shuju, 1963), 29.377. 29 Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue, 71; Yang Hsian-Yi and Gladys Yang, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, 139. 30 Li Shiren, “Song Dai lishi wenhua yu wenyan duanpian xiaoshuo de liubian” [History and Culture of the Song Dynasty and the Evolution of Classical Tales], Qiushi xuekan 2 (2011): 125–32. 31 Important contributions include the publication of Cheng Yizhong’s Guti xiaoshuo chao: Song Yuan juan [Copies of Ancient Style Stories: Song and Yuan] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1995) and Song Yuan xiaoshuo yanjiu [A Study of Song and Yuan Fiction] (Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1999); Li Jianguo’s Songdai zhiguai chuanqi xulu [Annotated Catalogue of Song Dynasty zhiguai and chuanqi Tales] (Tianjin: Nankai daxue chubanshe, 1997), and his Songdai chuanqi ji [A Collection of Song Dynasty Tales] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2001). Many studies, such as Wu Zhida’s Zhongguo wenyan xiaoshuo shi [A History of Classical Chinese Tales] (Jinan: Qi Lu shushe, 1994) and Xiao Xiangkai’s Song Yuan xiaoshuo shi [A History of Song and Yuan Tales] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 1997), also give these tales more attention and try to explore their characteristics. Even more excitingly, much new research, including at least five PhD dissertations from China, study Song tales through different perspectives. 32 Cf. Peter K. Bol, “This Culture of Ours”: Intellectual Transitions in T’ang and Sung China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 32–75. 33 Qian Mu, Zhongguo wenhuashi daolun [Introduction to the History of Chinese Culture] (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1994), 246–47. 34 Many scholars such as Xiao Xiangkai, Wu Zhida, and Li Jianguo point out this aspect in their studies mentioned previously. 35 Charles Hucker, China’s Imperial Past: An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975), 329. 36 It should also be noted that their standard for labeling a tale as chuanqi is different. Compared with Li Jianguo’s, Lu Xun’s standard is much narrower. Cf. William H. Nienhauser, Jr., “Introduction,” in his Tang Dynasty Tales, xiii. 37 Li Shiren, “Song Dai lishi wenhua yu wenyan duanpian xiaoshuo de liubian,” 128. 38 For a review of the status of business and businessmen in Chinese culture and literature, see Zhang Zhenjun and Mao Defu, Jingu yu chaoyue: Cong Sanyan Erpai kan Zhongguo shimin xintai [Confinement and Transcendence: Observations on the Mindset of Townsmen in Ancient China] (Beijing: Guoji wenhua chuban gongsi, 1988), 50–57.

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Tales of the Tang, Song, and Ming 39 As Li Zehou describes, “Su Shi’s aesthetic pursuit is a kind of taste, which is simple, unadorned, plain, and natural . . . opposing artificiality and adornment.” See his Mei de licheng [The Path of Beauty] (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1981), 163. 40 Wang Jisi, Yulunxuan gudian wenxue lunji [Collected Essays on Classical Literature from Jade Wheel Studio] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982), 305. 41 See Meng Zhaolian, “Wenyan xiaoshuo heyi Song buru Tang” [Why Classical Tales of the Song Are Not as Good as Those of the Tang], Jinwan bao, November 5, 2011. 42 Quan Tang shi [Complete Tang Poetry] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1960), 5.62. 43 See Zhenjun Zhang and Jing Wang, Song Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader (Singapore: World Scientific, 2017), xxvii. 44 See Sun Kaidi, Riben Dongjing suojian xiaoshuo shumu [A Catalogue of Fiction Found in Tokyo, Japan] (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chuban she, 1981), 126–27.

Further Reading Texts and Translations Li Jianguo, ed. Songdai chuanqi ji [A Collection of Song Dynasty Tales]. Beijng: Zhonghua shuju, 2001. Li Jianguo, ed. Tang wudai chuanqi ji [A Collection of Tales of the Tang and the Five Dynasties]. 6 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2015. Mair, Victor and Zhenjun Zhang, eds. Anthology of Tang and Song Tales: The Tang Song chuanqi ji of Lu Xun. Singapore: World Scientific, 2020. Mair, Victor and Zhenjun Zhang, eds. Ming Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022. Nienhauser, William H. Jr., ed. Tang Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader. 2 vols. Singapore: World Scientific, 2010 and 2016. Zhang Zhenjun and Jing Wang. Song Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader. Singapore: World Scientific, 2017. Zhang Zhenjun, Sid Sondergard, and Trever McKay, trans. New Stories Told While Trimming the Wick. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024. Zhou Yi, ed. Jiandeng Xinhua wai erzhong [New Stories Told While Trimming the Wick and Two More Collections]. Shanghai: Gudian wenxue chubanshe, 1957.

Studies Allen, Sarah M. Shifting Stories: History, Gossip, and Lore in Narratives from Tang Dynasty China. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2014. Dudbridge, Glen. The Tale of Li Wa: Study and Critical Edition of a Chinese Story from the Ninth Century. London: Ithaca Press, 1983. Dudbridge, Glen. “The Tale of Liu Yi and Its Analogues.” In Paradoxes of Traditional Chinese Literature, edited by Eva Hung, 61–88. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1994. Hightower, James Robert. “Fiction in the Literary Language.” In Topics in Chinese Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965. Huntington, Rania. “Tigers, Foxes and the Margins of Humanity in Tang Chuanqi Fiction.” Papers on Chinese Literature 1 (1993): 40–64. Luo, Manling. “Gender, Genre, and Discourse: The Woman Avenger in Medieval Chinese Texts.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 4 (2014): 579–99. Luo, Manling. Literati Storytelling in Late Medieval China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015. Ma, Y. W. “Fact and Fantasy in T’ang Tales.” CLEAR 2 (1980): 167–81. Owen, Stephen. “Conflicting Interpretations: ‘Yingying’s Story.’” In The End of the Chinese “Middle Ages,” edited by Stephen Owen, 149–73. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.

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45 STRANGE TALES FROM LIAOZHAI Rania Huntington

Of the Chinese story-worlds that have crossed the boundaries between traditional high culture, as maintained in collective memory, and contemporary pop culture—perpetually undergoing adaptation and transformation, equally likely to be found in a middle-school literature textbook and in a high-budget blockbuster—only one is a collection of multiple stories, rather than a long novel, and written in literary Chinese rather than some register of the vernacular. Although a latecomer in its tradition, over the past 250 years Liaozhai zhiyi (Strange Tales from Liaozhai, also translated Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio; hereafter Liaozhai for short) has become a shorthand term for the fantastic and uncanny in Chinese culture. The collection consists of almost 500 tales, ranging in length from a few dozen words to over three thousand. Pu Songling (1640–1715) composed it over decades, circulating the manuscript among a small circle of friends. Only many years after his death was it published. From then on, reprintings, adaptations, imitations, and critical responses have flooded the market and redefined the genre and thematic area in which Pu worked.

Context: Pu Songling's Life and Times Although Pu Songling had a modest career largely confined to a provincial setting, his life is quite well documented. His ancestral village lay outside of the regional center of Zichuan in central Shandong. Pu came from a not particularly prominent family of the aspiring and occasionally successful scholar-official class, but his father had abandoned that path to make his living as a merchant. Pu himself, after initial promise in the primary levels of the exams, never achieved the juren degree despite decades of effort. Not qualified for a government post, for most of his life he supported himself and his family as a tutor to more prosperous men’s sons. Other than one year spent in Jiangnan as a clerk for a friend who was a local magistrate, he lived out his life in his home region. In the larger historical context, Pu was a young child when the Ming dynasty fell, coming to adulthood in the years of the Qing consolidation of control. As discussed in the following, more than the conquest itself, the ruthless suppression of local rebellion left its marks in his collection. No less devastating than war and unrest were flood, drought, famine, and other natural disasters to which his home region was particularly prone, documented in Pu’s stories as well as his poetry.1 DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-63 

Strange Tales from Liaozhai

None of Pu’s works were published in his lifetime, as he lacked the financial means. He did, however, have a family and community who preserved his manuscripts, so that the modern edition of his complete works fills three thick volumes. Besides Liaozhai zhiyi, he wrote poetry, prose, ballads, and drama in a local style, and various practical works, such as a guide to agriculture, a medical handbook, and a glossary of dialect terms.2 He was thus a man with a foot in two worlds and languages, the highly erudite and the most colloquial, the empire-wide as well as the local and rural.3 The “Liao” in Pu’s studio name, with which he titles the collection, suggests the casual and the temporary. He frames his collection with a highly dense and allusive preface in parallel prose. Prefaces for collections of strange tales often either excuse them as frivolous jottings, or justify the unorthodox endeavor in terms of historical preservation or moral lessons. Pu does neither. He presents a lineage for the collection of strange tales that includes the poets Qu Yuan and Li He as well as writers and tellers of ghost stories, and pictures himself as a lonely, impassioned, almost ghost-like figure. Strangeness was with him from the beginning, as he relates the story of his father’s dream at the time of his son’s birth, identifying Pu Songling as the reincarnation of a sickly monk.4 In contrast with Pu’s self-presentation, his successive preface-writers frame the book by justifying discussion of the strange in moral terms, describing it as a work of allegorical self-expression, and later extolling its literary style.5

Textual History of Liaozhai Pu began work on Liaozhai in 1671. By 1679, when he wrote his preface, he had a manuscript complete enough to share with friends, who contributed prefaces in turn. As he continued to add additional material until the first decade of the eighteenth century, the creation of Liaozhai spanned most of his adult life.6 Liaozhai is one of the rare pre-twentieth-century works for which we have a manuscript in the author’s own hand, although it is incomplete, containing only 237 tales. There are other surviving manuscripts that predate the printed edition, differing both in number of stories and divisions into fascicles.7 The earliest printed editions, by Zhao Qigao in 1766 and Wang Jinfan in 1767, took different approaches to shaping the collection. Zhao placed the stories that he judged the most distinctive in the first twelve fascicles and relegated the material more widely shared with other collections to the last four, deleting a minority of stories entirely.8 Wang’s edition categorized 281 selected stories using a framework reminiscent of the late Ming Ertan leizeng (Tales for the Ear Expanded by Categories, 1603), starting with virtues and working down to different categories of the non-human. Wang treats stories appended in commentary, some by other authors, as equal in value to the “main” stories; he has no stake in Pu Songling as a unique and brilliant author.9 Both editors strove to give the collection an order to which Pu himself did not aspire. Zhao’s format was the successful one, the edition itself frequently reprinted, and its construction followed by later Qing editions. Many of the subsequent Qing editions were published with detailed commentary or glosses, so that Liaozhai became the first, and indeed the only, classical tale collection supplied with a commentarial apparatus as thorough as that of the most celebrated works of vernacular fiction.10 Illustrations were added in turn in the lithographic printing era of the late Qing.11

Genre, Sources, Innovation Pu Songling was a dazzling innovator in the genre in which he worked, but he was nonetheless well-grounded in both the textual tradition of strange tales and oral exchanges of anecdote among 537

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his rural neighbors and scholarly friends. Liaozhai’s textual heritage included late Ming republications of Tang/Song tales and compendia, the Jiandeng (Trimming the Lamp Wick) series, and late Ming collections of contemporary tales.12 There are useful collections of material allowing the study of Pu Songling’s development of earlier lore, but Allan Barr’s point that not every earlier tale with similar plot should be understood to be a direct antecedent is well taken.13 Pu Songling’s relationship to textual precedents ranges from deliberate rewriting, as in “Xu Huangliang” (A Sequel to the Yellow Millet Dream), which is explicitly modeled on the Tang tale “Zhenzhong ji” (Record from Inside a Pillow), to parallel documentation of widely circulating lore, as in the spectacular rope trick in “Tou tao” (Stealing Peaches).14 The idea that Pu’s tales are all from oral sources, gained by trading tea for stories at Willow Spring (Liuquan, another of Pu’s pseudonyms), first appears in writing in a late Qing anecdote collection, but it seems to have laid a hold on the imagination.15 In fact, in contrast to Hong Mai and some more immediate predecessors in the late Ming, Pu identifies the informants who ostensibly told the stories relatively rarely.16 Some of his shorter tales, overlapping with Wang Shizhen’s (1634–1711) Chibei outan (Casual Talk from North of the Pond), reveal a circle of shared narrative.17 Nonetheless his tales also contain marvels that appear nowhere before, such as the ghost of a ghost.18 The tales most celebrated by readers, by and large, are those with the largest departures from the earlier tradition. As a collection, Liaozhai is marked by its internal diversity of form.19 Beginning with a comment attributed to Ji Yun (1724–1805), it is conventional to divide Pu Songling’s stories into two large groups, shorter incident-driven tales in the zhiguai tradition, and longer character-and relationship-focused tales affiliated with chuanqi.20 Pu’s tale titles are either descriptions of content or names of characters, supporting this division. But there is no neat dividing line, rather a continuum, and some of Pu’s thematic concerns pervade tales of both the longest and shortest extremes. Liaozhai is not arranged by theme or category, though there is a minority of tales whose titles form contrasting pairs, such as “Tou tao” (Stealing Peaches) and “Zhong li” (Planting Pears).21 Tales of horror stand alongside romances, anecdotes beside long novellas. Allan Barr has argued for a rough chronological organization in order of time of composition, and an evolution in Pu’s attitude and art corresponding to section divisions.22 Nonetheless, in all parts of the collection the alternation between tales of different form and mood appears to be a deliberate part of Pu’s aesthetics.23 The majority of Pu’s tales include no dates, but most are assumed to take place in a roughly contemporary world of the early Qing, with a minority set in the late Ming. In contrast with time, most of his tales include place names. There are unsurprisingly a large number of stories set in “my hometown” or other nearby regions of Shandong, but other tales range throughout the empire, with a few rare appearances of settings beyond the Chinese cultural sphere. Pu Songling’s language also sets him apart. He uses a much more varied vocabulary than do prior works in the genre, including rarely used words and erudite allusions to the classical prose and poetic tradition, but his vivid descriptions of action recall the detail in vernacular fiction, and his dialogue can approach the colloquial, with occasional traces of Shandong dialect. Compared to the “Jiandeng” tradition, poetry included in the narrative is rare. Many Liaozhai tales are accompanied by authorial commentary introduced by the formula “the Historian of the Strange Says . . . ” (Yi shi shi yue), in imitation of Sima Qian’s practice in Shi ji (Historical Records).24 These comments could reinforce a moral lesson; celebrate or lament an outcome in the plot; undermine the ostensible lesson with a tongue-in-cheek joke; or even tell another related story. Pu should not be seen as a fantasist in the sense of J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis. His world-building is done with the materials of the shared lore and current religious practices of his communities, Shandong neighbors, and literati in empire-wide networks rather than lore marked as past or other. 538

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Contents The content of the collection defies summary. The “strange” yi that Pu takes as his subject includes many topics we would now call supernatural—ghosts, gods, shape-shifters, magical arts—but also extremes of human virtue, depravity, or obsession; elaborate tales of crime or family conflict, reportage on disasters and oddities resembling natural history or journalism, and jokes. Given this diversity and the large number of stories, contemporary readers and critics tend to focus on certain tales deemed “representative,” but this leads to tautology: if one only reads the tales considered representative, they seem all the more representative, and the neglected tales justifiably unread.25 Although contemporary and Qing readers have different preferences, both seem equally taken with Pu’s long, elaborate romances between a human man and one or more non-human women. Based on number of extant adaptations in other genres, the Qing audience had greater interest in some of the long family dramas or rags to riches stories, such as the loyal brother Zhang Cheng or the exiled husband and father Zhang Hongjian.26 As stated, the Zhao and Wang editions give different perspectives on the stories considered important for their readers. In the contemporary period, works with explicit socially critical messages, like the exploration of the disaster wrought by royal obsession with cricket-fighting in “Cu zhi” (The Cricket), or the vision of corrupt officials and their underlings in the form of predatory beasts in “Meng lang” (A Dream of Wolves), have won favor.27 Stories in the early fascicles of the most commonly circulating edition still receive more attention than those in later sections. In the English-speaking world this is also a product of the influence of John Minford’s partial translation. Facing the challenge of this diverse content, scholarship on Liaozhai has tended to be selective and thematically focused. Some of the major themes discussed by earlier scholarship, particularly English-language scholarship, are touched on in the following, but there are many other directions that future explorations of Liaozhai may take.

Strange, Grotesque, Marvelous What is the “strange” of Liaozhai? In Historian of the Strange Judith Zeitlin has a useful discussion of the overlapping vocabulary, qi, guai, and yi.28 Roughly speaking, these three correspond to the unusual as aesthetically or emotionally pleasing, perhaps a spectacle, perhaps an intricate and original plot; the unusual as grotesque and disturbing; and the unusual as an object of curiosity without a strong positive or negative coloring. The qi is to be appreciated, for it may well be impossible to hold on to. The guai is to be avoided or exorcised, though it can have its own ambiguous fascination. The yi is to be observed. Three short and not widely studied anecdotes can illustrate the range of affect generated by varieties of strangeness. A single sentence account of a large watermelon growing on a cucumber vine in a garden west of Pu’s hometown, one of the shortest anecdotes in the collection, is an oddity without interpretation. An appended story by one of the commentators however links the abnormalities of qi-energy that cause such vegetable anomalies to disease among humans.29 In another tale a servant suddenly sees a stream of coins flowing in his master’s garden. Though he grabs as much as he can and tries to lie on top of the flowing mass, in an instant the stream is gone, and all he retains is what he holds in his hands.30 No explanation is offered, though one of the commentators notes that as it is in money’s nature to circulate, of course lying on top of it proved futile. In a third tale, a man who had suffered from chronic nasal blockage suddenly sneezed out four creatures that resembled the tile dogs used to adorn roofs. The largest of them ate the other three, and then crawled up to settle on the man’s waist, becoming a large wart.31 The uncanny violations 539

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of the boundaries of self and other, the animate and inanimate, are described with vivid verbs, both for the motions of the creatures and the man’s attempts to remove the new growth, and medically precise vocabulary. These three cases suggest the realms of strangeness that Pu explores: the natural world, vegetable, animal, and mineral; the boundaries between the animate and inanimate; and the integrity of the human body. Part of the reason these tales are short is that they are (except for the melon visible to anyone who came by the plant) private experiences with anomalies that lack the power of speech. In his longer tales Pu excels at entangling the strange in networks of relationships, as he gives the non-human a voice in dialogue with the human.

Perspective Two figures are essential to the strange: the oddity itself, and the observer who recognizes its strangeness. The Classical tale differs from vernacular fiction in the limited perspective of its narrator. While a vernacular novel like Xiyou ji can open focusing on the point of view of Sun Wukong, the zhiguai tradition focuses on the perspective of an ordinary person confronting the extraordinary (which may or may not be inhuman). Pu explores this limitation on both the levels of sensory perception and empathy. Particularly in the longer tales, the perspective of the male, human scholar most commonly remains at the center, but Pu’s imaginative empathy also reaches other genders, species, and classes, and he is also quite ready to mock (gently or not so gently) that dominant perspective.32 Two contrasting tales, one of violence and one of sex, display his mastery of deploying limited perception to maximize the shock and interest of final revelation. “Shang Sanguan,” the story of a girl who cross-dresses as a boy actor in order to seduce her father’s murderer and take revenge, details the sounds heard by servants in a neighboring room: first laughter, then a loud sound, as if a heavy object had been hanging by a rope that was then severed. They find that their master had been beheaded and the assassin had hanged “him”self; only on examining the feet of the corpse did they discover she had been a woman.33 In “Sun sheng” (Scholar Sun), a worried mother enlists the aid of a wandering Daoist nun to reconcile her son and daughter-in-law, who had not consummated their marriage. Following the nun’s instructions to hide talismans constructed of pornographic illustrations in the couple’s pillows, the mother eavesdrops on the sound of their sleeplessness on two beds, then their whispers on a shared bed, then their shared laughter.34 “Ji nü” (“The Spinning Girl”) is, as one of the commentators points out, a fascinating reflection on the perspectives of desire.35 A mysterious young beauty (suspected but never outright stated to be a fox)36 comes to live with a lonely old widow, helping her with spinning by day and sleeping on the same bed at night. The widow is aroused, her secret desires introduced with the phrase “if I were a man . . . ”; the stranger knows these intimate thoughts and mocks her. Their relationship comes to an end when a local scholar bribes the widow to let him see the beauty. The lovestruck man writes a lyric (ci), one of the relatively rare uses of poetry in Liaozhai. The spinning girl departs with regret, blaming not the widow but herself for allowing herself to be seen and falling into the pollution of desire.37 Here one of Liaozhai’s central topics, the desirable extraordinary female, is regarded from the perspective of an older rural woman. The tale pushes heteronormative limits, and the desiring subject is not a person usually imagined as feeling desire. However, the object of desire is very much a mainstream one, and the (still presumed male) reader becomes a displaced voyeur, even as it is the desire of the literati man that sunders interspecies and intergenerational female companionship.

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Desire and Bonds Erotic relationships between human men and alien women, whether as cautionary tale or wish fulfilment, had been a mainstay of the classical tale tradition since its inception. This is by far the subject for which Liaozhai is the most well-known. The “demon story” is a type in both zhiguai and vernacular fiction: a man meets a beautiful stranger, they begin an affair, someone intimates she is not human, and she is ultimately exposed and exorcised, her lover either surviving or not.38 Pu Songling’s most famous tale deploying these tropes is “Hua Pi” (The Painted Skin). He heightens the moment of revelation, the beautiful lover’s true and terrible face exposed, by making the false face a tangible theatrical prop. When the protagonist’s suspicions are aroused by an exorcist, he peers through the window to see a fearsome demon carefully touching up a human skin with a colored brush, then, satisfied with its work, shaking out the skin like a cloak to don it and become the beautiful lover. After the man makes a further attempt at exorcism, the enraged creature tears out his heart. Although the demon is later successfully exorcised and contained in a vessel, the story does not end there. Instructed by the exorcist, the protagonist’s wife endures the humiliation of eating a filthy, mad beggar’s phlegm on the public marketplace. When she returns to clean her husband’s corpse, she coughs up the phlegm, and it becomes a beating human heart, which falls into place in his chest cavity, and he returns to life.39 The borders of the interior and the exterior are penetrated in a grotesque way, the human man taking the role of the one who sees, his wife as the one who endures the feeling of an alien presence in her throat. Despite his infidelity, they are treated as a single body. Pu is more famous, however, for his ingenuity in creating happy resolutions and long-term domestic union for his mixed couples and threesomes. Such endings had been a rarity in the earlier tradition, in which even relations with alien lovers who were treated sympathetically usually ended with separation caused by exorcism or the intrinsic gulfs between human and ghostly or divine. Today the most famous of Pu’s otherworldly romances, in large part because of the success of late twentieth-century film adaptations, is “Nie Xiaoqian.” The titular ghost, Nie, first approaches the young scholar Ning Caichen as a seductress, attempting to win him with first sex, then money. After he refuses, she reveals to him that she is in the unwilling service of another monster, who forces her to entrap men whose blood it then consumes. The malevolent and seductive aspects of the supernatural lover are thus divided. After Ning escapes the monster’s attack, he agrees to take Xiaoqian’s bones back to his home for burial. Xiaoqian as ghost follows him home, earning the trust of his mother through domestic labor, and slowly becoming able to eat human food. After Ning’s wife dies, she is accepted as a bride, and later bears sons.40 Even more than the human body, the requirement for long-term stability of an interspecies match is acceptance by a human family and community (and sometimes even that is not enough).41 The man’s acceptance of her family is also sometimes demanded, but in terms limited by the patriarchal family system. Many of Pu’s tales complicate the play of desire and fulfilment to explore the possibilities of polygyny. “Lianxiang” is an example of Pu’s structural mastery, with a young man’s encounters with his two otherworldly lovers, a fox and a ghost, alternating in an intricate pattern of jokes and lies coming true. After both women succeed by different paths in claiming human identities and reunite with the man, the peak of strangeness is at the same time the resolution, as the three go together to visit the grave shared by the two women’s former bodies.42 The alien lover plot has been interpreted contrastingly as sheer male wish fulfillment, or a cry for female agency. The inhuman woman opens additional space for both possibilities, but that space is not without contours and limits. Even women who depart often leave behind a child or a substitute.

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Individuals may exit the family, the family system bends and extends to include the dead and different species of brides, but the system remains.

Family and Society Although his horror tales describe relentless walking corpses, predatory succubi, and ravening wolves, the most malignant forces in Pu Songling’s world are human and relational: jealous wives, corrupt officials, abusive mothers-in-law, greedy kinsmen, and incompetent examiners. These forces are countered sometimes by supernatural powers, but often working in tandem with humans of extraordinary perseverance or perception: the selfless wife, the loyal friend, or the wise judge. Allan Barr argues that the element of social criticism, for misbehavior both within families and in society at large, is stronger in Pu Songling’s later tales.43 The plot of “Shanhu” is driven by two angry women, first the titular heroine’s mother-in-law, then her sister-in-law. In his filial duty, An Dacheng expels the blameless Shanhu to satisfy his mother. But the mother meets her match when the younger brother An Ercheng marries a woman even more fierce. Shanhu’s filial service and fortitude, providing food for her ill mother-in-law under an assumed identity, is finally able to win her over. But after that reconciliation the sister-in-law triggers a family nightmare Pu knew from personal experience, brothers dividing the family property in rancor, with the innocent elder brother getting the short end of the stick. Unlike in real life, the late father’s ghost and other otherworldly forces compel redistribution of gold and land to the virtuous couple. The sister-in-law reforms after the death of her sons from smallpox. The family reunites and she adopts an heir, but the retribution remains clear.44 In “Zhang Cheng” it is a male character who staunchly maintains filial and fraternal values in the face of a mother’s spite and loathing. The younger brother Zhang Cheng is her beloved only son, the elder brother Zhang Ne the despised son of a previous wife. Cheng insists on sharing the labor of woodcutting with Ne. When Cheng is carried away by a tiger, Ne’s quest for him takes him both to the underworld and across the empire. The final reunion of the brothers and their father however leaves out the mother, who died before they returned home. In his commentary Pu Songling describes himself as passionately weeping at the tales’ twists and turns.45 Pu’s sympathy for passion, eccentricity, and obsession should not be misunderstood as turning away from orthodox values. The social institution beyond the level of the family to which Pu pays the most attention is, unsurprising for a man of his class and life experience, the exam system. This had been a prominent topic in the zhiguai collections predating Pu, with tales describing omens of success or failure, how karmic retribution was expressed through exam results, or ghostly or divine intervention in the exam chambers. Pu sometimes makes use of the convention familiar from caizi jiaren (talent and beauty) novels and drama of exam success as parallel with marriage and the birth of sons needed to create the happy ending for the male protagonist. Yet his greatest empathy is reserved for the long-term failures.46 “Ye Sheng” (Scholar Ye) describes a man who in his paired drives to succeed in the examination and repay Ding, the lone man who had recognized his talent, forgets that he has died. Returning home after both his own success and that of his benefactor’s son, his wife’s revelation that he is a corpse awaiting burial causes Ye to disappear. One of the Qing commentators identifies this tale as a virtual autobiography of Pu Songling.47 Pu Songling’s comment, saying there are many men in as pitiable a situation as Ye, but friends like Ding are rarer, reveals that he cares about friendship at least as much as he does about romance. The situation of exam striving often provides the context for male friendship, including across species boundaries, true mutual recognition in the context of rampant misjudgment.

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The second of Pu’s two stories under the title “San sheng” (Three Lives) explores the opposite kind of bond between men, the enmity between an exam candidate and the examiner who failed him. After a vivid confrontation in hell, as a throng of wronged candidates insist the infernal judge cut out the heart that had made such misguided judgments, the pair are reborn as a bandit and the soldier who executes him, and then two dogs of different sizes that fight to the death. Only in the third life, with the former wronged candidate as son-in-law and the former examiner as the father-in-law using all possible influence to support the younger man’s career, are they reconciled. Pu Songling comments on the depth of the hatred that takes three lives to resolve. Although Yama’s arrangement for final reconciliation is clever, he doubts whether all the throngs of souls could be so satisfied.48 “Ye Sheng” and “San Sheng” provide contrasting cases about how the world beyond the human relates to the despair and injustices of the human world. The ghost can continue the wishes of the living in another form. Fate and talent may be out of sync, but friendship will create its own rewards and justice. Intergenerational relations in the family are a setting for repayment. Yet Pu’s comments underline the contingency of the resolutions: there are more wrongs than Yama or knowing friends can right, and systemic change is not considered.

Historical Trauma and Violence Before the separation of the brothers which is the heart of the plot of “Zhang Cheng” is another separation: at the fall of the Ming, their father’s first wife had been seized by the conquering army and taken north, their father resettling in Jiangxi and marrying first Ne’s mother, and, after her death, Cheng’s. But Cheng’s journey in the tiger’s mouth brings him to encounter an elder brother he didn’t know he had, who adopts the young man before reunion with Ne, who knew more of the family history, reveals the truth. The prejudiced stepmother is in effect replaced by a mother senior to her.49 The chaos of the fall of the Ming is a background legacy, still being worked out by the current generation. Pu also explores these separations and unlikely reunions in short anecdotes, like “Luanli er ze” (Separation in Chaos: Two Accounts.)50 When man and ghost cannot remain together, the reasons their union is sundered are as revealing as the paths that other stories take to long-term unions. “Gongsun Jiuniang” is in the end a negation of a romantic ghost story. A man making an offering to those who had been lost in the brutal suppression of a local rebellion becomes involved in different relations with families of ghosts. Although he can sponsor a marriage between two ghosts, after he consummates a sexual relationship with the titular heroine, he cannot follow the path that Ning Caichen did for Nie Xiaoqian and rebury her bones: there are too many graves in the mass burial site, and he has forgotten to ask her for the signs by which he should recognize hers. There has been too much death for him to remember her sufficiently vividly to hold her as an individual.51 “Yegou” (Wild Dog), when read together with “Gongsun jiuniang,” is an excellent example of how Pu Songling explores similar thematic territory in different ways in tales in the incident-centered and character-centered modes. Set in the context of the repression of the same rebellion as “Gongsun jiuniang,” on the face of it “Ye gou” is a simple tale, a confrontation with a monster which is never identified but leaves an enormous fang behind. But its artful construction systematically increases horror. What could be more terrifying than avoiding capture by lying down among the corpses on the killing fields pretending to be dead? If the dead began to move. . . . But what could be more terrifying than that? If the dead themselves are frightened.52 The terror of the violence that cannot be openly spoken of takes shape through these successive steps. Narrating a moment when the

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violence was still in process, the corpses gnawed on by the monster have not even reached the point of forming ghosts. The sign the story leaves behind is a monster’s tooth, not a gravesite with names.

Marvel and Sublimation Beginning with the first printed edition, critics argued that Pu simply borrows the figures of ghosts and foxes to express what he otherwise could not about the human world.53 To make this argument is to deny Pu’s own avowed obsession with the strange;54 a fascination that in no way contradicts keen-eyed observation and strong opinions about the human world. What then can readers conclude about the relationship between the strange and the commonplace, or the strange and the normative, in his work? Wai-yee Li argues, “Pu Songling delights in creating enchanted realms, but feels the need to reappropriate the otherworld for mundane reality.”55 A pattern of intrusion of the strange into the quotidian realm, followed by its expulsion, explanation, or domestication, is a fundamental structure of zhiguai long predating Pu Songling. Depending on which tales in the collection one chooses to read, the overwhelming impression can be of the alien lover turned good wife and mother, or of the deeply unsettling apparition leaving one no longer trusting the barrier of one’s own skin. Similarly, tales can be selected that confirm orthodox values, or question them. Each tale of Liaozhai seems to be a new thought experiment in which Pu resets the opening conditions. More recent work has tried to incorporate the domesticated and the uncontainable strange into a single framework, focusing on the figure of the ghost or the monster.56 Zeitlin argues that a final shift in the boundaries of the normal and the strange is typical of the collection: the mural appears two dimensional again but bears the traces of a mortal man’s visit.57 The new normal that closes each tale is never entirely interchangeable with the former normal.

Other Qing Collections The publication of Liaozhai in the 1760s heralded a boom in zhiguai publication in the final decades of the eighteenth century.58 Men with prominent political and literary careers took part, as well as others who were much more obscure, represented in the surviving textual tradition only by their tale collections. In contemporary literary history, one common standard for dividing the collections published after Liaozhai is into its imitators and critics, an oversimplification since some seem to be continuing the tale collecting practice that predates it.59 Formal distinctions that can be made among Qing collections include length of story, presence or absence and type of titles, citation of informants, and the use of commentary; and a collection that resembled Liaozhai in some of these features could still be very different in content, style, or spirit. The extreme of homage to Liaozhai is found in the prefaces of Liuya waibian (Outer Records of the Willow Shore, 1793), in which the preface writers describe the author Xu Kun as the reincarnation of Pu Songling.60 I mention here the two Qianlong-era collections which have received the most critical attention, and whose authors’ celebrated literary and political careers were a far cry from Pu’s obscurity. The poet and polymath Yuan Mei (1716–1798) compiled Zibuyu (What the Master Would Not Discuss, 1789; also called Xin qixie, The New Qixie). His stories reveal sharp humor and often the desire to shock the reader, to push the limits of the motifs or combine them in unexpected ways. Ji Yun (1724–1805), though he claimed to be maintaining a conservative tradition of zhiguai recording, was an innovator in his inclusion of his own and his social circle’s analysis of the principles behind the tales he told. These principles are often morally conservative but reveal a profound curiosity 544

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about the workings of the other world.61 Both collections have been mined by scholars and translators for insights into the everyday life and mentality of the 18th century.62 The final boom in zhiguai publication came a century later, in the final decades of the Qing. As the new European-style publishing houses, some using the lithographic press, strove to restock the libraries devastated by the Taiping civil war, collections of oddities were one of the kinds of books printed. This is the period when Liaozhai was first printed with illustrations that are often reused in modern editions and translations. Representative both in content and means of publication of this second peak are the works of Wang Tao (1828–1897). One of his collections, Songyin manlu (Random Records of a Recluse in Wusong, 1884–1887), was in a later edition renamed Hou liaozhai zhiyi (Later Liaozhai), likely for marketing reasons. Some of its tales plainly reflect the late Qing world, including Wang Tao’s own travels in Europe. The tales were originally published serially with full-page lithographic illustrations as a supplement to Dianshizhai huabao (Dianshizhai pictorial), the earliest and most influential illustrated publication of late Qing Shanghai.63 The tradition was not extinguished with the fall of the Qing; new collections continued to be composed into the 1920s and 30s.64 But after that point the new lives of the zhiguai tradition were to be in adaptations to other genres.

Afterlives and Adaptation of Liaozhai Not since the most celebrated Tang tales, had classical language narrative had so large an influence on vernacular and performance genres. As mentioned previously, Pu Songling himself already adapted some of his tales as liqu, local ballads or plays. Some tales were rendered into vernacular stories.65 Many of his stories were adapted as plays, both those meant primarily for reading and those for stage performance. The late Qing female playwright Liu Qingyun (c.1841–c.1900) wrote several Liaozhai adaptations.66 Liaozhai plots were particularly popular in the twentieth- to twenty-first–century repertoire of Sichuan opera, with its highly developed special effects. Similarly, Liaozhai tales have been retold in many prosimetric genres, including in contemporary performance.67 A Manchu translation was published in 1848.68 As an indication of further transmission across East Asia, although much less influential in Japan than earlier generations of Chinese strange tales, selected Liaozhai tales were adapted in 18th-century Japan.69 Moving into the 20th century, the most influential film adaptations include the Hong Kong films King Hu’s Nü Xia (A Touch of Zen, 1971), based on “Xianü” (The Chivalrous Woman), and Ching Siu-tong’s Qiannü youhun (A Chinese Ghost Story, 1987), based on “Nie Xiaoqian.” In the same era there was a popular multi-episode mainland 1987 TV series. Liaozhai continues to be a source into the 21st century, particularly with high-budget films loosely based on “Hua pi” (The Painted Skin, Gordon Chan, 2008). With the renaissance of science fiction and fantasy in the Sinosphere, more afterlives are to be anticipated.

Notes 1 References to Liaozhai zhiyi, hereafter LZ, are to the widely used variorum edition. Zhang Youhe, ed., Pu Songling, Liaozhai zhiyi huijiao huizhu huiping ben [Liaozhai’s Tales of the Strange: With Textual Collation, Annotation, and Commentary], 2 vols (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1978); “Shui zai” [The Flood], LZ, 1:4.492–493. See also Allan Barr, “Pu Songling and Liaozhai zhiyi: A Study of Textual Transmission, Biographical Background, and Literary Antecedents” (PhD diss., Oxford University, 1983), 107–10. On Pu’s poetry on natural disasters and his comments on the inadequate response of those in power, see Yuan Shishuo and Xu Zhongwei, Pu Songling pingzhuan [Critical Biography of Pu Songling] (Nanjing: Nanjing

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature daxue chubanshe, 2000), 238–51. For a vivid account of life in Pu’s region, often drawing on Liaozhai tales, see Jonathan Spence, The Death of Woman Wang (New York: Viking Books, 1978). 2 See Sheng Wei, ed., Pu Songling quanji [Complete Works of Pu Songling], Vols. 2 and 3 (Beijing: Xuelin chubanshe, 1998). 3 Zhenzhen Lu, “The Vernacular World of Pu Songling” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2017), 238–39. 4 “Liaozhai zizhi” [Liaozhai’s Record of Himself], LZ, 1.1–3. See Judith Zeitlin, Historian of the Strange: Pu Songling and the Chinese Classical Tale (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), 43–58. 5 Zeitlin, Historian of the Strange, 17–42. 6 The most useful summary in English is Allan Barr, “The Textual Transmission of Liao-chai chih-i,” HJAS 44, no. 2 (December 1984): 537–55. 7 Barr, “The Textual Transmission,” 518–29. 8 Barr, “The Textual Transmission,” 532–33. 9 For a punctuated and annotated edition of the Wang edition, see Meng Fanhai and Meng Yuan, eds., Wang ke Liaozhai zhiyi jiaozhu [Wang Edition of Liaozhai’s Tales of the Strange, Collated and Annotated] (Jinan: Qilu shushe, 2002). 10 See David Rolston, Traditional Chinese Fiction and Fiction Commentary (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 90. These commentaries have been gathered in the variorum edition by Zhang Youhe, as well as a more recent edition edited by Ren Duxing. 11 Xiangzhu Liaozhai zhiyi tuyong [Annotated Liaozhai’s Tales of the Strange with Illustrations and Verse], 1886. 12 Barr, “The Textual Transmission,” 196–215. 13 Zhu Yixuan, ed., Liaozhai zhiyi ziliao huibian (Tianjin: Nankai daxue chubanshe, 2002); Barr, “The Textual Transmission,” 255–60. 14 LZ, 1:4.518–27; LZ, 1:1.32–34; Barr, Pu Songling and Liaozhai zhiyi, discusses these two cases, “Tou tao,” 255–56, “Xu Huangliang,” 269–71. 15 Zou Tao, Sanjielu bitan, printed in Zhu, Liaozhai zhiyi ziliao huibian, 301–2. 16 See table in Wang Fenling, Pu Songling yu liaozhai zhiyi yanjiu [Research on Pu Songling and Strange Tales from Liaozhai] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2015), 31–34. 17 Barr, Pu Songling and Liaozhai zhiyi, 331–32, n. 150, lists the shared tales. 18 “Zhang Aduan,” LZ, 1:5.627–31. See Zeitlin, Historian of the Strange, 195. 19 Barr, Pu Songling and Liaozhai zhiyi, 215 notes that Liaozhai is not unique in this regard. 20 Colophon to Guwang tingzhi by Ji’s student Sheng Shiyan in Ji Yun, Yuewei caotang biji [Scattered Jottings from the Cottage of Close Scrutiny] (Shanghai: Shanghai guiji, 1982), 471–73. 21 LZ, 1:1.32–37. 22 Allan Barr, “A Comparative Study of Early and Late Tales in Liao-chai chih-i,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 45, no. 1 (June 1985). Ren Duxing doubts that the fascicles are in chronological order by time of authorship. Afterword to his edition, Pu Songling, Liaozhai zhiyi quanjiao huizhu jiping (Jinan: Qilu shushe, 2000), 3.2557. 23 Sing-chen Lydia Chiang, Collecting the Self: Body and Identity in Strange Tale Collections of Late Imperial China (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005), 80–83. 24 Barr notes that commentary in this form was popular in the seventeenth century, with precedents including Feng Menglong’s Qingshi leilüe [A Categorized History of Love]. Barr, Pu Songling and Liaozhai zhiyi, 217. See also Rolston, Traditional Chinese Fiction and Fiction Commentary, 285. 25 Chiang, Collecting the Self, 60–80. 26 LZ, 1:2.247–54, 2:9.1227–34. Pu’s own vernacular retellings of these two stories are discussed in Lu, “The Vernacular World of Pu Songling,” 173–85, 200–19. 27 LZ, 1:4.484–90, 2:8.1052–56. 28 Zeitlin, Historian of the Strange, 5–6. 29 “Gua yi” [Melon Anomaly], LZ, 1:4.443. 30 “Qian liu” [Flow of Money], LZ, 1:5.695. Chang and Chang translate the story and discuss its economic meaning. Chun-shu Chang and Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang, Redefining History: Ghosts, Spirits, and Human Society in P’u Sung-ling’s World, 1640–1715 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998), 151. 31 “Liang Yan,” LZ, 1:5.716. Chiang translates and discusses this tale, 119–21. 32 Barr notes the centrality of the male perspective. Allan Barr, “Disarming Intruders: Alien Women in Liaozhai zhiyi,” HJAS 49, no. 2 (December 1989): 502–3.

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Strange Tales from Liaozhai 3 3 “Shang Sanguan,” LZ, 1:3.375. 34 “Sun sheng,” LZ, 1:6.865–67. 35 See the end of story commentary by Dan Minglun. 36 The Wang edition categorizes her as a fox; she herself admits to being a “xianren,” a common polite euphemism. Wang keben Liaozhai zhiyi, 13.717–19. 37 LZ, 2:9.1221–24. 38 Patrick Hanan, The Chinese Vernacular Story (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), 44–45. 39 LZ, 1:1.119–24. 40 LZ, 1:2.160–68. 41 Barr, “Disarming Intruders” discusses the efforts of the women he calls “Resident Aliens” to integrate themselves into human communities, 504–10. 42 LZ, 1:1.220–32. 43 Barr, Pu Songling and Liaozhai zhiyi, 165–73. 44 LZ, 2:10.1409–16. On the fraternal conflict and the division of Pu’s household, see Yuan and Xu, Pu Songling pingzhuan, 38–42. 45 LZ, 1:2.247–54. 46 Chang and Chang, Redefining History, 125–34. Allan Barr, “Pu Songling and the Qing Examination System,” Late Imperial China 7, no. 1 (June 1986): 87–111. 47 LZ, 1:1.81–85. 48 LZ, 2:10.1330–32. 49 LZ, 1:2.247–54. 50 LZ, 1:6:810–11. For discussion of the mark that historical chaos leaves in Liaozhai, see Yuan and Xu, Pu Songling pingzhuan, 18–20. 51 “Gongsun jiuniang,” LZ, 4.477–83; Judith Zeitlin, The Phantom Heroine: Ghosts and Gender in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Literature (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007), 121–30. 52 LZ, 1:1.70–71. 53 Zeitlin, Historian of the Strange, 25–34. 54 See Yuan and Xu on Pu’s longstanding fascination with the topic, Pu Songling pingzhuan, 29–38. 55 Wai-yee Li, Enchantment and Disenchantment: Love and Illusion in Chinese Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 94. 56 Luo Hui, The Ghost of Liaozhai: Pu Songling’s Ghostlore and History of Reception (PhD Diss., University of Toronto, 2009); Sarah Dodd, Monsters and Monstrosity in Liaozhai zhiyi (PhD Diss., University of Leeds, 2013). 57 Zeitlin, Historian of the Strange, 195. 58 See the list of collections in Leo Tak-hung Chan, The Discourse on Foxes and Ghosts: Ji Yun and Eighteenth-Century Chinese Storytelling (Honolulu: The University of Hawaii Press, 1998), 16. 59 See among many others, Yuan and Xu, Pu Songling pingzhuan, 298–300. 60 A 1793 edition of Liuya waibian is available online in the digital collection of the Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/2014514137/ 61 Chan, The Discourse on Foxes and Ghosts. 62 See David Pollard, trans., Real Life in China at the Height of the Empire: Revealed by the Ghosts of Ji Xiaolan (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2014), and Paolo Santangelo, trans., What the Master Would Not Discuss, According to Yuan Mei (1716–1798): A Collection of Supernatural Stories (Leiden: Brill, 2013). 63 Sheldon Lu, “Waking to Modernity: The Classical Tale in Late Qing China,” New Literary History 33, no. 4 (2003): 745–60; Zhang Zhenguo, Wanqing minguo zhiguai chuanqi xiaoshuo ji yanjiu [Research on Late Qing and Republican Era zhiguai and chuanqi] (Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2011), 173–78. 64 Zhang, Wanqing minguo zhiguai chuanqi xiaoshuo ji yanjiu, 341–57. 65 Guan Dedong, ed., Liaozhai zhiyi huaben ji [Collection of Liaozhai Vernacular Stories] (Jinan: Qilu shushe, 1991). For a study, see Jessica Moyer, Woman Rules Within: Domestic Space and Genre in Qing Vernacular Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 56–91. 66 Guan Dedong and Che Xilun, eds. Liaozhai zhiyi xiqu ji [Collection of Liaozhai Plays] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1983); Wilt Idema and Beata Grant, eds., The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China (Cambridge: Harvard Asia Center), 702–15. 67 Guan Dedong and Li Wanpeng, eds., Liaozhai zhiyi shuochang ji [Collection of Prosimetric Pieces on Liaozhai] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1983).

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 68 Mark Elliot and Elena Chiu, trans., “The Manchu Preface to Jakdan’s Selected Stories Translated from Liaozhai zhiyi,” China Heritage Quarterly, 2009. http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/scholarship. php?searchterm=019_manchu.inc&issue=019. 69 William Fleming, “Strange Tales from Edo: Liaozhai zhiyi in Early Modern Japan,” Sino-Japanese Studies 20 (2013).

Further Reading Editions and Materials Ji Yun. Yuewei caotang biji [Scattered Jottings from the Cottage of Close Scrutiny]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1980. Ren Duxing, ed. Pu Songling, Liaozhai zhiyi quanjiao huizhu jiping [Liaozhai’s Tales of the Strange with Complete Textual Collation, Annotation, and Collected Criticism]. 3 vols. Jinan: Qilu shushe, 2000. Sheng Wei, ed. Pu Songling quanji [Complete Works of Pu Songling]. 3 vols. Beijing: Xuelin chubanshe, 1998. Vol. 1: Liaozhai zhiyi; Vol. 2: prose and poetry; Vol. 3: miscellaneous works. Wang Tao. Song yin man lu [Random Records of a Recluse in Wusong]. Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 2000. Yuan Mei. Xin qixie Xu xin qixie [The New Qixie, The New Qixie Continued]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2002. Zhang Youhe, ed. Pu Songling, Liaozhai zhiyi huijiao huizhu huiping ben [Liaozhai’s Tales of the Strange: with Textual Collation, Annotation, and Commentary]. 2 vols. Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1978 and frequent reprints. Zhu Yixuan, ed. Liaozhai zhiyi ziliao huibian [Collected Materials on Liaozhai’s Tales of the Strange]. Tianjin: Nankai daxue chubanshe, 2002.

Translations Giles, Herbert A. Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio: Eerie and Fantastic Chinese Stories of the Supernatural. Original 1908; reprint Tuttle, 2010. 165 tales, highly bowdlerized. Mair, Dennis C., and Victor H. Mair, trans. Pu Songling. Strange Tales from Make-do Studio. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1989. 51 tales. Minford, John, trans. Pu Songling. Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. New York and London: Penguin Books, 2006. 104 tales. Pollard, David, trans. Ji Yun. Real Life in China at the Height of the Empire: Revealed by the Ghosts of Ji Xiaolan. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2014. Selected tales, thematically arranged. Santangelo, Paolo. What the Master Would Not Discuss, According to Yuan Mei (1716–1798): A Collection of Supernatural Stories. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Complete translation. Sondergard, Sidney L., trans. Strange Tales from Liaozhai. 6 vols. Fremont: Jain Publishing, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014. Complete translation.

Studies Barr, Allan. “A Comparative Study of Early and Late Tales in Liao-chai chih-i.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 45, no. 1 (June 1985). Barr, Allan. “Disarming Intruders: Alien Women in Liaozhai zhiyi.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 49, no. 2 (December 1989): 504–10. Barr, Allan. “Pu Songling and Liaozhai zhiyi: A Study of Textual Transmission, Biographical Background, and Literary Antecedents.” PhD diss., Oxford University, 1983. Barr, Allan. “The Textual Transmission of Liao-chai chih-i.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 44, no. 2 (December 1984). Chan, Leo Tak-hung. The Discourse on Foxes and Ghosts: Ji Yun and Eighteenth-Century Chinese Storytelling. Honolulu: The University of Hawaii Press, 1998. Chang, Chun-shu, and Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang. Redefining History: Ghosts, Spirits, and Human Society in P’u Sung-ling’s World, 1640–1715. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998. Chiang, Sing-chen Lydia. Collecting the Self: Body and Identity in Strange Tale Collections of Late Imperial China. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005.

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Strange Tales from Liaozhai Li, Wai-yee. Enchantment and Disenchantment: Love and Illusion in Chinese Literature. Chapter Three: “Desire and Order in Liao-chai chih-i.” Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. Lu, Zhenzhen. “The Vernacular World of Pu Songling.” PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2017. Yuan Shishuo and Xu Zhongwei. Pu Songling ping zhuan. Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 2000. Zeitlin, Judith. Historian of the Strange: Pu Songling and the Chinese Classical Tale. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993. Zeitlin, Judith. The Phantom Heroine: Ghosts and Gender in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Literature. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007.

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SECTION XV

Vernacular Short Stories

46 STORYTELLING OF THE SONG AND THE YUAN Xiaosu Sun

Storytelling has been central to human existence since its earliest beginnings. During the Song (906–1279) and Yuan dynasty (1260–1368), storytelling, as one of a variety of forms of entertainment in large entertainment districts in major cities, became a prominent feature of urban life. The popularity of professional storytelling by well-known professional storytellers in Kaifeng and Hangzhou is noted in the twelfth- and thirteenth-century memoirs of the Song dynasty’s capitals, such as Dongjing menghua lu (Dream of Splendors Past in the Eastern Capital), which describes Kaifeng in the early years of the twelfth century, as well as Ducheng jisheng (Record of the Splendors of the Capital) and Mengliang lu (Record of the Millet Dream), which describe Hangzhou during its heyday. Stories are powerful, and everyone likes a good story. In the Qingming shanghe tu (Along the River during the Qingming Festival), the Song-dynasty painter Zhang Zeduan (1085–1145) gives rich details of a professional storyteller’s performance and the enchanted faces of the audience in the bustling marketplaces of the Song dynasty’s capital. In discussing the art of shuohua (storytelling) in the various capital memoirs alluded to previously, four main subgenres are mentioned, including xiaoshuo (short stories), shuojing (expounding sutras), jiangshi (narrating historical stories), and hesheng (improvised lyrics).1 Informative as these descriptions of storytelling of the Song and Yuan times may be, they are also very frustrating because they tell us next to nothing about the formal features of storytelling. While the rich bianwen (transformation texts) materials from Dunhuang show that stories could be told all in prose, in an alternation of prose and verse, or exclusively in verse,2 none of these descriptions specify which formats were used by Song dynasty’s storytellers. But as these three formats were all used in Ming and Qing times, we may assume that these three formats were also employed by the Song-Yuan storytellers. The various genres of storytelling are believed to have greatly impacted literary genres and works of later periods, including short and full-length vernacular novels, classical tales, dramas, and oral-performing literature of later periods. From the early twentieth century, scholars, not yet acquainted with the full extent of the Dunhuang materials, have commonly stated that the vernacular fiction of the Ming originated from texts left behind by the professional storytellers of the Song-Yuan period. While improvising their performances most of the time, such storytellers, they believed, also used scripts or promptbooks for storytelling. Thus, the term huaben was understood to mean “story-root,” and texts designated by this term were taken as professional storytellers’ scripts or promptbooks. When authors of the Ming and Qing periods continued to imitate this  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-65

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popular genre and produced novellas written in the vernacular language, these were designated as nihuaben (imitation huaben).3 Similarly, many critics tended to treat pinghua (plain tales) texts as promptbooks of the professional storytellers who narrated historical stories. For example, Dasong Xuanhe yishi (Remnant History of the Xuanhe Reign of the Great Song) and San guo zhi pinghua (Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language) are often believed to derive from storytelling; in their turn, they are believed to have greatly influenced the most famous Chinese novels, namely Suihu zhuan (Water Margin) and San guo zhi yani (Romance of the Three Kingdoms), respectively. While huaben and pinghua, indeed, may have a close relationship with professional storytelling of the Song-Yuan period in terms of style and subject matter, the precise relationship remains a matter of controversy. It has been questioned whether huaben were the professional storytellers’ scripts, as since the 1960s some scholars have shown that the word huaben in early times simply means “story” and by no means does it refer to a “story script” or “promptbook.” Some are skeptical of whether storytellers of that time ever used promptbooks at all, as little performance information can be found in the capital memoirs, which merely list the names of storytellers and their repertoires. Others assert that the well-printed and richly illustrated pinghua texts should, first of all, be treated as popular reading materials. While some scholars use huaben as an umbrella term to cover a broad category of different subgenres or forms of storytelling, others exclusively designate huaben as a genre of literature, namely, vernacular short stories. No matter what, it is safe to conclude that huaben presents a product of a long relationship of mutual exchange between oral and written traditions.

Short Stories (xiaoshuo) A vernacular short story, or huaben xiaoshuo, is a short or medium-length story or novella written mostly in the contemporary colloquial language or simple classical language. A vernacular short story often is composed of the following five parts. The story opens with an initial poem setting the theme, which is followed by a prose exposition that further develops it. This exposition may be followed by several anecdotes or a more developed prologue story. These are often relatively well-known materials. Only then will the narrator start his main story, which is often advertised as an even better illustration of the theme. The explicit narrator, who impersonates a professional storyteller, may engage his audience from time to time with rhetorical questions or simulate a dialogue. Throughout the story, the narrator may comment on the action and often uses couplets and poems to give his verdict on the characters and their actions. Descriptive passages may also be couched in elaborate parallel prose. The story concludes with an epilogue in the form of the narrator’s final comments and verses that reiterate the moral message of the story. Earlier scholarship merely took the formal devices of huaben as unsophisticated remnants from an oral tradition and have been critical of it. Recent studies suggest that formulaic narrative openings are more complicated than long assumed. They serve as a preemptive first strike, a “sure-fire” hit that wins the readers over by ensuring a proper receptive attitude. Also, the storyteller’s stock phrases segment a particular narrative into clearly identifiable episodes, making it possible for didactic amnesia to occur, for the narrator to keep a “pure” narrative space in between, for the reader to interpret the narrative on his/her own.4 Last but not least, adopting the persona of the professional storyteller provided the highly literate editors and authors of vernacular tales with an excuse to exploit all registers of the spoken vernacular of their times and suggested a moral message that well may have been simpler than the story actually suggested. But it was the presence of the explicit narrator and his continuous commentary, even more than the language as such that set the vernacular story off from the classical tale (chuanqi), with its implicit narrator and implicit style, and that reserved its moral, if voiced explicitly, to a separate section at the very end. 554

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Dating Extant Vernacular Short Stories The first and, so far, only truly systematic attempt to date all vernacular stories printed by Feng Menglong or earlier by the same criteria was undertaken by Patrick Hanan (1927–2014). Hanan published the results of his research in 1973 as The Chinese Short Story: Studies in Dating, Authorship, and Composition. Based on stories that were written definitely after 1550 and stories that dated from before that date, he identified unobtrusive stylistic markers setting apart early stories from late stories, and, using the same methodology, he could distinguish between “old stories,” tentatively dated to the “early period” (1250–1450), and “middle period stories” (1400–1550). In this way, Hanan assigned about one-half of the nearly 160 stories concerning the late period that he defined, one quarter to the middle period, and one quarter to the old period. The thirteenth-century author Luo Ye, in his Zuiweng tanlu (Record of an Old Drunken Man’s Talk), listed more than a hundred titles of vernacular stories. This repertoire can be divided into eight subgenres: lingguai (stories of spirits and demons), yanfen (romances), chuanqi (stories of marvels), gong’an (legal cases), podao (sword fights), ganbang (stave-wielding), yaoshu (sorcery), and shenxian (immortals). But only a limited number of the stories listed by Luo Ye have been transmitted as texts. There are about thirty to forty extant stories that are commonly designated as Song-Yuan huaben and they survive in a few Ming-dynasty printed anthologies. In other words, the so-called Song-Yuan huaben stories that we can see today have gone through editorial interventions by the Ming-dynasty compilers and adaptors. For example, the well-known Hangzhou bibliophile Hong Pian produced a collection named Liushijia xiaoshuo (Sixty Stories), which was reprinted as Qingpingshan tang huaben (Stories of the Qingpingshan Lodge; c.1550). Unfortunately, this collection has been only partially preserved, and just twenty-something stories are extant. A few stories survive in Xiong Longfeng kanxing xiaoshuo sizhong (Four Short Stories Printed by Xiong Longfeng; c.1590s). About thirty early vernacular stories survive in late Ming Sanyan (“Three Words”) collections by Feng Menglong (1574–1646), including Gujin xiaoshuo (Stories Old and New), which is also called Yushi mingyan (Clear Words to Instruct the World; 1620), Jingshi tongyan (Common Words to Warn the World; 1624), and Xingshi hengyan (Constant Words to Awaken the World; 1627). In 1915, Miao Quansun published Jingben tongsu xiaoshuo (Capital Edition of Popular Stories), a collection of seven vernacular short stories. This collection was originally assumed to be a Yuan dynasty reprint of a major collection of huaben stories from Song times, but it was eventually found to be a forged anthology. However, some stories in this collection are indeed early tales, for instance, “Nianyu Guanyin” (The Jade Guanyin). Though there is no means of knowing the exact date of composition, scholars believe that “Nianyu guanyin” is one of the works that belong to the early period (before 1450).5 Feng Menglong recycled the story of The Jade Guanyin as Cui Dai zhao shengsi yuanjia (Artisan Cui’s Love Is Cursed in Life and in Death) and included it the Jingshi tongyan. The modern Chinese writer Lin Yutang (1895–1976) retold The Jade Guanyin in English and published his rewriting as The Jade Goddess in his English collection, Famous Chinese Short Stories, in 1952.6 “The Jade Guanyin” tells of the romance between a craftsman and his ghostly wife, Qu Xiuxiu. She is the daughter of a Hangzhou picture framer, and as she is smart, beautiful, and good at embroidery, she is bought by the prince of Xian’an County, Han Shizhong. Cui Ning, a skilled craftsman, is the prince’s personal jade-carver. Cui Ning’s jade Bodhisattva Guanyin helps the prince to win the emperor’s favor, while Qu Xiuxiu’s skillful embroidery of flowers “attract butterflies and bees.” The prince promises to marry Xiuxiu to Cui Ning. When a fire breaks out in his mansion, Xiuxiu and Cui Ning elope, and they flee to Tanzhou to open a jade-carving workshop. A year later, they are discovered by the prince’s guard, Guo Li. Cui Ning is taken to Jiankang into 555

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exile, while Xiuxiu is beaten to death in the prince’s back garden. Later, Xiuxiu’s spirit catches up with Cui Ning and lives with him until she is discovered to be a ghost. In the end, Xiuxiu reunites with Cui Ning by dragging him down to the underworld to become a ghost like herself.

A Yuan Dynasty Print of a Short Story It was not until the year 1979, when a single page of the Xinbian hongbai zhizhu (Newly Composed Short Story on the Red and White Spiders) was discovered in Xi’an, that scholars were able to see clear evidence of a huaben printed during the Yuan dynasty.7 They identified the characteristic stylistic features of this print as those exclusively used by commercial printing workshops in Jianyang (in Fujian province) of the Yuan dynasty. For example, the fragment used Yanti, or the “Yan Style,” in carving characters, while stock-phrase characters, such as danjian (One saw . . .) and zhengshi (And so it turned out to be a case like . . .), which introduce poetic passages, are printed in white color in a black intaglio. The fragment is marked as the tenth page and the end of the story, and as it contains about four hundred and eighty characters, we may infer that the complete story counted ten pages and four thousand characters, which made it a medium-length huaben. Decades before the discovery of the Yuan fragment, some scholars had already hailed Zhengjieshi ligong shenbigong (Commander Zheng Renders Distinguished Service with His Divine Bow) as an extremely valuable example of early huaben. For example, Zhao Jingshen (1902–1985) in 1937 asserted that “this is, among all the works in Stories to Awaken the World, the story that best deserves our attention. It perhaps showcases what authentic huaben in the Song-Yuan period may have looked like, and it, at least, comes from the early Ming period.”8 “Commander Zheng Renders Distinguished Service with His Divine-Arm Bow” is set in the final years of the Northern Song dynasty.9 Zheng Xin, a talented and brave young man, kills Xia the Buffoon, who was extorting money from his master, and surrenders himself to the magistrate. While in jail and awaiting his sentence, Zheng Xin volunteers to be lowered into an ancient well from which a demonic miasma was emerging. At the bottom of the well, he encounters, first, the Fairy of Rosy Clouds, whose bed he shares, and later also her sister, the Fairy of Moonlight, who also seduces him. Jealous of each other, the two women get into a fight, and in doing so they change into their true forms (a red spider and a white spider respectively). Due to her pregnancy, the Fairy of Rosy Clouds cannot defeat the Fairy of Moonlight on her own. Therefore, she gives Zheng Xin a divine-arm bow (an advanced crossbow) with which Zheng Xin shoots down the Fairy of Moonlight. Eventually, Zheng Xin decides to leave Fairy of Rosy Clouds to make a career in Taiyuan, where he achieves a high position thanks to his special bow. The Yuan fragment of Newly Composed Short Story on the Red and White Spiders begins with Zheng Xin bidding farewell to the Fairy of Rosy Clouds. Later on, he renders distinguished service in battles with his divine-arm bow. He is promoted and eventually is granted the title of Pichang minglin zhaohui dawang (Pichang Earth God, Prince of Bright Spirit and Manifest Benevolence).10 The story ends with a formulaic expression: “The story has been told to the end,/Let’s call it a day” (huaben shuoche, quanzuo sanchang).

Historical Storytelling (jiangshi) Historical storytelling was so popular in the bazaars and cities of the Song capital that storytellers and their repertoire are evidenced in the capital’s memoirs. Dongjing meng hualu (Dreams of the Splendor at the Eastern Capital) records the names of the storytellers who were specialized in telling the story of Three Kingdoms and the history of the Five Dynasties. Texts believed to 556

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derive from historical storytelling (jiang shi) are called pinghua. There have been different opinions regarding the definition of pinghua. Some assume that performers of historical storytelling told the stories primarily in plain prose. Others believe that the character ping can be taken as ping (to critically comment); in other words, historical storytelling is supplemented with the storyteller’s critical comments, regarding the historical events or a character’s deeds. Like huaben xiaoshuo, pinghua was traditionally treated as promptbooks for storytellers, or pinghua was seen as a direct record of storytelling. This idea has been challenged because more recent scholarship pays greater attention to the visual elements in pinghua printings, the broad reading public of vernacular literature, as well as the heterogeneous origin of the texts of pinghua that may mix passages in a colloquial vernacular language with passages in simple classical Chinese. The major pinghua works are as follows: Xuanhe yishi (An Anecdotal History of the Xuanhe Reign),11 Wudaishi pinghua (History of the Five Dynasties in Plain Language), Xue Rengui Zheng Liao shilüe (A Brief Account of Xue Rengui’s Conquest of Liaodong), and Sanguozhi pinghua (Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language).

Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language tells the story of the civil wars during the final decades of the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) that led to the tripartition of the empire, ending with a quick overview of the history of the three dynasties (Wei, Wu and Shu-Han).12 Whereas canonical historiography considered the Wei as the rightful heir of the Han, the pinghua considered Cao Cao a usurper and focused on the adventures of Liu Bei, with his two sworn brothers Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, first in northern China, next in the Hubei area, and eventually in modern Sichuan. With the support of his wise advisor Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei eventually established his own dynasty, which is seen as the rightful heir of the Han. While the linguistic register of the other four pinghua published by the Yu family13 alternates between classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese, Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language employs a simple vernacular language throughout. The canonical history of the collapse of Han and the foundation of the Three Kingdoms is told by Chen Shou (233–297) in his Sanguozhi (Records of the Three Kingdoms), yet the pinghua version of the three kingdoms saga rarely borrows from the canonical historiography. It gives new twists and turns to the existing plots and develops more new episodes, like “Three Brothers Become Outlaws at Taihang Mountain.” It is taken as the forerunner of the immensely popular 120-chapter novel from the early sixteenth century, namely, Sanguo zhi tongsu yanyi (Popular Exposition of the Records of the Three Kingdoms), also known as Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Religious Storytelling (Jiangjing) While formal sutra-expounding may well have retreated into monasteries, pious tales on the life of the Buddha and his prior lives, as well as hagiographies of pious disciples and believers, were told inside and outside the Song capital and attracted large audiences. One example is the legend of Mulian’s rescuing his mother from hell. The legend tells the story of the filial monk Mulian, who, when he learns that his mother has fallen into the Avıc̄i hell, the lowest section of the hell realm, undertakes an arduous journey to the underworld to free her from the cycle of rebirth. The story has been recycled through various prosimetric narratives since the ninth century, and operatic performances of the Mulian legend were staged at the Ghost Festival in twelfth-century Kaifeng. In the early fourteenth century, the Mulian legend became a major topic in baojuan (precious scrolls), an emerging genre of Buddhist prosimetric storytelling. A new theme in religious storytelling 557

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was the pilgrimage of the holy monk Sanzang (Tripitaka) to the Western Paradise to gather some as-yet-unknown sutras for distribution in China. This tale developed from the account of the long trip of the Tang monk Xuanzang to South Asia and back. Confronting many dangers on his trip, Sanzang is assisted by a number of disciples, whose role grew over the centuries. This tale is reflected in the Da Tang Sanzang qujing shihua (Story, with Poems, on How the Monk Tripitaka of the Great Tang Brought Back the Sūtras), a text that has survived in two thirteenth-century printings that both have been preserved in Japan. The text is made up of a number of short chapters, and it is called a shihua (story with poems) because each chapter is concluded by a poem pronounced by one of the characters in the story. Fragments of a more elaborate version have been found in the preserved stray volumes of the Yongle dadian (Yongle Encyclopedia). By the end of the sixteenth century, this tale would be written up as the Xiyou ji (Journey to the West), one of China’s best-loved vernacular novels.

Notes 1 Hesheng as a display of verbal wit cannot be related to any textual genres of later periods we know so far and therefore will not be discussed in this entry. 2 A genre from Dunhuang materials designated as ciwen ([narrative] texts all in verse) is found in late fifteenth century sources. 3 The term “nihuanben” was coined by Lu Xun, yet he used this term to designate texts such as Da Tang Sanzang fashi qujing ji and Xuanhe yishi which scholars nowadays would designate as pinghua. Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilüe (1973), 90. 4 Yaohua Shi, “Opening Words: Narrative Introductions in Chinese Vernacular Fiction” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1998). 5 The evidence for a Song dynasty work supported by some scholars is the description of Song dynasty general Han Shizhong as the prince of Xian’an in The Jade Guanyin. This dating method has been criticized by scholars like Zhang Peiheng, who assert the so-called Song dynasty huaben, for lack of solid textual evidence, were unreliable. See Zhang Peiheng, “Guanyu xiancun de suowei ‘Song huaben’” [About Extant So-called ‘Storytellers’ Scripts’ of the Song], in Bu jing bu hai ji [Between Beijing and Shanghai: A Collection of Essays] (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2012), 89–111. 6 Lin Yutang claimed the story probably belongs to the twelfth century. He kept the first part of the original story only, and developed the theme of whether a great artist should destroy his art to cover his identity or let his art betray him. See Lin Yutang, “The Jade Goddess,” in Yingyi chongbian chuanqi xiaoshuo [English Translation of a Newly Composed Collection of Chuanqi Stories] (Beijing: Waiyu jiaoxue yu yanjiu chubanshe, 2009), 67–85. It was originally published in Famous Chinese Short Stories (New York: The John Day Company, 1952). 7 Huang Yongnian, “Ji Yuanke Xinbian hongbai zhizhu xiaoshuo can ye” [Note on the Fragment of the Yuan Dynasty Print Newly Compiled Story of the Red and White Spiders], in Huang Yongnian xueshu jingdian wenji [A Collection of Academic Essays by Huang Yongnian] (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 2015), 497–516. 8 Zhao Jingshen, “Xingshi hengyan de laiyuan he yingxiang” [On the Origin and Impact of Constant Words to Awaken the World], published on April 1, 1937, included in Zhongguo xiaoshuo congkao [Collected Essays on Chinese Fiction] (Jinan: Qilushushe chubanshe, 1980), 344–56. 9 See the annotated Yuan print of Xinbian hongbai zhizhu xiaoshuo and Zhengjieshi ligong shenbigong of the late Ming in Song Yuan xiaoshuojia huaben ji [A Collection of Short Stories of the Song and Yuan], ed. and annot. Cheng Yizhong (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2016), 1–2, 3–48. See the English translation of Zhengjieshi ligong shenbigong in Shuhui Yang and Yunqin Yang, trans., Stories to Awaken the World (Seattle: University of Washington Press), 728–47. 10 Pichang, an earth god, was one of the most popular gods in Kaifeng during the 1100s–1120s. See Valerie Hansen, Changing Gods in Medieval China, 1127–1276 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 131. 11 For an English study on Xuanhe yishi, see William O. Hennessey, “The Song Emperor Huizong in Popular History and Romance: The Early Chinese Vernacular Novel, Xuanhe yishi” (Ph.D. diss., University of

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Storytelling of the Song and the Yuan Michigan, 1980); also Hennessey, “Classical Sources and Vernacular Resources in ‘Xuanhe Yishi’: The Presence of Priority and the Priority of Presence,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) 6, no. 1/2 (1984): 33–52. 12 This text is also available in yet another thirteenth-century edition, entitled Sanfen shilüe [A Short Account of the Tripartition]. 13 Sanguozhi pinghua, along with Quanxiang pinghua Wuwang fa Zhou shu [A Completely Illustrated Plain Tale: The Book of King Wu’s Campaign Against Zhou], Quanxiang pinghua Yue Yi tu Qi Qiguo chunqiu houji [A Completely Illustrated Plain Tale: Yue Yi’s Attack on Qi—The Final Collection of Springs and Autumns of the Seven States], Quanxiang Qin bing liuguo pinghua [The Completely Illustrated Plain Tale of Qin’s Conquest of the Six States] and Quanxiang pinghua Qian Hanshu xuji [A Completely Illustrated Plain Tale: A Sequel to the Book of the Former Han], are nowadays collectively known as Quan Xiang pinghua wuzhong [Five Completely Illustrated Plain Tales], published by the Yu family from Jian’an, Fujian.

Further Reading Børdahl, Vibeke, and Jette Ross. Chinese Storytellers: Life and Art in the Yangzhou Tradition. Cheng & Tsui Co., 2002. Chen Wulou, Lucie Borotová, and Vibeke Børdahl. “Old Questions Discussed Anew on ‘Huaben.’” Asian Folklore Studies 57, no. 1 (1998): 133–39. Chen Xianghua. Yuanke jiangshi pinghua ji [A Collection of Carved Texts of Historical Storytelling of the Yuan Dynasty]. Beijing: Beijing tushuguan, 1999. Cheng Yizhong. Song Yuan xiaoshuojia huabenji [A Collection of Vernacular Short Stories of the Song and the Yuan]. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2016. Hanan, Patrick. The Chinese Short Story: Studies in Dating, Authorship, and Composition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973. Hanan, Patrick. The Chinese Vernacular Story. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981. Hegel, Robert E. Reading Illustrated Fiction in Late Imperial China. Stanford University Press, 1998. Hu Shiying. Huaben xiaoshuo gailun [Introduction to the Vernacular Short Stories]. 2 vols. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980. Idema, Wilt L. Chinese Vernacular Fiction: The Formative Period. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974. Liu Shide. Zhongguo huaben daxi [Compendium of the Chinese Short Story]. Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1990–1994. Liu Yongqiang. Huaben xiaoshuo xulun: wenben quanshi yu lishi jiangou [A Study of the Vernacular Short Story: Textual Interpretation and Historical Construction]. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2015.

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47 FENG MENGLONG AND HIS THREE WORDS Maria Franca Sibau

A towering figure in the history of late imperial Chinese literature, Feng Menglong (1574–1646) presents a multifaceted and even contradictory image, depending on the sources one consults. If Feng is now celebrated as “the personification of popular literature” in Chinese literature textbooks,1 his perceived association with “vulgar” entertainment and unorthodox genres was cause for contempt in premodern times. Qing dynasty critics and bibliographers disdained Feng’s skills as a poet and dismissed his compilations of jokes and anecdotes as extremely frivolous. And because of his negligible official career and marginal presence within the literary high canon, official sources such as the Ming Dynastic History (Mingshi) remain silent about him.2 As a result, facts about Feng’s life have had to be patiently pieced together from a variety of sources by modern Chinese, Japanese, and Western scholars. Feng Menglong hailed from a wealthy family in Changzhou, in modern day Suzhou, a premier cultural and commercial center in the Jiangnan region.3 Feng’s lifespan coincided with the end of the period known as the late Ming, an era of extraordinary intellectual and cultural vitality despite the many administrative and fiscal failures, the growing military threat from the Manchu, and the domestic turmoil that eventually led to the fall of the dynasty in 1644.

Life and Works Feng Menglong was the middle of three brothers: the elder brother, Menggui, was recognized for his paintings, while the younger brother, Mengxiong, earned a measure of local acclaim as a poet. Together, they were known as the “Three Fengs of Wuxia [aka Suzhou],” although records also indicate that their branch of the family did not survive the Manchu conquest. Of the three, it was Feng Menglong who cut the most eccentric figure, earning a reputation as a romantic writer entangled in affairs with glamorous courtesans of the era.4 It was not until 1630, when he was already in his mid-fifties, and after he had repeatedly failed the provincial examinations, that Feng Menglong was selected as an annual tributary student and thus finally given a chance to serve as a public official, albeit in minor positions.5 He served first as an assistant instructor in Dantu county, Zhenjiang prefecture, in modern day Jiangsu, and then as magistrate of Shouning, a rural county in Fujian, from 1634 to 1638. (Modern Chinese biographies seldom fail to emphasize his initiatives to curb female infanticide in the region, during his tenure DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-66 

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as magistrate.)6 The last few years of his life saw him engaged in the anti-Manchu resistance until his death in 1646. In the words of one scholar, Feng Menglong could be characterized as “presenting himself in two distinct personae, or rather in a range of personae between two extremes,” the romantic bohemian and the tenaciously persevering examination candidate.7 These seemingly contradictory extremes, and everything that goes in between, are represented in the bulk and variety of his works. To give a sense of the volume, it might be useful to consider that the modern edition of Feng’s complete works, first published in 1993, runs to forty-three volumes.8 In terms of variety, Feng’s works include “new,” non-canonical genres such as vernacular novels and story collections, plays, anthologies of classical tales and anecdotes, gambling manuals, folk songs, and jokebooks but also “serious” works such as examination guides, commentaries to the classics, a county gazetteer, and memoirs chronicling the turbulent years of the Ming fall. Many of these works enjoyed commercial success during Feng’s lifetime and beyond, inspiring reprints, adaptations, imitations, parodies, and even forgeries. Feng signed his works under a multiplicity of style names, pseudonyms, and sobriquets, including Youlong, Eryou, Ziyou, Gongyu, Long ziyou, Mohanzhai zhuren, Gusu cinu, Wuxia cinu, Guqu sanren, Zhanzhan waishi, Maoyuan yeshi, Qian Zhou zhushi, and others. Although this practice was by no means unusual among the literati of his time, it has undoubtedly contributed to the difficulty of determining the attribution of some of his works. Besides the well-established fact that literati would typically refrain from explicitly associating their names with unconventional genres such as vernacular fiction or dialectal folk songs, the variety of pseudonyms also points to the different kinds of self-fashioned authorial personae and writing practices deployed in each work, which range from selection, editing, translation, rewriting, and adaptation, to something closer to the notion of “authorship” in the modern, Western sense of the term. The great bulk of Feng Menglong’s oeuvre (and, practically, the entirety of his vernacular fiction) was published during the decade corresponding to the Tianqi and early Chongzhen reigns (1620–1630), although the exact dating of some of his works remains a matter of debate. Over the course of this period, he published the trilogy of vernacular story collections known as the Three Words, as well as two vernacular novels, the 40-chapter Pingyao zhuan (Quelling the Demon’s Revolt; 1620) which is a much-expanded version of an earlier novel titled San Sui Pingyao zhuan (San Sui Quells the Demon’s Revolt) putatively attributed to Luo Guanzhong,9 and the Xin lieguo zhi (A New History of the States, post-1627), a reworking of an earlier fictionalized history of the Eastern Zhou by Yu Shaoyu in 108 chapters.10 Around this same period he also published at least three handbooks on the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu), which was his examination specialty, and A Guide to the Four Books (Sishu zhiyue, ca. 1630), where he provides a commentary to the classics often couched in a lively colloquial language. He also published several collections of thematically arranged classical tales and anecdotes, including Qingshi (A History of Love),11 Gujin tan’gai, Zhi nang (Sack of Wisdom, 1626), and its supplement (Zhi nang bu, 1634), as well as the Taiping guangji chao (Selections from the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, 1626), a drastically abridged edition of the monumental early Song compilation Taiping guangji (Extensive Records of the Taiping Era), which had been reprinted, probably for the first time since the tenth century, in the 1560s.12 As narrative materials were fluidly shared across classical and vernacular compilations, several tales and entries included in one or more of the classical-language collections also exist as vernacular stories. It has been suggested that the compilation of these classical tale collections was meant as an aid to the composition of Three Words; perhaps more cynically, the flurry of compilations may also be seen as an indication of Feng’s brilliant business acumen in repeatedly monetizing different versions of the same narratives across the literary ecosystem.13 561

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Of more dubious attribution and uncertain dating is the compilation of Sanjiao ounian (Chance Selection on the Three Doctrines), composed of three fictionalized hagiographies of a Confucian, a Buddhist, and a Taoist figure, respectively. Of the three, only the first one, a fictionalized biography of the great Neo-Confucian master Wang Yangming that focused on his exploits in both military and civil arenas, titled “Huang Ming daru Wang Yangming xiansheng chushen jingluan lu” (The Early Career of Wang Yangming, the Great Confucian of the Illustrious Ming Dynasty and His Campaigns against the Rebels), has been persuasively attributed to Feng Menglong himself.14 The second, a novella on the exploits of the Buddhist eccentric Ji Dian or Crazy Ji, is considered spurious, while the third, a chronicle of the Taoist immortal Xu Xun’s epic battles against a malevolent flood dragon, was a condensed version of a fifteen-chapter novel by the professional writer Deng Zhimo (early seventeenth century), which was also included as the last story in Jingshi tongyan (Common Words to Warn the World).15 Among Feng’s other works, the most notable are perhaps his collections of folk songs, Shan’ge (Mountain Songs) and Guazhi’er (Hanging Branches).16 These are noteworthy for the use of dialect (the Wu dialect of the Suzhou area Feng was most familiar with) and for their bawdy and risqué topics. In the field of drama, Feng also authored at least two chuanqi or Southern plays, and edited over a dozen more.17

The Three Words Undoubtedly the modern reputation of Feng Menglong is mainly tied to his compilation of three vernacular story collections, collectively known as the Three Words or San Yan, so named after the recurring term yan in their title, which can be understood both as “word” and “story.” These are Yushi mingyan (Illustrious Words to Instruct the World, originally published under the title Gujin xiaoshuo (Stories Old and New, ca. 1620), Jingshi tongyan (preface 1624), and Xingshi hengyan (Constant Words to Awaken the World, preface 1627). Each collection consists of forty stories, for a total of 120 stories. Although the collections were originally published by three different publishers in the Suzhou and Nanjing areas, all three were handsomely produced, with full-page elaborately carved illustrations, commentaries, and punctuation suggesting that they were targeted at an affluent audience.18 The significance of the Three Words in the establishment of the vernacular story or huaben as a literary genre in the Chinese literary landscape can hardly be overstated. Our modern understanding of the genre is overwhelmingly based on the Three Words model. Its structure, thematic range, rhetorical conventions, and paratextual apparatus exerted a huge influence on subsequent collections, adaptations, and imitations.

The Making of the Three Words Feng Menglong’s role in the making of the Three Words cannot easily be captured with any one term, but rather it exemplifies the range of writing practices and editorial interventions that lie behind the creation of popular literature and its astute packaging as a best-selling commercial product during the late Ming. Mirroring the variety of pseudonyms and sobriquets he used within and across his publications, Feng could be described as the editor, compiler, commentator, advertiser, redactor, and occasionally author of these stories. He was responsible for the selection of the stories from a variety of previous sources, arranging them in mutually illuminating pairs and operating various degrees of editorial intervention on the text of the stories. He is also believed to be the bona fide author of at least some stories (although there is no consensus among scholars on the 562

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identity and number of stories that are attributable to Feng). Questions of attribution are further complicated by the notion, advanced by Hanan and other scholars, that Feng had collaborators who were responsible for composing some of the stories, particularly in the case of the last collection, Constant Words Awaken the World. Where do the stories come from? Scholars have painstakingly traced sources and antecedents for most of the Three Words.19 In a few cases, the stories were lifted with little to no editing from previous vernacular collections. For example, “The Monk with a Note Cleverly Tricks Huangfu’s Wife” (YS 35) was taken almost verbatim from Hong Pian’s Sixty Short Stories (Liushi jia xiaoshuo, 1550s). In most cases, however, the source texts seem to have been more or less substantially reworked. In the case of stories for which clear antecedents have been identified, Feng (or his collaborators) followed no mechanical path in “transforming” these sources and recasting them into a vernacular tale—which is in part due to the generic and thematic heterogeneity of the source texts, composed of historical anecdotes, biographical accounts, classical tales, chantefable, and drama. For example, a comparison between “Yang Balao’s Extraordinary Family Reunion in the Land of Yue” (Yang Balao Yueguo qifeng, YSMY 18) and its terse classical source shows that while Feng might have picked this tale for its exciting plot and for the novel narrative possibilities afforded by the foreign setting and the grim reality of “Japanese” pirate raids, which are greatly elaborated in the story, he also put much care into adding a recognizable moral framework to the story.20 The framework includes the expected didactic prologue, which expatiates on the ineluctability of fate and predestination, but also the delicate touches added to minor characters and plot turns—such as the subtle differences introduced in the two wives’ recognition scenes, which were treated in identical fashion in the original source.21 By contrast, in “Wang Xinzhi Sacrifices Himself to Save His Family” (Wang Xinzhi yisi jiu quanjia, YSMY 39), which is based on Yue Ke’s historical account of local magnate Wang Ge’s failed uprising in the twelfth century, Feng does much to ameliorate the moral characterization of the protagonist (who remained ambiguous in the original account), besides taking liberties with the chronology of the events.22 A third example may be found in “The Stubborn Minister Dies of Grief in the Hall Halfway-Up-the-Hill” (Ao xianggong yinhen banshan tang, JSTY 4), a sobering tale about Wang Anshi’s humiliating journey on his way to take his new post, where he runs into poem after poem and incident after incident that brutally expose the human suffering that his policies caused among the common people. Feng Menglong subtly mitigates the libelistic tone of the source, a mid-Ming classical tale, while uncharacteristically underplaying the retributive framework.23 Feng did not just collect and edit the stories in the Three Words. Under various pseudonyms he also wrote prefaces to each collection and commentaries to each individual story. The prefaces are important documents in the history of fiction criticism. Especially influential and often quoted is the preface to Stories Old and New, whose famous opening line “Fiction rises when the tradition of historiography is on the wane” (shitong san er xiaoshuo xing) carves a space for vernacular fiction by asserting its legitimacy in both literary and ideological terms. The preface also provides a curious origin story for the huaben as a textual genre that is at once popular and imperially sanctioned. As the preface claims, the Song origins of colloquial fiction are found both in the tales told by professional storytellers, but also, more fancifully, in the imperial court: according to this account, a great number of huaben stories were produced for the sole delectation of the retired Emperor Gaozong of the Southern Song. Seeing that the emperor was an avid consumer of such stories, [the] eunuchs searched high and low for strange tales of former days and for the idle talk of the streets and alleys. They would then ask someone to elaborate these materials into stories 563

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to be presented to the emperor for his pleasure. But once read, the stories were cast aside and most ended up in the interior quarters of the palace; not more than one or two out of ten ever came to circulate among the people.24 Setting aside the dubious historical accuracy of this account, it is noteworthy that the textualization or elaboration, fuyan, of the “strange tales” and the “idle talk of the streets and alleys” is depicted in the most evasive terms, without offering any information about the identity, status, or methods, of the compilers—and by extension, Feng Menglong’s own editorial work. Nonetheless, the extraordinary power of the stories to move and morally enlighten the audience is vividly articulated in all three prefaces. Who actually read the Three Words? For a long time, the general assumption has been that these stories were enjoyed by a popular readership that included commoners, merchants, women, and children. According to the Gujin xiaoshuo preface, the stories are meant to appeal to the “common ear” (li er) rather than to the “literary mind” (wenxin).25 However, both the actual linguistic and stylistic variety of vernacular stories and the lavishness of the surviving editions suggest a more complicated picture. Anyone who picks up a Three Words story would immediately notice that the linguistic register is not exclusively vernacular nor entirely uniform across different stories.26 As scholars have long noted, the distinction between so-called literary and vernacular Chinese is best understood as a spectrum rather than a neatly demarcated division between two mutually exclusive domains. Thus, a typical story would alternate between narrative passages and dialogue written in a lively vernacular register, elegant or formulaic set descriptions in parallel prose, and a variety of poetic genres, from regulated verse, ci lyrics, fu poetic rhapsodies, to doggerel and versified proverbs. It is also not uncommon to find other classical Chinese genres incorporated into the text, including memorials, court verdicts, epistles, and so on. Further, it must be noted that virtually all Ming and Qing editions of huaben carried a commentary, be it in the form of marginal (eyebrow or interlineal) notes, or final commentary, or a combination of both, as well as one or more prefaces, all of which were typically written in Classical Chinese. In other words, these stories seem to assume a highly sophisticated reader to be fully appreciated. Last, the lavishness of the surviving editions, printed in large characters and graced with full page (half-folio) illustrations, indicates that Feng may have been “spreading the vernacular literature to a wide readership but not to a poor one.”27

Structure, Style, and Typology of the Three Words It is no surprise that the rich thematic and stylistic heterogeneity of the stories, which take readers through the worlds of petty merchants and high officials, self-righteous bandits and mischievous immortals, virtuous courtesans and estranged brothers, among others, has invited multiple attempts at dating and classifying the materials included in the collections. The most systematic work on the periodization of the stories remains that of Patrick Hanan, who has persuasively classified the Three Words into early (composed before 1450, about twenty-seven stories), middle (composed between 1400 and 1575, about fourteen stories), and late (composed between 1550 and 1620, about seventy-nine stories).28 In terms of thematic classifications, Hanan has proposed various categories, such as: demon story, virtuoso story, court case, romance, folly and consequence, and linked story.29 The French sinologist André Lévy and his team of collaborators have devised a thematic classification system based on the combination and relative prevalence of eight principal motifs or themes, through which they have inventoried the stories in Three Words as well as other huaben collections published between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The eight motifs are: (1) social satire, (2) eroticism, (3) fortune, (4) heroism, (5) judiciary, (6) literary talent, (7) moral edification, and 564

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(8) supernatural and religious themes.30 While not aiming to be scientific or above dispute, this taxonomy is useful in tracing the rise, decline, or persistence of certain motifs across collections. Despite the diversity of the stories, one can attempt some generalizations. A typical story in the Three Words begins with one or more poems and a prologue, which may take the form of a brief disquisition on a particular point (the dangers of lust, the infallibility of retribution, the elusiveness of immortality, the splendors of the lantern festival in the old capital) and may include one or more prologue stories (ruhua).31 Some stories have elaborate and lengthy prologues (e.g., YSMY 15, 27, and 28), while others dispense with it almost entirely (e.g., YSMY 11 and 20). The prologue stories have been read as an important part of the “storyteller’s rhetoric” baggage, and as such have been seen as a mimesis of the storyteller’s practice of warming up the audience by telling a well-known story first, before getting into the main act (zhenghua). A defining stylistic feature of the Three Words stories is the conspicuous presence of a narrator who takes the guise of a professional storyteller addressing an audience. This narrative model, which has been famously described as a “simulated context” of oral storytelling or “storyteller’s manner,”32 may be best appreciated when we consider how it contrasts with fiction written in the Classical language. In the latter, the default narrative stance is that of an unobtrusive historian or chronicler whose first-person comments (if present at all) are clearly separated from the main narrative and placed either before or, more commonly, at the end. By contrast, Three Words stories are typically punctuated by a number of stock phrases that draw attention to the presence of a narrator, an audience, and to the very act of storytelling. Among the phrases that recur most often are: qie shuo and its variants que shuo, zai shuo (let us now turn to . . .), hua fen liang tou (shuo) (here our story forks), xianhua xiuti (but enough chit-chat; not to encumber this story with unnecessary chatter . . .), buzai huaxia (but of this let us speak no further), shuo shi chi, na shi kuai (in less time than it takes to describe in words), danjian or zhijian (behold!), kanguan (dear audience), shuohua de, ni . . . (storyteller! you . . .), and so on. The most basic and ubiquitous of such phrases is hua shuo (as the story goes), which alone may suffice to “signify the use of the vernacular fiction style,” given that it virtually never appears in this syntactical position at the opening of a narrative in Classical language.33 These formulae serve the important function of opening the narrative and signaling a transition between different story segments and between different modes of narration (commentary, description, and presentation, to again use Hanan’s terminology).34 While some of these formulae are also found in vernacular novels that predated the Three Words, Feng’s editing of the stories played an undeniable role in the establishment and systematization of this repertoire of phrases and in the dominance of this particular narrative model for vernacular fiction in the subsequent centuries. It is important to note that the storyteller’s manner described previously is best understood as a literary convention, a deliberately crafted and consciously reproduced style of writing that reached its maturity during the late Ming, rather than a faithful transcription or an archaic remnant of Song storytellers’ promptbooks as it had been originally theorized by Lu Xun and other Chinese scholars in the early twentieth century. The argument about the literary (rather than mimetic) quality of the storytelling rhetoric was most vigorously articulated by Patrick Hanan and Wilt Idema in the 1970s and 1980s, and further illustrated by other scholars. As research has shown, for example, there is very little overlap between the storytelling stock phrases in Three Words and other Ming stories and novels, and those found in late imperial performance-related literature or actual oral performance as it is still practiced today.35 Even so, the very nature and longevity of this simulated storytelling rhetoric reveal an abiding fascination with modes of popular performance and folk oral traditions. Scholars have rightly emphasized the intricate interplay between orality and textuality, elite and popular forms of culture 565

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represented in Three Words stories and other works of vernacular fiction. In this context, the storyteller figure has been productively analyzed as an elite appropriation of popular modes of oral performance, as a vehicle to prompt an imagined vocalization, and as the embodiment of acoustic illusion.36 One of the most ingenious structural features of the Three Words is the careful arrangement of stories into pairs or companion pieces. Not only do the titles of each story pair form a parallel couplet; the story type, plot, characters, and themes in each story are often set to resonate or contrast with one another, in more or less overt ways. This structural device, which has been most extensively analyzed by Shuhui Yang, can be construed as a strategy to elevate the vernacular story by imitating, and possibly parodying, the aesthetic of prestigious genres such as classical poetry and parallel prose.37 Be that as it may, the pairing of stories imparts a sense of order and architecture to an otherwise rather heterogeneous and disparate material. The reading of paired stories side by side is often rewarding, and it sometimes reveals unexpected elements in the composition of the stories that might otherwise go unnoticed. Among the notable stories in the Three Words, “The Old Protégé Repays his Patron unto the Third Generation” (Lao mensheng sanshi bao’en, JSTY 18) is the one story that scholars agree was written by Feng Menglong, given that he acknowledges his authorship elsewhere.38 It tells of an aging scholar who, after failing countless examinations, finally succeeds at the hands of an examiner who had ironically intended to fail him. In its penetrating satire of the examiners’ and examinees’ foibles (though not in its optimistic, morally satisfying resolution), it anticipates some of the episodes in Rulin waishi. One can easily detect a personal note in the impassioned defense of older candidates and in the sympathetic portrayal of Xianyu Tong, who stubbornly refuses to take the alternative route of entering the National University as a tribute student. Feng Menglong published this story in his late forties, after experiencing multiple setbacks in the examinations, and just a few years before becoming himself a tribute student. The companion story, which was in all likelihood also written by Feng, is titled “The Luckless Scholar Rises Suddenly in Life” (Dun xiucai yizhao jiaotai, JSTY 17). It tells of another scholar’s long years of trials and tribulations—but in this story the critical barbs are pointed at false friends and callous acquaintances, rather than at the failings of the examination system itself, while many of the scholar’s misfortunes, which keep multiplying with almost comical exaggeration, are attributed to the more inscrutable workings of fate. Neither story seems based on pre-existing sources, although the motif of the unappreciated scholar has of course a long pedigree in Chinese literature. “Jiang Xingge Reencounters His Pearl Shirt” (Jiang Xingge chonghui zhenzhu shan, YSMY 1), one of the most famous and assiduously studied stories, exemplifies perhaps better than any other the sophisticated interplay between conventional morality, human sympathy, and ironic commentary. It also serves to illustrate Feng’s distinctive strategies in reworking the original source—in this case, a classical-language tale written a few decades earlier by Song Maocheng. In this tale of adultery, spouse-swapping, and reconciliation set in the merchant milieu, we see the ingenious orchestration of retributive justice, but also the ironic undermining of its more mechanical application.39

Epilogue The original Three Words editions were quickly and thoroughly superseded by the publication of Jingu qiguan (Extraordinary Spectacles Past and Present), an anthology of forty stories culled from Feng’s Three Words and Ling Mengchu’s Er Pai (Two Slaps, a series of two story collections inspired by the success of Feng Menglong’s Three Words). Jingu qiguan was compiled by Baoweng laoren, whose identity remains a subject of speculation.40 While the original Three Words 566

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editions fell into obscurity, Jingu qiguan was continuously reprinted during the Qing dynasty and well into the twentieth century. The popularity of this anthology extended beyond the confines of the Qing empire to reach Edo Japan and eighteenth-century Europe, where it served as the basis for the earliest translations of individual stories into Latin, French, English, and other languages. Importantly, all the stories selected from Three Words (which amount to twenty-nine stories, close to three-quarters of the entire anthology) are considered of late composition, based on Hanan’s dating.41 The enormous popularity and influence of this anthology no doubt contributed to cement a popular image of the huaben as a literary genre that is more uniform and standardized in terms of style, thematic concerns, and ideological outlook than the variety represented in the original Three Words. The virtual disappearance of the original Three Words is also the backdrop for a spectacular case of forgery in the twentieth century. In 1915, the bibliophile Miao Quansun published the Jingben tongsu xiaoshuo (Popular Stories from the Capital), which claimed to reproduce Yuan manuscripts of original Song stories. The seven stories reprinted in this collection, however, turned out to be just slightly edited versions, with different titles, of stories from Jingshi tongyan and Xingshi hengyan, which had by then fallen into oblivion.42 The popularity of Feng Menglong and his Three Words continues to the present day, as seen in the number of film, drama, TV series, and cartoon adaptations. For example, Feng’s image as a selfless and progressive magistrate is celebrated and romanticized in a recent film, The Legend of Feng Menglong (2017), directed by Gao Feng. Some of the most popular stories from Three Words and the Two Slaps were adapted into a fifty-five-episode TV series titled Sanyan Erpai (1991–1993), directed by legendary filmmaker Xie Jin. It is also hoped that the existence of a complete English translation by Shuhui and Shunqin Yang (completed in 2009) will continue to attract the interest of scholars and readers from across a variety of disciplines and backgrounds, around the globe.

Notes 1 Y. W. Ma’s phrase; see “Feng Meng-lung,” in The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, Vol. 1, ed. William H. Nienhauser, Jr. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 380. 2 See Zhu Yizun’s (1629–1709) remarks on Feng’s poetry; Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao [Annotated Bibliography of the Four Treasuries] entries for Zhi nang [Sack of Wisdom]; Gujin tan’gai [Survey of Talk Old and New], quoted in Pi-Ching Hsu, Beyond Eroticism: A Historian’s Recording of Humor in Feng Menglong’s Child’s Folly (Lanham: University Press of America, 2006), 46. 3 For information about Feng’s life, see Ye Ru (aka Lu Shulun), “Guanyu Feng Menglong de shenshi” [On Feng Menglong’s Family Background], in Ming Qing xiaoshuo yanjiu lunwen ji [Collected Essays on Ming and Qing Fiction] (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1959), 34–38; Li Tien-yi, “Feng Meng-lung,” entry in Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368–1644, ed. L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 1.450–42; Patrick Hanan, The Chinese Vernacular Story (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 75–97; Hsu, Beyond Eroticism, 48–54; Yang and Yang, “Introduction,” in Stories Old and New, xv–xix. According to some sources, Feng resided in Changzhou but was registered in Wuxian; both are localities in the modern Suzhou area; see Hanan, The Chinese Vernacular Story, 221. 4 Feng’s liaison and then heart-rending breakup with the courtesan Hou Huiqing are especially well documented. See Pi-Ching Hsu, “Courtesans and Scholars in the Writings of Feng Menglong: Transcending Status and Gender,” Nan Nü 2, no. 1 (2000): 40–77. 5 Tribute students (gongsheng) were nominees by local Confucian schools who were admitted for advanced study at the National University. Tributary studentship offered an alternative (but still regular) entry into officialdom to civil service examinations; however, by Feng’s time, it typically led only to minor appointments. See Charles O. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985), 294–95. See also Feng’s story “The Old Protégé Repays His Patron unto the Third Generation” (JSTY 18).

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 6 Feng’s image as a selfless and progressive magistrate is also celebrated in a recent film, Feng Menglong chuanqi [Legend of Feng Menglong], dir. Gao Feng, 2017. 7 Hanan, The Chinese Vernacular Story, 80–81; see also Yang, “Introduction,” in Feng, Stories Old and New, xviii. 8 Wei Tongxian. 43 vols. 1993. This is a photolithographic reproduction of Ming woodblock editions. A modern typeset edition of Feng’s complete works was published in eighteen volumes. See Wei Tongxian 2007. 9 Both the original 20-chapter novel attributed to Luo Guanzhong and the redoubled version by Feng Menglong offer a fantastic and darkly humorous elaboration of episodes around a historical kernel, Wang Ze’s rebellion and its suppression during the Northern Song dynasty. Luo’s version has been translated into English by Lois Fusek, The Three Sui Quash the Demons’ Revolt: A Comic Novel Attributed to Luo Guanzhong (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2010), and by Patrick Hanan, Quelling the Demons’ Revolt: A Novel from Ming China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017). Feng Menglong’s version has been translated as The Sorcerer’s Revolt by Nathan Sturman (Np: Silk Pagoda, 2008; Kindle edition), also available at http://www.angelfire.com/ns/pingyaozhuan. 10 For two recent abridged English translations, see Feng Menglong, Kingdoms in Peril: A Novel of the Ancient Chinese World at War, trans. Olivia Milburn (Oakland: University of California Press, 2022), and The Rise of Lord Zhuang of Zheng: First Ten Chapters of “Chronicles of the Eastern Zhou Kingdoms,” trans. Erik Honobe (Hong Kong: Research Centre for Translation, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2021). 11 For an analysis of Qingshi and a translation of selected entries, see Hua-yuan Li Mowry, Chinese Love Stories from “Ch’ing-shih” (Hamden: Archon Books, 1983); for a discussion of the making of the book in the context of late Ming culture, see Barbara Bisetto, “The Composition of Qing shi (The History of Love) in Late Ming Book Culture,” Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques 66 (2012): 915–42. 12 See Sarah M. Allen, “The Creation of a Genre: The Long, Slow Rise of Tang ‘Chuanqi,’” in Literary History in and Beyond China: Reading Text and World, ed. Sarah M. Allen, Jack W. Chen, and Xiaofei Tian (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2023), 116. 13 Ma Yau-woon and Ma Tai-loi, “Feng Meng-lung,” in The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, Vol. 1, 381; Tina Lu, “The Literary Culture of the Late Ming (1573–1644),” in The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature 2 (2010): 126–27. 14 For a discussion and a partial translation of this work, see Huiqiao Yao, “Popularizing the Sage: Wang Yangming and Vernacular Confucian Hagiographies in Late Imperial China” (PhD diss., University of Arizona, 2023). 15 For Crazy Ji in popular religion and literature, see Meir Shahar’s study, Crazy Ji: Chinese Religion and Popular Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 1998). Deng Zhimo’s account of Xu Xun’s exploits was originally published as a 15-chapter novel under the title Jindai Xu Jingyang dedao qinjiao tieshu ji (The Story of the Iron Tree: Jin Dynasty Xu [the Prefect] of Jingyang Attains the Dao and Captures the Dragon; 1603). For an illuminating study of this and other vernacular hagiographical tales in the context of late Ming print culture, see Noga Ganany, “Writing and Worship in Deng Zhimo’s Saints Trilogy,” Religions 13 (2022): 1–22. Feng Menglong’s version of Xu Xun’s story in Jingshi tongyan is much condensed, despite still being the longest story in the Three Words, at around 33,000 characters (or seventy pages in English translation). 16 For a discussion and translation of Shan’ge, see Ōki Yasushi and Paolo Santangelo, Shan’ge, the ‘Mountain Songs’: Love Songs in Ming China (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011). 17 For an overview of Feng as a dramatist, see Hanan, The Chinese Vernacular Story, 90–95. 18 The original edition of Gujin xiaoshuo was published by the Tianxu zhai, around 1620 (the same publisher that produced Feng’s enlarged version of Pingyao zhuan), while the second, Jingshi tongyan, was published by the Nanjing-based Jianshantang, and the third by the Yejingche in Suzhou. Some scholars have speculated that the short-lived Tianxu zhai was owned by Feng Menglong himself; see Fu Chengzhou, “Tianxu zhai xiao kao” [A Study of Tianxu zhai], Wenxian 4 (October 2008): 185–87. For a study of Three Words editions within the context of Jiangnan commercial publishing during the late Ming, see Feng Baoshan, “Ming Qing Jiangnan chubanye yu Ming Qing huaben xiaoshuo de xingshuai” [Publishers in Jiangnan, South of the Yangzi River, and the Rise and Decline of Vernacular Short Stories (in Storytelling) of the Ming and Qing], Ming-Qing xiaoshuo yanjiu 100, no. 2 (2011): 48–62. 19 See the seminal work by Tan Zhengbi, 1980; Hu Shiying, Ch. 14; André Lévy et al., Inventaire analytique et critique du conte chinois en langue vulgaire, 5 vols. (Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1978–2006).

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Feng Menglong and His Three Words 20 The classical tale that served as source for this story exists in multiple anthologies, including Wang Tonggui’s Ertan (Tales Overheard) and Feng Menglong’s own Gujin tan’gai and Qingshi. 21 The story tells of the merchant Yang Balao’s capture and decade-long captivity in Japan and of his miraculous reunion with his two wives and sons. While in the original story both wives recognize Yang by his speech, in Feng’s version, the first wife, Li-shi, recognizes her husband by his Shaanxi accent, while the second wife, Nie-shi, recognizes him by sight. The difference between the two modes of recognition (aural and visual) is symbolically tied to the ways in which identity is constructed throughout the story. While Yang Balao’s tribulations during his period of captivity under the Japanese pirates show that hairstyle, clothing, style of combat, and footwear (or lack thereof) can be altered, thus reducing ethnic differences to a matter of performance, native accent is constructed as something more intimately tied to core identity (despite the fact that the story also says that the captives learned to speak Japanese like natives). Thus the two modes of recognition suggest demarcations of degrees of intimacy (as well as hierarchy and seniority) between the two wives, which might mitigate the morally problematic custom of having two wives (liang tou da 兩頭大). For another interpretation of this story, see Yuanfei Wang, Writing Pirates: Vernacular Fiction and Oceans in Late Ming China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2021), 109–36. 22 See Yue Ke, Tingshi [Bedside History], “Wang Ge yao chen” [A Prophetic Ditty About Wang Ge], quoted in Tan Zhengbi, 1.219–23. See Hanan, The Chinese Vernacular Story, 112–14. 23 The source for this story is an entry in Zhao Bi’s Xiaopin ji [A Collection of Clumsy Imitations], “Zhongli sou yu zhuan” [The Story of the Old Man and Woman from Zhongli]. 24 Shuhui Yang, Stories Old and New, 5, with modification and added emphasis. 25 Shuhui Yang, Stories Old and New, 6. The appeal to the masses is also pithily articulated in a couplet found in a story included in the second collection, “A Double Mirror Brings Fan Qiu’er Together with His Wife” (Fan Qiu’er shuangjing chongyuan, JSTY 12): “A story must cater to the general public if it is to circulate afar./Speech must deal with moral principle if it is to move’s men’s hearts” (English translation by Hanan, The Chinese Vernacular Story, 119). Here, the notion of tongsu (as the quality of writing what is accessible to the general public) is theorized as a necessary attribute for wide circulation. This line reads like a Ming response to, or a reformulation of, the ideal stated in the ancient classic Zuozhuan: “What is said without literary elaboration will not go far in practice” (Zuozhuan, Xiang, 25; English translation by Pauline Yu, Ways with Words, 4). For a discussion of this line and the notion of tongsu, see also Rainier Lanselle, “Diglossia, Intralingual Translation, Rewriting: Towards a New Approach to the Analysis of the Relationship between Ming-Qing Vernacular Stories and Their Classical Sources (2),” Journal of the European Association for Chinese Studies, forthcoming. 26 This variation in linguistic register may also be perceived, albeit less perspicuously, in Shuhui Yang and Yunqin Yang’s meticulous translations. 27 Hanan, The Chinese Vernacular Story, 99. 28 Hanan, The Chinese Short Story. 29 Hanan, The Chinese Short Story and The Chinese Vernacular Story. See also Yenna Wu, “Vernacular Stories,” in The Columbia History of Chinese Literature, ed. Victor H. Mair (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 595–605. 30 André Lévy et al., Inventaire analytique et critique du conte chinois en langue vulgaire (1978–2006). 31 The conspicuous presence of poetry in vernacular stories, with its varied uses as commentary, description, and foreshadowing, among others, is in itself a fascinating topic for analysis. For an examination of poetry in the first story of Gujin xiaoshuo, see Mei Chun, “Garlic and Vinegar: The Narrative Significance of Verse in ‘The Pearl Shirt Reencountered,’” CLEAR 31 (December 2009): 23–43. 32 “Simulated context” and “storyteller’s manner” are the terms used by Hanan and Idema, respectively; see Hanan, “The Nature of Ling Meng-ch’u’s Fiction,” 87–89, and The Chinese Vernacular Story, 27; Idema, Chinese Vernacular Fiction, 23–25. 33 Hanan, The Chinese Short Story, 22. 34 Patrick Hanan, “The Early Chinese Short Story: A Critical Theory in Outline,” HJAS 27 (1967): 173–74; David Rolston, Traditional Chinese Fiction and Fiction Commentary (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 231; Shuhui Yang, “Introduction,” in Stories Old and New (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000), xxiii. 35 Anne E. McLaren, Chinese Popular Culture and Ming Chantefables (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 266, 271–78; Vibeke Børdahl, “Storytelling, Stock Phrases and Genre Conventions: The Case of ‘Wu Song Fights the Tiger,’” in The Interplay of the Oral and the Written in Chinese Popular Culture, ed. Vibeke Børdahl and Margaret B. Wan (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2010), 83–156.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 36 Paize Keulemans, Sound Rising from Paper: Nineteenth-Century Martial Arts Fiction and the Chinese Acoustic Imagination (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2014), 36–39. 37 Shuhui Yang, Appropriation and Representation: Feng Menglong and the Chinese Vernacular Story (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998), Ch. 3. 38 Feng’s preface to San bao en (Three Debts of Gratitude), a chuanqi play by the Suzhou playwright Bi Wei based on this story. 39 See, for example, Tina Lu, Accidental Incest, Filial Cannibalism, and Other Peculiar Encounters in Late Imperial Chinese Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008), 38–54; Keith McMahon, Causality and Containment in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Fiction (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 43–50. 40 Among the various attribution theories proposed are Chen Jiru, Qian Qianyi, the Ming loyalist poet Gu Youxiao, and even Feng Menglong himself. See Feng Baoshan, “Jingu qiguan jizhe Baoweng laoren kao” [A Study of Baoweng Laoren, the Author of Jingu qiguan], Wenxue yichan 5 (1988): 124–26. 41 This collection has been translated in its entirety into French by Rainier Lanselle. See Spectacles curieux d’aujourd’hui et d’autrefois, trans. Rainier Lanselle (Paris: Gallimard, 1996). For a study of this collection, see Xu Xiaowen, “Jingu qiguan: Fantasizing the Absent in Ming Dynasty Vernacular Fiction,” in A Companion to World Literature, Vol. 3, ed. Christopher Lupke and Evan Nicoll-Johnson (Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell, 2020), 1451–770. 42 See Ma Yau-woon and Ma Tai-loi, “On the Periods of the Stories of Ching-pen t’ung-su Hsiao-shuo and the Authenticity of the Collection,” Tsing-Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 5 (1965): 14–32; see also Ma and Ma’s entry in The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, Vol. 1, 319–20.

Further Reading Hanan, Patrick. The Chinese Short Story: Studies in Dating, Authorship, and Composition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973. Hanan, Patrick. The Chinese Vernacular Story. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981. Hsu, Pi-Ching. Beyond Eroticism: A Historian’s Recording of Humor in Feng Menglong’s Child’s Folly. Lanham: University Press of America, 2006. Hsu, Pi-Ching. Feng Menglong’s Treasury of Laughs: A Seventeenth-Century Anthology of Traditional Chinese Humour. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Hu Shiying. Huaben xiaoshuo gailun [Introduction to Vernacular Short Stories]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980. Idema, Wilt L. Chinese Vernacular Fiction: The Formative Period. Leiden: Brill, 1974. Lu Shulun. Feng Menglong yanjiu [A Study of Feng Menglong]. Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1987. Nie Fusheng. Feng Menglong yanjiu [A Study of Feng Menglong]. Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 2002. Ōki Yasushi and Paolo Santangelo. Shan’ge, the ‘Mountain Songs’: Love Songs in Ming China. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011. Tan Zhengbi. Sanyan Liangpai ziliao [Source Materials of the “Three Words” and “Two Slappings”]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1980. Wei Tongxian, ed. Feng Menglong quanji [Complete Works of Feng Menglong]. 18 vols. Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2007. Wei Tongxian, ed. Feng Menglong quanji [Complete Works of Feng Menglong]. 43 vols. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1993. Wei Tongxian, Wang Rumei, and Meng Lingjun, eds. Feng Menglong wenxue quanji [Complete Literary Works of Feng Menglong]. 24 vols. Shenyang: Liaohai chubanshe, 2003. Yang, Shuhui. Appropriation and Representation: Feng Menglong and the Chinese Vernacular Story. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998. Yang, Shuhui, and Yunqin Yang, trans. Stories to Awaken the World: A Ming Dynasty Collection. Vol. 3. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009. Yang, Shuhui, and Yunqin Yang, trans. Stories to Caution the World: A Ming Dynasty Collection. Vol. 2. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005. Yang, Shuhui, and Yunqin Yang, trans. Stories Old and New: A Ming Dynasty Collection. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000.

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48 LING MENGCHU AND HIS TWO SLAPPINGS Zhenjun Zhang

Following on the publication of Feng Menglong’s Three Words trilogy, seventeen collections of vernacular short stories were printed and in circulation by the end of the Qing dynasty.1 Among them, Ling Mengchu’s (1580–1644) first (chuke) and second collection (erke) of Pai’an jingqi (Slapping the Table in Amazement) are probably the most important and influential.

Life and Works Ling Mengchu, courtesy name Xuanfang and sobriquet Kongguan zhuren, was born in a scholar-official family in Wucheng, modern Wuxing in Zhejiang. His grandfather, Ling Yueyan, was a successful candidate in the provincial level of imperial examinations and served as magistrate of Quanshu County and an adjutant in the Ministry of Justice. His father, Ling Dizhi (1529–1600), became a presented scholar (jinshi) by passing the national imperial examination in 1556 and served afterward in the central government, as well as various local governments. After retirement, he dedicated his time to writing, editing, and publishing books. He compiled a vast library, including the Genealogy of the Emperors of the Past Dynasties (Lidai diwang xingxi tongpu); the books he printed include noted plays such as The Western Wing (Xixing ji) and The Lute (Pipa ji). Ling Mengchu became well known throughout the capital for his writing ability at the age of 27. He started living in Nanjing, where he associated with famous writers such as Tang Xianzu (1550–1617) and Yuan Zhongdao (1570–1624). But Ling Mengchu was less successful in the civil service examination and in his political career. Consequently, he spent his time writing and became one of the earliest men in Chinese history to make a living by writing and publishing. At the age of sixty (1639), he finally received an appointment as the assistant magistrate of Shanghai County, after he failed the imperial examination again. Three years later, he was promoted to be the controller-general (tongpan) of Xuzhou, but he died trying to quell a peasant uprising two years later. His writings include more than ten poetic dramas (zaju), three chuanqi plays, some scholarly writings, and collections of poetry and prose. However, he is best known for his vernacular stories. In the seventh year of the Tianqi reign (1627), forty-eight-year-old Ling Mengchu failed the civil service examination at the provincial level in Nanjing. Influenced by Feng Menglong’s Three Words and under the urging of a book dealer, he started writing Slapping the Table in Amazement  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-67

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and published it the following year. The book was well received. Four years later (1632) he finished a second collection, including thirty-eight new stories, one story from the first collection, and one drama. These two collections are known as the Two Slappings (Erpai).

The Source and Content Almost all of the stories in Ling Mengchu’s two collections are derived and rewritten from earlier works in classical Chinese (zhiguai and chuanqi), instead of vernacular stories (huaben), which were some of the sources for Feng Menglong’s “Three Words.”2 Ostensibly because of this, Tan Zhengbi claims that Ling’s works were the earliest collections of vernacular short stories by an individual author.3 Even though there is no evidence on how many stories in his collections were written by himself, scholars believe that the total number outpaced that of Feng Menglong. Another difference from Feng Menglong’s Three Words is that, although the stories in the Two Slappings are mostly derived from prior classical tales, almost all of them are about everyday life rather than the ghosts and fantasies that classical tales are known for. This was intentional, because Ling believed: “People of our time marvel at stories about monsters and demons, little realizing that there is much in our experience of everyday life that is quite magical and out of ordinary.”4 The most common subject matter here includes merchants traveling for profit, corrupted officials collecting bribes and abusing their power, thieves stealing and robbing, disputes between family members over property, feuds between neighbors or mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law, men and women conning others, and people being murdered for their property and money. The heroes in the stories are also commoners, including the unfortunate prostitute, disheartened scholar, lowly craftsman, poor peddler, deceiving quack, lustful monk, luring nun, cheating Daoist priest, knavish rogue, stealthy robber, brothel frequenter, and glib matchmaker. Closely related to the nature of commercial culture, the stories in Slapping the Table in Amazement were obviously written for entertainment; however, the author also aimed to promote morality, though sometimes the two aims seem contradictory. They promote Confucian ideas such as loyalty, filiality, chastity, and righteousness, as well as Buddhist retribution, reincarnation, and other religious ideas. Fate is another important concept in many stories. In the first story, “The Man Whose Luck Has Turned Chances upon Dongting Tangerines” (I.1), a merchant who has failed numerous times in business, by chance, suddenly changes his fortune by selling tangerines. The author concludes at the end of the story, “When your luck is gone, even gold no longer glitters. When your time comes, even iron takes on a luster.” This strong belief in fate was popular among the common folk at that time. Patrick Hanan suggests that Ling “appears to take predetermination more seriously than do his contemporaries, some of whom show moral activism triumphing over a predetermined fate.”5 This is arguably related to Ling’s own life experience—his failure in the civil service examination and unsuccessful political career—which gave him a sense that he could not control his fate. This can be verified by the following remarks at the beginning of the story: Consider how few mighty heroes, as recorded in the Seventeen Histories from the earliest times, have ever acquired the riches and ranks that they deserved! Literary gentlemen able to dash off a thousand words at a moment’s notice are consigned to oblivion once they have outlived their usefulness, and their volumes of writing end up covering jars of pickled vegetables. Masters of martial arts able to shoot an arrow through a willow leaf from a hundred

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paces away meet the same fate once they are no longer needed, and the few arrows left in their possession do not even suffice to sustain a kitchen fire until the rice is done. At the same time, benighted but lucky souls pass the imperial civil service examinations, however unqualified they are, and men undistinguished in the military arts receive lavish rewards. It is all a matter of timing, luck, and fate. (9–10) An ancient axiom puts it even better, “In this fleeting life dictated by fate, you get nothing for all the pains you take.” (p. 10) Retribution is another important notion that is used frequently to frame the stories in the Two Slappings. It is the author’s way to achieve his goal of exhorting virtue and punishing evil in his writings. As the author comments in “An Evil Boatman Commits Blackmail with a Dead Body” (I.11): General reader, let me tell you: Unjust deaths or some murderers’ escape from justice are mostly retribution from lives of previous incarnations. If not, if murderers don’t pay with their lives and the falsely charged die unjustly, both the dead and the living will be so resentful that even if government authorities don’t know better, Heaven sees everything and will, in all manner of unexpected ways, create the right opportunities for settling the cases—hence the saying “Villains are feared, but not by Heaven; kind people may be bullied, but not by Heaven.” Another saying goes, “the net of Heaven is of large mesh, but it lets nothing through.” (216) It is clear that the notion of retribution here is a combination of Buddhist karmic retribution and Heavenly retribution, that is, the traditional Chinese retribution system decreed by Heaven.6

Prominent Themes in the Collections Thirst for Wealth Contrary to the traditions of frugality and obtaining wealth through diligent work, extravagance became popular and the thirst for wealth, even windfall profits, became the daydream of many in Ming China. This is clearly demonstrated in the Two Slappings. The previously mentioned story, “The Man Whose Luck Has Turned Chances upon Dongting Tangerines,” is one example. Another, “Accumulating Rare Goods, Visitor Cheng Was Aided” (II. 37), tells about a businessman, Cheng Zai, who, after experiencing consecutive losses in business, receives the favor of a sea goddess; then by following the instructions of the goddess, he quickly accumulates fifty to seventy thousand taels of silver. In order to satisfy their thirst for wealth, many people ignored traditional ethics. In the story “Squire Zhang Adopts an Orphan in His Noble-Mindedness” (I.33), Miss Liu chases her long-lost nephew out of the house with a stick in order to be the sole inheritor of the family property. In “The Muddleheaded Instructor Loves His Daughters Yet Is Not Recompensed” (II.26), instructor Gao Yuxi saves some money from teaching, so his three daughters vie to get close to him and compete in taking care of him; but after he divides his money equally among his three daughters, none wants him to live with them and they even call him an “annoying creature.” In the story “Landlord Cheng Met a Headless Woman” (II.28), Li Fangge, a wine seller, covets thirty taels of silver, so

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he persuades his beautiful wife, Lady Chen, to sleep with a rich man. The following is the dialog between the couple: Lady Chen took the silver and looked at it, saying, “As a man, when you see this item, you are willing to let your wife be with another man?” Li Fangge replied, “It’s not I am willing, but it’s rare that an unlucky rich man comes this way. By enduring a moment of shame, we would be able to enjoy the rest of our lives with the silver. Now it’s a bastardly world anyway, and we’re not from a noble family; even if we keep our purity, no one will come to build a chastity arch for you.” Similarly, activities described in the collections, such as the frequent traveling of merchants, corrupt officials abusing their power, and thieves stealing and robbing, are all done for the purpose of getting more property and money. For the sake of money, traditional moral codes such as filial piety, respect to brothers, and chastity, all disappear from the protagonists’ minds.

Desire for Sensual Pleasure The desire or thirst for love and sex is another prominent theme. This is shown through detailed depictions in many stories, such as stories 2, 6, 26, 27, 32, and 34 in the first collection and stories 8, 18, and 34 in the second Slapping. Many scholars have criticized such content as “obscene descriptions” (yinhui miaoxie).7 However, this is a reaction based on Confucian moral codes and centuries-old sexual taboos. “Mr. Hu Corrupts a Fellow Man in a Wife-Swapping Scheme; A Chan Master in Meditation Explains the Principle of Retribution” (I.32) is about a man coveting his neighbor’s beautiful wife while his neighbor covets his wife. They decide to satisfy their lust by exchanging wives. This lust for women is also portrayed as natural desire. In the story “In the Competition of Sexual Favor, a Village Woman Is Murdered; In Claiming Celestial Authority, a Judge Solves a Case” (I.26), Lady Du’s sexual desire cannot be satisfied by her husband, so she is always unhappy with him. Later she has sexual relations with a Buddhist monk and his disciples at the Taiping Monastery, which results in her death. Although Ling Mengchu exposes the excessive lust of monks, he depicts the desire of Lady Du as natural human desire and does not offer any criticism. He even shows understanding and sympathy for the monks: Gentle readers, wouldn’t you agree that monks, well fed and clad and sleeping under fine quilts in clean rooms—all thanks to donations from everywhere—have nothing else to occupy their minds than that business? Although they do find release with a young page boy or two, as the proverb puts it, “Steamed buns are poor substitutes for rice.” And to make matters worse, our women choose to visit monasteries to offer incense and pay homage to the Buddha. With the women parading themselves in front of the monks, how would the latter not long for the prettier ones in the still of the night? So they try every conceivable means of indulging in debauchery, a crime that by itself is serious enough to justify the death sentence. (544–45) As Martin Huang observes, emotions (qing) and desires (yu) are combined into one in Ming literature, as “indigenous concepts such as yu and qing were never any more transparent in late imperial China than desire has been in the West.”8 The Two Slappings also exhibits this characteristic. Ling Mengchu has praise for not only the love of youth but also their yen for sex. This is

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something different from Feng Menglong’s Three Words, which pays much more attention to love than to lust. “They Remain Loyal to Each Other through Their Trysts; His Success Is Announced at the Jailhouse” (I.29) tells a rebellious love story in which a girl, Luo Xixi, falls in love with Zhang Youqian, but her mother arranges for her to marry another man. In her despair, her love, repressed by Confucian ethics, erupts like a volcano—she starts seeing Zhang and becomes intimate with him, ignoring any consequences that will inevitably follow. Story 34 in the first collection, “Scholar Wenren Shows His Prowess at Cuifu Nunnery; The Nun Jingguan Goes in Glory to Huangsha Lane,” depicts a nun’s love story with a lustful tryst and a happy ending. Yang Jingguan was the daughter of a Confucian scholar. Because she was born weak yet “as beautiful as a flower,” the evil abbess of the Cuifu Nunnery tricks her family into making her a nun, intending to help her nunnery draw the attention of rich men. Although Yang lives in the nunnery, her yearnings for love and happiness do not die. One day, she sees a handsome scholar, Wenren, by chance and can no longer restrain her inner turmoil. She thinks, “How can there be such a handsome young man in this world? Could he be a divine being from heaven? I have only one life to live. Would that I could devote it to him! Wouldn’t that be a blissful marriage?”9 But she does not just fantasize about it: she takes action as well. She dresses up as a monk, takes Wenren’s boat to Hangzhou, and gives herself to him. Later, Wenren passes the imperial examination and returns to marry Yang. In these stories, what we see is not merely desire for sex, but for love as well. This makes the simple criticism of “obscene descriptions” excessive.

Valuing Commerce and Favoring Merchants The third major theme of the two collections is valuing commerce and favoring merchants. “Promoting agriculture and restraining commerce” (zhongnong yishang) has been the traditional value throughout China’s history. Consequently, merchants have long been belittled in the culture. In Ling’s stories, however, business is considered a proper profession (I.1, I.2, and I.8), merchants become protagonists (I.1 and I.8), and the profit one makes becomes the standard of valuing the success of men: The fact was that this Persian put profit above everything else. A customer with treasures worth tens of thousands of taels of silver would be given the most honored seat, and the others would then be seated according to the value of their goods. (Yang and Yang, 27) This unique Persian custom here reflects the new concept that became increasingly popular in the Ming. No wonder the marginal comment says, “In this world of ours, the Persian merchant is not the only one who does this.” “By Hoarding and Profiteering, Traveler Cheng Was Aided” (II.37) is about the Huizhou merchant Cheng Zai, who originally came from a fishing village. Both his father and grandfather were Confucian scholars. The author writes, But it is a Huizhou custom that doing business is considered the best occupation and passing the imperial examination next. In the early years of the Zhengde period, he and his brother Cheng Cai collected thousands of pieces of gold and went to Liaoyang to do business, selling ginseng, pine nuts, mink skins, eastern pearls, and the like.

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For the first time, the sacred idea of establishing one’s career by passing the imperial examination was challenged, and the challenger turned out to be none other than a negligent businessman. This was no doubt a revolutionary idea at the time, showing the historical change in values.

New Themes as the Ideology of Townspeople Since the mid-twentieth century, an increasing number of scholars of Chinese history have noticed that the development of commerce and trade marked the early emergence of capitalism in China, especially in the Ming dynasty [1368–1644], giving rise to a new class, the townsmen. As Charles Hucker observes, “The Sung era was a time of dramatic growth in population, urbanism, commercialization, monetization, and technology.”10 In the thirteenth century, Bianliang (modern Kaifeng, Henan), the capital of Northern Song (960–1127), “the market for gold, silver, and colorful silk spread everywhere. The houses were splendid, and the facades were broad, spacious, and awe-inspiring. Each transaction of goods involved a sum of ten million coins or more.”11 In the capital of the Southern Song (1127–1279), Lin’an (modern Hangzhou) “from the boulevard to the squares and alleys, various shops of all sizes stood side by side, and none were empty. . . . Traveling peddlers crowded the streets, without a day as the exception.”12 In the middle of the Ming dynasty, many major cities appeared as commercial centers. With the emergence of these entrepots, localities began to specialize in their own particular production, and trade among the various regions of the Ming empire (and abroad) grew rapidly. Doing business became the career path of numerous people. In such a milieu, townsmen emerged as a new class and began to exert influence on all aspects of life. This historical change became one of the important underlying environmental factors that led to the secularization of literature. It is reasonable to believe that the new subject matter in the Two Slappings is closely related to the development of commerce or the early emergence of capitalism in the Ming dynasty. Moreover, the prominent new themes in the two works reflect the ideologies of the newly raised townsmen class. The nature of vernacular Chinese short stories and the ideology expressed in them have been the subject of much discussion in academic circles since the late twentieth century. Feng Tianyu and Tu Wenxue, for example, view Feng Menglong’s Three Words and Ling Mengchu’s Two Slappings as the literature of townsmen.13 My1988 book also shares this view and argues that these stories reflect the townsmen’s worldview and pursuits, love and abhorrence, and joys and sorrows; it considers the so-called “obscene descriptions” as part of the townsmen’s culture, which appears in the stories as new ideas, including “the deep concerns about the fate of men, the inexhaustible longing for the enjoyment of life, the wholehearted admiration for a sudden change in fortune, the tireless pursuit of real love, the heightened enjoyment of sexual pleasure, the trenchant criticism of the civil service examination, and satire of Daoist practices, etc.”14 Under the impact of townsmen ideology, traditional Confucian ideas, such as loyalty, filiality and chastity, lost their appeal and were often ignored. Following in this vein, new scholarly works have continued to come forth. Examples include Wei Chongxin’s New Voice from the Marketplace: Three Words, Two Slappings, and the Call for the Return of Human Nature,15 Fang Zhiyuan’s The Literature of Ming Dynasty Cities and Townspeople,16 Dai Jian’s The Urban Entertainment and Townspeople’s Literature in Wu and Yue Area in Late Ming,17 and Zhu Wanshu’s Huizhou Merchants and Ming-Qing Literature.18

Artistic Features of the Collections As the title of the collections indicates, the artistic pursuit of the author is a “marvel” or “to present the marvelous.” This includes two different aspects: subject matter and plot. For the former, a 576

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“marvel” is just “our experience of everyday life that is quite magical and out of ordinary,” instead of the monsters and demons common in classical tales. For the latter, the “marvelous” indicates twisty and bizarre plots. In “Mr. Tao Takes in Strangers Seeking Shelter from the Rain” (I.12), for example, scholar Jiang Zhenqing gains a wife with a jest. At one point Jiang is on an outing with his friends and needs shelter from the rain. He jokes that he was the son-in-law of the Tao family; as a result, he is refused entry, but both of his friends are not. Jiang is left to roam about outside. It just so happens that the daughter of the Tao family leaves her family to meet up with her cousin, with whom she plans to run away to avoid an arranged marriage. By mistake she takes Jiang for her cousin. In the end, Jiang truly becomes the son-in-law of the Tao family. Regarding Ling Mengchu as an author, both Patrick Hanan and Robert Hegel have compared him with Feng Menglong. Hanan says that “Ling’s heroes are not symbols of himself, as some of Feng’s and Langxian’s are. . . . His moral themes refer to common conceptions of reasonable behavior rather than to an absolute code . . . his narrator speaks more directly for the implied author than does Feng Menglong’s, whose work sometimes displays a dual vision” (Hanan, 148). Hegel further elucidates, “Perhaps even more than Feng Menglong, Ling Mengchu was highly self-conscious as a writer” (Yang and Yang, xiv). “Compared to Feng’s adaptations of old stories, Ling used such tales as sources of inspiration for his own highly creative stories. Seldom was he constrained by the details of earlier texts or even the limitations of historical events. Moreover, he amplified the moral messages of his sources and made them more clearly relevant to his readers. Ling’s method was imaginative satire, his active narrative voice keeping his readers at sufficient distance from his characters to allow reflection on their all-too-common foibles and flaws” (xii). While vivid, detailed depictions of daily life are seen everywhere, wit, humor, comedy, and satire prevail in the two collections as well. Patrick Hanan holds that one-third of Ling’s stories are either romantic comedies or comedies of luck or reciprocation (155). The best example of romantic comedy is “Scholar Han Takes a Wife in the Wave of Panic” (I.10), in which a penniless scholar takes a beautiful bride because of the panic among single girls caused by an imperial decree’s being mistaken for a recruiting of palace girls. The previously mentioned “The Man Whose Luck Has Changed Chances upon Dongting Tangerines” is an example of the comedy of luck, in which the central comic strategy is the paradox of fortune—when the merchant works diligently, he gains nothing, but later he suddenly becomes rich without effort. The target of satire in Ling’s stories includes fools (mainly rich men) and knaves (Hanan, 157). “An Alchemist Turns Half of a Grain into a Nine-Cycle Pill” (I.18), for example, depicts a rich man who sends an alchemist thousands of taels of silver to turn metal into gold but ends up with a secret rendezvous with his beautiful wife. “Liu Dongshan Brags about His Prowess at the City Gate” (I.3) makes fun of Liu’s arrogance, which brings him disgrace. Buddhist monks and nuns often were the target of satire as well. The Buddhist monk of Zhaoqing Monastery, Huikong, earns interest through usury (I.15). A monk from the Hongji Monastery decides to kill a merchant after seeing that the merchant has silver left over after making a donation (I.24). The Abbess of Quirt/Quaint and Delight Nunnery, Huicheng, often entices good women to have affairs with lewd men (I.6).

Notes 1 See Chen Dakang, Mingdai xiaoshuo shi [A History of Ming Dynasty Fiction] (Beijing: Renmin wexue chubanshe, 2001), 544–45. 2 For a detailed discussion on the sources of the Three Words, see Chapter 47 on Feng Menglong. 3 Tan Zhengbi, Huaben yu guju [Story Tellers’ Scripts and Old Plays] (Shanghai: Gudianwenxue chubanshe, 1957), 127.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 4 Shuhui Yang and Yunqin Yang, trans., Slapping the Table in Amazement (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2018), 3. 5 Patrick Hanan, The Chinese Vernacular Story (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 148. 6 For a discussion of retribution, see Zhenjun Zhang, “From Demonic to Karmic Retribution: Changing Concepts of bao in Early Medieval China as Seen in the Youming Lu,” Acta Orientalia 66, no. 3 (2013): 267–87; also in Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China: A Study of Liu Yiqing’s Youming lu (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014), 82–105. 7 You Guo’en et al., Zhongguo wenxue shi [A History of Chinese Literature] (Beijing: Renmin wenxie chubanshe, 1981, 4.120–22; Hu Shiying, Huaben xiaoshuo gailun [Introduction to Vernacular Short Stories] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1980), 2.460–82. 8 See Martin Huang, Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2020), 1–4. 9 Yang and Yang, Slapping the Table in Amazement, 738. 10 Charles Hucker, China’s Imperial Past: An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975), 329. 11 Meng Yuanlao, Dongjing menghua lu [Dreams of the Splendor of the Eastern Capital] (Beijing: Shangya chubanshe, 1982), 2.15. 12 Wu Zimu, Meng Liang lu [Records of a Millet Dream] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1980), 13.117. 13 Feng Tianyu and Tu Wenxue, “Sanyan Erpai suo biaoxian de Mingdai lishi de xinbianqian” [New Changes in the History of the Ming Dynasty in the Three Words and Two Slappings], Shixue jikan 12 (1984). 14 See Zhang Zhenjun and Mao Defu, Jingu yu chaoyue: Cong Sanyan Erpai kan Zhongguo shimin xintai [Confinement and Transcendence: Observations on Chinese Townspeople’s Ideology in the “Three Words” and “Two Slappings”] (Beijing: International Cultural Publishing Company, 1988), 6. 15 Wei Chongxin, Shijing xinsheng: Sanyan Erpai: Renxing fugui de huhuan (Taiyuan: Shanxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 1994). 16 Fang Zhiyuan, Mingdai chengshi yu shimin wenxue (Beijing: Zhanghua shuju, 2004). 17 Dai Jian, Mingdai houqi Wu Yue chengshi yule wenhua yu shimin wenxue (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2012). 18 Zhu Wanshu, Hui shang yu Ming Qing wenxue (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2014).

Further Reading Editions and Translations Chen Erdong and Guo Junjie, eds. Pai’an jingqi [Slapping the Table in Amazement]. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1991. Yang Shuhui and Yang Yunqin, trans. Slapping the Table in Amazement. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2018. Zhang Peiheng, ed. Erke Pai’an jingqi [Slapping the Table in Amazement, Second Collection]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1985.

Studies Dai Jian. Mingdai houqi Wu Yue chengshi yule wenhua yu shimin wenxue [The Urban Entertainment of the Wu and Yue Area and Townspeople’s Literature in Late Ming]. Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2012. Fang Zhiyuan. Mingdai chengshi yu shimin wenxue [Literature of Ming Dynasty Cities and Townspeople]. Beijing: Zhanghua shuju 2004. Feng Baoshan. Ling Mengchu yanjiu [A Study of Ling Mengchu]. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2009. Hanan, Patrick. “Ling Mengchu.” In The Chinese Vernacular Story, 140–60. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1981. Huang, Martin. Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001. Huang Xiuai. Liangpai yanjiu [A Study of the Two Slappings]. Taibei: Wenshizhe chubanshe, 2002. Tan Zhengbi. Sanyan Liangpai ziliao [Source Materials of the “Three Words” and “Two Slappings”]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1980. Zhu Quanfu. Sanyan Erpai yanjiu [A Study of the Three Words and Two Slappings]. Guangzhou: Ji’nan daxue chubanshe, 2012.

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SECTION XVI

The Heroic Romance

49 ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS Kimberly Besio

Sanguo yanyi, or Romance of the Three Kingdoms (hereafter Three Kingdoms), traditionally attributed to Luo Guanzhong, is the earliest extant full-length work of vernacular Chinese fiction, and also the first of the “four masterpieces of the Ming novel.”1 Published in 1522, with a preface dated 1494, the novel recounts the fall of the great Han dynasty, the rise of multiple warlords vying for the imperial throne, and the eventual division of the empire into three kingdoms, and it concludes with the reunification of the empire under the short-lived Jin dynasty—a period roughly spanning the years 168–280 CE. Three Kingdoms was so popular that in the second half of the sixteenth century, numerous works of vernacular fiction retelling the history of other past dynasties were published; so many in fact, that the “historical novel” became a unique subgenre of full-length vernacular fiction. Further, the second and third of the “four masterpieces of the Ming novel” (Shuihu zhuan and Xiyou ji respectively), both of which had origins in historical records, were inspired by the earlier novel’s popularity.2

Overview and Approaches to Reading The story line of Three Kingdoms is roughly based on the official history of this period, Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo zhi) by Chen Shou (CE 233–297), commissioned by the emperor of the Jin dynasty and supplemented almost a century later with annotations by Pei Songzhi (CE 372–451). During the final years of the Han Empire, the emperors were weak and uninterested in governing; ministers maneuvered against the eunuchs who held the royal ear, as well as against each other; and in the countryside there was unrest and peasant uprisings. As the empire collapsed, political alliances formed, dissolved, and then re-formed as various leaders schemed to re-unite China and claim the imperial throne. In the early 220s three opposing kingdoms were established in quick succession—Wei in northern China, ruled by the Cao family; Shu in the Southwest, ruled by the Liu family; and Wu in the Southeast, ruled by the Sun family. This tripartite division of the empire lasted for approximately 40 years, until Wei finally conquered Shu, only to be overthrown itself by the Sima clan, who established the Jin dynasty and shortly thereafter conquered Wu. The novel Three Kingdoms relates its story in simple classical language with vernacular embellishments by the storyteller/narrator. There are over 1000 named characters that appear on the novel’s pages; however, the narrative returns repeatedly to five figures: Liu Bei, the first emperor of  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-69

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Shu; his two generals, the heroes Guan Yu and Zhang Fei; his prime minister, Zhuge Liang; and their primary opponent, a figure who became China’s favorite villain, the king of Wei, Cao Cao. Four of these five characters are from the Shu faction, signaling the novel’s bias towards Liu Bei and Shu. While this bias is commonly ascribed to popular (as opposed to elite) tradition, recent scholarship suggests that the evolution of the novel was not nearly so simple. Ultimately, as in other great literary works, the novel can be read on a variety of different levels. For generations of young men (including Mao Zedong), it provided inspiring scenes of individual and group heroics, as well as gripping descriptions of intricate political and military machinations. Older readers could appreciate the novel’s exploration of what Andrew Plaks has called “the limitations of valor” or what Constantine Tung and Dominic Cheung have termed its “tragic” sensibility.3 The novel’s characters were complex figures who lived in turbulent times. These heroic figures embodied both virtues and flaws; many were faced with difficult choices between family and cause, or personal honor and public obligation. For modern readers in China, Taiwan, Korea, and Vietnam, the story offers ways to think about nationhood in times of disunion. And for readers the world over, the novel provides insights into numerous aspects of Chinese culture, including the development of the vernacular novel form in traditional China, and the constantly evolving views on history, philosophy, popular religion, leadership, heroism, and gender values through time. Like Chinese culture itself, the novel defies analysis as a single monolithic entity, but instead can be appreciated for the very diversity of scenes, characters, and perspectives found within its pages. There are many possible approaches to Three Kingdoms. The discussion subsequently will focus on three that have proved productive in recent scholarship. First, the novel can be read as an amalgamation of, and elaboration on, over a millennium of elite writing and folk tradition surrounding the characters and events of the Three Kingdoms Period. Thus, comparison of these earlier materials with the novel encourages us to view Chinese culture as neither top down, nor bottom up, but in constant interplay between elite and popular. Second, such comparisons also allow us to better comprehend how the novel’s depictions uniquely reflect the cultural values of late Imperial China, particularly those around the concepts of heroism and legitimate rulership. Finally, Three Kingdoms reminds us of both the tragedy and the triumph of the human condition—while our lives are mere drops of water in the river of time, our words and deeds can live on through the written word.

Sources and Editions Three Kingdoms is unique among the great Ming novels not in its incorporation of both literati and popular materials but in the sheer length of time—over 1000 years—during which various iterations of the story developed. Over that duration, accounts of the figures and events of this period multiplied exponentially. These accounts were recorded in histories and memoirs, alluded to in poetry, told by storytellers whose tales then eventually appeared in print as vernacular short stories and mid-length narratives, and performed on both the popular and elite stage as theatrical plays. Extant vernacular accounts include twenty-two zaju plays from the Yuan and Ming dynasty, the Yuan mid-length vernacular narrative (plain tale), Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language, and the early Ming prosimetric narrative (cihua) Tale of Hua Guansuo. In addition to Moss Roberts’ magisterial translation of the novel, eight plays, the plain tale, and the cihua have all been translated into English.4 While the earliest extant print edition of the novel was published in 1522, the definitive edition of Three Kingdoms was the 120-chapter edition published in the mid-1660s by the father and son duo, Mao Lun and Mao Zonggang. This edition—which included an introductory essay on “How to Read” the novel, and commentary both at the beginning of each chapter and then between the 582

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lines, as well as numerous emendations that support the comments—became standard, and remains so in the present.5 This incorporation of prefatory matter and interlinear comments, which are paratextual elements traditionally reserved for classical literature, such as historical and philosophical prose, supported structurally what the Maos asserted regularly in their commentary—that the novel was on par with the classics. Roberts’ translation is based on the Mao edition; however, in his very thorough and copious footnotes he points out places where the 1522 edition differs from it. While there are significant differences between the earliest edition and the Mao edition, both share aspects of what Wai-yee Li has identified as basic to full-length vernacular fiction—that is, an “intrinsic hybridity.” She argues: The copresence of or tension between high and low diction—between literati culture and popular culture—is but one token of the intrinsic hybridity of vernacular fiction. Lyric poetry, songs, descriptive verses, poetic exposition, parallel prose, dramatic arias, doggerels, quotations from and summaries of historical texts and other fictional works, and the rhetoric of oral performance are often woven into the fabric of narrative. The best examples of the genre almost never fail self-consciously to exploit the interplay of different generic traits and stylistic levels to achieve ironic disjunctions or visions of totality based on complementary opposites and balanced juxtapositions.6 The novel Three Kingdoms, not only the earliest, but also one of the best examples of the genre, with its many preceding iterations, provides abundant material to explore this hybridity, and how it was deployed to create meaning in the novel. A focus on this hybridity also allows us to investigate how high and low cultural values concerning history, literature, political philosophy, and gender interacted over time.

Chapter 1 as an Example of the Novel's Hybridity Chapter 1 is an excellent example of this synthesis of high and low diction and literary forms within the novel. A close reading of this chapter and analysis of the main characters introduced also illuminate the novel’s Neo-Confucian sympathies, which were emphasized in the Mao commentary edition. Before the story proper commences, the Mao edition begins with a poem by the Ming statesman and scholar Yang Shen (1488–1559). This poem acknowledges the relentless flow of history; at the same time, its imagery specifically recalls the romantic image of the period that had developed in poetry. Yang’s poem calls to mind the famed Battle of Redcliff, a description of which unfolds in Chapters 43–51 of the novel. On and on the Great River rolls, racing east. Of proud and gallant heroes its white-tops leave no trace, As right and wrong, pride and fall turn all at once unreal. Yet ever the green hills stay To blaze in the west-waning day. Fishers and woodsmen comb the river isle. White-crowned, they’ve seen enough of spring and autumn tide To make good company over the wine jar, Where many a famed event Provides their merriment.7 583

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In the first stanza, the poem begins with an image of the Yangzi River flowing east, its waves submerging the “proud and gallant heroes” of yesteryear. As Roberts has pointed out, in classical Chinese literary convention, the river symbolizes history.8 “Remembering Red Cliff,” a song lyric (ci) by Su Shi (1037–1101), begins: “Eastward goes the great river,/its waves have swept away/a thousand years of gallant men.”9 Yang’s lines echo Su’s, and remind the reader not only of that famous battle, but of past verses in which the continuity of nature—represented in Yang’s poem by the green hills reflecting the sunset in its first stanza, and the “spring and autumn tides” in its second stanza—appears in stark contrast to the transience of human life. The novel’s poetic preface is in accord with vernacular fiction format, which simulates popular storytelling. A storyteller would typically begin his tale with either a poem or a shorter story, along with a brief discussion of its significance to the story proper, to give the audience time to gather. The third line of Yang’s poem: “As right and wrong, pride and fall turn all at once unreal,” hints at the connections between history and fiction. Similarly, the “fishers and woodsmen” of the poem’s second stanza are both witnesses to past events, and creators of tales, which they share with each other over wine. The move from history to fiction is completed in the final lines of the poem, which reference “fiction” in the original meaning of the Chinese word—that is, “small talk,” something that provides a bit of “merriment” in one’s idle time. The line following this poem further recalls the novel’s genre identity with a phrase common in traditional storytelling, “it is said,” translated by Roberts as “Here begins our tale.” However, the famous lines that follow focus the readers’ attention back to history: “The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide” (Three Kingdoms, 5). These lines are recalled with a twist in the novel’s conclusion: “The empire, long united, must divide; long divided, must unite.” The very structure of the novel thus presents the Chinese view of history as cyclical repetition rather than a linear progression. In the first several paragraphs of Chapter 1, the narrative moves from a broad view of history to the specific. A summary of Chinese history, from the end of the Zhou dynasty to the founding of the Han, precedes a more detailed description of the political situation during the late Han. This narrative movement from the broad to the specific is a technique used in classical poetry, and is one of many ways in which the narrative, as shaped by Mao Zonggang, borrows from poetic techniques.10 Another example is the way parallel couplets at the beginning of each chapter summarize the events about to unfold.11 For instance, the couplets heading Chapter 1 are: “Three Bold Spirits Pledge Mutual Faith in the Peach Garden; Heroes and Champions Win First Honors Fighting the Yellow Scarves” (Three Kingdoms, 3). Among the many events chronicled in Chapter 1, this couplet focuses the reader’s attention on two incidents early in the careers of Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei—their oath of brotherhood and their first forays against enemies of the Han dynasty.

Changing Conceptions of Heroism and Leadership Through Parallels and Contrasts While the sources for the first couple of pages can be traced to classical poetry and history, the sources for the introduction of the major characters are Yuan vernacular fiction and drama. However, while the characterizations of these heroes were rather flat in these earlier works, the novel utilizes its broad scope to explore the possible motivations and choices of the main characters through parallels and contrasts not only with each other, but also with a myriad of minor characters encountered throughout the novel.

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We first encounter Liu Bei, the future Emperor of Shu, in Chapter 1 as he reads a call to arms against the Yellow Scarves, a peasant movement led by three brothers. The narrator describes him: a man of heroic mettle. This man, though no scholar, was gentle and generous by nature, taciturn and reserved. His one ambition was to cultivate the friendship of the boldest spirits of the empire. He stood seven and a half spans tall, with arms that reached below his knees. His earlobes were elongated, his eyes widely set and able to see his own ears. His face was flawless as jade, and his lips like dabs of rouge. (Three Kingdoms, 8) Liu Bei is physically imposing, but as we will quickly find out, he is neither as tall nor as fierce as his two sworn brothers. Nevertheless, Liu Bei can trace his ancestry back to the fourth Han emperor, a fortune teller has predicted great things for him, and he himself has harbored imperial ambitions since he was a child. This impresses his uncle, who helped support the orphaned boy and his mother. These qualities set Liu apart from his two sworn brothers, and contrast with Cao Cao’s introduction later in the chapter. As Liu Bei is considering the call to arms, he is challenged by a giant of a man, “with a blunt head like a panther’s, huge round eyes, a swallow’s heavy jowls, a tiger’s whiskers, a thunderous voice, and a stance like a dashing horse” (Three Kingdoms, 9). This man, who both impresses and frightens Liu, is Zhang Fei. Unlike Liu, Zhang’s background is considerably humbler, but as his family has made a good living farming, selling wine, and slaughtering pigs, he is financially better off. Zhang is impressed by Liu and his aspirations, offers his assistance, and the two men head off to a wine shop for a drink. Guan Yu enters the wine shop while they are drinking. He is described as even more physically imposing than Zhang Fei: “nine spans tall, with a two-foot-long beard flowing from his ruddy cheeks. He had glistening lips, eyes sweeping sharply back like those of the crimson-faced phoenix, and brows like nestling silkworms” (Three Kingdoms, 9). Recognizing him as a kindred spirit, Liu and Zhang immediately invite him to join them. Chapter 1 describes the appearance and background of all three of these men in telling detail. Liu is clearly superior to Zhang and Guan due to his imperial connections, and his ambition. This superiority is emphasized not only by his more detailed introduction before the other two, but also by his physical description, which, while less physically imposing, is more refined. Even though he is an outlaw on the run, Guan is superior to Zhang. Guan’s portrayal features mythical beings (phoenixes and silkworms), while Zhang is depicted through references to (fierce and strong) animals. This hierarchy is apparent when the three swear an oath of brotherhood in the peach garden behind Zhang’s house: Liu Bei is pronounced “eldest brother,” Guan Yu is “second brother,” and Zhang Fei is “youngest brother.” Guan and Zhang are both heroes, whose stories were celebrated in popular culture. In the novel, their physical descriptions and their characters form a complementary pair. Guan is accorded much more attention in the novel, which was not the case in either the Yuan plain tale or the Yuan and Ming zaju, featuring incidents from the Three Kingdoms story cycle. Rather, rude and rash Zhang Fei was more commonly the main character in these Yuan vernacular genres.12 By the time the novel was first published, however, Guan Yu had already achieved the status of God of War in popular religion. Thus, although his full name is given in his introduction, he is usually referred to as Lord Guan. Kam Louie has analyzed Guan as emblematic of what he calls wu (military) masculinity, in contrast to Confucius, the symbol of wen (civil) masculinity.13 When compared with the novel’s

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characterization of Zhang Fei, however, we can see that the wu masculinity Guan represents has wen characteristics. In the novel, Guan is depicted reading the Confucian classic, Spring and Autumn Annals, by candlelight. He is also the epitome of control, as he demonstrates in Chapters 25–28, when he temporarily surrenders to Cao, but remains steadfastly loyal to Liu Bei. However, Guan does have a fatal flaw: he tends to be arrogant. Early in the novel, this arrogance is an asset. For example, in Chapter 5, Guan, at that point a mere mounted archer, boldly demands to be allowed to go against the warrior Hua Xiong, who has already felled two commanders known for their military might. Guan refuses a cup of warmed wine before setting out, but he summarily beheads Hua Xiong in battle, and arrives back in time to drink the wine while it is still warm. Ultimately, however, Guan’s arrogance leads to his death in Chapter 77. Against repeated advice from many, he insists on attacking Shu’s erstwhile ally, Sun Quan, and is captured and beheaded. Zhang Fei, on the other hand, while a fierce warrior, is quick to anger, and often acts without forethought. In Chapter 42, his fierce shout frightens Cao Cao off as he attempts to cross a bridge. However, when Zhang immediately tears down the bridge, Cao realizes that Zhang was not certain he could have stopped Cao, and Cao immediately returns to attack once again. As Liu Bei says to Zhang: “Your bravery, brother, is beyond question, but not your tactics” (Three Kingdoms, 323). For all their differences, Guan and Zhang are united in their loyalty to Liu Bei. The oath of brotherhood that Liu, Guan, and Zhang ritually swear in a peach garden does not appear in any history, but was, and continues to be, one of the most commonly rehearsed incidents in popular culture. While the precise words of the oath differ among these renditions, their pledge to die on the same day are elements in each. In popular culture the “Peach Garden Oath” represents the close relationship between the three heroes. But within the novel, as Moss Roberts discusses in his “Afterword,” this vow sets up an irresolvable contradiction (Three Kingdoms, 945–46). As the elder, Liu Bei is simultaneously the leader of Guan and Zhang and whatever additional generals and troops they gather to their cause, and thus his relationship to them should be equivalent to that of ruler or father. However, he is also their sworn brother—that is, the elder among equals. Thus, while the pledge marks the beginning of Liu Bei’s long ascent to become “Emperor of Shu,” it also sows the seeds for the failure of his cause as well. Guan Yu’s death in Chapter 77 invokes the pledge, Zhang Fei and Liu Bei both die in pursuit of revenge for their brother, and rulership of Shu is left in the incompetent hands of Liu’s heir. The fourth main character introduced in Chapter 1, Cao Cao, appears toward its conclusion. He is leading a cavalry troop and immediately takes advantage of a rout of the Yellow Scarves to intercept the rebels and join in their slaughter. Cao Cao’s introduction both parallels, and at the same time contrasts, with Liu Bei’s. Cao’s father was originally surnamed Xiahou, but because he had been adopted by the eunuch Cao Teng, he had taken the surname Cao. Not only does Cao Cao lack Liu’s imperial bloodline, but his father had given up his original family name for that of a eunuch. In his youth, “Cao had loved the hunt and delighted in song and dance. He was a boy with ingenious ideas for any situation, a regular storehouse of schemes and machinations” (Three Kingdoms, 11). Following this characterization, the narrator recalls an incident in which Cao had turned his father against an uncle who had tried to impose some discipline on him, another point on which Cao’s introduction both parallels and yet contrasts with Liu’s. Finally, not one, but three, soothsayers had predicted his future political success. Tellingly, Cao had been particularly pleased by the last, who had said: “You could be an able statesman in a time of peace or a treacherous villain in a time of chaos” (Three Kingdoms, 12). In another important contrast between the two leaders, Cao, like Liu, can recognize heroes, but his suspicious nature often prompts him to act violently. In Chapter 4 Cao declares: “Better to 586

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wrong the world than have it wrong me” (Three Kingdoms, 38). In Chapter 60 Liu Bei asserts that Cao is his “antithesis” (Three Kingdoms, 460). At this point in the novel, Liu’s words are ironic. He is arguing against going to Shu with the intent to take control of the area from a distant kinsman, but his ministers proceed to convince him to do so anyway. Nevertheless, Liu’s self-characterization is in line with how the two leaders are portrayed in the novel from the very beginning. The Mao edition of Chapter 1 further underlines the contrasts between these two men through alterations of the texts of earlier editions, and in the comments that accompany the narration of these details.14 Sympathy for Liu Bei and an antipathy for Cao Cao have a long history in popular culture. Su Shi quotes a friend who recounts how, in the alleyways of the Song dynasty capital, children would listen to popular storytellers relating episodes from the Three Kingdoms. These children would “all wrinkle up their faces, and some weep” when hearing about Liu Bei’s defeat, but would be “happy and pleased” when hearing of Cao Cao’s.15 And, as has been discussed previously, the vernacular narratives and dramas that preceded the novel focused on the careers of Liu, Guan, Zhang, and Zhuge Liang. Thus, the novel’s affinity for Shu has traditionally been accounted for by its popular sources. The official history, Records of the Three Kingdoms, clearly assigns legitimacy to the Wei Kingdom. Wei was the only one of the three kingdoms to have a section labelled “Imperial Annals.” Thus, scholars have often blamed the novel’s vernacular sources for turning Cao Cao, a respected statesman and poet, into a villain. Nevertheless, the source materials for details concerning Cao in the novel are Pei Songzhi’s interlinear notes to Records of the Three Kingdoms, which cites an unofficial biography. And in fact, classical literature tended to accord Shu legitimacy from as early as the Tang dynasty on. Xiaofei Tian has detected a shift of the dominant image of the Three Kingdoms Period in poetry, from the Bronze Bird Tower, the pride and joy of Cao Cao, in works written during the Jian’an and Six Dynasties Period, to the Battle of Red Cliff, which was Cao’s most notable loss, in poems by Tang and Song writers.16 Similarly, historians such as Andrew Hingbun Lo, Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, and Anne McLaren have discussed how Song and Yuan historiographers represented Shu as a more legitimate successor to the Han than Wei. Perhaps the most influential articulation of this viewpoint is that of Zhu Xi (1126–1271), one of the founders of Neo-Confucianism, in his Outline and Details of The Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government.17 Zhaokun Xin and Liangyan Ge have further pointed out how Neo-Confucian ideals, particularly those of Zhu Xi, have shaped the way the novel depicts anger as a righteous emotion, and Liu Bei as an ideal Mencian leader, respectively.18

Zhuge Liang: An Ideal Minister in an Imperfect Time In contrast to the four characters introduced in Chapter 1, Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei’s advisor and eventually prime minister of Shu, does not appear in the novel until Chapter 38. Zhuge’s characterization in the novel also demonstrates the novel’s amalgamation of sources from both elite and popular culture. In popular culture, he is a Daoist wizard, who can predict the moves of his enemies with unerring accuracy and manipulate both men and natural phenomena to achieve victory. But as generations of literati saw it, Zhuge Liang achieved their ultimate desire—he was not only recognized, but also cherished, by a leader who appreciated his talent. The Tang poet Du Fu, himself a disappointed office-seeker, wrote numerous poems praising him. Yet, for all his amazing talent, in Three Kingdoms, Zhuge’s career also demonstrates the truth of the novel’s opening—no one can escape the tide of history. Unlike Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, who appear in a group biography with three other of Liu Bei’s generals, in the official history, Records of the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang’s biography 587

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is accorded a separate chapter. In this biography, Chen Shou expressed his admiration for Zhuge’s administrative talents, but was less impressed with his military strategy. Chen commented: “He mobilized troops year after year without success. It would seem that situational strategy was not his strongpoint.”19 This critical comment has generally been taken as part of Chen’s pro-Wei stance, but, as Eric Henry notes, Chen still reported that a temple devoted to Zhuge Liang was established in 234 CE, a mere twenty-nine years after his death (Henry, 608). Further, Zhuge’s biography in Records of the Three Kingdoms is also the source for one of the most famous incidents in the novel—Liu Bei’s three visits to Zhuge Liang’s thatched hut. Yuan and Ming vernacular fiction and drama further enlarged upon Liu Bei’s three attempts to recruit Zhuge Liang, but the novel’s narration of this incident is much more drawn out than in any previous versions.20 The novel’s elaborations emphasize both Liu Bei’s sincere appreciation of Zhuge Liang, as well as Zhuge’s vital importance to Liu’s cause. Liu Bei first hears of Zhuge Liang in Chapter 35. The Daoist sage, Master Stillwater, tells him that he needs a counsellor and suggests either “Sleeping Dragon” or “Young Phoenix.” Before Liu can pursue this suggestion, he meets Shan Fu, who catches his attention by singing in the marketplace. Shan Fu (whose real name is Xu Shu) proves himself to be an able counsellor, but when Cao Cao realizes what an asset Xu will be to Liu, he lures Xu to his camp by capturing Xu Shu’s mother and threatening to kill her. Liu insists that Xu be allowed to leave his camp immediately. At the end of the account of Xu’s departure from Liu’s camp in Chapter 36, Xu recommends that Liu visit and request the services of Zhuge Liang, styled Kongming, and with the sobriquet “Sleeping Dragon.” Xu Shu is the first of many figures who act as contrasting parallels to Kongming. Xu had found his lord in Liu Bei, but gave up his position due to Cao’s tricks. While Xu Shu had sought out Liu Bei, Liu Bei repeatedly seeks out Zhuge Liang. Chapters 37 and 38 describe in detail the trip to the thatched cottage in each of Liu’s three visits. In each journey, Liu meets at least one recluse whom Liu mistakes for Kongming; all these figures assert that the sage Liu seeks is vastly superior to him. When Liu finally finds Kongming at home in Chapter 38, a servant boy informs Liu that his master is sleeping, but Liu patiently waits for the sage to wake. Once he wakes, Kongming impresses Liu by counselling a strategy that, when successful, would see Liu Bei established in Shu. At this point, the narrator, apparently too admiring to contain himself, breaks in with a comment: “By this single interview, Kongming, who had never left his thatched cottage, demonstrated his foreknowledge of the tripodal balance of power—truly an incomparable man in any generation! (Three Kingdoms, 292). Kongming professes himself moved by the sincerity demonstrated by Liu Bei’s persistence, and he agrees to serve him. From the time Kongming acquiesces to Liu in Chapter 38, until his death in Chapter 104, his ingenious strategies feature prominently in the narrative. Chapters 42–53, which relate the build-up to, and the battle of, Red Cliff, showcase Kongming’s ability to stay several steps ahead of his opponents. In these chapters, he not only plots against Cao Cao, but also secures, and then manages to maintain, an uneasy alliance with the Kingdom of Wu. To accomplish this, Kongming engages in a constant battle of wits with Wu’s commander-in-chief, Zhou Yu, yet another figure who parallels him. Ultimately, Kongming triumphs. He not only accomplishes Cao Cao’s defeat, but he also stymies Zhou Yu’s schemes against him. Despite Kongming’s many awesome feats, he too is subject to the force of history. The Daoist, Master Stillwater, alludes to this truth even before Liu Bei has set out on his first visit to the sage. He states: “Sleeping Dragon has found his lord, but not his time. A pity!” (Three Kingdoms, 283). After Liu Bei’s death in Chapter 85, Kongming mounts numerous campaigns to solidify the position of the kingdom established by Liu, Shu-Han, but he is unsuccessful. In Chapter 104, while on

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a campaign against Sima Yi (179–251 CE), a Wei general, whose grandson would establish the Jin dynasty in 266, Kongming succumbs to illness. In a last-ditch effort, Kongming sets up an elaborate ceremony to avert his death, but the ceremony is interrupted by one of his generals rushing in to tell him that the Wei troops are attacking. Kongming takes the interruption as a sign that no one can avert his or her fate. The Mao edition of the novel memorializes Kongming’s death by not one, but two poems, by the great Tang poets Du Fu and Bai Juyi respectively. While both mourn Kongming’s passing, the second simultaneously points to his immortality, as it concludes: “And still today his calls to war live on;/How many readers can restrain their tears?” (Three Kingdoms, 807).

Conclusion Kongming is the last of the major characters of the novel to pass out of its pages. The final fourteen chapters relate the fall of Shu in 263, as well as the transfer of power from the Kingdom of Wei to the new Jin emperor, and Jin’s conquest of Wu both in 265. The novel concludes as it began, with a poem that laments the force of historical determinism. This ballad summarizes the events in the novel and ends with a final four-line stanza. The world’s affairs rush on, an endless stream; A sky-told fate, infinite in reach, dooms all. The kingdoms three are now the stuff of dream, For men to ponder, past all praise or blame.21 These final lines, which point to the evanescence of human life, are somewhat belied, however, by the continuing popularity of the novel itself. Since its first publication in 1522 until now, the novel’s version of the history of the Three Kingdoms has been, and continues to be, read by millions in China and across the globe, either in the original Chinese, or in translation. The Ming novel Three Kingdoms further serves as the main source for adaptations in modern and contemporary media including radio, film, television, and video games. While the “kingdoms three” might well be the “stuff of dream,” the events the novel relates, and the characters that it brings to life, have continued to be both praised and blamed to this day.

Notes 1 Andrew Plaks coined this translation of the Chinese “si da qi shu” in The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987); the other three are Shuihu zhuan, Xiyou Ji, and Jin Ping Mei. The authorship of Three Kingdoms has been discussed extensively, but the consensus is that Luo Guanzhong (d. after 1470), who was named as the author of the earliest edition, and consistently credited since then, is most likely; see Plaks, The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel, 361–66. 2 Robert E. Hegel, “China I: Until 1900,” in Encyclopedia of the Novel, ed. Paul Schellinger (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1998), 1.205–7. 3 Plaks, The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel, 361–495; Constantine Tung, “Cosmic Ordination and Human Commitment: The Tragic Volition in Three Kingdoms,” and Dominic Cheung, “Essential Regrets: The Structure of Tragic Consciousness in Three Kingdoms,” in Kimberly Besio and Constantine Tung, eds., “Three Kingdoms” and Chinese Culture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007), 3–14, 15–25. 4 For these translations, see Further Readings. 5 For a translation of the introductory essay, see David T. Roy, trans. and annot., “How to Read The Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” in How to Read the Chinese Novel, 152–95. For an example of chapter heading and interlinear commentaries, see Hegel and Sibau, trans., “Sanguo zhi yanyi Chapters 48 and 49.”

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 6 Wai-yee Li, in Victor H. Mair, ed., The Columbia History of Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 643. 7 Moss Roberts, trans. and ed., Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel, by Luo Guanzhong (Berkeley: University California Press, 1991), 3. 8 Roberts, Three Kingdoms, 1003; on this point see Tian, The Halberd at Redcliff (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2018), 312. 9 Cited in Tian, The Halberd at Redcliff, 312; translation by Stephen Owen, in Stephen Owen, ed., An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), 579–80. 10 For a more detailed discussion on this point, see Bailey, “Microstructure and Macrostructure: Mao Zonggang’s Critical Discourses on Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” Poetics East and West (1989): 159–68. 11 For more on the importance of parallelism in Chinese literature, including fiction, see Andrew Plaks, “Where Lines Meet: Parallelism in Chinese and Western Literatures,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 10, no. 1/2 (July 1988): 43–60. 12 Kimberly Besio, “Zhang Fei in Yuan Vernacular Literature: Legend, Heroism, and History in the Reproduction of the Three Kingdoms Story Cycle,” Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies 27 (1997): 63–98. 13 Kam Louie, Theorizing Chinese Masculinity: Society and Gender in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 22–41. 14 Andrew Christopher West, “The Textual History of the Sanguo Yanyi: The Mao Zonggang Recension,” https://www.babelstone.co.uk/SanguoYanyi/TextualHistory/MaoZonggang.html. 15 For a full translation of this anecdote, see Wilt L. West and Stephen H. Idema, eds. and trans., Battles, Betrayals, and Brotherhood: Early Chinese Plays on the Three Kingdoms (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 2012), xii. 16 Tian, The Halberd at Redcliff. 17 Andrew Hingbun Lo, “San-kuo-chih Yen-I and Shui-hu Chuan in the Context of Historiography: An Interpretive Study” (Princeton University Diss., University Microfilms International, 1981); Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, “Selected Historical Sources for Three Kingdoms: Reflections from Sima Guang’s and Chen Liang’s Reconstructions of Kongming’s Story,” in Besio and Tung, Three Kingdoms and Chinese Culture, 53–69; McLaren’s views in publications of 2006, 2011, and 2012 (see details in Further Readings). 18 Zhaokun Xin, “A Fatal Encounter: Anger, Ritual, and Righteousness in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 41 (2019): 1–24, his argument revolves around changes made to the earlier edition by the Maos; see especially the precis on p. 1. Liangyan Ge, The Scholar and the State: Fiction as Political Discourse in Late Imperial China (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2015), 34–66, focuses on the 1522 edition as a response to Zhu Yuanzhang’s censorship of Mencius. See Plaks, The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel, for an extensive discussion of the ties between 16th century Neo-Confucian thought and the “literati novel.” 19 Cited and translated in Eric Henry, “Chu-ko Liang in the Eyes of His Contemporaries,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 52, no. 2 (December 1992): 589–612. 20 For translations, see Wilt L. Idema and Stephen H. West, trans., Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 2016), 73–78; Zhuge Liang Burns the Stores at Bowang, in Idema and West, Battles, Betrayals and Brotherhood, 197–235. 21 Roberts, Three Kingdoms, 936; see also p. 1096, n. 14, for Mao’s emendations and commentary.

Further Reading Translations Hegel, Robert E., and Maria Franca Sibau, trans. “Sanguo zhi yanyi Chapters 48 and 49.” Renditions: A Chinese-English Translation Magazine 81 and 82 (2014): 129–220. Idema, Wilt L., and Stephen H. West, eds. and trans. Battles, Betrayals, and Brotherhood: Early Chinese Plays on the Three Kingdoms. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 2012. Idema, Wilt L., and Stephen H. West, eds. and trans. Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 2016. King, Gail Oman, trans. The Story of Hua Guan Suo. Tempe: Arizona State University Center for Asian Studies, 1989. Mao Zong'gang. “Mao Tsung-kang on How to Read the San-kuo yen-i [The Romance of the Three Kingdoms].” Translated and annotated by David T. Roy, with additional annotations by David L. Rolston. In

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Romance of the Three Kingdoms How to Read the Chinese Novel, edited by David L. Rolston, 146–95. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. Roberts, Moss, trans. and ed. Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel, by Luo Guanzhong. Berkeley: University California Press, 1991.

Critical Studies Bailey, Alison. “Microstructure and Macrostructure: Mao Zonggang’s Critical Discourses on Romance of the Three Kingdoms.” Poetics East and West (1989): 159–68. Besio, Kimberly, and Constantine Tung, eds. “Three Kingdoms” and Chinese Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. Ge, Liangyan. The Scholar and the State: Fiction as Political Discourse in Late Imperial China. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2015. Huang, Martin L. Negotiating Masculinities in Late Imperial China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006. McLaren, Anne Elizabeth. “Challenging Official History in the Song and Yuan Dynasties: The Record of the Three Kingdoms.” In Knowledge and Text Production in the Age of Print: China 900–1400, edited by Lucille Jia and Hilde De Weerdt, 317–47. Leiden: Brill, 2011. McLaren, Anne Elizabeth. “Chantefables and the Textual Evolution of the San-kuo-chih Yen-yi.” T’oung Pao 71 (1985): 159–227. McLaren, Anne Elizabeth. “History Repackaged in the Age of Print: The ‘Sanguozhi’ and ‘Sanguo yanyi.’” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 69, no. 2 (2006): 293–318. McLaren, Anne Elizabeth. “Ming Audiences and Vernacular Hermeneutics: The Uses of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.” T’oung Pao 81 (1995): 51–80. McLaren, Anne Elizabeth. “Writing History, Writing Fiction: The Remaking of Cao Cao in Song Historiography.” Monumenta Serica 60 (2012): 45–69. Plaks, Andrew H. The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987. Tian, Xiaofei. The Halberd at Red Cliff: Jian’an and the Three Kingdoms. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2018. Xin, Zhaokun. “A Fatal Encounter: Anger, Ritual, and Righteousness in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 41 (2019): 1–24.

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50 THE WATER MARGIN Scott W. Gregory

A Marginal Classic The Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan) is well known today throughout the Chinese-speaking world and beyond as one of the “Four Classic Novels” (Sida mingzhu), along with Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi), Journey to the West (Xiyou ji), and Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng). More traditionally, it was also included among the “Four Masterworks” (Sida qishu), which substitutes the fellow Ming-era (1368–1644) novel Plum in the Golden Vase (Jin Ping Mei) for the Qing-era (1644–1911) Dream of the Red Chamber.1 However, these works resist easy categorization. In Chinese, they are usually classified as xiaoshuo, a word usually translated as “novel” or, even more broadly, “fiction,” but that literally means “small talk” or “minor discourses.” Its original meaning was even broader still and carried a negative connotation: it was a miscellaneous category for “minor” works not deemed worthy of placement within the major bibliographical classifications yet still worth preserving for some other reason. They were considered unreliable and eventually came to be conflated with “fiction.” The conflation of xiaoshuo with “fiction,” however, has created the illusion of a “fiction” genre stretching back as far as the pre-Han era.2 Even the English term “fiction” is also misleading, as it privileges the imagination and individual expression over historicity and allegiance to fact. Ming-era works such as The Water Margin, by contrast, generally claimed some connection to history and were not traditionally praised for inventiveness. The term “novel” is also an imprecise fit, as it too assumes some measure of artistic invention. However, the English term is very flexible. Terry Eagleton, for example, gives a facetious definition: “A novel is a piece of prose fiction of a reasonable length.” He goes on to declare that even this “toothless” definition is “too restrictive,” since not all novels are written in prose, the line between fact and fiction is not always easy to discern, and some long “short stories” are as long as shorter “novels.”3 However, in other ways, this difficult-to-pin-down quality is beneficial to our purposes here. It is broad enough to encompass traditional Chinese works such as The Water Margin. It also implies lengthiness. Moreover, unlike the nondescript “fiction,” it at least implies some generic conventions. Like many traditional Chinese novels, The Water Margin has its roots in historical fact. One of its main characters, Song Jiang, is mentioned three times in the official history of the Song dynasty.4 He is described as having led an uprising during the reign of the Huizong emperor. The biography of the official Hou Meng includes a memorial noting that Song was a skilled leader of a band of DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-70 

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thirty-six outlaws and suggesting that he be granted amnesty so the dynasty could employ him to fight against Fang La. The biography of another official, Zhang Shuye, notes that it was Zhang who subdued Song Jiang. This briefest of outlines is expanded upon slightly in the unofficial history Fragments of the Xuanhe Era (Xuanhe yishi), which describes the collapse of the Northern Song dynasty during the reign of Huizong.5 These historical facts were embellished upon in the narrative arts. There are records of oral storytellers performing tales of Song Jiang and his men from as early as the Southern Song (1127–1279). There is also a tradition of what might be termed “Water Margin plays” that predate the advent of the novel.6 One recent study counts thirty-nine such plays that are still extant, most of which feature the misadventures of the hotheaded Li Kui or the exploits of the famed tiger-killer Wu Song.7 The long-form “novel” The Water Margin incorporates many episodes from these previously extant materials into its extended narrative. In that sense, it was not a “new” creation in the way that the English genre “novel” might imply. However, it was new in another sense: The novel was the first to gather these narrative strands and weave them into a cohesive whole. This was the aspect of The Water Margin that struck its earliest readers. We can see this in some of the earliest known remarks about the novel, which were made by the well-known figure Li Kaixian (1502–1568). In his work Banter on Lyrics (Cixue), Li wrote that his literati coterie admired the The Water Margin for being “filled with minute details and veins that are threaded together.” Li also remarked that “since ancient times there has never before been a book about a single event in twenty volumes,” comparing its technique to no less than Sima Qian’s classic Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji). These literary qualities, he continued, should outweigh any objections to the subversiveness and frequently shocking violence that pervade the work.8 Although such remarks demonstrate that these early readers appreciated the sustained and intricately woven quality of The Water Margin’s narrative, it is not clear who the “weaver” was. The novel is attributed to either Luo Guanzhong or Shi Nai’an, or the two of them somehow working in tandem as author and editor or compiler. However, very little is known about either of these figures. Luo, to whom the authorship of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is also attributed, is the better known of the two; his name is mentioned in a work called A Sequel to a Record of Ghosts (Xu lugui bu) by one Zhong Sicheng. Zhong, writing around the time of the Yuan-Ming transition, mentions having met the older Luo some time earlier but not knowing what became of him. He also mentions that Luo was a native of Taiyuan and was known as the “Wanderer of Lakes and Seas (Huhai sanren).” In addition to The Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Luo’s name is also associated with a handful of dramatic works. As for Shi Nai’an, even less is known about him. There has been some speculation that he was a retainer of Guo Xun, a sixteenth-century figure credited with publishing one of the earliest editions of The Water Margin, but this suggestion has not been widely accepted.9 In any case, these questions of authorship are largely moot: The Water Margin was never read as part of any single author’s oeuvre. It was never widely assumed that The Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, for example, reflected the thought or other personal qualities of the “author” Luo Guanzhong. Furthermore, as we shall see in the following, The Water Margin (and most Ming-era novels, if not later Qing-era ones) were textually fluid to the point that it is difficult to pin down exactly what the object of “authorship” would have been in the first place.

History in Print What is certain is that The Water Margin first appeared in print sometime in the first decades of the sixteenth century, around the time that Li Kaixian and friends were reading it in the main Ming 593

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capital, Beijing. It seems to have created a sensation soon after that first appearance, and it has remained both widely known and widely acclaimed ever since—even as it was endlessly reshaped and repackaged for different readerships. Therefore, to better understand The Water Margin, it makes more sense to trace it through its various incarnations in print than to attempt to trace its authorship or discover an “urtext.” The Water Margin’s evergreen popularity with general readers has led many to associate it—and the traditional novel genre more broadly—with the surge in commercial printing activity in the late Ming.10 In reality, however, this surge took place in the last decades of the sixteenth century, several decades after The Water Margin first appeared in print. Li Kaixian began his official career in the capital after passing the palace examination of 1529. The men he mentioned (with one exception) were either fellow graduates of 1529 or of the previous examination of 1526. Li was removed from office and banished back to his home place of Zhangqiu, Shandong, in 1541. This means that the literati discussions about The Water Margin that Li mentions in his Banter on Lyrics must have taken place in the 1530s. There are no records of commercial booksellers in Beijing or elsewhere offering editions of The Water Margin or any other, similar long-form narrative works as early as the 1530s.11 The earliest editions for which there are records are a so-called “Wuding edition” and an edition printed by the Censorate. The first of these is named for Guo Xun (1475–1542), Marquis of Wuding. Guo Xun was a descendant of Guo Ying, who fought alongside Zhu Yuanzhang at the founding of the Ming dynasty. The Wuding marquisate was conferred upon Ying for his service, and it was passed down through his offspring. By the time of Guo Xun’s father, however, the marquisate had fallen into dispute and had ceased transmission. Xun’s father successfully lobbied to have it restored in 1502. Xun’s father died just five years later and then, in 1508, the title of Marquis of Wuding was conferred upon Xun. He was thirty-three years old.12 For Guo Xun, publishing seems to have been a means of securing his status and bolstering his claim to the marquisate that had only relatively recently been reinstated. Several works published by Guo are concerned with his family history. Guo’s publishing output also included several titles that could be considered “literary” in nature—there were, for example, a handful of anthologies of Tang prose and poetry, a collection of qu arias, and a rhyming dictionary. In addition to these, he also ventured into the publishing of novels. He published early editions of both The Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and was rumored to have commissioned the lesser-known Record of the Heroes and Martyrs (Yinglie zhuan), a fictionalized account of the Ming’s founding that features Guo Xun’s ancestor Ying in a crucial scene, in order to glorify his ancestor and win a promotion to the rank of duke. Early editions of The Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms were also printed by the Censorate, an oversight bureau that operated at the highest levels of the Ming administration. In addition to the novels, the Censorate also published several other titles that Guo Xun published as well—most notably, the collection of Guo family documents A Collection Nurturing and Celebrating Meritorious Service (Yuqing xunyi ji). Perhaps less surprisingly, the Censorate also published anthologies of the literary works of its own officials, including the Censor in Chief Wang Tingxiang (1474–1544).13 Scholars in later eras occasionally pointed to the Censorate editions of The Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms as indicative of a lack of intellectual seriousness in the late Ming that eventually led to its fall. Others assumed that these editions were symptoms of a late-Ming market economy run amok, and that even such a prestigious agency as the Censorate was getting swept up in the for-profit printing boom. However, it should be kept in mind that, at this early stage in the life of The Water Margin in print, such novels had not yet developed the reputation as being “lowly” or “popular” literature. Such an edition would have been a rarity, available only to connoisseurs and the cognoscenti. 594

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Could the edition of The Water Margin read in Li Kaixian’s circles have been the Wuding or the Censorate edition? Considering the overlapping publications of the two, could those editions have actually been one and the same? Unfortunately, there is no definitive proof. However, the circumstantial evidence would suggest that it likely was so; at the very least, it is apparent that Li Kaixian, Guo Xun, and the Censorate leadership moved in the same circles and likely had similar tastes. Guo Xun worked with the Censor-in-Chief Wang Tingxiang as the martial and civilian directors, respectively, of the Integrated Divisions unit charged with the capital. Li Kaixian also knew Wang, and included poems about him and other Censors in a series on great men he knew during his time in officialdom. What’s more, Li Kaixian, Guo Xun, and Wang Tingxiang were tied together in their respective downfalls. In 1541, a fire broke out in the imperial ancestral temple. Li Kaixian tendered a resignation that was supposed to be pro forma taking blame for the fire, but the resignation was indeed accepted.14 Guo Xun, who was long a favorite of the emperor and who had carried out imperial sacrifices on the emperor’s behalf, also came to be blamed just as a number of other charges of corruption were being brought against him. Wang Tingxiang, meanwhile, was seen as being part of Guo’s clique and was also stripped of office. The exit of these three men from public life in the capital can be seen as marking the end of the early chapter of The Water Margin’s life in print, the era in which it circulated among the elite. Just over a decade after the ancestral temple fire, we see evidence of commercial publishers’ printing works of historical fiction influenced by The Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The preface to a 1553 work called Record of the Book of the Tang (Tang shu zhizhuan) states that books found in the marketplace that imitate The Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms are “not necessarily unacceptable (weibi wu kequ),” despite the fact that they do not adhere closely to official historiography.15 The editor who pieced together the Record of the Book of the Tang, Xiong Damu (fl. 1553), explained in other prefaces the process by which he created such works: He would take the outline of events as described in Zhu Xi’s Outline of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Governance (Zizhi tongjian gangmu) and fill it in with details gleaned from unofficial histories to create a more accessible and exciting narrative. He defended his method against those who would criticize the inclusion of such heterodox materials by pointing out that such unofficial histories often include details lost to official history. The modern scholar Chen Dakang has referred to this method as the “Xiong Damu mode” of literary production.16 The Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms inspired Xiong’s novels, and Xiong’s novels inspired yet more novels—an effect that Chen Dakang has compared to a chain reaction. By the end of the sixteenth century, that chain reaction was in full effect, with a wide range of novels being produced for the market through the boom in commercial publishing. This explosion of activity is evident in another edition of The Water Margin, this one published by the renowned Yu Xiangdou in 1594. In the front matter of the edition, above a preface, Yu included a note to potential purchasers titled “Discerning the Water Margins (Shuihu bian).” In it, he remarked that there were more than ten editions of The Water Margin available in the marketplace, but his was the only one that was fully illustrated. Those competing editions, he continued, were also marred by other flaws such as indistinct printing and sloppy editing. Only this one, printed by his Shuangfeng tang publishing house, he continued, is free of such flaws of printing and editing. He ended the note with a bit of “branding” that sounds very familiar to us in the present day: “Gentlemen customers can recognize the mark of the Shuangfeng tang house.”17 Another factor in the widespread growth of commercially printed novels around the turn of the seventeenth century was the high degree of adaptability of such works. A publisher such as Yu Xiangdou was free to change a novel such as The Water Margin in any way he felt suitable, in order to create a more viable commercial product. In his “Discerning the Water Margins,” Yu touted the 595

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careful editing of his edition’s text and the illustrations that are featured in the upper register of every page. His edition also featured comments presumably also by Yu on most every page, above the illustrations, helping readers to interpret the action of the plot, the wording of a poem, or other such features. Other publishers also added commentaries to distinguish their own editions from others on the marketplace. These commentaries varied widely in the interpretations that they imparted to readers, and many of them were attributed—however dubiously—to famous or infamous literary figures. The most well known of these were the commentaries attributed to the late Ming iconoclast Li Zhuowu (1527–1602) and, later, the drastic reworking of the novel by Jin Shengtan (1608–1664). Many of these editions, which are mentioned in bibliographies or prefaces, have been lost to time. However, even from the surviving ones, we can get the sense that they ranged widely in terms of the quality of their production, their prices, and their targeted readerships. The aforementioned Yu Xiangdou edition, for example, has somewhat crude illustrations on nearly every page. The “Li Zhuowu” commentary edition published by Rongyu tang, by contrast, has two rather fine illustrations at the beginning of each chapter and more finely carved characters in the main body of the text; despite its provocative commentary, it appears to have been a more expensive edition.18 Jin Shengtan’s edition, with its elaborate commentary and complete lack of images, appears to have been targeted at a more “literary” readership.19 And though neither the Censorate nor the Wuding edition survives, one can imagine that they were finer objects still.

Intertwining Tales Taken together, the wide range of targeted readerships for editions of The Water Margin and the adaptable nature of the novel genre in general mean that the contents of the story could change from edition to edition as well. Some editions, which are referred to as “simple-form,” feature more episodes in the plot but are written in a simpler style. Others, known as “full-form,” are the opposite: they feature fewer episodes but are written in a more “literary” style. Debates have raged as to which came first, though the paucity of hard evidence means that there is unlikely to be a definitive answer to the question. Given the history of The Water Margin in print, however, it seems most likely that the full-form editions came first.20 Regardless of this range of forms that The Water Margin could take, all editions share a core of a plot—the intertwining strands of heroic tales that Li Kaixian’s circles praised early in the life of The Water Margin in print, and that set the novel apart from its historiographical and dramatic predecessors. First, the received editions of The Water Margin begin with a portrait of the Song dynasty in peril. A plague is sweeping the empire, and the emperor seeks to appease what he assumes to be an angry Heaven. His court ends up sending off an official, Marshal Hong, to a Daoist temple in the mountains to have its master recite prayers. Marshal Hong, in his arrogance, releases 108 demons—the thirty-six Heavenly Spirits and the seventy-two Earthly Fiends—from the tomb containing them despite all warnings. These demons fly off and disperse around the realm, to be incarnated as the protagonists of the novel. It’s notable here that the Song emperor, for his part, seems to be behaving properly under standard Confucian tradition: If Heaven is making its displeasure known, an emperor should take action to maintain the legitimacy of his rule. Blame for misrule appears to be pinned not on the emperor but rather on corrupt officials such as the arrogant Marshal Hong. Nevertheless, Hong appears alongside famous stalwart officials Bao Zheng and Di Qing, both of whom make cameo appearances. This opening could be compared to the opening of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in which it is implied that the Han emperor’s lax rule has led to

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the loss of the Mandate of Heaven; the protagonists of that novel, while upright in their intentions, are doomed from the start to fail in their mission to revive the dynasty. The story picks up decades later with the introduction of a minor criminal named Gao Qiu, who excels at martial arts and football. After an amnesty is declared, Gao returns to the capital from his banishment, bringing with him a letter of introduction to a local medicine seller. Gao is then passed along through several households, who immediately see him for what he is and want nothing to do with him. In the end, he is introduced to the household of the crown prince, the future Emperor Huizong. Gao is taken in for his prowess in sports, and when the emperor takes his throne, Gao himself is promoted to the rank of marshal. He then becomes one of the arch villains of the novel. Gao almost immediately begins abusing his power. He bears a grudge against the father of an instructor of the imperial guards named Wang Jin and singles him out for abuse. Wang Jin ends up going on the lam, and taking refuge in a village where he trains a tattooed young martial arts aficionado named Shi Jin. Wang Jin disappears, and Shi Jin befriends a local group of outlaws. Shi Jin also encounters another martial instructor, Lu Da. When they encounter a singing girl and her father who are being bullied by a local butcher, Lu Da kills the bully with three punches. He ends up going on the lam as well, becoming a monk and taking on the name Lu Zhishen, or “Sagacious Lu.” Despite his monastic garb and shaved head, he maintains his rowdy ways and quick temper as he roams the countryside. In the course of his travels, Lu meets up with Shi Jin and separates from him once again. He also meets Lin Chong, another military instructor, whose wife is coveted by Marshal Gao’s son. The action of the story turns to Lin Chong, who is tricked into bringing a sword into an off-limits room. He is framed as a would-be assassin of Marshal Gao and sentenced to exile. The Gaos have bribed the guards charged with transporting him to execute him along the way. Just as the guards are about to make their move, who should appear in the secluded forest but Lu Zhishen. Lin stops Lu from killing the guards; instead, Lu accompanies the party to the prison camp to which Lin was to be exiled. Alas, the Gaos’ influence has reached there as well, and after several more adventures, Lin ends up on Mount Liang with the bandits there. The story continues like this, and the Mount Liang band slowly grows. Groups of minor bandits join up with them, as do more celebrated characters such as Wu Song, who famously kills a tiger with his bare hands, and Song Jiang, who eventually becomes the leader of Mount Liang. When all 108 outlaws have joined, there is a great feast, and their main hall is renamed the Hall of Loyalty and Righteousness. At times, modern readers might find this process of slow gathering repetitive, or even tedious; some of the heroes’ adventures are rather similar to one another, and many of the minor protagonists do not stand out in the way that more memorable ones such as Lu Zhishen or Wu Song do. However, these are the very qualities that early readers such as Li Kaixian praised—the “minute details and veins that link up” to constitute a single, sustained narrative about “one event.” These are the literary qualities that struck them as innovative. Once the band has gathered together, the leader Song Jiang declares that despite their lawlessness the band remains loyal to the emperor and that he would accept an amnesty were one offered. Not all of the band agrees—the irascible Li Kui causes a scene. What happens next depends upon which edition of the novel the reader has come across. The Jin Shengtan edition ends here, with the outlaw Lu Junyi dreaming of the band’s execution at the hands of imperial troops after the banquet. In others, however, the band weathers several more attacks led by Marshal Gao until they indeed do accept an offer of imperial amnesty. They then fight campaigns on behalf of the Song dynasty. The aforementioned “simple-form” editions feature the Mt. Liang band’s campaigns against the Liao

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kingdom and the rebels Tian Hu, Wang Qing, and Fang La. The “full-form” editions, by contrast, omit the Tian Hu and Wang Qing campaigns. Both forms, however, depict the band gradually dissolving, with its members either leaving or dying of sickness or in battle.

Meanings in the Margins With such a broad range of editions, targeted at a broad range of readerships, one might wonder what The Water Margin meant to readers in the Ming. Did the novel impart the same meaning to the elite circles around Li Kaixian, early in its life in print, that it did to Yu Xiangdou’s “gentleman customers” decades later? Was the novel considered a serious statement about moral qualities such as loyalty and righteousness, or was it merely a subversive thrill? Of course, ultimately, such questions are unanswerable, as those readers are long gone. However, we can gather some clues about how the various editions might have been interpreted by their readers through the prefaces, commentaries, and other paratextual materials that were printed along with the text of the novel itself.21 Of course, since the early elite editions are no longer extant, we cannot know what sort of paratextual materials—if any—they featured. However, the remarks by Li Kaixian discussed previously about the novel’s early readership would seem to indicate that it was thought of in “literary” terms: it was to be savored by connoisseurs who could understand its narrative technique—and look beyond the lurid violence of the surface of the text. This assumption is corroborated by the elite provenance and relative rarity of these early editions. The Water Margin was not yet a mass phenomenon. Yet later, after being exiled, Li Kaixian revisited The Water Margin, adapting the episode about the framed military instructor Lin into the form of a drama called Record of the Precious Sword (Baojian ji). In the play, Lin Chong gets the opportunity that he never does in the novel and to be reinstated to his official position. Perhaps the exiled Li Kaixian came to see Lin Chong and the heroes of Mt. Liang not so much as outlaws through whom social conventions could be vicariously flouted but instead as powerful symbols of agency and loyal fraternal bonds—qualities that would bring him back to court rather than place him in opposition to it. Of course, we can only speculate. By the end of the sixteenth century, more than a half century after Li Kaixian’s circles read The Water Margin, novels were much more common. As seen previously, for-profit publishers needed to add features such as prefaces and commentaries to their editions to distinguish them from others on the market and to target particular readerships. These features provide clues as to how those readerships might have understood a work. The Yu Xiangdou Water Margin edition mentioned previously features a preface that portrays the protagonists of the novel as embodiments of conventional values despite their violent excesses and outlaw status. They are, the preface claims, exemplars of loyalty (“zhong”) and righteousness (“yi”). Yu then states that these values have wider social implications: Loyalty, he writes, is “bringing one’s heart to full realization on behalf of the nation (jin xin yu wei guo),” and righteousness is “acting in the correct manner in accordance with the needs of the people (shi yi zai ji min).” It was only because of the corruption of the Song dynasty, he proposes, that these moral exemplars were forced to the margins of society. From there, Yu continues, they could champion the people over the corrupt authorities. The Li Zhuowu commentary edition, by contrast, provokes the reader with its subversive stance. Like the Yu Xiangdou preface, the Li Zhuowu preface describes the novel’s importance in political terms. However, rather than justifying the actions of the protagonists, this preface justifies the authorial act of writing the novel. It was, the preface claims, written by Luo Guanzhong and Shi Nai’an in the Yuan dynasty out of retrospective outrage over the previous Song dynasty’s decline and fall, the authors’ anger spurring them to depict the loyalty and righteousness pushed literally to the margins 598

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of empire. The commentary itself is even more provocative. For example, it claims that the chapter in which Lu Zhishen famously wreaks havoc in a Buddhist monastery with his drunken antics is “a map to becoming a Buddha,” because someone like Lu Zhishen “has an all-encompassing Buddha-nature.” Echoing the famous essay by (the real) Li Zhuowu, “On the Childlike Mind,” the commentary praises the scene’s lack of “hypocritical moralizing.” Jin Shengtan’s 1644 edition, meanwhile, takes a much more complex stance toward the work. In the prefaces, Jin argues strongly against the notion that outlaws would be exemplars of loyalty and righteousness in the way that Yu Xiangdou and Li Zhuowu had interpreted them. He also argues against the idea of the novel as an expression of political outrage, going so far as to forge a preface by the “author,” Shi Nai’an, claiming that it was written in hours of leisure simply to pass the time. He does, however, praise certain characters as representations of unmediated authenticity, in terms reminiscent of the Li Zhuowu commentary; he suggests that these positive characters were led astray by their duplicitous leader, Song Jiang. In this way, he squares his surface condemnation of the band of outlaws with his praise for the values represented by certain members. Critically, Jin points to the craft of the writing as the factor allowing for such subtle distinctions. However, it is crucial to keep in mind that, to Jin, the craft of writing is always intricately tied to its ability to convey qualities of personal character—and that many of the features he called out for praise were actually his own editorial handiwork. This is seen in the “How to Read” essay included among the prefaces in his edition, in which evaluations of character and of writing exist side by side. The Water Margin became a forum in which Jin could express his own literary and moral values.22 The Jin Shengtan edition became the dominant version of The Water Margin until the twentieth century. This is not an exhaustive list of all early editions of The Water Margin. We are limited, of course, to those editions that survive or that were mentioned in other writings. There are others, such as those of Yu Xiangdou’s unnamed competitors, that are lost to time. However, taken in the aggregate, the editions discussed previously illustrate the wide range of possible meanings that The Water Margin may have held for its various readerships in the Ming dynasty and beyond.

The Legacy of the Novel As one of the earliest long-form vernacular works of fiction to be published in print, The Water Margin paved the way for others of the genre that followed. Eyeing the artistic and commercial success of the novel (and that of its frequent companion in print, Romance of the Three Kingdoms), editors and publishers worked to create similar extended narratives loosely based on historiography. They were also inspired by the paratextual commentaries and other features appended to the novel’s various editions and crafted similar ones for other novels. These developments coincided with the much-discussed commercial “printing boom” of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, extending the novel’s influence and cementing its legacy. In recent times, traditional novels such as The Water Margin have often been assumed to be “lowly” and thus part of a “popular” culture, as opposed to the traditionally privileged genres of the literati elite. However, the complex interactions between elite and popular cultures, official and commercial publishing, etc., seen in the history of The Water Margin in print complicates this view. Whatever their motivations, many compared The Water Margin to classical works from its earliest incarnations: the elite circles around Li Kaixian compared it to Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian, and decades later the commercial publisher Yu Xiangdou compared it with the Spring and Autumn Annals. Li Zhuowu also drew comparisons between the novel and Records of the Grand Historian, claiming that both were expressions of anger. Jin Shengtan, meanwhile, placed the novel in a canon of his own invention, alongside other “books of genius (caizi shu).” None of 599

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this is to say, of course, that The Water Margin and its fellow works of long-form vernacular fiction are not part of popular culture now. Increasingly, they are finding new audiences through media adaptations such as television series, movies, and video games. Such new media adaptations are a great departure from their written source material. Yet in some ways, they carry on the tradition of free adaptation running through the novel’s history.

Notes 1 For a comprehensive treatment of the “Four Masterworks” as a subgenre, see Andrew H. Plaks, The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel: Ssu Ta Ch’i-shu (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987). On the broader “classic novel,” see Chih-tsing Hsia, The Classic Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968). For a complete translation of the 120-chapter version of The Water Margin, see John and Alex Dent-Young, The Marshes of Mount Liang, 5 vols. (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1994–2002). 2 For such a genealogy of the term xiaoshuo, see Lu Xun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1959), 1–8. 3 Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 1. 4 Relevant passages from the official history are reprinted in Zhu Yixuan, Shuihu zhuan ziliao huibian (hereafter, SHZZH) [Collected Materials on Shuihu zhuan] (Tianjin: Nankai daxue chubanshe, 2002), 29–35. 5 For a translation of Xuanhe yishi, see William O. Hennessey, Proclaiming Harmony (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1981). 6 On the Shuihu plays, see Xie Bixia, Shuihu xiqu ershi zhong yanjiu [A Study of Twenty Plays About Water Margin] (Taipei: Taiwan daxue chuban weiyuanhui, 1981); Chen Jianping, Shuihu xi yu Zhongguo xiayi wenhua [Water Margin Plays and Chinese Knight-errant Culture] (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2008). 7 See Chen, Shuihu xi yu Zhongguo xiayi wenhua, 29–61. 8 These remarks are reprinted in SHZZH, 167. For a full discussion of Li Kaixian and early editions of The Water Margin, see Scott W. Gregory, Bandits in Print: The Water Margin and the Transformations of Vernacular Fiction (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2023). 9 See, for example, Zhang Guoguang, “Shuihu zuben tankao: jian lun Shi Nai’an wei Guo Xun menke zhi tuoming” [A Study of the Original Edition of Shuihu zhuan: Also on the Fake Name of Shi Nai’an as a Retainer of Guo Xun], Jianghan luntan 1 (1982): 41–46. For a refutation, see Yuan Shishuo, Wenxue shixue de Ming Qing xiaoshuo yanjiu [A Study of Ming Qing Fiction in the Perspective of Literary History] (Jinan: Qi Lu shushe, 1999), 17–34. For a full discussion of Luo and Shi’s putative authorship, see Liangyan Ge, Out of the Margins: The Rise of Chinese Vernacular Fiction (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2001), 101–4. 10 On the “printing boom,” see Lucille Chia, Printing for Profit: The Commercial Publishers of Jianyang, Fujian (11th–17th Centuries) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002); Cynthia Brokaw and Kai-wing Chow, eds., Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005). 11 Gregory, Bandits in Print, 56–61. 12 On Guo Xun’s life and publishing activities, see Gregory, Bandits in Print, 14–41. 13 On the Censorate and its publishing output, see Gregory, Bandits in Print, 42–62. 14 See Lee Hwa-chou, “Li K’ai-hsien,” entry in Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368–1644, ed. L. Carrington Goodrich and Zhaoying Fang (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 835–37. 15 Reprinted in SHZZH, 227–28. 16 Chen Dakang, Mingdai xiaoshuo shi [A History of Ming Dynasty Fiction] (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2007), 229–56. 17 The Yu edition is available in facsimile reprint: Shuihu zhizhuan pinglin [A Forest of Commentaries on the Shuihu zhizhuan] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1990). 18 For a facsimile reprint, see Li Zhuowu Piping Zhongyi Shuihu zhuan [Li Zhuowu’s Commentary on the Zhongyi Shuihu zhuan] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991). 19 A facsimile reprint was issued as Diwu caizi shu Shi Nai’an Shuihu zhuan [The Fifth Book of Genius: Shi Nai’an’s Shuihu zhuan] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975).

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The Water Margin 20 For a comprehensive treatment of the simple- vs. full-form debate, see Plaks, The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel, 279–303. 21 On these paratextual materials, see David L. Rolston, ed., How to Read the Chinese Novel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990); David L. Rolston, Traditional Chinese Fiction and Fiction Commentary: Reading and Writing Between the Lines (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997). 22 Jin’s “How to Read” essay is translated in Rolston and Lin, eds., 124–45. The Li Zhuowu preface is translated in Rivi Handler-Spitz, Pauline C. Lee, and Haun Saussy, trans., A Book to Burn and a Book to Keep (Hidden): Selected Writings (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 125–31. For a more thorough comparison of the Yu, Li, and Jin editions, see Gregory, Bandits in Print.

Further Reading Børdahl, Vibeke. Wu Song Fights the Tiger: The Interaction of Oral and Written Traditions in the Chinese Novel, Drama and Storytelling. Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2013. Chen Songbo. Shuihu zhuan yuanliu kaolun [A Study of the Origin and Development of the Shuihu zhuan]. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2006. Ge, Liangyan. Out of the Margins: The Rise of Chinese Vernacular Fiction. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2001. Gregory, Scott W. Bandits in Print: “The Water Margin” and the Transformations of Vernacular Fiction. Ithaca: Cornell East Asia Series, an imprint of Cornell University Press, 2023. Hedberg, William C. The Japanese Discovery of Chinese Fiction: “The Water Margin” and the Making of a National Canon. New York: Columbia University Press, 2020. Plaks, Andrew H. The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel: Ssu Ta Ch’i-Shu. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987. Rolston, David L. Traditional Chinese Fiction and Fiction Commentary: Reading and Writing Between the Lines. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. Widmer, Ellen. The Margins of Utopia: Shui-Hu Hou-Chuan and the Literature of Ming Loyalism. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1987. Zhang Tongsheng. Shuihu zhuan quanshi shilun [On the History of Interpretation of the Shuihu zhuan]. Jinan: Qi Lu shushe, 2009.

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51 ROMANCE OF THE SUI AND THE TANG Robert Hegel

In several regards, Sui Tang yanyi (Romance of the Sui and the Tang, 1695) is the quintessential premodern Chinese vernacular novel. It narrates the adventures of widely known political and cultural figures of the past; it reworks historical events in an entertaining format; it balances battles between martial heroes with love scenes, poetic occasions, cunning strategies; it combines moments of high tension with absurd situations, complex characterization, and rich descriptive passages to appeal to many tastes in reading. In effect, it weaves together the most interesting stories about figures from the Sui and Tang periods. Moreover, it explicitly endorses popular moral standards, rewarding the good and punishing the bad appropriately. Surely these attributes account for its being one of the best known and most widely read among the old vernacular historical novels. After Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Outlaws of the Marsh, Romance of the Sui and the Tang is probably the most well-known of the heroic romances; it has been in print for over three centuries and has spawned an ongoing series of sequels and rewritings, a number of popular plays and, more recently, even video games.1

Synopsis Encompassing the two centuries from ca. 570 to 770 CE, Romance of the Sui and the Tang narrates events of five somewhat overlapping periods: first (chapters 1–48), the rise and reign of the Sui imperial house, concentrating on the activities of Sui Emperor Yang and interspersed with the rise to prominence of the military hero Qin Shubao. Second, (chapters 48–63), the rise of the Li family and their consolidation of the Tang empire, which involves several battlefield romances. Third (chapters 63–70), the reign of Li Shimin as Tang Taizong. Fourth (chapters 69–77), the period of female dominance at the Tang Court, under Wu Zetian and Empress Wei. And finally, the romantic reign of Tang Minghuang (chapters 77–100). The novel begins with a meditation on the dilemma of the aspiring hero: until and unless his chance to rise presents itself, he will be unknown by the world despite his special strengths. The narrative of Sui history then begins. Sui general Li Yuan kills the favorite palace lady of the conquered Chen state to protect Prince Yang Guang from being seduced. This act spawns an enmity that hastens the fall of the Sui and the rise of the Tang, with Li Yuan as its founding emperor. One of the emperor’s cronies dispatches his henchmen to attack Li Yuan’s party as they travel. DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-71 

Romance of the Sui and the Tang

But Heaven had appointed Qin Shubao to save the Li party. With foolhardy courage Qin Shubao single-handedly drives the attackers away. Despite having a menial job in local administration, as the scion of a distinguished line of generals, Qin Shubao continues his pursuit of knight-errantry through other, often poorly planned, adventures. His first assignment brings misfortunes that leave him penniless, humiliated, lonely, and ill. Then he accidentally kills a local constable; a second effort to uphold justice involves murdering the son of a powerful official.2 After that he hides out in his hometown. Yang Guang’s nefarious plots to gain power involve hastening the death of his father the emperor and murdering his elder brother, the crown prince, so he can become Emperor Yang. Now he can freely indulge his carnal desires. His monumental construction projects require taxing the countryside, which tempts low-level thieves to steal the tax shipments. Now a constable, Qin Shubao faces a dilemma: should he protect a thief, a boyhood friend, or carry out the arrest? Fortunately, friends intercede to arrange his transfer to escorting laborers to work on the Grand Canal. Upon arrival at the work site, Qin Shubao hears of babies being stolen to be eaten by the commander of construction, Ma Shumou. Shubao captures the kidnappers, but Ma releases them and dismisses Shubao. In the midst of his debauchery Emperor Yang dreams he is being beaten and lapses into a coma. A palace lady, Zhu Gui’er, is so concerned about his illness that she cuts a piece of flesh from her arm to add to his medicine. His health restored, Emperor Yang is so grateful that he and Zhu Gui’er vow to be husband and wife through lives to come. The Korean state of Koryŏ refuses to send tribute to the Sui; Emperor Yang orders an army to be raised to punish them. By this time outlaw gangs form throughout the realm as people rebel against constant extortion of funds and seizure of their daughters for the imperial harem. Qin Shubao takes a commission to lead naval and land forces against the Korean state, and his forces successfully attack the Koryŏ capital. Another Sui commander, Yuwen Shu, recognizes Qin as the one who murdered his son. Again, friends intervene to protect him, allowing Qin to return home. Rumors predict that Li Yuan is destined to become emperor of a new dynasty, the Tang; his second son, Li Shimin, proves to be an excellent military strategist who inspires great loyalty. Traitors in the Sui court hang Emperor Yang; rebel groups unite to wipe out the regicides. The Tang forces grow, but again personal commitments to friends interfere with Qin Shubao’s desire to express his loyalty to Li Shimin. The rise of the Tang brings yet more examples of male moral weakness. Years pass; as the Tang Emperor Li Yuan ages, he turns to sensual pleasures. But when the emperor falls ill, the concubines carry on affairs with two of the imperial princes, his first and fourth sons. Their brother Li Shimin is outraged. One stormy night the brothers attack him with a band of followers. Li Shimin shoots one of his brothers, and one of Qin Shubao’s sons kills another. As Tang emperor Taizong (Li Shimin) ages, he releases all the palace ladies, some left over from the Sui regime, 3000 in all. But they are replaced by 100 girls aged fourteen to fifteen, among them one Wu Meiniang, who becomes Taizong’s favorite. Ignoring worrisome signs, Taizong soon exhausts himself in sexual activity as well. By then the Crown Prince has also fallen for her; he vows to make her his empress. For her part, the young lady establishes an incestuous relationship with her cousin Wu Sansi. When Shimin dies, his son, Emperor Gaozong, recalls Lady Wu; after she produces two children, Gaozong makes Wu his empress. Soon his strength and eyesight, too, begin to fade from sexual overindulgence. Empress Wu’s lust knows no bounds. Gaozong dies after thirty-four years on the throne. A new emperor comes to the throne, to be deposed as Empress Wu expands her list of lovers and her control over the administration. After twenty-one years in power she is finally overthrown, only to be succeeded by other powerful and malicious imperial women. 603

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When Li Longji becomes Emperor Xuanzong (Minghuang), the dynasty regains strength. But the recovery is transient. As he ages Minghuang falls in love with the concubine of his son, the Prince of Shou, the exceptionally beautiful Yang Yuhuan. Before long, Yang is promoted to Guifei, “Precious Consort,” first among the imperial concubines. Her adopted brother Yang Guozhong becomes highly influential in central administration. When the border commander An Lushan comes to the imperial court, he catches the eye of Yang Yuhuan. Their affair continues until he is sent back to the frontier. Late one summer, on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, the emperor and Yang vow to be husband and wife in lifetime after lifetime. Soon after that, An Lushan’s army moves on the capital. The imperial court flees, Yang Guozhong and his creatures are exterminated by loyalist troops, and the Precious Consort is allowed to hang herself.3 The novel ends with a meditation on the importance of filial respect and on the karma accrued by destructive acts. Minghuang employs a Daoist priest to find the souls of his two favorite consorts; one is too refined to accept any mortal contact, but the Precious Consort Yang is far from that level of spiritual accomplishment. Heavenly beings explain Minghuang’s origins: he was an errant immortal banished to earthly existence as a woman, Zhu Gui’er, whose pure devotion allowed rebirth. The Sui emperor Yang had been a rat on a heavenly mountain who had stolen a god’s elixir; the immortal had taken pity on it and released it. His reign on earth had been short; he was reborn as Precious Consort Yang, to be hanged a second time. The priest also learns that Wu Zetian had been the reincarnation of the unsuccessful contender for the Tang throne. Hearing all of this, Minghuang devotes himself to studying Buddhist scriptures and, when his time comes, dies with a laugh. His successor Suzong dies soon afterward, and his vicious wife is executed. During the subsequent reign of Daizong, An’s rebellion is finally quelled.

Primary Themes Each chapter begins with a homily or evaluative comments on the actions of certain characters. The narrator takes no surprising positions; instead, these comments stress the importance of the traditional values zhong, xiao, jie, yi: loyalty to the ruler, filial respect, female chastity, and altruism. None of the rulers portrayed here remains committed to high moral standards; all become self-indulgent sensualists, especially in old age. This tendency makes loyalty to these figures problematic. The dwarf Wang Yi and the palace lady Zhu Gui’er, who are devoted to their emperor regardless of his moral turpitude, are held up as exemplars of self-sacrifice by way of contrast. Filial respect is more frequently the topic for these introductory messages. Qin Shubao endeavors always to be a filial son. Yet he, too, has lapses. By investigating how the ties of loyalty and filial obligations can come into conflict, the novelist exemplifies Qin Shubao’s moral dilemmas when he cannot fulfill both sets of expectations at the same time.4 Female chastity is exemplified by Qin Shubao’s wife and mother; most of the other female characters are wholly self-indulgent. While Wu Zetian seems also to enjoy sexual pleasure, she and the others use sex to gain power at the imperial court. Martial heroes regularly refer to yi as the standard that should govern relationships between knights errant and even among bandits and rebels. This virtue underlies the ties of sworn brotherhood by which warriors vow to defend each other, vows that are put to the test when friends find themselves serving different lords. Qin Shubao embodies the altruistic spirit in his efforts to right injustice; his sworn brothers in turn find ways to save Shubao from the effects of his often ill-considered exploits. Fate is a very common topic in chapter introductions. The fortunes of individuals are fated; retribution for destructive acts is inevitable. No gods directly manipulate human affairs; instead, 604

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the moral balance of the universe is revealed in the karma of rewards and punishments. Reincarnation figures largely in balancing destructive characters. For example, at Wu Zetian’s birth her mother dreams of the rebel leader Li Mi thanking her for giving him new life. As in other novels of the late Ming-early Qing, characters can find release from future suffering by reciting Buddhist texts. In Romance of the Sui and the Tang, the most common reference is to the Heart/Mind Sūtra (Prajñāpāramitā hṛdaya Sūtra, the Xinjing 心經) as the inspiration for salvation.

Central Characters A hundred-chapter novel that narrates events of nearly two centuries necessarily has a large number of characters. But only a few arch villains and exemplary heroes play primary roles in the narrative. The first villain is the Sui Emperor Yang 隋煬帝, Yang Guang (569–618; r. 604–618), whose reign serves as background for nearly half of the novel, even when the military hero Qin Shubao takes center stage. Yang Guang had been born as his mother dreamed of a dragon that is blown to the ground, where it turns into a huge rat. As Emperor Yang he is self-indulgent, unfilial, and lecherous. He shrugs off advice to reform: what’s fated will happen no matter what I do, he maintains. Grand Canal excavation uncovers a mysterious cave. Sent to investigate, Di Quxie witnesses an enormous rat—Emperor Yang’s ultimate self—being beaten and cursed for causing widespread suffering. The novel’s final chapters explain his rebirth as Yang Yuhuan. Two of his courtiers are particularly prominent for the moral contrasts they present to the emperor. Wang Yi is a dwarf presented to entertain the emperor, but Wang Yi is both bright and utterly devoted to his liege. Among the many Sui palace ladies, only Zhu Gui’er cuts a piece of her flesh to add to Yang’s medicine to cure his headaches. This is the ultimate demonstration of her devotion, a sacrifice rarely practiced in the author’s own time, and then only to save a dying parent.5 Later, Zhu Gui’er dies defending Emperor Yang, ultimately to be reborn as Tang Minghuang. Wang Yi and Zhu Gui’er, along with many minor characters who reprimand the emperor, clarify the depths of Emperor Yang’s destructive selfishness through the absolute contrast presented by their positions. Even so, Chu Renhuo introduces original episodes to soften this harsh view of Emperor Yang, scenes in which he seems far more humane than in this general view. The martial hero hinted at in the novel’s opening pages is Qin Shubao (571–638). His misadventures appear throughout the novel’s first half in alternation with affairs at the Sui imperial court. That he will become a true hero is not questioned, and yet his inexperience and naivety lead to a series of bad choices with disastrous outcomes for Qin himself, and often for others as well, despite his good intentions. He survives through the help of friends such as knight-errant Shan Xiongxin and the imperial contender Li Mi (582–619) who provide guidance and aid. These secondary figures help define Shubao by the contrasts they represent—as his steadfast generosity reveals their shortcomings, their worldly wisdom clarifies his ineptitude.6 Li Shimin (598–649; r. 626–649) is an exceptional military hero: not only a fierce warrior, he wisely commands the armies that found the Tang dynasty and later reigns as Taizong. His devotion to his cause contrasts starkly with other rulers who are utterly incompetent in military and civilian terms. And yet Li Shimin is brave to the point of taking foolhardy risks. He escapes once through magic produced by the monk Tripitaka (Xuanzang) as the ferocious warrior Yuchi Jingde—naked from washing his horse—drives off an enemy. When he falls ill, Taizong’s spirit is taken to the Ten Courts of Hell. There he glimpses the fated incarnations and punishments of his predecessors. This scene clarifies the novel’s retribution theme. The Tang emperor Xuanzong (685–762, also known as Minghuang) is central to many of the later chapters, but as a character he is less complex than China’s only female emperor, Wu Zetian 605

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(624–705) and the manipulative beauty of Minghuang’s reign, Yang Yuhuan (719–756), the Guifei or Precious Consort. Both of these women exhibit complex and even contradictory motivations, making both quite striking as characters. The novel’s original readers would have been familiar with legends about both women from oral performance and other writings. So too are other figures known from short, classical language narratives. For example, when the Korean state of Parhae sends a document none can read as its mandatory tribute to the Tang, the poet Li Bai reads it and writes a retort, after humiliating both Yang Guozhong and Gao Lishi as revenge for their earlier disparagement.7 Cameo appearances are allotted to other famous historical figures such as the poets Du Fu and Wang Wei. The novel also adapts the legend of the Central Asian woman warrior Hua Mulan. When conscripting officers come for her aging father, she takes his place in the army. She proves to be a doughty warrior, but she is captured. So impressed are her captors with her filial devotion that they send her home. There, she finds her father dead and her impoverished mother remarried. To avoid being forced into the khan’s harem, she slits her throat and is buried beside her father. Like the other minor characters here, Mulan is adapted to exemplify the moral musings that begin each chapter.8 In this regard as well, Romance is a moralistic text.

The Structure of the Narrative Each chapter begins with a homily on proper behavior, the problems in human relations, and the disasters that await those who ignore moral standards. One after the other, rulers here succumb to their weakness for sensual pleasures, never heeding the warning of previous calamities. Punishments are fated, as are the rise and fall of dynasties; disaster can only be avoided if the principals reform. But in this novel, none do.9 A major structural pattern is prominent throughout the novel, the alternation of episodes that are contrasting in tone and setting, in yin-yang fashion. As in the traditional conception, the transition from one polar opposite to another is often gradual. A period of conscientious rule is followed by the rule of a wastrel emperor; scenes of fighting alternate with domestic scenes; within episodes, characters of quite distinct social roles and moral stature balance each other. In general, the variables here are political events, romantic interludes, marvelous events, and acts of altruism and personal courage. These are leavened at several points by poetry contests among the characters. Even the reincarnation that ties the Sui to the Tang period involves alternations; the Sui Emperor Yang is reborn as Yang Yuhuan, and Zhu Gui’er returns as Tang Minghuang.10 Although balanced structures appear in the novel Jin Ping Mei and in the sequences of stories in the anthologies of vernacular fiction known as the Sanyan collections, these consistently balanced opposites and the reincarnation plot distinguish this historical novel from others. More conventional works might follow the model of Romance of the Three Kingdoms to narrate the decline of the state into chaos and then its eventual return to stability. Others focus on the career of one individual, such as the Song period general Yue Fei. Sui and Tang ends at a brief moment of relative peace in the middle of the Tang period, with no suggestion that it will last. Cyclic change will continue, the novel implies; this is the way of the world.11

The Novel's Sources and Textual History In outline, the novel generally presents events in chronological order. However, it seems unlikely that the novelist Chu Renhuo (ca. 1630–ca. 1705) adapted much directly from the standard histories.12 Instead, his twenty-plus sources in a range of language styles are frequently ill-disguised (if 606

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indeed that was ever the novelist’s intention) by being copied verbatim. Consequently, in places the novel reads more like an anthology of earlier historical fiction than the creation of an individual imagination written in a uniform style. Of its 100 chapters, roughly the first half are segments of chapters drawn from two earlier vernacular novels, the anonymous Sui Yangdi yanshi (The Merry Adventures of the Sui Emperor Yang, 1631)13 and Sui shi yiwen (Forgotten Tales of the Sui Dynasty, 1633) by the playwright Yuan Yuling (1592–1674).14 The first of these creates a memorable portrait of an utterly self-centered man, a portrait that is simplified somewhat when trimmed down to fit into Romance. Forgotten Tales is a brilliant fictional biography of Qin Shubao, most of which Chu Renhuo copied, editing those segments to lessen descriptions of immoral behavior. Later chapters draw their outline from an older fictionalized historical chronicle, Sui Tang liangchao shizhuan (Chronicles of the Two Dynasties Sui and Tang, extant edition 1619), also anonymous. The last third was compiled by adapting story material from late Tang period historical anecdote collections, Ming vernacular short fiction as well as romantic tales in the classical language, specifically the erotic novella Ruyijun zhuan (The Lord of Perfect Satisfaction). This source is fairly graphic in describing Wu Zetian’s efforts to satisfy sexual appetites; Chu Renhuo simply used the outline of that narrative, omitting most details (ignoring the political allegory of the original altogether).15 Despite his heavy reliance on earlier fiction, Chu Renhuo was the mastermind behind the compilation, the organization, and the cautious editing of his borrowed elements to strengthen moral contrasts; the reincarnation scheme is his major contribution. Late Ming vernacular short stories often began with a moralistic commentary about events narrated; this device appears here at a greater frequency than in other novels.16 Chu’s creativity can be observed in the novel’s overall design and his choice of the best historical fiction available to him. Many generations have endorsed his creative vision by making Romance of the Sui and the Tang a perennial favorite, while many of his source texts dropped out of active circulation. According to his preface, Chu Renhuo, a Suzhou native, lent a major portion of his manuscript to a friend around 1675. It was returned years later, and only then did Chu finish the novel. He printed it himself, using his studio name to identify the publisher.17 Containing so many favorite stories, the novel was reprinted repeatedly through the Qing period; it has been reissued many times in recent decades. The novel spawned a series of sequels during the middle Qing period that narrate the adventures of Xue Rengui and his descendants in a number of military and romantic exploits along China’s borders during the Tang. Romance of the Sui and the Tang was also shortened and dramatically reinterpreted to become a less moralistic novel alternatively known as Shuo Tang quanzhuan (Complete Tales of the Tang) or Shuo Tang qianzhuan (Tales of the Tang, Part One).18 The Xue Rengui and Xue Dingshan novels were advertised as parts two and three of this series. Numerous plays based on these tales were written during the Qing, some based on Romance but others draw from Tang lore circulating among novelists, storytellers, and playwrights.

Notes 1 For the broader context of Chinese historical fiction in general, see: Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang, History and Legend: Ideas and Images in the Ming Historical Novels (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990). The edition of this novel used here is: Chu Renhuo, Sui Tang yanyi (Shanghai: Gudian wenxue chubanshe, 1956). 2 Events leading up to the chivalrous murder that Qin Shubao commits are translated as: Chu Renhuo, “The Romance of the Sui and the Tang: An Excerpt from Chapter 18,” trans. R. E. Hegel, Renditions 70 (2008): 122–30.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 3 The most famous rendition of this romance and its tragic ending is the poem “Changhen ge” (“Song of Lasting Pain”) by Bai Juyi (772–846) and Chen Hong’s (early ninth cent.) prose narrative, “Changhenge zhuan” [An Account to Go with the ‘Song of Lasting Pain’]; see Stephen Owen, ed. and trans., An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (New York: Norton, 1996), 441–52. Hong Sheng (1645–1704) recreated this story as the tragic chuanqi play Changshengdian, translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang as The Palace of Eternal Youth (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1955); selected acts appear in Owen, Anthology, 973–1102. 4 See R. E. Hegel, The Novel in Seventeenth-Century China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 190–208. 5 See Maria Franca Sibau, Reading for the Moral: Exemplarity and the Confucian Moral Imagination in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Short Fiction (Albany: SUNY Press, 2018), 29–30, on “flesh slicing.” 6 For a discussion of Qin Shubao in the parent novel, see Yuan Yuling, The Heroic Adventures of Qin Shubao, from Forgotten Tales of the Sui Dynasty, trans. R. E. Hegel (Renditions, 2024). On Chu Renhuo’s original episodes, see Hegel, Novel, 196–97. For Chu Renhuo’s version of this character, see: Lei Yong, “Luanshi Yingxiong de beige—Sui Tang yanyi de yingxiong shiguan jiqi dui caomang yingxiong mingyun de sikao” [The Elegy of Heroes in Troubled Times—The Historical View of Heroes and the Deliberation on the Fate of Rebel Heroes in The Romance of Sui and Tang], Wenxue yu wenhua 4 (2010): 106–13. 7 This event was elaborated in the 1620s short story “Li Zhexian zuicao xia Man shu” (“Li the Banished Immortal” Writes in Drunkenness to Impress the Barbarians), story 9 in Feng Menglong, Jingshi tongyan; see Feng Menglong, Stories to Caution the World: A Ming Dynasty Collection, Vol. 2, trans. Yang Shuhui and Yang Yunqin (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005). 8 For the various reincarnations of this legend, see Louise Edwards, “Transformations of the Woman Warrior Hua Mulan: From Defender of the Family to Servant of the State,” Nan Nü 12 (2010): 175–214. 9 R. E. Hegel, “Sui T’ang yen-i and the Aesthetics of the Seventeenth-Century Suchou Elite,” in Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays, ed. Andrew H. Plaks (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977), 124–59, esp. pp. 150–52. For a discussion of the range and relative seriousness of moralistic introductions to fiction, see Sibau, Reading for the Moral. 10 See Jiang Li and Lei Yong, “Yinguo kuangjia xia de lishi fanxiang—Sui Tang yanyi zhong de ‘Zaishi yinyuan’ji qi yiyi [Historical Reflection from the Perspective of Karma—Marriage Through Reincarnation in Romance of the Sui and the Tang and Its Significance], Ming Qing xiaoshuo yanjiu 3 (2012): 203–12. 11 Hegel, “Sui T’ang yen-i,” 131–39, and esp. pp. 154–58; Hegel, Novel, 192–95. For other early Qing texts that similarly address Tang period events often in metaphorical terms, see Hegel, “Dreaming the Past: Memory and Continuity beyond the Ming Fall,” 345–71, and other essays in Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature, ed. Wilt L. Idema, Wai-yee Li, and Ellen Widmer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Studies Center, 2005). See also: Lei Yong, “Shiyi wenren de wangguo jiyi—Guanyu Sui Tang yanyi sixiang qingxiang de sikao” [Memories of the Frustrated Literati of a Failing State—Ways of Thinking in the Romance of the Sui and the Tang], Ming Qing xiaoshuo yanjiu 1 (2009): 286–300. 12 For a biographical sketch of Chu Renhuo and a survey of his writings, see Hegel, “Sui T’ang yen–i,” 139–49. 13 For a discussion of this novel, concentrating on the “unworthy” or “bad last” ruler theme, see Hegel, Novel, 84–111. See also: Wang Yating, “Sui Yangdi yanshi yanjiu zongshu” [A Summary of Studies of The Merry Adventures of the Sui Emperor Yang], Anhui wenxue (下半月) 9 (2008): 11–12. 14 For a discussion of Qin Shubao and his role in the meaning of this novel, see Hegel, Novel, 112–39, and Yuan Yuling, Heroic Adventures, “Introduction.” 15 Hegel, “Sui T’ang yen-i,” 126–31. For text and translation, see Ruyijun zhuan [The Fountainhead of Chinese Erotica: The Lord of Perfect Satisfaction], ed. and trans. Charles R. Stone (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003). For a more recent study of the novel’s written sources, see Peng Zhihui,”Sui Tang yanyi cailiao laiyuan kaobian” [A Study of the Sources of Romance of the Sui and the Tang], Ming Qing xiaoshuo yanjiu 2 (2002): 199–210. 16 See Sibau, Reading for the Moral. 17 For private printing ventures such as this seemed to be, see Son Suyoung, Writing for Print: Publishing and the Making of Textual Authority in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2018). 18 See R. E. Hegel, “Rewriting the Tang: Humor, Heroics, and Imaginative Reading,” in Snake’s Legs: Sequels, Continuations and Chinese Fiction, ed. Martin Huang (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004), 159–89. These novels include: Shuo Tang yanyi houzhuan: Xue Rengui zheng Dong [Further Tales

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Romance of the Sui and the Tang from the Tang: Xue Rengui Pacifies the East] (1738), Yishuo Hou Tang zhuan sanji: Xue Tingshan zheng Xi, Fan Lihua quanzhuan [Variations on Further Tales from the Tang, Third Collection: Xue Dingshan Pacifies the West, the Full Story of Fan Lihua] (1754?), and Yishuo Fan Tang yanyi quanzhuan [Another Version of the Full Story of Xue Gang’s Rebellion Against the Tang; 1756], and others. See Qi Yukun, Sui Tang yanyi xilie xiaoshuo [The Romance of the Sui and the Tang Series of Novels] (Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu, 1993). For recent adaptations of this novels for modern media, see Xu Lianxiang, “Dianshiju Sui Tang yanyi de meizhong buzu” [Flaws in the TV Series Romance of the Sui and the Tang], Yuyan wenxue yanjiui 3 (2013): 83–84; Wang Fan, “You Qin Qiong de suzao kan dianshiju Sui Tang yanyi de wenxue gaibian yishi” [Observations on Literary Adaptation Through the Creation of Qin Qiong in the TV Series Romance of the Sui and the Tang], Suihua xueyuan xuebao 5 (2012): 150–52.

Further Reading Chang, Shelley Hsueh-lun. History and Legend: Ideas and Images in the Ming Historical Novels. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990. Chu Renhuo. “The Romance of the Sui and the Tang: An Excerpt from Chapter 18,” translated by Robert E. Hegel. Renditions 70 (2008): 122–30. Chu Renhuo. Sui Tang yanyi. Shanghai: Gudian wenxue chubanshe, 1956. Hegel, Robert E. The Novel in Seventeenth-Century China. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981. Hegel, Robert E. “Rewriting the Tang: Humor, Heroics, and Imaginative Reading.” In Snake’s Legs: Sequels, Continuations and Chinese Fiction, edited by Martin Huang, 159–89. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004. Hung Sheng. The Palace of Eternal Youth. Translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1955. Qi Yukun. Sui Tang yanyi xilie xiaoshuo [The Romance of the Sui and the Tang Series of Novels]. Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu, 1993. Sibau, Maria Franca. Reading for the Moral: Exemplarity and the Confucian Moral Imagination in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Short Fiction. Albany: SUNY Press, 2018. Yuan Yuling. The Heroic Adventures of Qin Shubao, from Forgotten Tales of the Sui Dynasty. Translated by Robert E. Hegel. Research Centre for Translation, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2025.

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SECTION XVII

Novels of Spirits and Devils

52 JOURNEY TO THE WEST Richard G. Wang

The Evolution of the XYJ Cycle The Journey to the West (Xiyouji; hereafter XYJ) is a masterwork of the Ming (1368–1644) novel loosely based on the historical Xuanzang’s (596?–664)—Tripitaka in the novel—famous pilgrimage to India in quest of Buddhist scriptures. Xuanzang, a renowned monk who had contributed to the Yogācāra school of Buddhist idealism his own writings and many translations, his courageous exploits were recorded in his biography, written by his two disciples. His story was soon incorporated into the biographical sections of the standard dynastic history of the Tang (618–907), and his life was celebrated repeatedly in both classical tales and anecdotal literature. Poetic and iconographical representations of Xuanzang’s story, including his party of pilgrims with monkey and horse, had by the early twelfth–early thirteenth century spread from the furthest northwestern to the southeastern extremities of the Chinese world in Song (960–1279) times. It is in this cultural milieu that the Tripitaka cycle culminated in XYJ. But the antecedents, in different media and in their complete forms, to the full-length novel already had appeared in the period from the Song to the early half of the Ming. The most important antecedent is the Datang Sanzang qujing shihua (The Poetic Tale of the Procurement of Scriptures by Tripitaka of the Great Tang). As the earliest and most authentic of all the older XYJ sources, this primitive version was printed in the Southern Song, considered by most scholars to be a product of the thirteenth century.1 Ōta Tatsuo and others have championed the existence of a “Yuan version” of XYJ, whose fragments are cited in the Pak t’ongsa ŏnhae (in Chinese, the Pu tongshi yanjie), a Korean reader in colloquial Chinese first printed probably sometime in the mid-fifteenth century, though the surviving version has a preface dated 1677.2 The Xiaoshi zhenkong baojuan (Precious Scroll on the Teaching of the Patriarch Zhenkong) of the late sixteenth-early seventeenth century contains extensive XYJ elements. While scholars debate whether the Xiaoshi zhenkong baojuan is dated to the Song/Yuan, the early Ming, or the late Ming, Ōta and others argue that the baojuan reproduces with reliable accuracy the order and episodic elements of the “Yuan version” of XYJ.3 Although Glen Dudbridge disagrees with the previous assessment, he acknowledges that “Its author, in writing this passage, was mentally recalling the salient features of an episodic story he might have known in many different forms. He could indeed have had in mind a given prose version of the  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-73

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fifteenth or sixteenth century; and some of his allusions may yet have intruded from other—perhaps oral or dramatic—sources.”4 Among media other than literary, the Tangseng qujing tuce (Painting Album on the Tang Monk Acquiring Scriptures), attributed to the Yuan painter Wang Zhenpeng (1280–1329), depicts thirty-two scenes of Xuanzang’s scripture-fetching pilgrimage.5 More interestingly, the Fomen qingjing ke (The Buddhist Liturgy of Invoking Scriptures) is a popular Buddhist liturgical text for large communal funeral rituals (zhaigong) dated to the early Ming or slightly earlier, surviving in more than ten different editions, with the alternate title Tangseng qujing daochang (The Ritual for the Procurement of Scriptures by the Tang Monk), or Xiyou daochang (The Ritual for the Journey to the West). It cites the XYJ cycle episodes extensively and multiple times—or rather, it is structured around the XYJ story as the central thread—thus the aforementioned alternate titles.6 In 1985, an old ritual text was discovered in Nanshe village, Lucheng county, Shanxi. On its title page is the transcription date of 1574 and the title Yingshen saishe lijie chuanbu sishi qu gongdiao (Transmitted Records of Rituals for Welcoming the Gods and Sacrificing at the She, with Forty Melodies in Keys). On the first page it calls itself Zhou yuexing tu (The Diagram of the Musical Asterisms of the Zhou Dynasty), a more authentic title. It contains the roster of ritual plays featuring the XYJ story. Scholars generally agree that the Zhou yuexing tu, at least its current version, may have appeared in the 1420s–1430s, although some Chinese scholars trace the ritual plays in it or even the original version of the Zhou yuexing tu, if there is a one, to Song/Jin (1115–1234) times. Some individual XYJ elements are scattered throughout the Zhou yuexing tu. But the Zhou yuexing tu also contains the ritual play Tangseng xitian qujing (The Tang Monk’s Procurement of Scriptures from the West) with the complete episodes and the sequence of XYJ.7 Finally, the Xiyouji zaju is a twenty-four-scene zaju play sequence by Yang Jingxian probably completed in the early fifteenth century, although the preface to the extant edition of it or its revised version is dated 1614. Turning to the text of XYJ itself, the earliest hundred-chapter full-length version was published in 1592 by the Nanjing publishing house named Shidetang (The Hall of Generational Virtue), almost immediately followed by several other editions whose text is based on the 1592 version. In addition, the novel has two other early and shorter versions: the Tang Sanzang chushen quanzhuan (The Complete Account of Tripitaka Tang’s Origin) by Yang Zhihe, and the Tang Sanzang Xiyou shini (=e) zhuan (The Chronicle of Deliverances in Tripitaka Tang’s Journey to the West) by Zhu Dingchen. The debate over textual priority among these three versions has examined all possible options, but no combination has won consensus. The Zhu version has a distinctive chapter on the “Chen Guangrui story,” which describes Xuanzang’s birth and his early adventures. The chapter, however, is missing in the full-length version of the Ming—the 1592 Shidetang text and those following it. That story, modified, first appears, as chapter 9, in an abridged Qing edition of XYJ with the title Xiyou zhengdao shu 西遊證道書 (A Book for the Illumination of Dao by the Westward Journey), compiled by Huang Zhouxing and Wang Xiangxu and dated around 1662.

Religious Allegory Lu Xun, in his pioneering Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue (Brief History of Chinese Fiction), defines shenmo xiaoshuo (novel of spirits and devils) as a subgenre with religious or supernatural subject matter. XYJ is the religious novel par excellence. Religious themes and rhetoric permeate the entire work. XYJ contains many references to yinyang and five-phases terminology, the Yijing (Book of Changes) and alchemical lore, and various other Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian ideas and 614

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practices. For more than three centuries the principal concern of criticism on the novel has been to decipher the allegory by separating the narrative surface into moral, religious, and philosophical meanings. But as Anthony C. Yu demonstrates, while the novel can be read as a tale of travel and adventure or Confucian rectification of the mind and moral self-cultivation, it can also be read as a religious allegory. The immense appropriation of the teaching from the Three Religions (sanjiao) is what makes XYJ a unique text in the history of the Chinese novel. On the Buddhist side, XYJ consistently projects a distinctly Buddhist worldview. There are countless allusions to Buddhist concepts and legends structured in the narrative. Although there may be no systematic discourse of one particular Buddhist doctrine in the narrative, certain themes and figures, such as karmic laws, merit making, Buddha’s mercy, and the paradoxical connection between mind and buddhahood, do receive consistent development. Viewing the text this way, XYJ can be read as a story of Buddhist karma and redemption or enlightenment. The story of XYJ calls attention to a rather perplexing phenomenon, that is, that the narrative provides astonishingly few details traceable to specific canonical Buddhist sources, although its story is built on the historical pilgrimage undertaken by Xuanzang, one of the most famous Buddhist personalities in Chinese history. It is rather noteworthy how extensively the Daoist themes and rhetoric appear in every part of the work. In the novel Daoist elements function not merely as means of providing commentary on incidents and characters in the narrative but often as an aid to disclosing the true nature of the fellow pilgrims, to help characterize their essential relationships, and to evolve the narrative action itself. Moreover XYJ on the whole presents a complete process of Daoist inter alchemical (neidan 內丹) cultivation, including various stages in a proper sequence. Besides the Buddhist notion of salvation or enlightenment and the Neo-Confucian rectification of the mind, the author or the editor now adds Daoist immortality as the distinctive goal of the pilgrimage.

New Paradigm and Daoist Investiture The past decade has witnessed a paradigm shift in the study of XYJ. A new generation of Chinese scholars, following Chen Yupi’s pioneering work in 1996, have studied the novel from the perspective of Buddhist and/or Daoist ritual, and some of them even collected liturgical texts of Buddhism and popular religion in their fieldwork. The Buddhist mode of this approach construes Tripitaka as a yoga (yujia) monk good at Buddhist communal rituals (zhaigong), especially funerals. As ritual specialists, yoga monks often went to people’s homes to perform funerals or other rituals, and as a result they were also called monks who responded to calls (yingfu seng). The author of XYJ, according to these scholars, must have been familiar with the ritual (yoga) Buddhism, and its liturgy for the novel uses yoga Buddhist terms and quotes yoga liturgical texts. And the very reason for Tripitaka’s mission of the scripture-fetching pilgrimage is to perform a Grand Mass of Land and Water—Mass for the Dead—with these sutras. The Daoist mode of such a trend has emphasized demon statutes (guilü) in Daoism that provide magical control over demons and lowly spirits. The ritual technique for such control includes the Daoist adoption of Tantric mantras. In addition, the demon statutes also serve as codes or rules for Daoist canonization of local spirits. The bureaucratic structure of the Daoist pantheon embedded in XYJ, such as the divine hierarchy between the City God and the earth god, is explored. In terms of ritual per se, the pilgrims’ trials are interpreted as the ritual for “crossing a pass” (guoguan). The setting of the ritual area (tanchang) and ritual paintings of Daoist deities are compared with the portrayals and the iconographical representations in the novel. All these efforts of the Daoist ritual approach to the novel are realized through the close reading of XYJ in the context of Daoist liturgical texts. 615

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Neither mode so far has explained the discrepancy between a narrative starting with its first seven chapters with Sun Wukong as the sole hero and the story of pilgrimage based on Xuanzang’s historical travel in which Tripitaka should be the main protagonist. I argue that Sun Wukong’s martial power and merit-making in subduing demons is rewarded Daoist investiture, as they are his rites of passage. In XYJ, the Daoist investitures for Sun Wukong include his initiation into Patriarch Subodhi’s Daoist lineage. More importantly, they consist of successive Daoist canonizations of Sun Wukong as he progresses in his religious cultivation and the plot advances. Structurally, Sun Wukong should be recognized as the main protagonist of XYJ, whereas Tripitaka as his master elicits his service in exorcistic battles in conquest of monsters. This conclusion is reached by the analysis of the key word lu (liturgical register) in Daoist ordination, or Daoist canonization. To begin with, after Patriarch Subodhi accepts Monkey as his disciple, he gives the latter a religious name, expounding on this: “Within my tradition are twelve characters that have been used to name the pupils according to their divisions. You are one who belongs to the tenth generation.” With the twelve characters provided, he goes on, “Your rank falls precisely on the word ‘wake-to’ (wu). You will hence be given the religious name ‘Wake-to-the-Void’ (wukong).”8 This episode illustrates two things. First, giving someone a religious name inherent in a lineage is a serious business. As Timothy Brook articulates, “the term ‘lineage’ should therefore be applied to all consciously organized descent groups during the entire Ming-Qing period, even when that consciousness was limited to little more than the observance of a generational naming pattern, though it usually involved much more.”9 Thus, the generational naming pattern, which determines one’s generation or religious name generated by the “lineage poem” (zipai or paishi)—the middle generation name in one’s three-character full name—is the minimum marker for one’s membership in the lineage. Brook of course talks about biological lineage. But his definition of biological lineage can be extended to religious groups, thus “religious lineages,” although the tracing of descent to a common ancestor is now seen in a spiritual instead of a biological plane—indeed, religious lineages as corporate organizations modeled after biological lineages. The religious name given to Monkey signifies that he enters the Patriarch Subodhi’s “tradition,” men in the Chinese text, which stands for a religious lineage. In this sense, this name-granting denotes an initiation for Monkey into a religious lineage. Second, we should be aware of the Daoist nature of Patriarch Subodhi’s transmission to Monkey. As Ping Shao points out, Subhūti (Subodhi) was one of Śākyamuni’s disciples. However, “Subhūti’s Taoist identity in Xiyou ji has remained critically unchallenged.”10 Needless to say, in chapter 2 the long poem uttered by the patriarch as an oral formula to instruct Sun Wukong at night on the secrets of inner alchemy is from Daoism.11 Hence, the first rite of passage for Sun Wukong is an initiation into a religious lineage, in this case Daoism. After this, Sun Wukong continues undergoing more rites of passage throughout the novel. These later passage rites can be seen as his further investitures or, more accurately, canonizations, with which we will deal in the following. After Sun Wukong’s initiation and return to his Water-Curtain Cave in the Flower-Fruit Mountain, the concluding poem of chapter 2 reads, “The surname is one, the self’s returned to its source./ This glory awaits—a name promoted to the Immortal Register!”12 This line, or the authorial comment, foreshadows Sun Wukong’s further canonization, himself promoted (qian) from his current initiation status and his name entered into the Daoist immortal register (xianlu). Indeed, after he has caused havoc in the Dragon Palace of the Eastern Ocean and the Underworld, in chapter 3 the Gold Star of Venus persuades the Jade Emperor, “Let him be summoned to the Upper Region and given some kind of official duties. His name will be recorded in the Register (lu) and we can control him there. If he is receptive to the Heavenly decree, he will be rewarded and promoted (shengshang) hereafter.”13 The Jade Emperor accepts this proposal. Then the Gold 616

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Star comes down to the Flower-Fruit Mountain, declaring to Sun Wukong, “I came down to Earth, bearing the imperial decree of pacification from the Jade Emperor, and invite you to go to Heaven to receive an Immortal Register (xianlu).” The concluding couplet of this chapter thus reads, “He is promoted (gaoqian) to the high rank (shangpin) with the post (wei) of immortals from the sky (tianxian);/His name’s enrolled in cloud columns and the Treasure Register (baolu).”14 Then, at the beginning of the next chapter, in front of the Hall of Heaven, the Gold Star explains to Sun Wukong, “Once you have seen the Heavenly Deva, received an appointment (zhule guanming), and been enrolled upon the Immortal Register (shoule xianlu), you can go in and out as you please.”15 It should be noted that the key term here is lu (register). In Daoist ordination rites, the ordinand accepts lu listing the divine generals and their soldiers whom the ordinand can summon to protect him/her or carry out his/her order to exorcise demons, heal patients, or bring in rain or sunshine. The register also contains the titles of the scriptures transmitted to the ordinand in the ordination rite. In effect, the conferral of the lu on the ordinand signifies that he or she enters into a covenant with the deities as well as the master who bestows the register. As the ordinand advances, he or she is given a longer register with more deities and more scriptures. Such Daoist ordination ceremony is known as shoulu (conferral of registers). There are nineteen occurrences of the character lu in this sense of “register” in XYJ. Since the Song, along with the newly emerged exorcistic rites and revelations, the concept and practice of a rank of particular exorcistic methods in the office of the celestial bureaucracy (fazhi or fawei) awarded to the ordinand has been added to the Daoist ordination. In this sense, when an ordinand advances in ordination, he or she is promoted to a higher divine rank or fazhi/fawei. Now, in the previous episode of XYJ, Sun Wukong is enrolled on the liturgical register (lu)—sometimes expressed as “immortal register” or “treasure register.” This signifies that he is ordained (shoulu) into a Daoist lineage,16 as expressed in the novel, “being enrolled upon the Immortal Register (shou[le xian]lu).” But, as noted, he was already initiated by Patriarch Subodhi in chapter 1. Therefore, this time, when Sun Wukong is summoned to Heaven and made a BanHorsePlague with the bestowal of the register (or, to give its alternative names, immortal register/treasure register/divine register), this is his advance in ordination or investiture. No wonder that the concept of promotion is repeated several times here in different expressions (qian, shengshang, and gaoqian) to signify Sun Wukong’s advance to the high rank (shangpin) with the post (wei or fawei) of immortals from the sky (tianxian), or more concretely, “receiv[ing] an appointment (zhule guanming),” in this case, BanHorsePlague in the Upper Region. It should be noted that this investiture is not the same as an ordination for a human priest. Instead, it is a canonization for a local spirit or deity. But, “from a liturgical perspective,” as Vincent Goossaert articulates it, “the process of Taoist canonization (daofeng) of local saints and gods worked in the same way as ordinations, that is, through the conferral of liturgical registers, lu. Local communities wrote or came to Longhu shan requesting canonization for their gods, which the Heavenly Master granted, in exchange for a payment and, presumably, a pledge to orthodoxy similar to those required from ordinands.”17 Our previous analyses of lu in Daoist ordination are thus applied to Daoist canonization, the canonization of Sun Wukong in XYJ. Daoist canonization not only awards liturgical registers to “good” local gods, but also to demonic spirits. In Daoist canonization, The ideal solution for unruly spirits of animals is not their annihilation but their pacification and subsequent inclusion into the Daoist liturgical structure. . . . Local animal spirits may be rewarded with canonical titles and official positions as long as they behave well 617

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and ‘protect the people with blessings.’ If not . . . these spirits may be sent to the earth prisons of Fengdu. The specters of animals as well as other unruly spirits are thus dealt with by the Daoist liturgical structure in one of two ways: they receive rewards for honorable contributions to society, potentially resulting in a canonical title, or they are made to undergo disciplinary measures such as incarceration whenever they fail to establish a good reputation.18 In XYJ, Sun Wukong is indeed considered by the divine bureaucracy as “a bogus immortal,” “a baneful monkey . . . who practices evil and violence,” or “a monster.”19 To forward the canonization of Sun Wukong, the Gold Star of Venus encourages the Jade Emperor to “issue a decree of pacification” summoning (i.e., canonizing) Sun Wukong, for with such an enlistment “His name will be recorded in the Register and we can control him here.”20 That is to say, by promoting Sun Wukong to the rank BanHorsePlague, he is expected to take a pledge to practice “orthodoxy,” which “control[s] him.” This, as the Gold Star proclaims, “permit[s] us to receive into our midst another immortal in an orderly manner.”21 Space does not permit me to analyze the rest of the novel. But it is worth noting that Sun Wukong undergoes his second canonization when the title Great Sage, Equal to Heaven, is conferred on him, and then the ultimate canonization, when he is promoted to the status of Buddha. To conclude, I argue that Sun Wukong’s martial power and merit-making in subduing demons is rewarded Daoist investiture.

The Structure of XYJ Viewing the entire novel as successive stages of Daoist investitures (an initiation and three advanced canonizations) gives rise to a question about the structure of the story. In chapter 14, Guanyin gives Tripitaka a flower cap with the Tight-Fillet Spell to control Sun Wukong. Scholars have interpreted this episode as an allegory of the control or cultivation of the mind. This reading does have a textual confirmation, for in the narrative the spell “is called the True Words for Controlling the Mind, or the Tight-Fillet Spell.”22 While acknowledging its validity, I will here interpret this episode from the perspective of its literal meaning instead of as an allegory. By reciting the Tight-Fillet Spell, Tripitaka literally makes Wukong submit to his authority: “Will you listen now to my instructions?” asked Tripitaka. “Yes, I will,” replied Pilgrim. “And never be unruly again?” “I dare not,” said Pilgrim. Falling to the ground, the monkey threw away the iron rod and could not even raise his hands. “Master,” he said, “I’ve learned my lesson! Stop! Please stop!” He had no alternative but to kneel in contrition and plead with Tripitaka, saying, “Master, this is her method of controlling me, allowing me no alternative but to follow you to the West. . . . I’m willing to accompany you without ever entertaining the thought of leaving again.”23 Thus, it is not just the control of Sun Wukong’s mind or Tripitaka’s own mind, but the control of the whole person of Sun Wukong, mentally and bodily. And control of the whole person is indeed the goal of Daoist canonization. This episode in the 1592 version is embedded in the motif of “Mind Monkey return[ing] to the Right;/The Six Robbers vanish[ing] from sight,” as the titular couplet testified.24 But the chapter title of this episode in the Zhu version reads, “Tripitaka transmits fa to Pilgrim and subdues him” 618

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(Sanzang shoufa xiang Xingzhe). And the Yang version has a similar chapter title.25 Obviously, these two versions consider this episode as Tripitaka’s transmission of fa to Sun Wukong. In other words, this transmission is part of another Daoist ordination/canonization. Sun Wukong during his violence and rebellion before Tripitaka’s control of him by the Tight-Fillet Spell was no different from the monsters he would later conquer in his pilgrimage to the West. Such appellations for Sun Wukong as a “lawless ape,” “baneful immortal,” “baneful monkey,” “bogus immortal,” or “lawless monstrous monkey,” “monster,” “audacious monster,” and “demon,” “who practices evil and violence” and whose “evil is full to the brim,” show his fiendish nature. Indeed, he made sworn brotherhood with the Bull Demon King, one of the most formidable monsters he would encounter later in his westward journey. The Buddhist mode of the aforementioned new paradigm construes Tripitaka as a yoga monk good at Buddhist communal rituals, especially funerals, or a monk who responds to calls (yingfu seng). This is what Tripitaka does and what he teaches his disciples in XYJ.26 By a similar token, Tripitaka now assumes the role of a Daoist high priest (gaogong) by controlling a spirit like Sun Wukong through the means of canonizing him, as the Zhu version tells us that “Tripitaka transmits fa to Pilgrim and subdues him.” While fa in the Buddhist context is dharma or Law, in the Daoist context it refers to exorcistic methods of the newly emerged Song-Yuan Daoist rites and revelations. Whenever Tripitaka bumps into fiends, he harnesses Sun Wukong’s martial power to fight for him with the award of canonization. As Mark Meulenbeld articulates, “Journey to the West shows that even the most unruly and violent spirit (i.e., Sun Wukong) may become canonized (within a pentad of gods called the Five Saints), as long as it directs its ferocious powers against other demonic spirits and does so in the service of the divine hierarchy.”27 Readers as well as scholars have been puzzled by the discrepancy: any reader of XYJ has an impression that Sun Wukong appears to be the main protagonist of the story even though the literal action of the story is framed and governed by the historical events of Xuanzang’s travel. That is the huge difference between the historical travel of Xuanzang as the sole protagonist and the fictive narrative in which Tripitaka is overshadowed by Sun Wukong. If the aforementioned framework of Daoist canonization of Sun Wukong in XYJ is accepted, then the entire narrative can be seen as a story about the career of Sun Wukong the local spirit, who undergoes successive Daoist investitures and serves his master, the high priest Tripitaka, to fight monsters on their way to the West, or, in Meulenbeld’s words, to launch “demonic warfare.” Furthermore, following our interpretation, the discordance between viewing Xuanzang as the protagonist of XYJ and regarding Sun Wukong as the main character in the first seven chapters, who also overshadows Tripitaka in the subsequent pilgrimage route, will disappear. The puzzle that has haunted readers and scholars for centuries can thus be resolved. It is noteworthy that Sun Wukong was a “bogus immortal” or yaoxian before his canonization. Now Tripitaka harnesses Sun Wukong’s martial power to subdue and eliminate monsters in their pilgrimage route. Throughout XYJ, Sun Wukong is constantly confused with “Sire Thunder” (leigong) throughout the entire novel due to his iconographic resemblance to the latter. His terrifying appearance and violent behaviors remind the reader of the very demons he conquers on his way to the West. Likewise, Sun Wukong’s story sticks to the previously mentioned model. The basic outline of the XYJ narrative may be divided into three sections: (1) chapters 1–7: Sun Wukong’s story, (2) chapters 8–12: Tripitaka’s early career and Emperor Taizong’s descent into hell, and (3) chapters 13–100: the journey itself. The reason that readers recognize three distinct sections of the entire XYJ lies in the perceived different themes of the three sections. But if we follow this model of “local demon-turned-Daoist demonifuge,” then I believe that we have a unified theme and structure of XYJ. 619

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Sun Wukong’s origin—or rather, that of the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven—and Tripitaka’s pilgrimage originally belonged to two different story-cycles. Later, Sun Wukong’s story was incorporated into Tripitaka’s journey, at the latest in the late Yuan-early Ming period, becoming XYJ. All antecedents to XYJ in different media—fiction, album, liturgy, drama, and baojuan or precious scroll—start with the imperial mission of procuring Buddhist scriptures, or Xuanzang’s origin, but not with Sun Wukong’s origin, his early career, and/or his troublemaking in Heaven.28 Indeed, to commence the story with Sun Wukong’s full-length exploits in the first seven chapters—not a prologue—is unnatural in a work that features Tripitaka as the main protagonist. The Ming novel portrays Sun Wukong’s origin and early adventures from a bogus immortal or demonic spirit to a Daoist martial god, through successive canonizations; he assists his master to fight maleficent forces as merit-making in their way to eternal redemption. For this purpose, section 1 of XYJ presents to us the origin and preliminary Daoist initiation and canonizations of Sun Wukong. Section 2 introduces Tripitaka as his future master and depicts Tripitaka’s performance of the Grand Mass of Land and Water—the Buddhist counterpart of the Daoist Universal Salvation—for the deliverance of orphaned souls, which include the now-imprisoned Sun Wukong. This aims at Sun Wukong and the other pilgrims’ later redemptions. With the goal of the reward of the promotion in celestial ranks or returning to their original positions in Heaven—the eternal redemption for the pilgrims—in section 3 Sun Wukong makes a covenant with Tripitaka as his master who enlists Sun Wukong’s martial prowess whenever they encounter evil forces. So the protagonist of XYJ is Sun Wukong throughout the entire narrative, and the novel is about his rites of passage or investitures such as initiation, and canonizations. So structurally, Sun Wukong should be recognized as the protagonist of XYJ whereas Tripitaka as his master elicits his service in exorcistic battles in conquest of monsters.

Concluding Remarks Lee Fong-mao has championed his theory of the “divine origin/career (chushen) and religious work (xiuxing),” which pervades Ming-Qing supernatural novels, including XYJ. In this model, the protagonist or protagonists with divine origins are banished to the world because of their faults. They have to pass trials by self-cultivation and/or subduing demons, externally and internally, in order to redeem themselves before regaining their original positions or getting promoted in divine ranks. In that sense, XYJ is no different from other supernatural novels of the Ming that emphasize the chushen of their divine protagonists. Not only is the Yang version of XYJ simply titled Tang Sanzang chushen quanzhuan (The Complete Account of Tripitaka Tang’s chushen), it is also contained, together with three other Ming chushen novels—the Baxian chuchu Dongyouji (The Origins of the Eight Immortals and the Journey to the East), the Wuxian lingguan dadi Huaguang tianwang zhuan (The Hagiography of the Heavenly King Huaguang, the Great Emperor and Numinous Officer of the Five Manifestations) with its alternative title Huaguang tianwang nanyou zhizhuan (The Journey to the South of the Heavenly King Huaguang), and the Beiyouji (Journey to the North) with its full title, Quanxiang Beiyouji Xuandi chushen zhuan (Chronicle of the Dark Emperor’s chushen, or the Journey to the North, Fully Illustrated)—in the compact version of the chushen novels entitled Siyouji (Four Journeys). In reality, the passing of trials involves various phases of rites of passage with investiture as reward to the protagonist(s). This essay argues that XYJ is indeed about such rites of passage for Sun Wukong as his initiation and canonizations. His martial power and merit-making in subduing demons is rewarded with Daoist initiation and a series of Daoist canonizations. From such a reading and analysis, it can be concluded that Sun Wukong is the protagonist of XYJ while Xuanzang 620

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as his master employs his service in exorcistic rites/battles against maleficent forces. The structure of XYJ, which features Sun Wukong’s early career in the first seven chapters, reflects such a motif. As Xu Wei asserts, for ordinary readers “It is natural to regard XYJ as a biography of Sun Wukong’s chushen and attainment of the Dao.”29

Notes 1 Glen Dudbridge, The Hsi-yu chi: A Study of Antecedents to the Sixteenth-Century Chinese Novel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 29. 2 Ōta Tatsuo, Saiyūki no kenkyū [Studies of the Xiyouji] (Tokyo: Kenbun, 1984), 76–77, 95, 174–75, 280–81; Isobe Akira, “Saiyūki” keiseishi no kenkyū [A Study of the Formation of the Xiyouji] (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1993), 127, 136–38, 145–72, 229; Isobe Akira, “Saiyūki” shiryō no kenkyū [A Study of the Sources of the Xiyouji] (Sendai-shi: Tōhoku Daigaku shuppansha, 2007), 131–32, 135–37, 139, 141, 165, 191, 292; Cai Tieying, Xiyouji de dansheng [The Birth of the Xiyouji] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007), 190–95; Cao Bingjian, Xiyouji banben yuanliu kao [A Study of the Origin and Evolution of the Xiyouji Editions] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2012), 51–55, 59–64. Chinese scholars also tend to regard the XYJ fragments in the Yongle dadian, existing before 1408, as belonging to the “Yuan version.” 3 Ōta, Saiyūki no kenkyū, 100, 109–10; Cai Tieying, Xiyouji de dansheng, 146–47, 196. 4 Dudbridge, Antecedents, 98. 5 For a study of the Tangseng qujing tuce, see Isobe, “Saiyūki” shiryō, 17, 131–95. 6 Fomen qingjing ke, in Hou Chong, and Wang Jianchuan, eds., Xiyouji xinlun ji qita: Laizi fojiao yishi, xisu yu wenben de shijiao [A New Study of the Xiyouji and Relevant Issues: A Perspective of Buddhist Rituals, Customs, and Texts] (Xinbei: BoyYoung, 2020), 379–80, 382, 385–86, 389–91, 396–99, 403–4, 407–8, 413–20, 423, 428–30, 432, 435–45, 449–53, 457–58, 461, 463–64, 466–73, 476–82, 484–95. 7 Yingshen saishe lijie chuanbu sishi qu gongdiao zhushi [Annotations of the Transmitted Records of Rituals for Welcoming the Gods and Sacrificing at the She, with Forty Melodies in Keys], anno. Han Sheng et al., Zhonghua xiqu 3 (1987): 94, 110–12. 8 Anthony C. Yu, trans. and ed., The Journey to the West, revised ed. (hereafter JW) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 1.115; Xiyouji zhengli jiaozhu ben [A Collated and Annotated Text of Xiyou ji] (hereafter ZJB), ed. Li Hongfu (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2013), 1.20. 9 Timothy Brook, “Must Lineages Own Land?” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 20, no. 4 (1988): 78. 10 Ping Shao, “Huineng, Subhuti, and Monkey’s Religion in Xiyou ji,” Journal of Asian Studies 65, no. 4 (2006): 716, 722–24, 727, 729. See also Ōta, Saiyūki no kenkyū, 283. 11 Anthony C. Yu, “Introduction,” in JW, 1.43; Ōta, Saiyūki no kenkyū, 161. 12 The Chinese text for the second line is “zhidai rongqian xianlu ming” (wait only to ascend the honorary rank of immortals). JW, 1.130; ZJB, 1.32. The English translation is slightly modified. 13 JW, 1.143; ZJB, 1.44. 14 JW, 1.144; ZJB, 1.45. The translation is slightly modified. 15 JW, 1.145; ZJB, 1.51. The translation is slightly modified. 16 On this issue, see also Lee Fong-mao, “Jianhu zhi yan: Xiyouji zhong zai fodao hufa xia de guoguan” [The Tutelary Eye: The Crossing of Passes Under Buddho-Daoist Guidance], Hanxue yanjiu 37, no. 4 (2019): 138–39. 17 Vincent Goossaert, “Bureaucratic Charisma: The Zhang Heavenly Master Institution and Court Taoists in Late-Qing China,” Asia Major 3rd series, 17, no. 2 (2004): 140. 18 Mark Meulenbeld, Demonic Warfare: Daoism, Territorial Networks, and the History of a Ming Novel (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015), 113. 19 JW, 1.142–43, 147, 174; ZJB, 1.44, 52, 77. 20 JW, 1.143; ZJB, 1.44. 21 JW, 1.143; ZJB, 1.44–45. 22 JW, 1.317; ZJB, 1.244. 23 JW, 1.320; ZJB, 1.246. 24 JW, 1.306; ZJB, 1.236. 25 Tang Sanzang Xiyou shini (=e) zhuan (Zhu version), comp. Zhu Dingchen, in Guben xiaoshuo jicheng [Collection of the Ancient Editions of Chinese Fiction] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1990), 7.14b; Tang Sanzang chushen quanzhuan [The Complete Account of Tripitaka Tang’s chushen] (Yang

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature version), comp. Yang Zhihe, in Guben xiaoshuo jicheng, 2.12a, reads, “Tang Sanzang shoufu Sun Xingzhe” [Tripitaka Tang Recruits Pilgrim Sun by Subduing Him]. 26 Hou Chong and Wang Jianchuan, ed., Xiyouji xinlun ji qita [A New Study of Journey to the West and Other Issues], 21–25, 107–9. 27 Meulenbeld, Demonic Warfare, 212. 28 Ōta, Saiyūki no kenkyū, 134. 29 Hou and Wang, Xiyouji xinlun ji qita, 219–20.

Further Reading Bantly, Francisca Cho. “Buddhist Allegory in the Journey to the West.” Journal of Asian Studies 48, no. 3 (1989): 512–24. Brose, Benjamin. “Taming the Monkey: Reinterpreting the Xiyouji in the Early Twentieth Century.” Monumenta Serica 68, no. 1 (2020): 169–96. Dudbridge, Glen. “The Xiyou ji Monkey and the Fruits of the Last Ten Years.” In Books, Tales and Vernacular Culture: Selected Papers on China, edited by Glen Dudbridge, 254–74. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Lam, Ling Hon. “Allegory and the ‘World’ Formation in The Journey to the West.” In A Companion to World Literature. Vol. 2, edited by Ken Seigneurie, 1–13. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2019. Lee Fong-mao. “Guilü yu guzong: Xiyouji zhong de zhaohuan tudi” [Demon Statutes and Deliberate Unleashing: Summoning of the Earth God in the Xiyouji]. In Daojiao xiulian yu keyi de wenxue tiyan [The Literary Experience in Daoist Cultivation and Ritual], edited by Chan Wai Keung, 100–50. Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2018. Li, Qiancheng. Fiction of Enlightenment: Journey to the West, Tower of Myriad Mirrors, and Dream of the Red Chamber, 49–89. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004. Plaks, Andrew H. The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel: Ssu ta ch’i-shu, 183–276. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987. Wang, Richard G., and Dongfeng Xu. “Three Decades’ Reworking on the Monk, the Monkey, and the Fiction of Allegory.” Journal of Religion 96, no. 1 (2016): 102–21. Yu, Anthony C. Comparative Journeys: Essays on Literature and Religion East and West. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.

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53 CANONIZATION OF THE GODS Mark Meulenbeld

Although the oldest printed version of Fengshen yanyi, or Canonization of the Gods, is from the early 1620s, many of the spectacular stories of violent warfare it contains are certainly much older. The bare bones of its narrative framework can be traced back, even, to several centuries before the Common Era, with other story-lines or episodes added to it in subsequent centuries. Written in the vernacular language, which is more colloquial than the classical Chinese writing commonly used by lettered men of the late imperial age, Fengshen yanyi is rooted in the ritual environment of sacrificial ballads that would be sung in honor of the gods.1 From that perspective it belongs to the same category as some other famous vernacular narratives that were printed mostly in 100-chapter versions during the late Ming dynasty (1368–1644), such as Xiyouji (Journey to the West), which has recently been assessed for its ritual dimensions.2 Several other famous books printed during the same period, like Sanguozhi yanyi (Three Kingdoms), or Shuihuzhuan (Watermargin), can be classified in similar ways.3 All of these story-cycles, usually also narratives with a high (and repetitive) density of combat and other martial elements, existed throughout different ritual contexts in episodic formats, long before their appearance as printed books finally made them suitable for their twentieth century classification under the modern label of “novel,” narrowly speaking, or “literary fiction,” more broadly.4 Seeing as Fengshen yanyi and several of its late Ming peers all emerged from ritual contexts, their classification as literary fiction is obviously misleading. Indeed, rather than merely a matter of narrative background or environment, many—or, really, most—of the protagonists in these books were known as gods long before the books were printed. Fengshen yanyi’s main protagonists could variously be encountered as statues in temples, for example, or summoned by ritual experts to manifest their divine efficacy to battle demons causing illness. Virtually all of the martial skills recounted in these stories had long been performed in exorcist practices or other ritual methods. While literary interpretation of these phenomena is possible, such approaches may miss the mark in most cases. Today, outside of library shelves with printed editions of Fengshen yanyi, or video-game versions of it, the story-cycle and its protagonists remain most powerfully present in the many ritual spectacles that are performed on various ceremonial occasions throughout the year in village temples or other ritual settings. If anything, despite its venerable age, most of the traditional versions of the story continue to be very much alive.  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-74

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Narrative Framework, Plot, and Authorship The now common title Fengshen yanyi, best translated as Canonization of the Gods (hereafter Canonization), signals a shift from the past reference to an ancient and hallowed narrative towards the emphasis on ritual: the meaning of “canonization” (feng shen), of course, quite simply is the ritual act of bestowing divine status upon a spirit, allowing it to enter the canon of saints that would be recognized by religious institutions. For that reason, the book has sometimes been translated as The Creation of the Gods, The Investiture of the Gods, or The Enfeoffment of the Gods. One way or the other, these titles reflect the grand apotheosis of the Ming version of the narrative, when all the more than four-hundred protagonists (both “good” and “bad”) are given a divine rank and title. To say that this title signals a shift away from emphasis on ancient history is due to prior titles that many of the shorter, antecedent versions carried. In the subtitle of the Ming book, this emphasis on a hallowed episode of archaic history remains preserved, more in line with the narrative content as it has traditionally been known. That subtitle, the “Unofficial History of King Wu’s Conquest of [King] Zhòu” (Wu Wang fa Zhòu waishi) points to the particular story-cycle that serves as its narrative framework, the archaic history of the founding of the Zhou dynasty by the splendid King Wu (Wu Wang), the “Martial King,” whose reign is dated roughly to the eleventh century BCE (note: I add a diacritical sign to the word Zhòu in King Zhòu to emphasize its difference from the word for Zhou dynasty). This story is commonly told by referring to King Wu’s victory over the Shang dynasty’s last ruler, the allegedly very corrupt King Zhòu (Zhòu Wang). Therefore, the narrative framework is concisely phrased as “King Wu’s Conquest of [King] Zhòu” (Wu Wang fa Zhòu; hereafter “King Wu’s Conquest”); it was used as such in many historical records to refer to this particular historical event. To readers of the book at the time, “King Wu’s Conquest” described a formative period of Chinese history. It was repeatedly praised by China’s paragon of culture, the sage Confucius, as the beginning of a golden age of civilization. That being said, even in the antecedent versions that nominally focus on “King Wu’s Conquest,” the ritual act of canonization is central from the very inception of this narrative, and is even presented as a major driving force behind the plot at least since the fourteenth century version of the story, when it was published in vernacular format as “Plain Tale of King Wu’s Expedition against King Zhòu” (Wu Wang fa Zhòu pinghua). Starting from that time, the book was accompanied by elaborate illustrations, a sign of its absorption into commercial publishing ventures.5 The late Ming version of this history, that is, Canonization, can be summarized as follows. The last ruler of the Shang dynasty, King Zhòu, insults the great goddess Nü Wa by composing an obscene poem about her beauty. Nü Wa decides to bring King Zhòu’s reign to an end and support the founding of a new dynasty by King Wen (Wen Wang), the “Civilized King,” first, and subsequently by his son, the later King Wu. She has a new Heavenly Mandate (tianming) decreed by the Daoist council of gods, and employs the service of unruly spirits to help Kings Wen and Wu destroy the Shang dynasty by corrupting King Zhòu, and thus creating a disorderly government. Among those who bring down King Zhòu, the fox-spirit Da Ji is the main culprit, aided by a nine-headed pheasant spirit and the spirit of a jade lute.6 Note that these non-human—and thus supposedly unruly—spirits were allowed to apply the chaotic forces latent in their demonic nature for the greater good of mankind, by destabilizing the government of a supposedly incompetent ruler. The story elaborates on the historical campaign of kings Wen and Wu against the deluded and increasingly depraved King Zhòu, and the chaos that results from it. The armies of the former are under the command of the martial expert Jiang Ziya (more formally known as Tai Gong Wang, 624

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Jiang Shang, Shishangfu, and many other names), and the armies of the latter are assisted by the loyal Grand Tutor Wen Zhong. Both parties rely heavily on the assistance they get from various sides, and throughout the story, many new and awesome characters are introduced. Sometimes help comes from divine warriors known as “celestial generals,” sometimes from Daoists who possess impressive magic weapons. On many occasions even strange, supernatural creatures offer their powerful magical help to the side they want to be associated with. The list of characters who have remained famous due to their battle prowess and general magic skills is, almost literally, endless. And this volume of major and minor protagonists is exceedingly large by design. All the wars waged throughout the story are a part of the celestial plans that are to lead to the “canonization of the gods.” From the beginning, the highest Daoist deities had already composed the crucial “list of canonizations” (fengshenbang) to this effect and moreover appointed Jiang Ziya as the performer of the ritual that encompasses the investiture. Unfortunately, the sorcerer Shen Gongbao succeeds in dividing these gods-to-be into two distinct sects: one that supports the morally corrupt Shang dynasty of King Zhòu, and one that supports the future Zhou dynasty of kings Wen and Wu. Missing from among the memorable characters of the story, paradoxically, are the historical figures: the glorious kings Wen and Wu, as well as the depraved King Zhòu, only play a role to the extent that their historical actions frame the story. In terms of narrative spectacle, instead, other characters take center stage. These are the kind of figures who are usually depicted for their bravery, martial prowess, loyalty, and other virtues that traditional communities appreciate for the contributions they make to a stable society.7 A star of the earlier parts of the story is Huang Feihu, “Flying Tiger Huang,” who comes from a family of officials serving the decaying Shang dynasty. Faced with the corruption he sees at the court, he joins forces with the future founders of the Zhou dynasty, thus fighting to overthrow the monarch he once served. His battles are many and always heroic. Interestingly, outside of the narrative, Huang Feihu is known as the eminently high god called “Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak” (Dongyue Dadi), whose temples were widespread throughout the Chinese empire, functioning as a Daoist guardian of dead souls. Another famous character is Li Nezha, a warrior-god with child-like features whose complex Buddhist and Daoist roots have recently been studied in a monograph.8 The story of his birth, death, rebirth, re-death, and ultimate transformation into a military divinity is described as a separate episode within the book, spanning chapters 12–14. It offers fascinating glimpses of traditional family relationships, in that—even though he is depicted as a well-meaning figure—Li Nezha is born with an extremely unruly and powerful nature, constantly transgressing social norms, and ultimately trying to avoid having his parents come to harm by committing suicide in order to sever his family ties—and thus take all guilt and responsibility onto himself. After his reincarnation as a god (under the tutelage of a Daoist master), his contributions to the victory of the Zhou claimants are colossal. Today he is still a prominent presence in the world of popular religion and nowadays continues to be “one of the most commonly met among the gods who possess [spirit-] mediums” in Taiwan.9 Jiang Ziya, the martial expert, is another brand name from Canonization. Of all the historical characters, his role as a military strategist is by far the most important. Like Huang Feihu, the generalissimo Jiang Ziya’s powers were originally dedicated to the service of King Zhòu, yet he defected to the side of the future Zhou founders. The list of his victorious battles is endless, engaging other famous characters like the cunning enemy Grand Tutor Wen Zhong, who is the commander over the warriors who would later be canonized as Thunder Gods (Leishen). Throughout the late imperial age, paper prints with Jiang Ziya’s outline were among the most common 625

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demonifuge objects that one would encounter in people’s households, usually pasted on a wall or a door and giving a warning to possible intruders: “Grand Sire Jiang is here!” Many other characters from Canonization are famous for their tremendous spiritual powers (“magic”), like Yang Jian (sometimes identified as the god of theatre) and his celestial dog, or their opponent Lü Yue, canonized in the book—and known from popular religion—as a plague god (Wenshen). Memorable are also some of the rare female characters, such as the Ladies of the Three Empyreans (Sanxiao niangniang), who are canonized as goddesses responsible for the reincarnation of human souls. Needless to say, even these three lofty ladies get involved in the military conquest of kings Wen and Wu against King Zhòu. Indeed, hardly any of the almost four hundred characters presented in this book is able to steer clear of violence. The fierce and cruel battles that these heroes on both sides must fight out before the conflict can be brought to a conclusion are always resolved through the use of “magic” weapons. With a bewildering display of exorcist rituals, martial arts, and military strategies based upon metaphysics, the Heavenly Mandate is finally brought into effect at the predicted time. The great apotheosis consists of the promotion into heavenly ranks of all those poor souls who fought on either side and sacrificed their lives for the establishment of a new order. Their names all are registered on the list of canonizations. It is this last, grand act of the book that has provided the Ming dynasty title, Canonization of the Gods. Neither authorship of Canonization nor the exact publication date has been incontrovertibly determined. The edition of the Sixue caotang publishing house managed by Chu Renhuo (1635– ca. 1719) has become the standard for all modern reprints. This edition of 1695 is based upon a slightly different edition by Shu Zaiyang, traditionally dated to around 1620, which seems to be the earliest extant edition. At the beginning of the second fascicle of this edition is inscribed: “Edited by Xu Zhonglin, the Old Hermit of Mount Zhong.” Some scholars, most notably the founding father of modern Chinese literature, Lu Xun (1881–1936), have taken this as conclusive evidence for an attribution of Canonization’s authorship to Xu Zhonglin.10 Others, such as Liu Ts’un-yen, later found indications in sources other than the book itself that the author is a certain Lu Xixing, a Daoist priest of the Jiajing period (1522–1566) who wrote approximately ten other books on Daoist and Buddhist subjects.11 Although Liu Ts’un-yen’s thesis that Lu Xixing is the author has been most influential, the PRC scholar Zhang Peiheng points out that the evidence Liu found for this attribution is very flimsy, if not downright fanciful.12 In his introduction to the 1991 reprint of Canonization, he argues rather convincingly that the earliest edition must be dated to 1624 or 1625.13 We must conclude that the concepts of authorship or of first edition are not so meaningful. In Shu Zaiyang’s edition, Xu Zhonglin is not credited as the author, but as the one who “edited” or “compiled” the story (bianji). This appears to have been common in other novels from the same period: Three Kingdoms is “edited” (bianci) by its putative author Luo Guanzhong in 1522, and Journey to the West is “arranged” (jiao) by a “Master of the Cavern-Realm of Huayang” in 1592, and so on. In the end, this type of Ming novels are collections of local, sacred histories compiled by literati authors. Much of the narrative material that constitutes the story already existed in dramatic versions before the printing of the novel.

Ritual Roots and Contexts The protagonists of Canonization who are promoted to various divisions of a vast pantheon at the end of the book are presented in a way that makes them look like they belong to the category of spiritual beings called “orphan spirits” (guhun). These are the souls of prematurely deceased human beings who keep roaming the world of the living, as demonic entities. They fight violently, 626

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they die violently, and therefore their souls find no way of peacefully dissolving into the anonymity of ancestral worship. That is because common Chinese theology holds that a soul who has suffered premature death will be barred from absorption into the sacrificial rituals of the unblemished cult to deceased ancestors, as it used to be painstakingly maintained by all families and larger lineages. Hence, the term “orphan spirits,” literally, describes prematurely deceased souls without a family. Subsequently, these hapless spirits would have to extort the living in an attempt to find food in the form of sacrifices of meat, and shelter in the form of a shrine—an unpleasant habit of bitter blackmailing that earned such spirits the status of “demons.” Only if they were to undergo a ritual process of transformation could they be appeased. This is exactly what the book Canonization offers. These souls’ inclusion into the pantheons listed in Canonization stands in stark contrast to some of the highest celestial gods, including several Buddhas and bodhisattvas, the Daoist Three Pure Ones (San Qing), and Lao Zi, all of whom play a part in the drama. For these exalted beings there is no violent death in the story, and the path towards canonization is not for them. The canonization described in this late Ming novel pointedly refers to promotion only of those miserable phantoms who are abandoned by society: orphan spirits. It is precisely around the ritual procedures for controlling these nefarious spirits that the narrative fabric of “King Wu’s Conquest” is woven. This simple fact relates Canonization to a massive corpus of ritual theory, ritual texts, and ritual practices that are embodied by the pantheons listed in the novel. A few more words about those ritual transformations are needed. Canonization is itself not a ritual text, but it certainly represents what might be termed paraliturgy. That is, it is based upon and refers itself to the facts of ritual. As regards the hundreds of demonic spirits that are transformed (really: “canonized”) as gods in distinct pantheons at the end of the story, outside of the story of Canonization, in the actual world of ritual practice, they are almost all commonly invoked in distinct forms of martial ritual that can be historically specified and geographically located. In fact, they all started out among communities of worshipers who venerated them as local gods in their home region, using their powers to ward off external threats. From the perspective of organized religious institutions in traditional China, be they Daoist, Buddhist, or Confucian, virtually all of these powerful local gods have died violently or operate violently; therefore, they are potentially dangerous and must remain under tight (ritual) control. Their canonization by Daoist authority thus represents their pacification within an orderly environment, just as the word for canonization, feng 封, also means to “enclose” or to “contain.” Thus, the canonization of some violent entity as a god is, at the same time, the spirit’s containment within a bond of ritual obligation. Only after such a bond is established can dangerous spirits be offered a meritorious path to higher spheres through the ritual service of Daoists. The victories these spirits may attain over other noxious spirits, carried out for Daoist exorcists, indicate a willingness to serve the greater good and a capacity for self-reform. This, then, may lead toward further celestial promotions. In that sense, this book can best be understood side by side with the principles of the Daoist liturgical order. The pantheons constructed in Canonization not only exist outside the novel, they existed long before it. The oldest of those pantheons is that of the Five Quadrants (Wufang), corresponding to the cardinal directions (north, east, south, west) and the center, commonly known as the pentad of Five Emperors. This configuration of five gods is addressed in the basic narrative framework from its inception.14 Before discussing this, however, it needs to be stated that the story in its latest iteration as a famous book of the Ming dynasty also narrates the canonization of many other pantheons, some as concise as the five gods established in the Five Quadrants, others containing configurations such as twenty-four, thirty-six, or seventy-two gods. The latter two, larger pantheons 627

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in Canonization are astral gods (star-deities), some benevolent, others dangerous, and both groups are also canonized in a different narrative from the late Ming, the famous book Watermargin (Shuihuzhuan). Of the other pantheons, the twenty-four exorcist gods of the Thunder Division (Leibu) are probably the best known. Yet, at the archaic core of the story stand the Five Quadrants and their five deities—the “Five Emperors,” or “Five Marshals,” and so on. The classical source for Confucian ritual, the Ritual Records (Liji; Western Han, 206 BCE–9 CE), includes a passage that narrates the very first ritual acts of King Wu, the Martial King, upon conquering the Shang dynasty—here referred to as Yin. It presents the foundation of the new order of the Zhou dynasty as an act that perpetuates the sacrificial offerings to the royal cults of empires long gone, and authorizes even the sacrificial cult to the conquered Shang dynasty of the barbarous King Zhòu. From the beginning, the number of canonized sacrificial cults is five: When King Wu had subdued the house of Yin to topple the Shang dynasty, he had not yet even descended from his chariot, when he was already canonized in (1) the royal cult of the Yellow Emperor at Ji, canonized (2) in the royal cult of Emperor Yao at Zhu, and canonized (3) in the royal cult of Shun at Chen. After he alighted from his chariot, he was canonized (4) in the royal cult of the Xia dynasty at Qi, and established (5) the royal cult for the house of Yin [Shang] at Song. While King Wu first canonizes the most divine of emperors, the Yellow Emperor (Huang Di), this act of canonizing the ancient powers of vanquished kingdoms thus extends even to those powers that originally opposed the new dynastic claimant, the royal cult of Yin. In this narrative King Wu consecrates a total of five ancient emperors, which is a configuration highlighted more explicitly in later versions. In that respect it is important to note that elsewhere in the Ritual Records a more general scheme is presented in which the Middle Kingdom is surrounded at four sides by four different barbarian peoples that each have their “settlement” (anju). From the perspective of the Middle Kingdom, this grid of Five Quadrants with the homeland in the center is exactly what constitutes order. A crucial role in this order is played by different sets of five emperors. Indeed, other sources suggest that an empire can be settled peacefully when its ritual foundation is organized around five divine emperors representing the Five Quadrants. The Histories of the Han (Hanshu; first and second centuries CE) articulate the imperial ritual for establishing dynastic order as a “Grand Rite for installing Heaven and Earth.” In it, the emperor goes to the suburban sacrificial site (jiao) where the “Emperors of the Five Quadrants” (Wufang zhi Di) are arrayed according to the respective colors of the Quadrants to which they belong: Azure (east), Vermilion (south), White (west), Yellow (center), and Black (north). Each receives a sacrificial offering. However, the Five Emperors do not represent the theological pinnacle of Han theology; they merely represent the terrestrial realm and its spirits. A higher divinity lords over them, the Grand Monad (Tai Yi), a high god whose exact role is still not entirely determined. Elsewhere in the Histories of the Han, these same Five Emperors are said to have shrines that are laid out in a circle below the altar of the Grand Monad, literally embodying the lower position of the Five Emperors as a group beneath the Grand Monad. This type of relationship is typical of the dialectic between local soil and higher authorities. As scholars have argued, the Grand Monad constitutes a cosmic divinity whose cult was largely conceived by the keepers of occult lore known as fangshi. These fangshi—commonly translated as “recipe gentlemen”—were engaged in an endeavor to explain local cults within their own religious conceptualizations. That is to say, the spiritual presences 628

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of localities were explained as coherent with the theology of the Grand Monad that the fangshi revered as ultimate source of power. This presages the kind of integrative vision that is known from Canonization and its antecedent versions since the thirteenth century. The previous passage from the Ritual Records is not the only early record of King Wu’s canonization of the sacrificial cult to a group of five ancient emperors. Other versions similarly have King Wu carry out canonizations of exactly five ancient rulers. The Records of the Former Han (Qian Han ji) by Xun Yue (Eastern Han, 25–220 CE), in fact, suggest that the number five is by no means a coincidence, and that by the second century CE this narrative of dynastic conquest is already associated with canonization of a fixed set of sacrificial cults that may be referred to as the “Five Emperors” (Wu Di): After, in ancient times, King Wu had conquered King Zhòu, he had not yet even descended from his chariot before he maintained the ancestral cult of the Five Emperors. In this terse passage, King Wu is not said to “canonize” the Five Emperors, but to “preserve” or “maintain” their ancestral cult. What is made explicit here, then, is the extraordinary fact that the conqueror does not obliterate the divine order of the defeated dynasty. Whatever new beliefs the new order brings along, the old ones are preserved by the new ruler himself. Canonized as Five Emperors, they protect the territory of the community whose sacrifices they receive.

Ritual Manifestations Beyond the Five Emperors, the extraordinary wealth of gods canonized in Canonization can somehow all be also contained in the archaic framework of “King Wu’s Conquest of King Zhòu.” This, in itself, should be seen as a token of both its general, ritual significance as well as its primary function. Consistent with such ritual dimensions, recent fieldwork in southern China, such as in Hunan province, or Guangdong, makes it crystal clear that the framework has been used for several ritual purposes: (1) to establish the authoritative status of certain local saints in the context of the broader religious landscape of China; (2) to elucidate for lay-people (outsiders) the logic of certain rituals that individual households or larger communities may commission; (3) the bona-fide configuration of pantheons as they are recognized throughout broad swaths of China; (4) to explain the trajectory for a deceased spirit towards a peaceful place in the broader repertoire of processes that need to be dealt with in the afterlife.15 This last point has already been explained, previously, regarding the issue of orphan spirits. Although there still remains a lot of research to be done on this topic, it would seem that the first of these purposes is the most commonly encountered. That is to say, the framework of Canonization is connected to local gods, whose histories or hagiographies are made to interact with the more famous historical episode of the founding of the Zhou dynasty. In doing so, their marginal status of local saint is depicted against a more hallowed background, thus enhancing their authority as a god with appeal beyond the narrow limits of individual communities or remote regions. In some cases, the gods elevated by the narrative of Canonization may be of complex origin, such as the fierce child-god Li Nezha, who is of clear Buddhist origin,16 yet promoted under Daoist tutelage and best known as a “Prime Marshal of the Five Garrisons” (Wuying Yuanshuai). Indeed, this god forms a clear continuity with the theme of the ancient narratives of the Five Quadrants. One pointed example of this elevating of local gods has a double narrative connection. Among the towns and villages of northern and central Hunan province, the framework of Canonization is used to lodge the sacred beings associated with another (much shorter) narrative tradition, that of 629

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the fisherman who happens upon the grotto of the Peach Blossom Spring (Taohuayuan). This tradition itself refers to a sacred site with the same name, Peach Spring Grotto (Taoyuandong), located in the region that is specified in the classical tale about Peach Spring Grotto (the old prefecture of Wuling, today called Changde). It consists of a more or less standardized set of rituals for the installation of ceremonial jars that function as miniature Peach Spring Grottoes, inhabited by hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of female immortals who are thought to have an impact on local agriculture, economic fortunes, and the flourishing of lineages. Among them, prominently, are the Ladies of the Three Empyreans.17 If the Peach Spring Grotto narrative revolves around the sacred site, the Canonization narrative is useful for its usual framework of lending the grandeur of archaic precedent to the status of local gods. Ritual manuals that are still used by Daoist (and other) ritualists in Hunan province today, contain ballads that narrate how the Immortal Ladies of Peach Spring—again, including the Ladies of the Three Empyreans—were imprisoned in the palace of King Zhòu, the last ruler of the Shang. This is not an episode contained in Canonization, although the release of the Ladies by a Daoist exorcist is similar to narrative episodes in the Ming book. Similarly, the figure in Canonization whose battle against King Zhòu should attract most interest is Yin Jiao (indeed, he is named after the suburban sacrificial site of the Yin dynasty, also offering a link to the Five Quadrants)—because in the story he is the oldest son of the King, while in Daoist ritual he is a fierce astral deity with various military decorations and relevant titles to corroborate his martial prowess, such as “Marshal Yin” (Yin Yuanshuai). In the Ming version, but also in its narrative antecedents from as early as the twelfth century, this figure is known in his ritual identity as the God of the Year Star (Taishuishen; the Chinese equivalent of Jupiter). Yin Jiao—as a martial divinity under Daoist tutelage—can be encountered as an altar guardian or an exorcist god in Daoist rituals throughout most parts of China.18 Lay-people literally face episodes from Canonization when they enter the Daoist ritual space. Commonly painted on eight paper panels strung together with a single cord, familiar scenes from the story are hung above the entrance to the altar Daoists set up in households where their services are requested.19 It is consistent with other sets of eight paintings also hung above the entrance to the ritual space, such as that of the Eight Immortals, or a set of eight scenes from other Ming novels. Possibly similar in function to the short ritual playlets about the Eight Immortals that are often performed ahead of longer and more complicated theatrical performances (which themselves were overwhelmingly performed for narrowly ritual or otherwise ceremonial occasions), to demarcate a space for the hallowed presences of gods and beings of transcendent realms. Oftentimes the narrative ballads that are incorporated into Daoist ceremonies will provide spectacular accounts of the miraculous efficacy of the gods who are involved in the ritual procedures. Figures such as the aforementioned Yin Jiao, as well as dozens of other gods one can find across temples, rituals, and Canonization episodes, are sung about by the ritualists who invoke their powers. In doing so, the framework of Canonization lends itself to the dual purpose of promoting the efficacy certain gods are said to have, as well as explain the heroic deeds of the gods when they are “at work,” battling invisible demons who cause diseases, droughts, or other misfortunes. Unlike our modern idea of how we imagine there to be more or less standardized pantheons in ancient civilizations, such as “the pantheon of ancient Greece” or that of Egypt, no single iteration of the Chinese pantheon can be determined as final and authoritative. Different times had different pantheons, but even more importantly, different regions had different religious traditions and different local gods—each resulting in a different pantheon. Within that variegated landscape, Daoist ritualists (as well as Buddhist and Confucian clerics) over time developed increasingly 630

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standardized pantheons with gods they considered important. It is in this area that Canonization clearly played a public role, offering an informative as well as formative service. Among the most important pantheons canonized in Canonization, the Thunder Division is probably to be ranked first. This is in part because there seems to exist no Daoist tradition of ritual that does not invoke a fair number of these gods to serve as altar guardians, exorcists, or otherwise powerful aides in the execution of ritual services. Sometimes these pantheons could be limited to a small platoon of four gods, other traditions might invoke eight, twelve, or multiples of this. But the roll call of these gods would overwhelmingly be consistent with configurations of pantheons in Daoist ritual, even down to the typical sequence of the names of the divine officers. The first four names would be Marshals (or Generals) surnamed Deng, Xin, Zhang, and Tao. The second quartet of surnames usually would follow as Pang, Liu, Gou, and Bi. Canonization’s list of Thunder Marshals contains twenty-four gods, a bit less than the common trope of the “Thirty-Six Marshals of the Thunder Division” that will ring a bell among readers of traditional literature and afficionados of Daoist ritual alike. But, in reality, most people would know only the first four to eight names, perhaps the first dozen. Beyond that, while Canonization offers its own version, even Daoist ritualists would present their own versions of quartets with surnames. In conclusion, Canonization of the Gods is inextricably tied to the rituals it explains in such spectacular fashion. The ritual theme of “canonization” has been in focus since the time of this narrative’s inception, and has grown more elaborate over time. The pantheons it promotes towards the end of the book are consistent with the standardized pantheons in use by Daoist ritualists and other religious experts. Whether entering a ritual space or a popular temple, chances are high that one would encounter scenes from Canonization or of the gods it canonizes. Compared to the domain of literary fiction, where the book has been categorized since the twentieth century, Canonization’s homeland of ritual and other religious phenomena decidedly is one where the stakes are high and the spectacle is great.

Notes 1 Mark Meulenbeld, Demonic Warfare: Daoism, Territorial Networks, and the History of a Ming Novel (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015). 2 Benjamin Brose, “Taming the Monkey: Reinterpreting the Xiyou ji in the Early Twentieth Century,” Monumenta Serica 68 (2020): 169–96. 3 Mark Meulenbeld, “Vernacular ‘Fiction’ and Celestial Script: A Daoist Manual for the Use of Water Margin,” Religions 10, no. 9 (2019). 4 Glen Dudbridge, The Hsi-yu Chi: A Study of Antecedents to the Sixteenth Century Chinese Novel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). 5 Robert Hegel, Reading Illustrated Fiction in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); Lucille Chia, Printing for Profit: The Commercial Publishers of Jianyang, Fujian (11th to 17th Centuries) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002). 6 For a relevant take on fox-spirits, see Rania Huntington, Alien Kind: Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004). 7 To understand the “use” for characters known from novels within traditional communities, see Avron Boretz, Gods, Ghosts, and Gangsters: Ritual Violence, Martial Arts, and Masculinity on the Margins of Society (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011). 8 Meir Shahar, Oedipal God: The Chinese Nezha and His Indian Origins (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015). 9 David K. Jordan, Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors: Folk Religion in a Taiwanese Village (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 71, n.15. 10 Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilüe (Shanghai: Beixin, 1936). 11 Ts’un-yen Liu, Buddhist and Taoist Influences on Chinese Novels (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1962). 12 Zhang Peiheng, “Fengshen yanyi zuozhe bukao” [Further Research on the Author of Canonization of the Gods], Fudan xuebao (1992): 90–98.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 13 Zhang Peiheng, Fengshen yanyi: Xin zhengli ben [Canonization of the Gods: A Newly Revised Edition] (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji, 1991). 14 For a more extensive analysis of Fengshen yanyi’s antecedents in ritual narratives, see Meulenbeld, Demonic Warfare. 15 For a broad range of perspectives on these issues, see Meulenbeld, Demonic Warfare), and David Mozina, Knotting the Banner: Ritual and Relationship in Daoist Practice (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2021). 16 Shahar, Oedipal God. 17 See Mark Meulenbeld, The Presence of Peach Spring: Daoism and Local Cults in Hunan, forthcoming. 18 See Meulenbeld, Demonic Warfare, and Mozina, Knotting the Banner. 19 Mark Meulenbeld, “The Dark Emperor’s Law: A Daoist Temple and Its Codification of Rituals in Hunan,” Studies in Chinese Religions 4, no. 1 (2018): 66–111.

Further Reading Brose, Benjamin. “Taming the Monkey: Reinterpreting the Xiyou ji in the Early Twentieth Century.” Monumenta Serica 68 (2020): 169–96. Dudbridge, Glen. The Hsi-yu Chi: A Study of Antecedents to the Sixteenth Century Chinese Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. Huntington, Rania. Alien Kind: Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004. Meulenbeld, Mark. Demonic Warfare: Daoism, Territorial Networks, and the History of a Ming Novel. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015. Shahar, Meir. Oedipal God: The Chinese Nezha and His Indian Origins. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015. Zhang Peiheng. “Fengshen yanyi zuozhe bukao” [Further Research on the Author of Canonization of the Gods]. Fudan xuebao (1992): 90–98.

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SECTION XVIII

Novels of Manners and Social Satire

54 THE PLUM IN THE GOLDEN VASE Andrew Schonebaum

The Plum in the Golden Vase (Jin Ping Mei), also known as The Golden Lotus, is widely regarded as a breakthrough for the traditional Chinese novel. Believed to have first been published between 1617 and 1618, it was the first novel in the Chinese tradition that did not rely on an extant body of folklore, as did earlier novels like Outlaws of the Marsh, also known as Water Margin; Romance of the Three Kingdoms; and Journey to the West, known also as Monkey. Plum was one of the first, possibly the first, long work of Chinese fiction to be written by a single (anonymous, unidentified) author, who employed complex structural features to an unprecedented degree. This “authored” quality—by which I mean Plum’s conspicuous constructedness—is apparent in many of the novel’s features but especially in its embeddedness in an elaborate textual world. Most of the novel takes place inside another novel—Outlaws of the Marsh. The illicit relations between Pan Jinlian (Pan Chin-lien) and Ximen Qing (Hsi-men Ch’ing), their murder of Jinlian’s husband, and the subsequent revenge taken by the dead man’s brother, Wu Song (Wu Sung), are told in chapters 23–27 of the hundred-chapter Outlaws of the Marsh. Plum begins with this story (chs. 1–9) but delays Wu Song’s revenge, telling in its own hundred-chapter story of the rise and fall of Ximen Qing, his career and exploits, and the many wives, concubines, and servants in his household. While Plum self-consciously inserts itself into an earlier work, it also makes ingenious use of practically the entire range of texts of the late Ming dynasty (1369–1644): vernacular stories, erotic fiction, histories, dramas, popular songs, jokes, prosimetric narratives (i.e., narratives made up of prose and verse), and works far outside the boundaries of the literary, such as medical works, gazetteers, contracts, and daily-use encyclopedias. These texts are deployed in many ways but almost always with precision, and often with irony. That Plum was written by a single author also enables it to have a detailed and highly structured plot. This structure is perhaps Plum’s most significant innovation. Every chapter contains two main events, which thematically contrast with each other. These events are often referred to in separate halves of the couplets that begin each chapter. Every ten chapters cover one major plot development, such as Pan Jinlian’s entry into Ximen Qing’s household, followed in the next ten chapters by the entrance of Li Ping’er (Li P’ing-erh). The penultimate ten chapters deal with the dissolution of Ximen’s household after his death, and the final ten chapters reveal the fates of the remaining characters. The original title, Jin Ping Mei cihua, works on several levels. It includes parts of the names of three main female characters, Pan Jinlian (“Golden Lotus”), Li Ping’er (“Vase”), and Pang  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-76

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Chunmei (Pang Ch’un-mei, “Spring Plum”). If Plum is a story that highlights the arcs of these three characters, among many others, and the significance of characters’ deaths, then the title gives the sense that this novel is ultimately about taboo violation, excess, and retribution for misdeeds: Jin Ping Mei sounds, homophonously, like “money, (wine) bottle, and beauty,” three of the obsessions and excesses that lead to Ximen Qing’s ruin. The title also puns with three near homophones, sounding like “the glory of entering the vagina,” making explicit the symbolism inherent in a literal reading of the title as “The Plum in the Golden Vase.” There is much more to the novel than the sexual escapades of Ximen Qing and three of the many women in his life, however, and this is gestured at by the addition to the original title of the generic term cihua, meaning approximately “a ballad tale” or “chantefable” that celebrates the inclusion of many poems and songs and the novel’s resulting philosophical and narrative complexity.1

Contents The Plum in the Golden Vase is the first Chinese novel to focus on the domestic sphere and the mundane details of daily, albeit elite, life. Together with The Story of the Stone (Honglou meng), Plum is the greatest of the premodern Chinese novels. Plum’s story centers on the rich merchant Ximen Qing, the many characters who populate his household, and the many others who are employed by it, have business with it, or are menaced by it. The novel describes in lavish detail the physical surroundings and material objects of the household and its denizens while also relating the interactions of its cast of characters with an unprecedented degree of psychological and emotional realism. Indeed, [t]his image of a family in which the many wives squabble over the unavailable husband, each attempting to gain the upper hand in the household, as the procreative energies of all are squandered on sensuality rather than being engaged in the production of children, became emblematic of late imperial decadence in the eyes of many modern writers. But this impression owes everything to The Plum in the Golden Vase.2 The first twenty chapters of Plum describe the formation of the Ximen household as the novel’s major characters are gathered. The cast of characters comprises Ximen Qing and his wives— his principal wife, Wu Yueniang (Wu Yüeh-niang); Pan Jinlian; Li Ping’er; Meng Yulou (Meng Yü-lou); a former prostitute named Li Jiao’er (Li Chao-erh); and Sun Xue’e (Sun Hsüeh-o), a former maid of his deceased first wife. In addition to the wives are the many maids, servants, and locals, the most important of whom are Pang Chunmei, Pan Jinlian’s maid and coconspirator; Li Guijie (Li Kuei-chieh), Ximen’s current favorite prostitute; and the coterie of sycophants Ximen Qing surrounds himself with. The following sixty chapters, culminating in Ximen Qing’s death (ch. 79), are concerned with intrigues, jealousies, and power struggles within and beyond his household. Information about other characters—what they say and do—is an important source of power in the Ximen household for those who do not have access to regular sources of power but who are good at manipulating such information—for instance, Jinlian. Hence, what may seem like casual indelicacies of voyeurism, eavesdropping, and gossip rise to the level of information and influence—power—often wielded in an indelicate or nearsighted manner. Li Ping’er emerges as Ximen Qing’s favorite wife, especially after she gives birth to his first son (ch. 30), named Guan’ge (Kuan-ko), because Ximen Qing had recently bribed his way into office (guan). Consumed by jealousy, Pan Jinlian brings about the death of Guan’ge (ch. 59). Li Ping’er dies of grief 636

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and a mysterious female ailment brought on by sexual transgressions and the avenging ghost of her first husband (ch. 62). Ximen Qing’s own rise and fall is told in these middle sixty chapters. He becomes rich as a merchant and uses that wealth to secure for himself an official career, accepting and offering bribes to gain power and influence. Midway through the book, he escapes punishment despite indictment by Zeng Xiaoxu (Tseng Hsiao-hsü), the only righteous official in the entire novel (ch. 48), and in the following chapter receives a mysterious aphrodisiac from an Indian monk, who is described as the personification of a penis. The structure of the novel thus reiterates the intertwining of sex, money, and power—public and private economies. Ximen’s increased power and wealth is matched by increasing numbers of sexual encounters—with his male and female servants, with the wives of his servants, and with underlings, prostitutes, Guan’ge’s wet nurse, and the widow of an official. He dies after Jinlian gives him an overdose of the Indian monk’s aphrodisiac and engages him in a rigorous sexual encounter. This death is ostensibly from exhaustion and depletion, but it is also a form of retribution, of demon haunting, and the result of mismanagement of bodily resources.3 At the moment of Ximen’s death, Wu Yueniang gives birth to a son, Xiaoge (Hsiao-ko; literally, “Filial Brother”). In the last twenty chapters, Ximen Qing’s household disintegrates, and the tone of the narrative becomes more hurried and sensational. Jinlian and Chen Jingji (Ch’en Ching-chi), Ximen Qing’s son-in-law, consummate their long-running adulterous flirtation, and Chunmei joins them as a third partner. All three are evicted or sold when Yueniang discovers the affair. Wu Song finally catches up with Jinlian and exacts his revenge (ch. 87). Except for Yueniang, who remains as ineffective head of household, all Ximen’s wives leave: Li Jiao’er returns to her former brothel, Meng Yulou remarries, and Sun Xue’e runs off with a former servant. Former employees compete to pilfer from Ximen’s estate. Chunmei is the only one whose fortune rises, albeit only briefly, after the fall of Ximen’s house. She eventually becomes the primary wife of a military official. Chunmei hires Chen Jingji, who has fallen into poverty, and resumes her relationship with him. Both come to a disgraceful end, however: Chen is murdered, and Chunmei dies of sexual excess and depletion. In chapter 100, the invading Jin army brings about the collapse of the Song dynasty. Wu Yueniang and the fifteen-year-old Xiaoge seek refuge in a Buddhist temple. The Buddhist monk there performs sacrifices for the dead, and the novel’s dead characters appear, each explaining the significance of their death and the karmic justice of their rebirth. The monk convinces Yueniang that Xiaoge is Ximen Qing’s reincarnation, and she allows Xiaoge to become the monk’s disciple. The book thus concludes with the destruction of Ximen’s biological line and the takeover of his household by a posthumously adopted heir—a terrible Confucian fate—and, at the same time, with the vision of Buddhist salvation. Plum has been controversial from the first due to its explicit sexual descriptions. It was banned as pornography during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), and until recently only expurgated editions were available. In this work of approximately one million words, however, the proportion of sexually explicit passages is insignificant, especially when compared with many late Ming works of erotic literature. Prefaces to most editions of Plum defend the novel against accusations of licentiousness on the grounds that characters who indulge themselves to such a degree should arouse in the reader feelings of aversion rather than desire. While some critics consider the novel’s explicit sexual descriptions titillating spectacle, others see in them critical gestures and moral seriousness. Some praise such passages as key to the book’s project of unflinching realism, others examine ironic disjunctions as signs of moral judgment, and some note the subversive potential of such passages in undermining conceptions of order and authority. These passages are frequently unoriginal, since many use clichés common to late Ming erotic literature. The second half of Plum, 637

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however—with its dark accounts of perversions, its turn from playful sex to mechanical, violent, and purely manipulative sex, often involving pain and humiliation—stakes out new territory. Late imperial erotic literature is rife with poetic justice and moral exhortations, but Plum is unique in linking desire and death in the most graphic and gruesome manner. Stanley Fish’s Surprised by Sin—which argues that John Milton’s Paradise Lost purposefully seduces the reader into at least partially identifying with Satan and then makes the reader’s susceptibility to this seduction apparent—is a useful analogue to what happens with Ximen Qing and the reader in Plum.4 The sex and corruption featured in Plum function, at least in part, as a form of social and political critique. The traditional, Confucian idea of the family in premodern China as the cornerstone of social order implicated politics. Family and state, both of which were hierarchical and patriarchal, mirrored each other. At the same time, the polity was made up of and sustained by families. The selfishness, overindulgence, and taboo violation of the Ximen family has been thought to stand in for the immorality of the late Ming Wanli court, and Ximen Qing and his conniving wives thought to represent the emperor and his bickering ministers. Or perhaps it is the Ximen family’s depravity, and that of other families like theirs all over the empire, that is the ultimate cause of the dynastic fall depicted at the end of the novel. Nearly everything a person could buy in a prosperous late Ming town is described in Plum: clothing, food, art, handicrafts, medicine, games, money. The novel’s whole focus is on urban life. All traces of rural life—which, in traditional Confucian thought, was the moral foundation of society—are conspicuously absent. The world of civil examinations and officialdom is similarly relegated to the margins. The almost complete lack of moral behavior by Plum’s characters has led some critics to believe, despite the novel’s pervasive realism, that Plum has an uncompromising moral vision, aligned with that of the philosopher Xunzi (third century BCE), that human nature is evil and can be redeemed only through moral transformation. That vision is challenged by the complicated end of the novel in which all the most transgressive characters are redeemed and reincarnated at the hands of a sympathetic Buddhist monk.

A Dirty Book? The Plum in the Golden Vase has been known as one of the four great masterworks of Ming dynasty fiction (si da qishu) since at least the seventeenth century, but it is also just as, if not more, famous for its reputation as a dirty book (yinshu). The novel occupies a complicated status as a masterwork and an obscene book, one that assembles practically all Ming dynasty literature into an intricate pastiche of quotations and references. It is also one of the earliest books to deal largely with the lives, pressures upon, and motivations of women. Prefaces to the earliest known printed editions (1618) and many subsequent editions insist on the virtues of the book, positing that only the most obtuse readers call the book a work of pornography because they read only the sex scenes. A prefatory essay by the commentator Zhang Zhupo (1670–1698), titled “On the First Book of Genius Not Being a Debauched Book” (“Diyi caizi shu fei yinshu lun”), defends the novel against accusations of pornography. As Zhang maintains, “Those who see the debauched are themselves debauched” (my trans; ZZP 1a–2b). As early as 1590, leading writers of the day read the novel in manuscript, sharing it with one another, savoring its vivid descriptions, its nuanced representations of social interactions and the practices of daily life. They marveled at its intricate plots and structure, and they commented on its biting indictment of the immorality and banality of the age. It was not lost on them that the Song dynasty setting— which enabled comparisons of Ximen Qing (Hsi-men Ch’ing) and his six wives to Emperor Huizong and his six evil ministers, who were traditionally blamed for the fall of the Northern Song 638

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dynasty—was a surrogate for the contemporary Ming court and its feckless emperor, scheming ministers, and corrupt eunuchs. Plum’s fame as a dirty book has been downplayed at times and foregrounded at others, but this fame has never disappeared altogether. Its reputation as pornography has had as much of an impact on its renown as have its literary achievements. There has been a renaissance of scholarly work on Plum in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) now that unexpurgated editions are available online, though hard copies are still hard to come by.5 University librarians in the United States have told me that they used to have a hard time keeping uncensored editions from being stolen. In past decades, students in the PRC with editions that note exactly how many characters have been deleted from a particular passage attempted to guess exactly which words were deleted, and I’ve heard claims that lists of just those characters expunged from a popular edition circulated, which meant that readers could complete their censored copies. The demand for the complete novel has led to numerous crackdowns ever since the 1980s, when Plum could be printed in abridged and officials-only editions. In 2016 a Beijing man was fined ten thousand yuan, or about two years’ salary, for privately printing an unredacted version of the novel without a license,6 a mere slap on the wrist compared to Wan Jianquo’s 1993 sentence of four years in a Hebei jail for publishing sixty thousand copies.7 All other masterworks of Chinese fiction—Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Outlaws of the Marsh, The Story of the Stone, and so on—have been made into television miniseries, but not Plum.8 That Plum is an object of both fascination and contestation, a masterwork notorious for its popular iterations, is testified to by such endeavors as the failed Jin Ping Mei Park in Xixinan Village in Huangshan, Anhui, a project that cost twenty million yuan and that sought to draw tourists to what it claims to be the setting of the novel and to the historical home of the salt merchant Wu Tianxing, who was supposedly the model for Ximen Qing.9 The failure of the park may be tied to failures of similar ventures associated with sex such as Love Land in Chongqing, shut down by local officials before it opened in 2009, as much as to the implausibility of constructing ruins in Anhui from a fictional novel that does not mention Anhui.10 While Plum has frequently been banned or censored throughout the last century, purportedly because of its licentiousness, it is just as likely that sensitivities are provoked by its representation of official corruption at every level. Predictably, banning and censoring Plum has done only so much to curtail its consumption. In July 2013, for instance, a technician carrying out maintenance on a digital advertising sign near a train station in Jilin did not realize that the huge screen was still connected to his computer, which displayed images to hundreds of viewers on the street while he watched the banned erotic film New “Plum in the Golden Vase” (Xin Jin Ping Mei) from his room that evening.11 Others presumably had similar ease of access to proscribed Plum iterations. As a commodity Plum reveals a world of unofficial networks and subcultures in modern China, but it also has a storied history of consumption around the world. The dual reality of Plum’s status as erotic literature and masterwork gave its licentious aspects gravitas and its masterwork status popular appeal. Plum was read in Korea, Vietnam, and Japan in its original Chinese by the educated elite only decades after its initial publication, but it was only at somewhat random moments in modern history that it was translated into the national languages of those East Asian countries.

Acceptance and Influences Plum is rightly compared to The Story of the Stone, the other major masterwork of Chinese fiction in the premodern period, but their popular versions contrast markedly: while Stone is perceived as the embodiment of the height of Chinese culture, Plum is seen as a sexual spectacle that is either 639

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decontextualized from Chinese culture or that fetishizes aspects of that culture. Ironically, it was Plum’s eroticism that made the work seem to its English readers more modern than The Story of the Stone, with its supernatural framework. Plum bore the mark of a modern masterwork, namely its frank depictions of sex, and like other such modern masterworks, it was proscribed, banned, and censored in the West. In terms of both its content and form, Plum represents a detailed record of almost every aspect of late Ming culture, but that is clearly not why many read the book today. Plum continues to reflect its enduring influence on Chinese culture. The 2012 satirical novel by Liu Zhenyun, Wo bu shi Pan Jinlian (I Am Not Pan Jinlian), available in English under the title I Did Not Kill My Husband, was made into a hugely popular film of the same title (the English title is I Am Not Madame Bovary). The film’s heroine is on a crusade to vindicate herself against the machinations of her ex-husband and his public accusation that she is a ‘Pan Jinlian,’ the fictional beauty from Plum, whose infidelity led to murder, her name still a byword for devious, faithless femininity. Modern readings of Pan Jinlian’s character have, however, often been more compassionate. Ouyang Yuqian (1889–1962) rewrote Jinlian’s status as the archetypal bad woman in his 1928 play Pan Jinlian. Rather than portraying her as a licentious shrew and bloodthirsty villain, Ouyang casts her as the archetype of the free-spirited Chinese woman who is sacrificed to a rigid, male-centered social system. Clara Law’s 1989 film, Pan Jinlian zhi qianshi Jinsheng (Reincarnations of Golden Lotus), and the 1986 opera by Wei Minglun, Pan Jinlian: yige nüren de chenlun shi (Pan Jinlian: The History of a Woman’s Downfall), similarly recast Pan Jinlian as a Chinese Nora or Emma Bovary, a woman with modern sensibilities, eager to choose her own husband but consistently wronged and trapped by a patriarchal society. Plum’s status as risqué literature and masterwork was not always a choice between two opposites—the novel could exist simultaneously on both levels. In 1687 the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1662–1722) banned Plum, a circumscription that would remain in effect until the end of the Qing dynasty in 1911, but the effectiveness of that ban seems to have been limited. It was in 1695, during Kangxi’s rule, that Zhang Zhupo published his commentary edition of Plum, which would become by far the most widely read version of the novel until at least the mid-twentieth century. Just over a decade after the publication of Zhang’s commentary edition, a Manchu translation of Plum, apparently done in circles close to the court, was published in 1708.12 Between the fall of the Qing dynasty and the founding of the PRC in 1949, many “clean versions” (jieben) of Plum were openly published. Some argued that these so-called “true editions” (zhenben) were closer to the author’s original vision because the sex scenes were all added in later. Photo reprints of the cihua and Zhang Zhupo editions were made in Hong Kong and Taiwan, where the novel had also been banned for a time. Unexpurgated, typeset editions have only become available in the past few decades, suggesting some resistance because they made reading Plum too easy. In mainland China a photo reprint was made in 1957, when Mao Zedong suggested that Plum was a good novel for revealing the decadence and depravity of Ming society and was worth reading by provincial party secretaries (Liu Jixing). This reprint was available for purchase by high-level officials only; each of the two thousand copies was individually numbered, and every owner’s name was carefully filed. Serious scholarly attention is once again being paid to Plum in China, but even so, the effects of centuries of censorship have made the title Jin Ping Mei suggestive of lewdness, and few who are not literary scholars admit to having read it.13 It was the hard-core realism of the sex scenes in Plum in the Golden Vase that interested the first consumers of the novel in English. Those scenes tended to comprise the bulk or even the entirety of the earliest adaptations of Plum, starting with the illustrated Adventures of Hsi Men Ching, privately published (supposedly limited to 750 copies) in New York in 1927 by the Library of Facetious Lore (Wang Feng-Chow). This volume was the subject of Manhattan-based lawsuits 640

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brought against booksellers between 1929 and 1931 by the Society for the Suppression of Vice for violating the penal code banning so-called objectionable books. In 1932, for instance, a grand jury refused to indict Miss Frances Stelloff, the owner of the Gotham Book Mart on West 47th Street, for selling (at the price of $4.25, approximately $90 in 2023) Adventures of Hsi Men Ching after she successfully defended herself on the grounds that the novel was a classic.14 A Bronx book dealer was convicted on an obscene literary charge in connection with the sale of Adventures of Hsi Men Ching just the year before.15 At least four translations and retellings exclusively focused on the sexual escapades of Ximen Qing and Pan Jinlian were printed as pulp paperbacks of a hundred or two pages in the 1950s and 60s. One of these was titled The Harem of Hsi Men (subtitled The Complete Adventures of a Dissolute Mandarin, His Six Wives, His Concubines, His Singing Girls and Flower Maidens—Told with Unblushing Frankness and Rich Humor!). These renderings seek to reach a similar audience as, for instance, the Harry Novak release of Koji Wakamatsu’s 1968 Japanese film adaptation Kinpeibai (Jinping mei) as The Notorious Concubines (“The Golden Lotus”), billed on the film poster as “The rage! The fire! The passion! A thousand-year-old ribald classic! Banned for 400 years! A love affair from one of the world’s best classics of eroticism” but also labelled with an excerpt from The New York Times Book Review stating that “it is possible that this is the greatest novel ever written!” For English readers of translations, reviews of translations, and trial proceedings in the first half of the twentieth century, Plum’s reputation was that of a racy book, albeit one that evoked in exquisite detail the realism of the bedroom. It was a masterwork, and therefore justified reading. It was an ancient, foreign masterwork for our time.16 The action of Plum takes place between 1112 and 1127, during the reign of Emperor Huizong (r. 1100–25) of the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127). The novel describes the internal collapse of that regime, which culminated in the conquest of North China by the Jurchen Jin dynasty (1115–1234) in 1127. Although the author set his novel in the Song dynasty, close reading reveals that the conditions he describes are really those of his own day—the reigns of the Jiajing and Wanli emperors of the Ming dynasty. These two emperors sat on the throne from 1521 to 1566 and from 1572 to 1620, respectively, and for nearly a century they were “among the most irresponsible rulers in the history of imperial irresponsibility.”17 In the introduction to his translation of Plum, David Tod Roy uses the Dictionary of Ming Biography, edited by L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, to provide summaries of the careers of these emperors. Because Plum presents such a clever, sustained critique of these rulers, and because this fact is so important to understanding the novel, it bears repeating one of those summaries here, more fully and with Pinyin romanization: In the early years of his long reign the [Jiajing] emperor’s attention was focused domestically on this struggle [over succession], and in the later years he turned to the cult of religious Daoism in a search for a life without death. Both concerns ruined many able officials and wasted the energy and wealth of the empire. In foreign relations these years saw Mongol bands sweeping across the Great Wall almost at will, raiding and killing from the northwestern frontier to the Liaodong peninsula. Along the southeast coast the [Japanese pirates] caused equal suffering and destruction and erupted just as often. In spite of his concentration on selfish whims and the menace on his borders, Jiajing never let anyone usurp his power and authority. In his time the rich grew richer and the poor became impoverished, particularly in the lower Yangtze area. Wealth bred leisure, which demanded luxuries and entertainment; it also encouraged the development of theatre, art, literature, and printing. The political vigor of the empire, however, began to decline, and the house of Ming showed signs of senescence.18 641

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This entry describes the world of Plum and the one that readers find in microcosm in Qinghe, the town in which Ximen Qing works and lives. In hindsight, this corruption, malaise, bickering, and ineptitude at court was the beginning of the end of the Ming dynasty—a view, it seems, that was also held by Plum’s author. To fully understand the historical and literary milieu of Plum, though, it is useful to consider this impending collapse amid the height of Ming glory. In the late sixteenth century, China’s achievements in culture and the arts were remarkable, urban and commercial life were spreading new levels of prosperity, and Chinese skills in printing and the manufacture of porcelain and silk exceeded anything that could be found in Europe at the time. Jonathan Spence tellingly begins his well-known book and commonly used classroom text The Search for Modern China with a chapter on the late Ming—the period in which Plum was written and the period that it both celebrates and excoriates, elliptically describing its glory and predicting its fall. It is a complex era that embodied the height of traditional Chinese culture and power, but also one in which an incipient global modernity was beginning to complicate age-old domestic issues. Plum, among many other things, is the story of misrule. Like the Jiajing and Wanli courts, the Ximen Qing household is full of schemers and sycophants, with a capricious and debauched figure at its head. Some readers find in Plum’s characters antecedents in powerful ministers or eunuchs at court—famous historical figures whose venery and greed are blamed for the fall of the Northern Song dynasty. The practice of using eunuchs—castrated male attendants whose official job was to supervise the management of day-to-day business in the palace—in Chinese courts had existed for more than two thousand years. Ming dynasty rulers employed many more eunuchs than their predecessors, though, and by Wanli’s time there were over ten thousand eunuchs in the capital. From the 1580s onward, the Wanli Emperor began to neglect his official duties, and in his absence, considerable power accrued to court eunuchs. Since the emperor would not come out from the inner quarters of the Forbidden City, eunuchs were the gatekeepers to imperial power and began to play a central role in the political life of the country. Their influence grew as Emperor Wanli assigned them to collect revenues in the provinces, where they often abused their position. In some cases, they tyrannized wealthy provincial families and used imperial guards to enforce their will and to imprison, torture, and even kill their political enemies. The most spectacular example of these abuses occurred in the person of Wei Zhongxian (1568–1627), famous as one of the most powerful and notorious eunuchs in history. Tales of his rise and fall spawned many novels and plays, starting just years after his death. As often as they are portrayed as suspicious characters and villains (and occasionally heroes, as with tales of the Ming voyager and diplomat Zheng He [1371–1433]), it is important to remember that eunuchs were also victims of human trafficking that relied on mutilating and desexing young men. To sell a son into service, a family must have been extremely poor, given the historical preference for male progeny. Families would castrate their sons and sell them into service attending to the emperor and his many sexual partners. Poor families would endanger their own lineage so that their sons could be employed tending to the emperor’s. Although there may have been as many as ten thousand eunuchs sold into service to the Wanli court, certainly this number is a fraction of the young women bought and sold throughout the empire in the same period. The buying and selling of young people—particularly young women— was common until the early twentieth century, when the practice was outlawed. Poor families could sell their daughters into service to wealthier ones to ensure their daughters’ survival or to concentrate resources on sons. Some sales agreements would allow for daughters to be bought out of service, making their situation similar to that of indentured servants. As they grew older, young women in the service of wealthy households might become concubines to the young men 642

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of the family or be married off as the proper wives of manservants. In the world of Chinese domestic workers, there were also hereditary servants, sometimes the descendants of criminals or prisoners of war. It would be hard to argue that their status was significantly different than that of enslaved people. The sexual implications and repercussions of buying and selling young women suffuses Plum, as almost every woman who joins the Ximen household does so through a monetary transaction.

Authorship, Editions, and Commentaries Trying to determine the author of Plum is important in itself and for its implications about the literary culture in which the novel was written. Tina Lu has pointed out that Plum is embedded in a textual world not just because of its relationship with Water Margin but also in the way the novel makes explicit and highly artificed reference to the enormous diversity of late Ming literary life. No other work in the tradition borrows so heavily from other texts: vernacular stories, works of pornography, histories, dramas, popular songs, jokes, and prosimetric narratives, and even texts far outside of the parameters of the literary, such as official gazettes, contracts, and menus. These quotations are not approximate, as they would be if transmitted orally, but precise, and they are deployed with ironic distance. A novel that initially circulated in manuscript, it is also a profound reflection on the fungibility of all texts in print culture.19 The author of Plum is known only by the pseudonym Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng (“The Scoffing Scholar of Lanling”), and without new evidence, we may never know his identity. There is no shortage of theories concerning the authorship of Plum, however. Modern scholars writing in Chinese, Japanese, French, and English have proposed over fifty possible candidates with some evidence.20 Some of these—for example, Li Kaixian (1502–1568), Xu Wei (1521–1593), Wang Shizhen (1526–1590), Li Xianfang (1511–1594), Jia Sanjin (1534–1592), Tu Long (1542–1605), Yuan Hongdao (1568–1610), Dong Qichang (1555–1636), Li Yu (1510–1580), and Tang Xianzu (1550–1616)—are familiar names in Chinese literary history; others are less well known.21 Many of the proposed possible authors were associated with the circle of literary men who first recorded reading Plum in manuscript in the last decade of the sixteenth century. Rather than summarize the scholarly debates surrounding Plum’s authorship and attempt some sort of resolution, it may be useful to repeat a famous story—one that is certainly apocryphal though also telling and influential—about how the novel came to be written. Many of the editions of Plum available to readers between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries contain prefatory items that serve as apologies for the novel. One of these, by Zhang Zhupo, entitled “Kuxiao shuo” (“The Bitterness of Filial Piety”), has traditionally been interpreted as referring to the legend of how Plum was created.22 This legend of Plum’s origin has it that Wang Shizhen, a famous writer and historian, authored the novel. Wang’s father had been put to death by the evil minister Yan Song (1481–1568; some accounts say it was Tang Shunzhi [1507–1560]) for selling the minister what Wang’s father was told was the original of a famous painting, which turned out to be a copy. Wang was bent on avenging his father and set his sights on Yan’s son, Yan Shifan (1513–1565), who had risen in rank and was a model of corruption.23 Yan Shifan’s fatal flaw, so the story goes, was his penchant for licentious literature. Wang, a great Confucian scholar, was capable of incredible literary feats, and so he set himself to writing a novel that would be of interest to Yan. In a matter of weeks (some accounts say three years), Wang finished a novel of one hundred chapters, weaving into it not just pornographic elements but also, through the portrayal of the corrupt protagonist, Ximen Qing, a pitiless satire of his enemy. That Ximen Qing stood for Yan Shifan was a fact that no one could fail to recognize, since “Ximen” means “western gate” and Shifan’s style was Donglou, meaning 643

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“eastern pavilion.” But Wang was not content simply to mock his enemy, so he soaked the pages in poison and hired a merchant to sell the book to Yan. Falling prey to his desires, Yan bought the book. Licking his fingers to turn the pages, he slowly ingested more and more poison until finally, when Yan read to the last page and the story of his own degraded existence was done, he fell dead.24 Zhang Zhupo writes elsewhere that he does not believe that Plum is a roman à clef, that “hearsay in such matters is generally apocryphal and not to be taken seriously. . . . Therefore, I shall ignore the theory that Ximen Qing was intended to represent Yan Shifan.”25 Yet he alludes to the theory repeatedly, to gesture at the frustrated anguish that the anonymous author must have felt while writing the novel. More remarkable than this most assuredly fictional account is the fact that it endured through so many printings and subsequent editions up to the modern period. The legend must have been widely known, as it was to Lu Xun (1881–1936), the father of modern Chinese literature, who taught it at Beijing University and records it in the 1934 printed edition of his lectures.26 The legend points to the contradiction of a pornographic, literary masterwork and the concern that inexperienced or naive readers of fiction could do themselves harm. That the author crafted Plum to appeal to these debauched readers, that they might read themselves to death, and that this was done in the service of filial duty was both an apology for the novel (and the novel form) and an enticement to read it. Zhang’s preface “The Bitterness of Filial Piety,” which can also be translated as “Frustrated Filial Piety,” describes how the author lost his father, probably through some act of injustice, and hence lost all opportunity to fulfill his filial duties. Instead of turning to revenge, the author, as conceived by Zhang, relieved his “frustrated” filiality by writing about filiality in Plum. Other prefaces to Plum put the onus on readers to take away from the novel the correct message through a contemplation of its artistry and construction. The author of the dated preface to the cihua edition of the novel claimed, and others have repeated the claim, that “[he] who reads the Jin Ping Mei and responds with a feeling of compassion is a Bodhisattva; he who responds with a feeling of apprehension is a superior man; he who responds with a feeling of enjoyment is a petty person; and he who responds with a feeling of emulation is no better than a beast” (1.6; 1b–2a). Plum, in this vision, is like the aphrodisiac that Ximen Qing procures midway through the novel. If taken thoughtfully and in moderation, it has a tonifying effect and can enhance enjoyment, but if abused and taken for granted, it can result in the deterioration of one’s vital forces. The potential danger in the legend of Plum, and in its possible corrupting influence, was part of the attraction for readers. Even a comment by Zhang Xinzhi, on the more chaste masterwork of Chinese fiction, The Story of the Stone, written centuries later, claims that The Story of the Stone is a literary work that is not only very appealing but, more important, it also carves a deep impression on the mind, moving and transforming one’s nature and emotions. It goes even further than Plum in the Golden Vase in producing potentially dangerous effects, in that readers are prone to recognize only its immediate surface, failing to perceive what lies on the other side.27 The legend of Plum’s origins is useful to discuss because it demonstrates a real concern about the dangers of the novel, its threat to social order, and the battle over who has the authority or ability to read the novel. In addition to a hermeneutic struggle over entertainment literature and pornography, the legend, like the novel, reveals concerns about official corruption and justice as well as the circulation and vetting of knowledge. 644

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Notes 1 To translate cihua as “ballad tale” or “chantefable” is not really fitting, since the novel is not at all like works that are more properly labeled cihua. The xiuxiang and later versions omit cihua from the title. Presumably the term referred to the large number of popular songs incorporated into the cihua text that do not appear in other editions. 2 Tina Lu, “The Literati Culture of the Late Ming (1573–1644),” The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Vol. 2, ed. Kang-I Sun Chang and Stephen Owen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 63–151, 108. 3 I discuss some of these deaths at length in Novel Medicine: Healing, Literature, and Popular Knowledge in Early Modern China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016). 4 Thanks to David Rolston for this insight. 5 In 2004 an application from Bu Jian and Bai Weiguo was approved to make a new annotated edition of the unexpurgated cihua edition, and in 2015, the government permitted an increase of the run from one thousand to three thousand copies, although it still ordered that buyer eligibility be restricted to selected experts and academics. 6 “Beijing nanzi si yin Jin Ping Mei beifa yiwan yuan” [Beijing Man Fined Ten Thousand Yuan for Secretly Printing Jin Ping Mei], China.com, May 19, 2016, economy.china.com/news/11173316/2016 0509/22610520.html. 7 Stuart Wolfendale, “But It’s Not Porn, Officer,” South China Morning Post, March 28, 1993, www.scmp. com/article/23978/its-not-porn-officer. 8 In the 1990s Chen Jialin managed to get a permit to film the novel, but as he was about to shoot, a notice arrived ordering him to stop the movie and return the permit. 9 This claim is made by a local, self-taught Plum scholar, Pan Zhiyi. 10 Despite the fact that Plum’s setting is fictional, two towns in Shandong province make rival claims to be the book’s true historical location. 11 Jeremy Blum, “Erotic Film Broadcast to Hundreds Outside Railway Station,” South China Morning Post, July 1, 2013, www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1273029/erotic-film-broadcast-hundreds-outside-railway-station. Onlookers reported that this was the 2008 Hong Kong film known in English as The Forbidden Legend: Sex and Chopsticks. 12 This claim is made by Erich Haenisch, Mandschu-Grammatik (Verlag Enzyklopädie, 1961); Berthold Laufer, “Skizze der manjurischen Literatur,” Revue Orientale 9 (1908): 1–53. 13 Qi Lintao, Jin Ping Mei English Translations: Texts, Paratexts and Contexts (Routledge, 2018), 14. 14 “Refuses to Indict in Book Case,” The New York Times, January 22, 1932: 7. 15 “Book Dealer Summoned,” The New York Times, July 17, 1931: 24. 16 Aside from the earliest English translations of Plum that focus only on the sex scenes, Franz Kuhn’s abridged German translation of Jin Ping Mei was retranslated into English by Bernard Miall and published in 1939 under the title Chin P’ing Mei: The Adventurous History of Hsi Men and His Six Wives (later editions appeared in 1940, 1942, 1947, 1950, 1952, 1959, 1960, and 1982). While this book carried the scholarly weight of an introduction by the well-known sinologist and translator Arthur Waley (1889–1966), and while it did not focus on erotic scenes, that it shared a subtitle with translations meant to sell on the erotic fiction market must have made distinguishing between the pornography and the masterpiece somewhat challenging to interested readers. 17 David T. Roy, Introduction, The Gathering (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), xvii–xlviii. Vol. 1 of Plum in the Golden Vase; or, Chin P’ing Mei, xxx. 18 L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds., Dictionary of Ming Biography (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 315. 19 Tina Lu, “The Literati Culture of the Late Ming (1573–1644),” in The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Vol. 2, ed. Kang-I Sun Chang and Stephen Owen (Cambridge University Press, 2011), 63–151. 20 Wu Gan, Ershi shiji Jin Ping Mei yanjiu shi changbian [Long Version of the History of the Study of The Plum in the Golden Vase in the Twentieth Century] (Wenhui chubanshe, 2003), 33–43. 21 In his introduction to Plum, Roy briefly discusses the case for the playwright Tang Xianzu’s authorship (pp. xlii–xliii). Roy discusses this in more detail in “The Case for T’ang Hsien-Tsu’s Authorship of the Jin Ping Mei.” 22 See Zhang Zhupo, “How to Read the Chin P’ing Mei.” An earlier version using Pinyin appeared in Renditions. Roy’s quite early “Chang Chu-p’o’s Commentary on the Chin P’ing Mei,” although in need of

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature updating with regard to newer information about Zhang himself, remains a good brief introduction to Zhang’s commentary in English that quotes from a variety of prefatory items in the extensive front matter of Zhang’s commentary edition of the novel. 23 There is a similar story about Yan Shifan in Yipeng xue [A Handful of Snow], a play by the Suzhou dramatist Li Yu (ca. 1591–ca. 1671). The story involves a priceless jade cup that Yan wants but that the aristocrat Mo Huaigu tries to keep by giving him a facsimile. When the forgery is discovered, Yan has Mo arrested. When the time comes to behead Mo, at the last minute, his servant substitutes himself for his master and is executed instead. Scene 18 is available in English translation (Li Yu, “Handful”). 24 Arthur Waley details other versions in his account of this legend in his introduction to Chin P’ing Mei: The Adventurous History of Hsi Men and His Six Wives. 25 David T. Roy, “Chang Chu-P’o’s Commentary on the Chin P’ing Mei,” in Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays, ed. Andrew Plaks (Princeton University Press, 1977), 115–23, 119. 26 Lu Xun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, trans. Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang (Foreign Languages Press, 1976), 220–21. 27 Andrew Plaks, trans., “How to Read the Dream of the Red Chamber,” by Zhang Xinzhi, in Rolston, ed., How to Read, 323–40.

Further Reading Carlitz, Katherine. The Rhetoric of the Chin P’ing Mei. Indiana University Press, 1986. Ding, Naifei. Obscene Things: Sexual Politics in Jin Ping Mei. Duke University Press, 2002. Hanan, Patrick D. “A Landmark of the Chinese Novel.” University of Toronto Quarterly 30, no. 3 (July 2015): 325–35. Hanan, Patrick D. “Sources of the Chin P’ing Mei.” Asia Major, n.s. 10, no. 1 (1963): 23–67. Hanan, Patrick D. “The Text of the Chin P’ing Mei.” Asia Major, n.s. 9, no. 2 (1962): 1–57. Hegel, Robert. “General Introduction.” In The Golden Lotus. Vol. 1, by Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng, translated by Clement Egerton and Shu Qingchun [Lao She], edited and introduced by Hegel, 5–21. Tuttle, 2011. Plaks, Andrew. The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel. Princeton University Press, 1987. Rolston, David L., ed., How to Read the Chinese Novel. Princeton University Press, 1990. Roy, David T. “Introduction.” In The Gathering, xvii–xlviii. Vol. 1 of Plum in the Golden Vase; or, Chin P’ing Mei. Princeton University Press, 1993. Schonebaum, Andrew, ed. Approaches to Teaching The Plum in the Golden Vase [The Golden Lotus]. New York: the Modern Language Association of America, 2022. Shang Wei. “ ‘Jin Ping Mei’ and Late Ming Print Culture.” In Writing and Materiality in China: Essays in Honor of Patrick Hanan, edited by Judith T. Zeitlin and Lydia H. Liu, 187–231. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003. Shang Wei. “The Making of the Everyday World: Jin Ping Mei cihua and Encyclopedias for Daily Use.” In Dynastic Crisis and Cultural Innovation: From the Late Ming to the Late Qing and Beyond, edited by David Der-wei Wang and Shang, 63–92. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006. Tian, Xiaofei. “A Preliminary Comparison of the Two Recensions of Jinpingmei.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 62, no. 2 (2002): 347–88.

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55 THE STORY OF THE STONE Martin Huang

Honglou meng, or The Story of the Stone (also known in English as The Dream of the Red Chamber) is arguably the best-known Chinese novel, considered by many the crowning achievement of the Chinese fictional tradition. It is known not only for its unprecedented sophistication as a literary masterpiece but also for its tremendous and lasting appeal to a very wide spectrum of readers ever since it was first published in the late nineteenth century, although it had begun to circulate in the form of hand-copied manuscript much earlier.

Authorship and Textual History The novel has been attributed to the eighteenth-century writer Cao Xueqin (ca. 1715–ca. 1763). Not much is known about Cao Xueqin, although his grandfather Cao Yin (1758–1712) was a well-known figure in early Qing China. Cao Yin was the textile commissioner, a tax collector, stationed in the Jiangnan area, representing the imperial court. In fact, Cao Xueqin’s great grandfather Cao Xi was already appointed to this position and Cao Yin was later allowed to succeed his father after the latter had died. It was considered a lucrative position, and the appointment reflected the special favor from the Kangxi emperor (r. 1661–1722). The Cao family enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the emperor. Cao Xi’s wife (Cao Yin’s mother) was the nurse (or wet nurse, as some scholars believe) of the Kangxi emperor. Cao Yin himself spent considerable time with the future emperor as the latter’s study companion when both of them were still young.1 However, the Cao family fortune underwent a drastic decline when they lost the imperial favor as the Yongzhen emperor (r. 1722–1735) ascended the throne after the death of the Kangxi emperor. It is believed that the drastic decline of their family fortune had a huge impact on Cao Xueqin as his adult life was plagued by poverty, and the shadow of family decline would loom large in the novel. The novel had been in circulation in the form of hand-copied manuscript for quite a few decades before its initial publication in 1791 well after the death of Cao Xueqin. Most of the extant hand-copied manuscript versions of the novel dated before 1791 have commentaries written alongside the text proper of the novel by someone using several different pennames. These commentaries are now known collectively as the Zhiyanzhai (the Red Ink Studio) commentaries. These

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commentaries must have been written by someone quite close to the author. They offer insights into the author’s intention and sometimes even contain suggestions to the author for revising the novel, some of which the author might have indeed adopted in later revisions.2 None of these manuscript copies contain pages beyond chapter eighty, whereas the first printed edition of the novel has additional forty chapters (one hundred twenty chapters in total). Many scholars believe the last forty chapters of the printed version of the novel as we have it now were largely the work or a sequel/continuation by its purported publisher and editor Gao E (1758–1815) and Cheng Weiyuan (d. 1818) rather than the result of their editing of a rediscovered manuscript copy of the original author Cao Xueqin as they had claimed in their preface to their printed edition.3 However, there are also scholars who are more inclined to give credence to the disclaimer of authorship of the last forty chapters by Gao E and Chen Weiyuan.4

The Central Plotlines Nostalgic for his own family’s glories in the past, the author Cao Xueqin chronicles in the novel the decline of a fictitious Jia family, a huge aristocratic household. A central plotline of the novel concerns the male protagonist Jia Baoyu and his emotional entanglements with his female cousins and several maids in the household. Jia Baoyu is viewed by many in the novel as an eccentric boy, who seems to be just content to indulge himself in the company of the girls. With his doting grandmother (known as Grandmother Jia, the family’s matriarch) shielding him from the supervision of his strict father, Jia Baoyu tries his best to avoid studying the Confucian classics in preparation for the civil examinations, which were designed to gain one the qualifications to enter officialdom, a career path almost every educated adult male was expected to take at that time. Another central character in the novel is Wang Xifeng, the niece of Jia Baoyu’s mother, Lady Wang. She is the wife of Jia Lian, who is Jia Baoyu’s cousin on his father’s side. Like Jia Baoyu, Wang Xifeng also enjoys special favor from Grandmother Jia. However, in contrast to Jia Baoyu, who cares little about power and material gains, Wang Xifeng is consumed by her craving for money and power. Jia Baoyu and Wang Xifeng are often juxtaposed in the novel to represent two very different but equally futile approaches of trying to come to terms with the inevitable reality of an aristocratic family in decline: Jia Baoyu has apparently adopted a deliberate strategy of trying to enjoy the present as much as he can while the good time lasts, whereas Wang Xifeng is preoccupied with her attempt to grab as much power as possible while running the huge household and to accumulate as much personal wealth as possible in anticipation of the family’s eventual downfall. Wang Xifeng is often said to be the busiest person in the entire household, whereas Jia Baoyu appears to be the person with most leisure time on hand. With the decline of the Jia family serving as the general background, the love triangle among Jia Baoyu and his two female cousins, Lin Daiyu and Xue Baocai (marriages among cousins were not uncommon in China at that time) is one of the novel’s main stories. Early in the novel, with the death of her mother, who is the sister of Jia Zheng (Jia Baoyu’s father), Lin Daiyu moves to join her maternal grandmother (Grandmother Jia), thus grows up with Jia Baoyu. Later they are joined by Xue Baochai, whose mother is the sister of Lady Wang. The three cousins are thus brought together and involved in a love triangle, although Xue Baochai, as a girl of Confucian propriety, would never have admitted to others and probably even herself that she is in love with Jia Baoyu. Occasionally torn between Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai, Jia Baoyu feels closer to the

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former. However, the family elders eventually decide that Xue Baochai is preferrable for him as his wife. Lin Daiyu passes away in sadness as Jia Baoyu and Xue Baochai are having their wedding ceremony. In the end, after passing the provincial civil examinations, Jia Baoyu decides to leave the “red dust” to become a monk. One of the major problems many scholars have had with the conclusion in the last forty chapters of the novel as outlined previously is the prospect hinted at the end of the novel that the Jia family is regaining its past glory and wealth (for example, Jia Zheng, Jia Baoyu’s father, is restored to his previous official position, and the family properties confiscated by the imperial court are being returned). In addition, Xue Baochai is pregnant with Jia Baoyu’s son (thus the continuation of the family’s male line is ensured). These scholars argue that this is an ending that is much rosier than what Cao Xueqin must have originally planned for his novel, based on the clues provided in the first eighty chapters (especially at the beginning of the novel) as well as in some of the Zhiyanzhai commentaries.5

Its Innovativeness as a Novel Breaking away from the love-at-first-sight convention, which had so far dominated premodern Chinese romantic narrative, Honglou meng can be considered revolutionary in being the first Chinese novel to delineate in detail the gradual process through which a romantic relationship begins to develop and then matures. This partly explains why our novelist has found it necessary to create a unique situation in the novel where Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu (and later Xue Baochai) are deliberately brought to live together. They are thus able to mingle with each other, with the apparent approval of the family matriarch, in an age otherwise dominated by the Confucian rules of sex segregation. Cao Xueqin proves to be a consummate master in telling intricate stories about the subtle emotional and psychological twists and turns these three young people have been experiencing in their love entanglement, a novelistic feat rarely surpassed by other Chinese writers, captivating generations of readers ever since the novel began to be circulated. Although it is indeed a very unusual situation that Jia Baoyu can mingle with girls with relative ease, love (between a young man and a young woman) is still very much a taboo in this environment of absolute parental authority and arranged marriage. This seems to have contributed to many occasions of miscommunication and misunderstanding between the lovers since one cannot directly express what one actually feels about the other and consequently often has to guess the intention of the other. The tortuous love relationship between Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyun is plagued by repeated misunderstandings and suspicions. As a maiden of the boudoir, Lin Daiyu is often not sure how she should respond when Jia Baoyu does try to let her know his true feelings toward her: whether she should feign being upset because even acquiescent silence would make her appear “improper” or “cheap” in the eyes of others and even herself, even though she craves for assurance that her feelings are being reciprocated by Jia Baoyu. Furthermore, Lin Daiyu is not even sure whether she should really trust what Jia Baoyu is explicitly telling her given her own insecurity and the presence of the attractive Xue Baochai, who comes from a much more powerful family background. The turning point in their relationship comes on a very unexpected occasion. Once Jia Baoyu’s chief maid Xiren mentions how rudely he has behaved toward Xue Baochai when she urges him to meet more often with those who have had career successes and how she has taken his rudeness in stride, unlike Lin Daiyu, who easily gets upset. Jia Baoyu responds: “Have you ever heard Miss Lin talking that sort of stupid rubbish? I’d long since have fallen out with her if she did.” (32.131).6

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Her overhearing of this seemingly casual remark by Jia Baoyu produces a dramatic moment of epiphany on Lin Daiyu’s part: Mingled emotions of happiness, alarm, sorrow and regret assailed her: Happiness: Because after all I wasn’t mistaken in my judgment of him. I always thought of him as a true friend and I was right. Alarm: Because if he praises me so unreservedly in front of other people, his warmth and affection are sure, sooner or later, to excite suspicion and be misunderstood. Regret: Because if you are my true friend, then I am yours, and the two of us are a perfect match. But in that case why did there have to be all this talk of “the gold and the jade”? Alternatively, if there had to be all this talk of the gold and the jade, why weren’t we the two to have them? Why did there have to be a Baochai with her golden locket? Sorrow: Because though there are things of burning importance to be said, without a father and a mother, I have no one to say them for me. And besides, I feel so muzzy lately, and I know that my illness is gradually gaining a hold on me. . . . So even if I am your true-love, I fear I may not be able to wait for you. And even though you are mine, you can do nothing to alter my fate. (32.132, with modification; italics mine) This is perhaps one of the most famous passages on love psychology in the Chinese novelistic tradition: note especially the change of personal pronoun denoting Jia Baoyu in the passage (italicized in the quoted passage previously): Jia Baoyu is being referred to as “he” by Lin Daiyu in the first two paragraphs of “Happiness” and “Alarm,” whereas as “you” in the next two paragraphs of “Regret” and “Sorrow.”7 The first paragraph starts out as an internal monologue within Lin Daiyu’s mind—she is talking to herself, with Jia Baoyu being treated as a third party or an “outsider” (therefore, “he”)—and then, beginning from the third paragraph of “Regret,” it is now being turned into a dialogue with Jia Baoyu, where she is addressing Jia Baoyu directly as “you.” This change from “he” to “you” captures the subtle psychological process whereby Lin Daiyu begins to feel that she and Jia Baoyu have suddenly become much closer as a result of her accidental overhearing of his defense of her in front of others: only then is she able to convince herself of Jia Baoyu’s true feelings toward her. Now the two of them have entered a new stage in their relationship (symbolized by the way she begins to address Jia Baoyu directly as “you” in her mind). The fact that she has to be convinced of the veracity of Jia Baoyu’s “accidental” declaration of love by “overhearing” or “eavesdropping” as a third party rather than hearing it directly from Jia Baoyu himself speaks volumes about the difficulty of communication in that environment (if he had praised her directly in front of herself, Lin Daiyu might have very much doubted his sincerity). At the same time, this passage also highlights the psychology of a perpetual pessimist: a moment of “happiness” (unexpectedly getting assurance of Jia Baoyu’s love) inevitably turns into

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a moment of “sorrow” due to her negative thinking, since she has the tendency to expect the worst possible outcome as the narrator tells the reader elsewhere in the novel: Daiyu had a natural aversion to gatherings, which she rationalized by saying that since the inevitable consequences of gathering together was parting, and since parting made people feel lonely and feeling lonely made them unhappy, ergo it was better for them not to get together in the first place. In the same way she argued that since the flowers, which give us so much pleasure when they open, only cause us a lot of extra sadness when they die, it would be better if they didn’t come out at all. (31. 109–110) Her excessive anxiety about the future seems to have precluded any possibility of enjoying the present, condemning her to perpetual misery. This helps to explain her predilection for shedding tears, a behavior that helps make her name “Lin Daiyu” synonymous in the Chinese language with a girl who likes to cry, ever since the novel became popular.

Beyond the Realistic The masterful explorations of Lin Daiyu’s psychology notwithstanding, earlier in the novel the narrator informs us that her pessimistic personality is actually predetermined by what has happened to her in her previous incarnation, as revealed in the conversation between the Daoist priest and the Buddhist monk (1.53): In her former incarnation as the crimson pearl flower, Lin Daiyu has incurred a debt of gratitude to Jia Baoyu for watering her when the latter was the magic stone in his previous incarnation. Consequently, she is supposed to return the favor to him with her tears when they live out their lives as humans in this world (the so-called “debt of tears”). Despite his great success in presenting Lin Daiyu as a psychologically convincing character known for her propensity toward sadness and depression, our novelist also chooses to offer a “supernatural” reason to explain why she behaves the way she does. What is so remarkable about the novel is how the realistic/mimetic and the fantastic/mythical are seamlessly woven together to constitute its unique narrative logic in terms of how some of its major characters behave the way they do and how certain important events unfold the way they do. On the one hand, the karma of a character is often predetermined even before he or she is brought into this world, and yet, on the other hand, the author is able to persuade the reader that such karma is also the result of that character’s volitional behaviors conditioned by the social circumstances so realistically described in the novel. By the same token, the large-scale private garden of the Jia family, Daguan yuan (the Prospect Garden), depicted so realistically in the novel, is another good example of such deliberately mixed discourse of the realistic and the fantastic. In chapter 23, Jia Baoyu and his female cousins all move to live in this huge garden, a very unusual situation because a garden is normally not a place for residence. The garden is initially built in preparation for the visit to her natal family paid by Jia Baoyu’s elder sister, Jia Yuanchun, who is now the imperial consort of the emperor. After the visit the imperial consort orders Jia Baoyu and her female cousins to move into the garden to live in there. The setting for much of the plot in the main part of the first eighty chapters of the novel, the garden is described with such realistic details in terms of its physical features and architectural layout in this eighteenth-century novel that quite a few gardens have been built in different major cities in modern China (including Beijing and Shanghai) based on its renderings in the novel. And yet at the same time, the reader is repeatedly reminded in the novel that the garden resembles the

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Land of Illusion Jia Baoyu has visited in his dream in Chapter 5. Once again, the realistic and the fantastic have converged here to complicate our understanding of the meanings of the novel, this time, the specific implications of the garden. The garden provides a seemingly safe and almost idyllic space where Jia Baoyu and others can be shielded from the unpleasant reality of the outside world, while the novel’s repeated references to its resemblances to the Land of Illusion tend to undermine the reader’s sense of the garden’s material reality, otherwise so minutely constructed in the novel, underscoring its unsustainability as a utopian structure and its ultimate illusionary nature in the novel. The story of Jia Boayu’s dream journey in Chapter 5 is crucial to the reader’s understanding of the entire novel in terms of plot development and the fate of many of its characters. During Jia Baoyu’s visit to the Land of Illusion, the Goddess of Disenchantment allows him to read the registers, which contain the cryptic predictions about what is going to happen to each of the many important girls later in the novel (many of them would later move to become neighbors with him in the garden). Consequently, at the very beginning of the novel, the reader is already given the opportunity to learn about the fate of these characters, and yet, just like our young male protagonist Jia Baoyu in Chapter 5, a first-time reader, reading thus far, can hardly comprehend these terse verses in the registers. What is more interesting is that even for those readers who have completed their reading of the entire novel, the meanings of these prophetic registers can remain ambiguous upon rereading. These registers are supposed to help the reader to better understand the novel’s “conclusions” later, and yet how the reader reads these conclusions would also reshape his or her interpretations of these same registers if the reader chooses to come back to reread the prophetic Chapter 5, this time around with the knowledge of the novel’s conclusions. Such rereading of the registers in turn is likely to change his or her understanding of what has happened to many important characters at the end. Consequently, reading the novel becomes a perpetual rereading process, something the author has already hinted at the mythical beginning of the novel: the Daoist Vanitas encounters a strange piece of stone with a long inscription already on it. After reading the inscription, he concludes that the text is not that interesting. He decides to copy it down to look for a publisher for it only after a careful second reading at the stone’s urging. That is, the novelist has already warned the reader about the need to reread the novel even before he or she starts his or her first reading (1.48–49). The message is: this complex novel requires rereading(s) in order for it to be adequately appreciated. Such references to a keen metafictional self-consciousness and the repeated appearances of the dream motif punctuate various important moments in the novel’s plot movement. References to the mythical framework frequently pop up in the novel’s otherwise extremely convincing realistic narrative to challenge the reader’s sense of novelistic reality, turning the novel into one of the most sophisticated novelistic masterpieces in Chinese literature.

Desire and the Lust of the Mind It is also during Jia Baoyu’s dream journey in Chapter 5 that the reader is introduced to two important concepts of desire central to the understanding of the novel. In her talk to Jia Baoyu, the Goddess of Disenchantment explains to him that most men suffer from pifu lanyin (the lust of the flesh). However, he is different, she further explains, because he suffers from yiyin or the lust of the mind. According to her, the lust of the mind is impossible to describe in words but because of it “women will find you a kind and understanding friend; but in the eyes of the world I am afraid it will make you seem unpractical and eccentric” (5.146). Jia Baoyu is known for his famous sayings: “Girls are made of water and boys are made of mud. When I am with girls I feel fresh and clean, but I am with boys I feel dirty and stupid.” (2.76) 652

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He craves to be loved by every beautiful girl or, in his words, “claim all the tears” (quande; i.e., he wishes every beautiful girl would cry for him if something happens to him. 36.210). After he is beaten up badly by his father for causing a series of troubles (chapter 31), while still recovering from his wounds, Jia Baoyu is thrilled to find out how his physical suffering has caused his female cousins to reveal so much concern and shed so many tears for his sake. He declares all this is worth it. Nothing could satisfy more his lust of the mind than knowing how sad they would feel for the loss of him. He once tells his maid Xiren that he wishes to die before the girls do so that they would feel so sad that their tears would form a river to flow his body to some never-never land and then his body will evaporate into the air (36.206).8 However, this is much more than childish nonsense talk. He likes to imagine how he could relish feeling the impact of the loss of him on those girls whom he adores. Finding a beautiful woman who has the insight to be able to spot and appreciate a talented man or a hero (usually when the hero has yet to achieve successes) (huiyan shi yingxiong), a perennial theme in Chinese literati literature, was a fantasy cherished by almost every educated Confucian male who tried to seek psychological compensation for his career frustrations in late imperial China. In fact, in the opening myth at the beginning of the novel, the magic stone shares this feeling of frustration for his “unrecognized talent” because he happens to be that particular piece of stone left unused by the goddess Nüwa when she tries to repair the collapsed corner of the sky (wucai butian or not talented enough to be used for repairing the sky). However, at the same time, this whole tradition of finding an appreciator of talent in a beautiful woman is the target of scathing satire early in the novel, when, after passing the civil examinations and becoming an official, the careerist Jia Yuchun returns to marry as his concubine his friend’s maid who bears the name Jiaoxing (homophonic with “by sheer luck”) only because she once accidentally had eye contact with him before he has passed the civil examination (i.e., before he achieved his successes). Moreover, Jia Baoyu is not seeking recognition of his talent from these beautiful girls. Instead, what he cherishes is the feeling that they care for him emotionally. Sometimes he behaves almost like a child wanting attention from those he can cling to. Jia Baoyu as a novelistic character can be read as a critique about the literati tradition of huiyan shi yingxiong because those girls who care deeply about him do so not because he has unrecognized talent or he is a hero, but because of his emotional sensitivity. From Jia Baoyu’s perspective, being a Confucian hero would be the last thing he wants (see, for example, his criticism of sijian or the much-admired heroic tradition of a Confucian minister risking his life to remonstrate with the emperor. 36.205). In fact, he adamantly refuses to assume any roles that could be associated with the world of Confucian male adults. What he seeks is not Confucian “talent recognition” but emotional refuge in a time of irrevocable family calamity (several times in the novel he shows that he is indeed fully aware of the family’s worsening financial situation, but he deliberately chooses to look away). While Honglou meng is probably the most innovative Chinese novel in many different respects, not the least of which is the creation of its eccentric protagonist Jia Baoyu, its indebtedness to the previous masterpieces in the Chinese novelistic tradition, especially the sixteenth-century novel Jin Ping Mei (Plum in the Golden Vase), is quite substantial, as scholars have demonstrated.9 As the first Chinese domestic novel, Jin Ping Mei is known for its focus on quotidian domestic life and its graphic and explicit descriptions. The novel is about how its male protagonist Ximen Qing, a merchant in a small town, becomes consumed by his material and especially sexual desires and how he suffers his eventual demise, and how his family undergoes drastic decline after his sudden death. One thing that distinguishes Jia Baoyu as a novelistic protagonist from Ximen Qing is the former’s lust of the mind. Like Ximen Qing in Jin Ping Mei, Jia Baoyu, as a privileged male in a polygamous society, is also interested in many women (in Jia Baoyu’s case, girls), and yet unlike 653

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Ximen Qing, who is only interested in conquering and possessing women physically, Jia Baoyu wants to be adored by as many beautiful girls as possible, or in his own words, he wants to claim the tears of all of them. He wants to be cared about by these girls and to have a special place in their hearts. One can argue that, in the history of the Chinese novel, the development from Jin Ping Mei to Honglou meng is also a development from a novelistic focus on yu (physical desire) to that on qing (emotions, feelings and sentiment), and Jia Baoyu is certainly the epitome of qing. However, this by no means suggests “pifu lanyin” or that physical lust is not thematically important in Honglou meng. On the contrary, there are several quite important characters in the novel who are closely associated with yu, such as two of Jia Baoyu’s male cousins, Jia Lian and Xue Pan (Xue Baochai’s elder brother). Even Jia Baoyu himself is not completely free from yu, although he is known for his lust of the mind. Scholars believe the novel Honglou meng as we have it now was developed from an earlier book manuscript titled Fengyue baojian (Precious Mirror for the Romantic), which, very much like Jin Ping Mei, is a cautionary tale about the consequences of the loss of control of physical desire (yu).10 However, in his revisions/rewriting, Cao Xueqin has placed much more emphasis on qing and especially Jia Baoyu’s lust of the mind, while, at the same time, he has also lowered considerably the ages of several important characters (including that of Jia Baoyu). In other words, now these characters become significantly younger. However, these changes are sometimes incomplete, and the traces of the earlier manuscript Fengyue baojian are still there, resulting in many inconsistencies within the novel (for example, the age inconsistencies of several main characters). Occasionally, Jia Boayu, despite his lust of the mind, behaves like Xue Pan, as if he were much older than what is suggested by his age, whereas in Honglou meng physical lust is often associated with the adult world. In fact, there appear to be two Jia Baoyus in the novel: one older (more closely associated with yu or physical desire) and the other younger (more closely associated with qing and the lust of the mind), even though the presence of the latter is much more prevalent in the novel. Such inconsistencies also point to the inseparability of yu and qing even though Jia Baoyu is largely defined by his lust of the mind. Cao Xueqin’s effort in his revision of the novel to lower the ages of some of his major characters is closely associated with his decision to place more emphases on qing and the lust of the mind because physical desire is presented as more closely associated with the adult world. Interestingly, this revisionary effort on the part of the author and the resultant inconsistencies, which can be both intentional and unintentional, parallel his male protagonist’s reluctance to grow up in the novel. Qing as represented in the novel in the form of Jia Baoyu’s lust of the mind has a special child-like quality, which might have rendered him more resistant to the corrupting influence of the adult world with its close association with physical desire and material concerns. The young Jia Baoyu often behaves as if he is still a little boy, thus the excuse for his continuing to live among the girls and practicing his “lust of the mind,” although this is an excuse that cannot be sustained forever. He is often pressured to assume the responsibility of an educated Confucian adult male—studying hard and passing the civil examinations as he grows up. The garden becomes an almost perfect place where the passage of time seems to have been temporarily suspended or where Jia Baoyu can more easily pretend that he can remain a little boy forever. Much of the significance of Jia Baoyu as a new novelistic character lies in his refusal to grow up to be part of the adult world where an educated man is supposed to aspire to, or fret over the lack of, career successes via passing the civil examinations or where a libertine such as Ximen Qing (from the novel Jin Ping Mei) seeks instant gratification with no regard for Confucian social norms.11 Honglou meng is also celebrated for creating many complex and unforgettable female characters, such as Wang Xifeng, who, despite or precisely because of her ability and calculating personality, eventually pays dearly for her scheming and ruthlessness. Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai, as the 654

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two most important girls in Jia Baoyu’s life, are often presented in close juxtaposition with each other: while both attractive in their respective ways, one is known for her wit and sharp tongue and her deep sense of insecurity, the other for her smooth social skills and her impeccable sense of Confucian propriety. Like Lin Daiyu, Xue Baochai is a complex character but, unlike Lin Daiyu, whose mind the reader is frequently allowed to enter into in the novel, Xue Baochai’s complexity as a novelistic character lies in her “opacity” (the reader has far less direct access to the inner working of her mind than in the case of Lin Daiyu) and her duplicity, not all of which is the result of her conscious choice. Despite her cold appearance, Xue Baochai apparently loves Jia Baoyu, at least subconsciously, as there are many subtle moments in the novel where some of her unexpected behaviors betray her true feelings in spite of her best efforts at self-control. The rivalry between these two female protagonists in the novel gave rise to two opposing camps among the readers, those favoring Lin Daiyu vs. those favoring Xue Baochai, a phenomenon that started not long after the novel was first published.12 In addition, Honglou meng also creates a large group of female characters in their capacities as maids, distinguished by their different personalities and aspirations. Among them the most memorable is perhaps Qingwen (Skybright), one of Jia Baoyu’s principal maids. Like Lin Daiyu, she has a sharp tongue, and, as a girl from a much lower social class without much education, she does not shy away from letting others know how she feels. She is known for her quick temper. Her outspokenness might have indirectly cost her life. The farewell scene between Jia Baoyu and Qingwen before the latter dies is perhaps one of the most unforgettable love scenes in Chinese literature: the way she tries to vindicate her innocence against the accusation that she has tried to seduce Jia Baoyu and her simultaneous regret that she has never had any physical relationship with Jia Baoyu, as well as the symbolic consummation of their relationship (their exchanging of clothing, etc.). This farewell scene is one of the several famous love scenes in the novel that testify to our novelist’s innovativeness as a master of love story. Of course, Honglou meng is much more than a lengthy story of romantic love or even a family saga. The novel has been celebrated as an “encyclopedia” of premodern Chinese culture. It offers a wealth of in-depth information on various aspects of Chinese culture and society at that time: from culinary matters to embroidery, garden aesthetics, poetry, painting, architecture, household management, religion and philosophy. No other Chinese literary masterpieces have exhibited such a strong fascination as Honglou meng does with the minute details of the material world, and yet, at the same time, the novel also demonstrates a profound doubt of the reality of this very material world it has so convincingly constructed, as it ponders a series of philosophical/religious issues, such as reality vs. dream, true vs. false, the mundane vs. the supernatural.

The Reception of the Novel The impact of the novel, after it was first published in 1791, was immediate and widespread. A second printed edition was published the following year. It was said that soon almost every family in the capital had a copy of the novel. Reading and discussing Honglou meng had become such a hobby for so many that there was a saying “if one could not carry a conversation on Honglou meng, that person would be considered to have lived in vain even though he had read every other book under heaven.”13 While the first eighty chapters of Honglou meng circulated in manuscript form already contained what was commonly known as the Zhiyanzhai commentaries, the 120-chapter printed version of the novel soon began to be reprinted with new commentaries by other commentators. These new commentary editions of the novel became such a hit that it soon became difficult 655

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for a reader to find an edition of the novel that did not contain commentaries. Unlike the earlier commentators of the novel’s manuscript copies, most of whom seem to have known Cao Xueqin personally, these commentators of the posthumously-published novel belonged to a much more distant generation, and they could not and did not claim to have any personal knowledge of the author; thus they had to present themselves as commentators on other grounds than possessing privileged information about the author. Their commentarial authority lies more in their interpretative theories and insights. Among these commentators, Wang Xilian (ca. 1805–1877), who interprets the novel as a cautionary tale on the overindulgence of desire, was one of the most influential. Another well-known commentator was Zhang Xinzhi (fl. 1829–1850), whose commentary edition of the novel was first published in 1877. Zhang offered a systematic reading of the novel as an elaborate allegory of Confucian self-cultivation as espoused in the Confucian classics Zhongyong (the Doctrines of the Mean) and Daxue (Great Learning). Yijing (the Book of Changes) was another Confucian classic Zhang liked to reference in his reading of the novel. Unlike Wang and Zhang, another commentator, Yao Xie (1805–1864) was quite unusual in that he intended his commentaries to be a practical reading aid or reference tool for the reader given the complexity of this enormous novel. Yao was known as the statistician of Honglou emng, who was eager to provide the reader with various data (the novel’s chronology, the ages of the characters, the numbers of the maids, the expenditure of this huge household, etc.). Eventually the commentaries by these three commentators were assembled into a collected commentary edition of the novel, which was published in 1884. With its numerous reprintings, this collected commentary edition soon became the most influential and popular edition of the novel during the late Qing and the early Republican periods.14 At the turn of the twentieth century, some critics tried to read Honglou meng as a roman à clef (contending that the novel was about the romance between the Shunzhi Emperor [r. 1644–1661] and the famous courtesan Dong Xiaowan, or about the palace intrigues). In fact, the so-called Xin Hongxue (modern study of Honglou meng) was initiated by scholars, such as Hu Shi (1891–1962), to partly refute this approach by shifting focus onto the author and emphasizing the novel’s possible autobiographical significance. It was also around that time when the manuscript copies of the novel (containing only the first eighty chapters), which had been largely forgotten by most people after the first printing of the novel in 1791, were rediscovered. The rediscovery of these manuscript copies and the increased knowledge about the author’s family greatly enhanced our understanding of the historical context within which the novel was written and circulated and how this complex novel with its complicated textual history was read and interpreted before its first publication in 1791.15 Although Honglou meng’s enormous popularity after its initial publication was quite remarkable, what is probably even more noteworthy, as far as the development of the Chinese novel is concerned, is the novel’s special appeal to female readers. It has been known that many women read and wrote poetry and drama in late imperial China. However, we had little information about female readership of fiction during the same historical period (whereas the participation of women was crucial to the rise of the novel in the West). Honglou meng is the first Chinese novel for which we have a substantial amount of documented evidence of the existence of a widespread female readership. With its large group of female characters and its focus on qing and its detailed attention to the boudoir life of young maidens, Honglou meng has provided female readers with a novelistic work that many of them would feel comfortable enough to openly discuss. The novel’s wide circulation and unprecedented popularity appear to have accelerated the involvement of women not only as readers but also as writers of vernacular fiction. The earliest extant Chinese novel authored by a woman happens to be Hong lou meng ying (The Shadows of Dream of the Red Chamber), a 656

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sequel to Honglou meng. Its author, Gu Taiqing (1799–1877), was also a well-known woman poet at that time. She was apparently a great fan of Honglou meng.16 Of course, Gu Taiqing was only one of many Honglou meng sequel writers. In fact, it is estimated that the novel has inspired close to a hundred sequels, with the earliest sequel Hou Honglou meng (The Later Dream in the Red Chamber) appearing in 1796, less than five years after the parent novel was first published.17 One has every reason to believe that more sequels will be produced in the future, given the novel’s enduring appeal and popularity. Honglou meng’s presence and influence have been omnipresent in modern Chinese culture. Many of its characters and the terms/phrases appearing in the novel have now become an integral part of Chinese language. For example, the character Wang Xifeng has become synonymous with a “calculating woman who could be quite ruthless,” and the name of the character Liu laolao (the poor and self-claimed distant relative of the Jias, who has visited them several times and created quite a few comic scenes in the novel) has become synonymous with “a country bumpkin” or “a bull in a China shop.” One may even argue that for someone not too familiar with premodern Chinese culture, reading the novel Honglou meng might serve as a good introduction. Indeed, like many great literary masterpieces from other cultures, part of the greatness of Honglou meng lies in its ability to appeal to a great variety of different readers (from average readers to literary experts) and its seemingly infinite capacity to reward rereading, as suggested by the magic stone at the start of the novel.

Notes 1 See Feng Qiyong and Li Xifan, comp., Honglou meng da cidian [A Comprehensive Dictionary of Honglou meng] (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 1990), 850. For a study of Cao Yin’s life and career in English, see Jonathan D. Spence, Tsʻao Yin and the Kʻang-hsi Emperor: Bondservant and Master (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988). 2 For a study of Zhiyanzhai commentaries, see Sun Xun, Honglou meng Zhi ping chutan [A Preliminary Study of the Zhiyanzhai Commentaries on Hong Loumeng] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chbanshe, 1981). 3 Yu Pingbo’s Honglou meng yanjiu [A Study of Honglou meng] (Beijing, Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1988) is representative in this regard. 4 See, for an example, Lin Yutang, Pingxin lun Gao E [A Fair-Minded Look at Gao E] (Taipei: Wenxin shudian, 1966). 5 Cf. Yu Pingbo, Honglou meng yanjiu, 32–52, 132–54. 6 References to the text of the novel are to David Hawkes, trans., The Story of the Stone (New York: Penguin Books, 1973), with chapter and page numbers provided in parentheses. 7 In his translation of the novel, David Hawkes has changed “he” in the first two paragraphs in the original novel to “you” in his English translation, presumably to make it consistent with the “you” in the next two paragraphs, thus probably inadvertently failing to capture the deliberate intention of the original author to use the changes of the personal pronoun to underscore the changing psychology of Lin Daiyu at this moment, as we discuss here. 8 For an extended discussion of Jia Baoyu’s “lust of mind” and the concept of qing, see Martin Huang, Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001), 271–94. 9 Mary Elizabeth Scott, “Azure from Indigo: Honglou meng’s Debt to Jin Ping Mei” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1989). 10 Zhang Zhijun, Honglou meng chengshu yanjiu [A Study on the Writing Process of Honglou meng] (Beijing: Zhongguo shudian, 2004), esp. 54–74. 11 See Martin Huang, Literati Self-Re/Presentation: Autobiographical Sensibility in the Eighteenth-Century Chinese Novel (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 97–106. 12 Yisu, comp., Honglou meng juan [The Volume on Honglou meng] (Beijing Zhonghua shuju, 1963), 390. 13 Yisu, Honglou meng juan, 354–55.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 14 For a discussion of these commentators, see Martin Huang, “Readership and Reading Practices: The Story of the Stone in Premodern China,” in Approaches to Teaching The Story of the Stone (Dream of the Red Chamber), ed. Andrew Schonebaum and Tina Lu (New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2012), 96–99. 15 The most complete and detailed account of the reception history of Honglou meng to date is Chen Weizhao, Hongxue tongshi [A Comprehensive History of the Study of Honglou meng], 2 vols (Shanghai remin chubanshe, 2005). 16 See Ellen Widmer, “Honglou meng Sequels and Their Female Readers in Nineteenth-Century China,” in Snakes’ Legs: Sequels, Continuations, Rewritings and Chinese Fiction, ed. Martin Huang (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004), 116–42, and The Beauty and the Book: Women and Fiction in Nineteenth-Century China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), 181–247. 17 Zhao Jianzhong, Houlou meng xushu yanjiu [A Study of Honglou meng Sequels] (Tianjin: Tianjin guji chubanshe, 1997), 20, 247. For a shorter study of Honglou meng sequels in English, see Keith McMahon, “Eliminating Traumatic Antinomies: Sequels to Honglou meng,” in Snakes’ Legs, 98–115.

Further Reading Huang, Martin. Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China, 271–314. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001. Huang, Martin. Literati Self-Re/Presentation: Autobiographical Sensibility in the Eighteenth-Century Chinese Novel, 75–108. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995. Plaks, Andrew. Archetype and Allegory in the Dream of the Red Chamber. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976. Schonebaum, Andrew, and Tina Lu, eds. Approaches to Teaching The Story of the Stone (Dream of the Red Chamber). New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2012. Yu, Anthony C. Rereading the Stone: Desire and the Making of Fiction in “Dream of the Red Chamber.” Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.

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56 THE SCHOLARS David L. Rolston

The Scholars (Rulin waishi; more literally: The Unofficial History of the Scholars), by Wu Jingzi (1701–1754) in 56 chapters (first extant edition dates to 1803), is famous enough to appear on some lists of the most important traditional Chinese novels,1 but, probably since it is less often read from cover to cover than the others and has not been very successfully adapted for modern media and is instead most familiar to modern Chinese readers from extracts included in middle school textbooks,2 it does not appear in all of the lists.3 Modern readers (readers influenced by “classical” Western expectations of what a novel is and does) have had trouble understanding and accepting the structure and plan of the novel, often thinking of the work as no more than a collection of short stories. It is also perhaps too easy to think of the world and concerns of the novel as too linked to and constrained by a world that does not resemble our own world very much, a problem exacerbated by popular reductionist ideas of it as nothing more than a critique of the traditional civil service examination system, something that was abolished in 1905. There have existed, however, since The Scholars was completed, coteries of devoted readers, most of whom were themselves scholars. Their commentaries on it were published (these date from the first edition mentioned above to one that first appeared in 1989 and was followed by a revised and expanded version, under a different title, in 2002) or were handwritten on published editions. Ever since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, these devoted readers have held periodic academic conferences regarding it,4 created an organization for the study of it,5 and published numerous books and articles on it.6 In 1986, a memorial museum to Wu Jingzi was opened on the site where the Wu family lived, in his birthplace in Quanjiao, Anhui. Further, in 2014, a complex called the International City of The Scholars Culture (Rulin Waishi Guoji Wenhua Cheng), was opened. It contains a tourist hotel, shops, and a theater at which is performed a dramatic version of the novel condensed into an evening’s performance. The combined efforts of Wu Jingzi scholars have, over the years, turned up more and more examples of Wu Jingzi’s writing outside his novel and the collection of his writings completed in his lifetime, as well as writings about him or addressed to him by his friends and acquaintances, some of which mention his novel. The most important example of his previously uncollected work is a piece Wu wrote on the Classic of Poetry (Shijing) that is attributed to and quoted by the character most closely modeled on himself in The Scholars, Du Shaoqing,7 but was long thought lost.8 The most important example of a newly found piece concerning his novel is a commemorative poem written by Ning  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-78

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Kai (1712–1801), a man newly identified as the model for a different character in the novel, Wu Shu, that takes as integral parts of the novel sections that some have doubted were by Wu Jingzi (see later).9

The Author and the Novel What has long been known about Wu Jingzi that relates to his novel includes such facts as that his family claimed to be descendants of Wu Taibo, the supposedly historical bearer of Northern Plains culture to the South, who is the person sacrificed to in the climactic ritual in Chapter 37 of the novel, and that his own family once had considerable success in the civil service examinations (four out of five sons of an ancestor won the highest possible degree), but that his own branch and particularly Wu himself had no success. We also know that he had a scholarly interest in historiography from the title of a work he wrote comparing overlapping material on the Early Han Dynasty (202 BCE–9 CE) in the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) and The History of the Han Dynasty (Hanshu),10 but the work itself is not extant. In none of Wu’s extant writing does he mention his novel. Some have argued that the preface to the 1803 edition, attributed to “The Old Man of Leisure Studio” (Xianzhai laoren), was actually written by Wu, but there is no ironclad evidence that that is true.11 Besides Du Shaoqing, there is another character in the novel modeled on elements of Wu Jingzi and his experiences, Gai Kuan. Du Shaoqing more closely resembles the author in the days before he moved from his hometown in Quanjiao and then his early years in Nanjing, while Gai Kuan more closely resembles Wu in his days of relative poverty later in life. Wu Jingzi’s friends describe him as, toward the end of his life, not having rice to eat or money for clothes. Many of Wu’s friends knew that a major project of his was the writing of The Scholars. One of them, Cheng Jinfang (1718–1784), wrote the earliest extant reference to it (if we exclude The Old Man of Leisure Studio preface, which is dated to 1736, long before the novel could have been finished). In a poem dated to 1749, Cheng wrote the following lines: The “Unofficial History” is a record of the Confucian scholars, How accomplished and fine is the characterization therein. But it makes me sad for his [Wu Jingzi’s] sake to think, That his name will live on only because of his fiction.12 The earliest extant version of the novel, in manuscript or print, the 1803 edition, does not link the novel in any explicit way with Wu Jingzi. The first edition of the novel to mention Wu Jingzi’s name would seem to be the 1869 Suzhou Chunyu Zhai edition that includes a postface by a distant relative of his, Jin He (1818–1885). Jin He attributes all of what he knows of Wu Jingzi and his novel to his mother. He claims the novel was actually first printed in Yangzhou by a friend of Wu, Jin Zhaoyan (1718–1789+), when the latter was an official there, which would limit the time of publication to 1772–1779, but Jin says nothing more about that edition, which if it ever existed is no longer extant. Jin He claims that the original version of the novel (yuanben) did not have a Chapter 56 but ended with the poem that ends that chapter. The only reasons he gives for why Chapter 56 was not part of the original novel are that Wu’s works always had an odd number of chapters (not true), the chapter plagiarizes language from items in Wu’s extant collected works (the overlap in language is actually not striking), and the writing is so inferior that it is laughable.13 Jin’s advice that the chapter should be cut was not heeded in the 1869 edition it appeared in, but a 55-chapter edition of the novel was published 660

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in 1920 by the Oriental Book Company (Yuandong Tushu) under the encouragement of Hu Shi (1891–1962), who did accept Jin He’s advice on the matter. There was a period in the PRC, from 1954 to 1999, in which printings of the novel for a mass audience (as opposed to for scholars of the novel), including the only “complete” translation of the novel into English (the translation by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, first published in 1957) were printed without Chapter 56 but rather ended with the final poem from that chapter14 (a partial exception is the 1982 People’s Literature [Renmin Wenxue] edition that includes Chapter 56 in an appendix). Jin He was also the first person to publish the idea that most of the characters in the novel are based on historical figures, to whom they are linked through subtle clues. Despite the fact that Jin He’s postface contains a number of errors of fact, its claims about Chapter 56 were taken seriously enough for that chapter to be deleted from popular editions of the novel for decades. There is another statement about the novel, this time in the biography of Wu Jingzi written by Cheng Jinfang (the same person whose poem was quoted earlier),15 that has led some scholars to think that more than Chapter 56 of the novel is not by Wu Jingzi. In the section on Wu’s writings in the biography, Cheng records the titles of his collected works and his work on the Classic of Poetry mentioned earlier, but is vague about how long they are, saying only that they both have “so many chapters” (ruogan juan). He then concludes the section by saying that Wu, “in imitation of fiction written by authors of the Tang dynasty” (fang Tangren xiaoshuo),16 wrote The Scholars, in fifty chapters (juan). This claim was repeated many times but lacks any independent support. Instead of seeing the number 50 as a round number, some scholars have tried to identify which chapters, besides Chapter 56, were not by Wu. The most serious early attempt to take Cheng’s statement literally and to try to figure out which chapters were bogus appeared in 1982 in two articles by Zhang Peiheng (1934–2011).17 The parts of the novel that he identified as added occur within Chapters 36–44 of the novel. The articles got a lot of attention but did not convince too many scholars. The arguments given are quite subjective and based on a quite restricted idea of both Wu Jingzi and his novel. This issue of the “original form/appearance” (yuanmao) of the novel was revived in 2015 when the piece commemorating the writing of The Scholars by Ning Kai was discovered and made public. The poem treats Chapter 56 and the chapters in the first fifty-five thought by Zhang to be bogus as integral parts of Wu’s novel, but there has been controversy about how long after Wu’s death the piece was written, and it has even been argued that Ning Kai added the disputed parts of the novel himself.18 While the idea that Chapter 56 and five other chapters-worth of material in the earliest extant edition of The Scholars were not written by Wu Jingzi or not integral parts of the novel is a minority view, a new edition appeared in 1888 whose length had been extended to sixty chapters; it was publicized as “Enlarged and Expanded” (Zengbu) in its full title.19 Its four new chapters were inserted into the novel in the middle of Chapter 43.20 While the existence of this edition seems to prove that someone thought that the structure of the novel was flexible enough that it could be expanded in this fashion, the fact that the edition was not taken seriously (the added material sticks out like a sore thumb) seems to prove the opposite. Traditional commentary on The Scholars, written in the margins and at the ends of chapters, can be divided into (1) published editions, including the 1803 edition, which has post-chapter comments after most of the chapters; the 1874 edition from Qixing Tang with unsigned post-chapter comments for chapters that lacked them in the 1803 edition, as well as marginal comments; an 1881 edition (with interlineal comments and occasional post-chapter comments) and an 1885 edition by Huang Wenhu (1808–1885; comments not entirely the same as in his earlier edition; only quotes or “cues” from the novel provided rather than its full text), and (2) manuscript comments written on personal copies of published editions or a manuscript copy based on a printed 661

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edition. These include sets of comments by Xu Yunlin and Huang Xiaotian, both of whom knew Wang Wenhu and played a role in the appearance of his commentary editions; and by Huang Xie (1884–1944).21 As one might expect from people who have taken the time to comment in detail on a novel, they are as a whole very complimentary toward it,22 with the exception, for instance, of the negative comments of Wang Wenhu on Chapter 56, which, like Jin He, do not treat that chapter as written by Wu Jingzi. Modern readers, influenced by “classical” Western expectations of what a novel is and does, have had trouble understanding and accepting the structure and plan of the novel, often thinking of the work as no more than a collection of short stories. It is also perhaps too easy to think of the world and concerns of the novel as too linked and constrained to a world that does not very much resemble our own.

Modern Readings of the Novel Modern schools of interpretation of The Scholars began in the early twentieth century, when fiction began to be a topic worthy of academic study, with the work of Hu Shi and Lu Xun (pen name of Zhou Shuren, 1881–1936). Hu Shi was one of the leaders in the drive to “modernize” the Chinese language by convincing writers to stop using literary Chinese in favor of a written form of the vernacular, and one of the reasons for his interest in traditional vernacular fiction was the possibility he saw of using novels written in that tradition as models for how to write in vernacular Chinese. In a series of articles (usually in the form of prefaces to new editions of particular novels with Western punctuation, from the Oriental Press), he focused on establishing authorship and sorting out issues of textual transmission. His ability to turn up new biographical information and rare manuscript copies and editions gave him a substantial advantage, even as the discovery of new sources and data by himself or others could quickly make his work out of date. Literary analysis is not the real focus of his work, but his model for what a novel is/should be was heavily influenced by Western notions (he did his undergraduate and graduate training at Cornell and Columbia, respectively). Hu Shi divided late Qing fiction into a “Southern” and a “Northern” tradition. He characterized the latter as “satirical fiction” (fengci xiaoshuo) and argued that The Scholars was the model for the category in terms of approach and structure. He emphasized the role of criticism of the examination system in The Scholars and its use of “realistic technique” (xieshi zhuyi jishu) but complains about the lack of “plot.” Lu Xun was one of the first to teach college courses on Chinese fiction in China and published the first general history of the subject, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction (Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilüe), in 1923–1924. He praised The Scholars as the first and only successful example of satirical fiction in traditional China, and gave it pride of place in the chapter treating satirical fiction. Like Hu Shih, Lu Xun stressed the role of realism in the novel (citing this as one of the major differences between it and the late Qing novels that tried to emulate it), and he criticized the lack of a unifying plot or structure in it. With the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the evaluation of traditional novels and their authors was politicized to a much greater extent than before. Fictional realism was judged to be a progressive technique capable of producing valuable works even if the worldview of the particular writer was hopelessly conservative. There were attempts to raise Wu Jingzi’s stature by linking him with “enlightenment” figures of the Ming-Qing transition who rejected service to the Qing state, such as Huang Zongxi (1610–1695) and Gu Yanwu (1613–1682) or the more “pragmatic” Confucian school of Yan Yuan (1635–1767) and Li Gong (1659–1733). 662

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Wu Jingzi and his novel are still popularly associated with an almost complete rejection of the civil service examination system, but his complaint seems more to have been with how the system often corrupted scholars to the point that real scholarship was neglected in favor of passing the exams by whatever means possible. In the novel, there are a number of characters, perhaps most prominently the character in the body of the novel presented most positively, Yu Yude, who are successful at participating in the examination system without letting it corrupt them. There are many indications that Wu worked for and would have welcomed exam success. In 1736 he was recommended to sit for a special examination designed to find and reward scholars who had “fallen through the cracks” of the examination system, but illness kept him from attending (in contrast to Du Shaoqing, who pretends to be ill to avoid taking the exam). Wu Jingzi was praised for upholding “enlightened” and “progressive” ideas, from the point of view of post-liberation China. For example, the clear disapproval of some of the more extreme manifestations of geomancy (a proto-science used mainly to locate auspicious grave sites) shown in the novel was taken to prove that Wu Jingzi was a scientific rationalist, despite the fact that the most positive character in the novel, Yu Yude, practices geomancy, proving that in the eyes of the author, the important factor was the motives and sincerity of the geomancer and his patrons, rather than the issue of geomancy itself. The basically conservative and reformist nature of Wu Jingzi’s social criticism was overlooked in favor of constructing the image of a more forthrightly progressive thinker.23 Outside of the PRC and the grip of these mental frameworks was to be found a much greater diversity in the interpretations of The Scholars that included a “modernist” reading by the Taiwan scholar Yue Hengjun that seems to have been nourished by existentialism,24 and formal analyses of the novel by the Czech scholar Oldřich Král25 and the Polish scholar Zbigniew Slupski.26 Timothy Wong used a more purely Western and more rigorous understanding of the concept of satire to present an interpretation capable of explaining both the social criticism and the idealist program of Wu Jingzi as part of a fairly unified system.27 The more open intellectual atmosphere in China since the death of Mao Zedong (1893–1976) allowed for the proliferation·of different interpretations there as well, but the most influential work there has continued to be focused on finding additional writings by Wu Jingzi and on him by his friends and contemporaries. The first scholar to attempt a systematic analysis of The Scholars in terms of a traditional Chinese aesthetics of the novel was Shuen-fu Lin.28 His essay was translated into Chinese in both China (1982) and Taiwan (1984) and generated a large amount of interest. Conceptually, he plays off what he describes as a Western-oriented prejudice in late Qing and Republican era literary criticism of the structure of the Rulin waishi against what he presents as more truly native patterns of organization characterized by the predominance of synchronicity over causality. Although only occasionally cited in his argument, the categories and viewpoint of the 1803 commentary on the novel can be seen behind many of the particular features of his analysis of the structure of the novel.29 Shang Wei’s 2003 book on the novel,30 which also focuses on the importance of ritual in the novel (and to Wu Jingzi and his times), was translated into Chinese in 2012 and has been very influential in China.

A Way to Read and Understand the Novel My own opinion is that The Scholars is best understood when looked at from the perspective of traditional fiction criticism and how his novel fits into the development of the novel in traditional 663

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China. This involves looking both at how Wu Jingzi made use of earlier fiction and other models valorized by fiction commentators, and how Wu extended their ideas. In The Scholars, Wu Jingzi aims to present a very broad overview of the challenges faced by scholars in his time and possible solutions to them. His novel is more of an “anatomy” than a regular novel, so he needed models to help him deal with his large cast of characters and array of events. The novel that he made the most use of is The Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan). The two novels focus on very different sets of characters, scholars in the one novel and outlaws in the other, but both are about the drawing together of geographically widely separated people to establish a new kind of society, in Chapter 70 of Jin Shengtan’s very influential edition of The Water Margin of 1644, and Chapter 37 of The Scholars. The most striking way that The Scholars makes use of The Water Margin occurs quite early in the novel, in the first chapter, where the dispersal of star spirits to be reincarnated as the scholars who appear later in the novel echoes the freeing of the 108 baleful spirits in the prologue of Jin’s The Water Margin so that they can be incarnated, forced to become outlaws, and eventually all come together in Chapter 70.31 The prime model that Jin Shengtan posits for The Water Margin is Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian (145–c. 86 BCE), a famous comprehensive history of the world as known to its author that presents a huge cast of characters, primarily through single and collective biographies of them. The title of Wu Jingzi’s novel proclaims it as an “unofficial history” (waishi) and links it to Sima Qian’s “Collective Biography of the Scholars” (“Rulin liezhuan”), perhaps the earliest Chinese work that laments the corruption of scholarship caused by problems in state sponsorship of it. Wu Jingzi includes a collective biography of eccentric figures in Chapter 55 of his novel, but also includes separate biographies of Wang Mian in Chapter 1 and Yu Yude in Chapter 36, but more importantly disperses information about the same character so as to present a more three-dimensional portrait, something Sima Qian was famous for.32 Wu Jingzi might also have been influenced in his abandonment of the “mode of commentary” in favor of “latent commentary” (see later) by how readers have traditionally looked for Sima Qian’s true opinion of his characters “between the lines” rather than in the surface level of his writing.33 Fiction critics such as Jin Shengtan criticized readers who only read for the plot and instead drew special attention to characterization. In The Scholars we see this de-emphasis on plot in favor of characterization carried to the extreme in that there is no overall plot development that structures the novel. Instead, we get a wide-ranging survey of the question of what it means to be a scholar in the author’s day. We have a large cast of characters whom the author forces to face similar dilemmas so that the reader is drawn to contrast their decisions and think about how he himself would act in such a situation. At the same time, the focus in the novel is moved from what a character does to his motives for what he does. This makes the novel much more complex and dispersed than a typical traditional novel, and it requires the reader to do more work and read more actively. While this surely cut down on the total readership for the novel, it also helped create a very committed, if comparatively small, fan base composed mostly of scholars or would-be scholars. Although The Scholars does not have a single character who is at the heart of the core structure of the novel, such as is the case with Song Jiang in The Water Margin or Jia Baoyu in Dream of the Red Chamber, it does have exemplary figures, such as Wang Mian, Yu Yude, and the four eccentrics, that the reader is invited to compare and judge other characters against, as well as central, organizing characters who reflect the author, such as Du Shaoqing (and to a lesser extent and in more reduced circumstances, Gai Kuan). Du Shaoqing acts as a patron who helps organize and fund the all-important ritual for Wu Taibo in Chapter 37 (although this ritual is a failure when it comes to its stated goals, it remains a shining example of a worthwhile attempt that is not forgotten in the rest of the novel and is particularly recalled in the last of the regular chapters, Chapter 55). 664

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Another way that The Scholars makes the reader work harder than many readers might be interested in doing, but one that clearly appealed to a smaller coterie of readers, was the virtual suppression of the traditional vernacular fiction narrator modeled on the professional oral storyteller, whose main job was to guide the reader through changes in the narrative between the modes of “commentary,” “description,” and “presentation”34 and to present guidelines for the evaluation of the characters and what they do. This was possible and attractive to do because a body of readers had been trained by reading commentary editions of novels who could fill in the kind of commentary that Wu Jingzi might have included through either the storyteller-narrator or through extratextual commentary. I have elsewhere described this as “latent commentary.”35 Wu Jingzi also made the evaluation of his characters both harder and more attractive to some by severely limiting the readers’ access to the characters’ thoughts. Wu Jingzi also streamlined his novel in a new way, by abandoning the traditional “mode of description” that relied on stop-time, quite formulaic description of settings and characters in parallel prose, and including instead descriptions in elegant and carefully fashioned prose much more specific to what is being described (the first example in the novel is the famous description of the lake that inspires Wang Mian, in Chapter 1, to teach himself how to paint). Jin Shengtan had excised almost all parallel prose descriptions in his Shuihu zhuan but had not gone on to create a new mode of description. Abandonment of the modes of commentary and description in The Scholars left only the mode of presentation and allowed Wu Jingzi to produce a more subtle novel but also one less likely to appeal to a mass readership. The Scholars is indeed episodic, but the episodes are tied together by common themes and concerns (how to act as a scholar) that are set up by prefiguration. The work insures these are not forgotten later in the reading of the novel by including recollections of them by characters and drawing indirect attention to them through their similarities and differences in later episodes. At the same time, the reader’s attention to the author is fostered at the beginning and end of the novel by the inclusion of lyric poems in the voice of the implied author. The records of traditional readers of The Scholars show that a bit of effort on their part, an understanding of how traditional Chinese novels work, and where this particular novel fits into the history of the genre, allowed them to see the novel as an artistic whole. For most readers, however, it seems that the extracts in middle school textbooks and simplistic understandings of the novel have been, unfortunately, enough.

Notes 1 There are some who are adamant in their opinion that it is not appropriate to refer to traditional Chinese full-length-fiction as novels. That requires a rather restrictive definition of what a novel is, about which, in turn, there has and will be a lot of debate. 2 On the appearance of extracts from The Scholars in textbooks on Mainland China from 1904 to the present, see Ning Shuquan, “A Preliminary Investigation of the Reception History of The Scholars and Its Use in Middle School Chinese Language and Literature Public Education” [Rulin waishi jieshou shi ji qi zhongxue yuwen jiaoxue de lianxi chutan] (MA thesis, Nankai University, 2021). 3 The earliest such list acclaimed the four selected works “extraordinary books” (qishu) and appeared in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). A twentieth-century list of “four great masterworks” (sida mingzhu) covers one Qing dynasty (1644–1911) work but not The Scholars. Lists of six “classical novels” or “masterworks” such as C.T. Hsia’s list of six novels, each of which is the subject of a chapter in his The Classical Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction (1968), or the twentieth-century “six great masterworks” (liuda mingzhu) do include it. Only Hsia’s list stipulates that the items involved are novels (the Chinese version, liubu gudian xiaoshuo only characterizes them as fictional), and the list of six masterworks includes a collection of short fiction in the literary language).

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 4 The first was held in 1954. 5 The website for it can be found at: http://www.rulwh.cn/, accessed August 17, 2022. 6 For surveys of published scholarship on the novel, see Li Hanqiu, ed., Rulin waishi yanjiu zonglan [An Overview of Research on the Scholars] (Tianjin: Tianjin jiaoyu, 1992); Li Hanqiu, ed., Rulin waishi yanjiu xin shiji [Research on The Scholars in the New Century] (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaotong, 2013), and Han Hongwei and Bai Jingjie, eds., Rulin waishi xueshu dang’an [Academic Cases Concerning the Scholars] (Wuhan: Wuhan daxue, 2018). 7 This use of a novel as a vehicle to publish one’s own views on academic topics is something that became even more prominent after The Scholars. For an article on an eighteenth-century novel of this sort and a discussion of the genre in general, see C. T. Hsia, “The Scholar-Novelist and Chinese Culture: A Reappraisal of Ching-hua Yuan,” in Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays, ed. Andrew H. Plaks (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977), 266–305. 8 The title of the work is Wenmu on the Classic of Poetry (Wenmu shuo Shi; Wenmu was Wu Jingzi’s “style name” [hao]). On the work and its discovery, see Li Hanqiu, ed., Research on The Scholars in the New Century, 491–97. On two books on the work, published in 2002 and 2003, see Han Hongwei and Bai Jingjie, eds., Academic Cases Concerning The Scholars, 240–41. The author of one of these books, Zhou Xinglu, is the one who discovered it. 9 An overview of the discovery of the piece and the debate about what evidence it provides is given in Han Hongwei and Bai Jingjie, eds., Academic Cases Concerning The Scholars, 141–42. The piece itself can be found in an article by Zheng Zhiliang, the person who discovered it, “Rulin waishi xinzheng—Ning Kai de “Rulin waishi tici ji qi yiyi” [New Evidence on The Scholars—Ning Kai’s ‘Poem Commemorating The Scholars” and Its Significance], Wenxue yichan [Literary Heritage] 3 (2015): 32–33. 10 The issue of the relationship between Scholars and traditional historiography (and particularly Records of the Grand Historian), will be addressed later. 11 For a translation of the preface and an introduction to it and the commentary in the 1803 edition, see David L. Rolston, “The Wo-hsien ts’ao-t’ang Commentary on the Ju-lin wai-shih (The Scholars),” in How to Read the Chinese Novel, ed. David L. Rolston (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 244–51. 12 The poem is the sixteenth of a set of eighteen. The entire poem can be conveniently found in Zhu Yixuan and Liu Yuchen, eds., Rulin waishi yanjiu ziliao [Research Material on the Scholars] (Tianjin: Nankai daxue, 1998), 131. 13 The postface is included in Zhu Yixuan and Liu Yuchen, eds., Research Material on the Scholars, 279–81. 14 The text that sets up Chapter 56 at the very end of Chapter 55 is also deleted. 15 The biography is entitled “Wenmu xiansheng zhuan” [Biography of Mr. Wenmu]. It is included in Zhu Yixuan and Liu Yuchen, eds., Research Material on the Scholars, 133–34. 16 Tang dynasty fiction, short and written in the classical language, seems an odd model for Wu’s novel. Perhaps Cheng was only trying to link the novel to probably the most prestigious form of fiction of his day. 17 A discussion of the article by Zhang that identifies the material he considered bogus and a bibliography of Zhang’s writings on the novel can be found in Han Hongwei and Bai Jingjie, eds., Academic Cases Concerning the Scholars, 128–43. 18 As noted earlier, the piece can be found in Zheng Zhiliang, “Rulin waishi xinzheng—Ning Kai de Rulin waishi tici ji qi yiyi,” 32–33; an overview of the debate about what evidence it provides is given in Han Hongwei and Bai Jingjie, eds., Academic Cases Concerning the Scholars, 141–42. 19 The full title, Zengbu Qixing tang Rulin waishi [Enlarged and Expanded Qixing Tang Edition of The Scholars] refers to the source of its base text for the other chapters and their commentary published by Qixing Tang (preface dated 1874). 20 The added chapters are reproduced in a special appendix in Li Hanqiu, ed., Rulin waishi huijao huiping ben [Variorum Edition, Both Text and Commentary, of The Scholars] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1984), 794–824. The 1888 edition did not bother to provide extratextual comments to match those it borrowed from the 1874 edition for the other chapters. 21 As new sets of manuscript comments have been discovered over the years, they have been incorporated into later editions of Li Hanqiu’s Variorum Edition, Both Text and Commentary, of The Scholars, published by the same press in 1999 and 2010. Since 2010, a new set of manuscript comments, on chapters 1–23 only, by Tong Yegeng (1828–1899), was discovered. On them see Zhu Zebao, “Xinjian ‘Zengbu Rulin waishi meiping’ kaolun” [On the Newly Discovered ‘Marginal Comments on the Enlarged Edition of The Scholars’], Wenxian [Literary Documents] 2 (2021): 137–45.

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The Scholars 22 While early novel commentaries include examples of commentators who seem to have tried to raise their own status by denigrating the works on which they commented, this was not the model that was eventually the most influential. See David L. Rolston, Traditional Chinese Fiction and Fiction Commentary: Reading and Writing Between the Lines (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997). 23 The otherwise valuable work done in Paul S. Ropp’s Dissent in Early Modern China: Ju-lin wai-shih and Ch’ing Social Criticism (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981) seems unfortunately restricted by the frameworks of this 1950s push to present Wu Jingzi as a progressive thinker. 24 See her “Shiji de piaobozhe: Lun Rulin waishi de qunxiang” [Drifters Over the Centuries: On the Sets of Characters in The Scholars], Xiandai wenxue [Modern Literature] 45 (1971): 123–35. 25 For example, see his “Several Artistic Methods in the Classic Chinese Novel Ju-lin wai-shih,” Archiv Orientální 32 (1964): 16–43. 26 He wrote a book on the novel in Polish and published, in English, “Literary and Ideological Responses to the Rulin waishi in Modern Chinese Literature,” in Modern Chinese Literature and Its Social Context, ed. Gӧran Malmqvist (Stockholm: Stockholm University, 1975), 123–39. 27 See Timothy Chung-tai Wong, “Satire and the Polemics of the Criticism of Chinese Fiction: A Study of the Ju-lin wai-shih” (PhD thesis, Stanford University, 1975), and his Wu Ching-tzu (Boston: Twayne, 1978). 28 Shuen-fu Lin, “Ritual and Narrative Structure in Ju-lin wai-shih,” in Chinese Narrative, ed. Andrew H. Plaks (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 244–65. 29 His translation of the chapter comments in this commentary edition was published in Rolston, ed., How to Read the Chinese Novel, 252–94. 30 Shang Wei, Rulin waishi and Cultural Transformation in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003). 31 For a detailed discussion of the relationships between the two novels and a convergent reading of them, see David L. Rolston, “Theory and Practice: Fiction, Fiction Criticism, and the Writing of the Ju-lin wai-shih” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago, 1988), 327–96. 32 In The Records of the Historian the most favorable image of an important figure is given in his biography, while less flattering images of him or her are placed in the biographies of other people. 33 The popularity of this way of reading Sima Qian was fed by knowledge of his having had to accept castration to finish his history and his theory that great works are written out of resentment (fafen zhushu). 34 Patrick D. Hanan wrote about how Chinese vernacular fiction was characterized by a narrator modeled on a professional oral storyteller, who guides the reader through shifts between these three modes in works such as his “The Early Chinese Short Story: A Critical Theory in Outline,” in Studies in Chinese Literary Genres, ed. Cyril Birch (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 299–339. 35 See the chapter on The Scholars and latent commentary in Rolston, Traditional Chinese Fiction and Fiction Commentary, 312–28.

Further Reading Ge, Liangyan. The Scholar and the State: Fiction as Political Discourse in Late Imperial China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015. Huang, Martin W. Literati and Self-Re/Presentation: Autobiographical Sensibility in the Eighteenth-Century Chinese Novel. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995. Roddy, Stephen. Literati Identity and Its Fictional Representations in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.

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SECTION XIX

Novels of Social Exposure and Prostitution

57 THE TRAVELS OF LAO CAN AND EXPOSURE OF THE WORLD OF OFFICIALS Ying Zou

Liu E’s (1857–1909) The Travels of Lao Can (Lao Can youji) and Li Baojia’s (1867–1906) Exposure of the World of Officials (Guanchang xianxing ji), together with two other works, Wu Woyao’s (1866–1910) Eyewitness Reports on Strange Things from the Past Twenty Years (Ershi nian mudu zhi guanxianzhuang) and Zeng Pu’s (1872–1935) Flower in the Sea of Sins (Niehai hua), are generally considered the great novels of indictment (qianze xiaoshuo) of the late Qing. With the purpose of exposing social abuses and condemning political corruption, they abound with a deep sense of urgency, frustration, and confusion. Written in an age of transition, these two novels reflect both the values of traditional Chinese culture and the influences of Western civilization.

The Travels of Lao Can (1903–1907) Liu E, the author of The Travels of Lao Can, was both a traditional scholar and a venturesome entrepreneur. Following the so-called school of Taigu philosophy that was popular in the late Qing period, he devoted himself to the cause of “cultivating and nurturing the world” (jiaoyang tianxia)—that is, promoting the well-being of ordinary people in the world—by promoting the development of road building, mining, and other modern developments.1 He shunned the conventional route to official life and instead pursued his own interests in many different directions, in particular traditional Chinese medicine and the connoisseurship of Shang dynasty oracle-bone writing specimens. He authored the first research work about oracle-bone writings in China in 1903. In his early life, he once made a living as a house-call doctor in Yangzhou. In 1908, he was slandered by a vengeful local official, and thus was sent into exile to the distant wastes of Chinese Turkestan. During his exile, he kept practicing medicine to help the people of the border district. In fact, the hero of The Travels is precisely the same, an itinerant medical practitioner, who mirrors Liu E’s own longing and preoccupations. The Travels of Lao Can was written to be serialized in the Shanghai magazine Illustrated Fiction (Xiuxiang xiaoshuo) between September 1903 and January 1904. It is said that Li Baojia, the managing editor of the magazine, as well as the author of Exposure of the World of Officials, lifted one episode from Liu E’s The Travels of Lao Can for his novel Modern Times (Wenming xiaoshi). As a result, Liu E published only the first fourteen chapters of the initial volume in Illustrated Fiction and then turned to the Tianjin newspaper (Tianjin riri xinwenbao) for the publication of  DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-80

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the remaining six chapters of the initial volume and a total of nine chapters of the second volume. There is also another volume, which contains just one chapter. In the novel, Liu E provides us with a window through which to look at both a variety of ills in society and the inner world of the elite class during the last decades of the Qing dynasty. The narrative begins with a dream of the hero Lao Can, in which a huge and crowded ship is sinking, but its commanding officers refuse to listen to Lao Can’s sagacious advice. Liu E describes the ship’s length and the number of its masts in detail, indicating that the image of the leaky and sinking ship symbolizes China itself. Inspired by the dream, Lao Can launches out into his lonely adventures searching out injustice and the methods of rectification, his altruistic and courageous acts making him a seemingly traditional knight-errant. Liu E reflects on the nature of justice and order by penetrating into a situation in which the incorruptible, yet harsh, officials are even more dangerous than the corruptible ones. In this aspect, Liu E characterizes two “upright” officials, Gang Bi and Yu Xian, who are said to represent two historical figures, Yuxian and Gangyi, making them his targets for satire. In the narrative, the two government judges gain promotion and reputation through tyrannical government and the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent people. During Yu Xian’s administration as prefect of Caozhou, it seems that honesty prevails throughout society, and yet beneath the surface is his treacherous misrule and countless cases of injustice. On his journey, Lao Can persistently endeavors to redress the unjust cases and grievance caused by the two officials, with the help of wise and humane officials who value his advice. In this process, Liu E profoundly reveals the dreadful inner thoughts and motives of these seemingly righteous officials, who are driven by endless greed for power and thus are even more cruel and ambitious than those who only seek monetary gain. In raising unresolved questions, such as “how does China find the way out,” the novel presents the hero’s indignation on behalf of innocent victims, his despair over contemporary officialdom, and his anxiety about the country’s fate, passionate responses that impress us greatly. Besides attempts at the rectification of injustice, Lao Can’s exploration of the ways China’s ills might be dispelled includes philosophical ponderings over the country’s future. He endorses a kind of philosophical syncretism, in the form of a selective synthesis of the three branches of traditional Chinese thought—Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. In his view, the combination of these philosophies will serve as a solid base upon which Western modernization can be shaped. In fact, one of the motifs recurring throughout the novel is the pursuit of a type of eclecticism between the furious antiforeignism represented by the Boxers, and the unreflective Westernization advocated by Chinese revolutionists. Liu E also takes a reformist attitude towards Chinese women by creating female characters such as Yugu and Yiyun, who, as both knowledgeable and brilliant debaters, break out of the confines of the old ritual propriety. In many respects, The Travels of Lao Can can be viewed as a great novel of early twentieth-century China, a transitional period between earlier fiction of a traditional style and the increasingly modern forms of fiction. At times criticized as having a rambling structure lacking unity in both plot and subject matter,2 as was characteristic of traditional zhanghui novels, The Travels of Lao Can nevertheless demonstrates its innovative accomplishments in the techniques of narrative. First of all, its semiautobiographical narration changes the traditional storyteller into the personalized narrator, and thus the omniscient narration changes into an account written in the third person. Moreover, the preoccupation with the psychology of key characters marks its affinity with modern fiction. For example, Yiyun’s prolonged interior monolog about her deep attachment to Ren Sanye functions as a daring attempt to disclose an adolescent girl’s intense sexual and material desire, thereby being tinged with modern psychoanalysis. Above all, what distinguishes The Travels of Lao Can from both traditional fiction and other novels of the time is its individualized prose description of 672

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landscape and social milieu. Among those captivating and memorable descriptive passages are the autumn colors of Daming Lake, the ice-bound Yellow River, and appealing drum-singer performances. More often than not, these lyrical descriptions function not simply as images of natural beauty but also as allegorical expressions of the characters’ inner feelings or social conditions, as shown in chapter 10, in which the weaving of alluring tunes out of curious instruments such as konghou sounds less like music than the venting of aspirations of a sensitive soul: Listening carelessly, you would only have heard the twanging of lute and striking of zither, each making its own tune; listening more carefully you heard a pair of pearl birds singing in harmony, calling and answering each other. Four or five sections later they began to move their left hands less, but swept the strings promiscuously, ts’ang-ts’ang, liang-liang, lei-lei, lo-lo, bringing down their fingers with such force that the sounds rose in rich profusion. Six or seven or eight sections later the music became more sustained, with more and more turns and ever clearer, the melody more and more otherworldly. . . . [I]ndeed, he was hearing something he had never heard before. At first he was occupied in appraising the fingering and the changes of the notes. But soon there was only sound in his ears, and his eyes saw no fingers. Later still ears and eyes were both blank, and he felt his body fluttering to and fro as though carried by strong wind, floating and again sinking in regions of glowing cloud. Still later, mind and body were all forgotten as though he was drunk or in a dream. Into the mysterious depths of his reverie several sounds at length forced their way, and lute and zither both became still.3 Despite the novel’s dominant mode of a moderately satiric realism, such lyric meditations occur in the narrative simultaneously with sober reflections on the problem of social justice and national survival.

Exposure of the World of Officials Another important Late Qing novel of indictment, Exposure of the World of Officials, which appeared in serialization in 1903 as well, witnesses various facets of a sordid and decadent world before its total disintegration. It was authored by Li Baojia, whose courtesy name is Boyuan. He passed the xiucai examination in first place in Wujin, and yet failed the juren exam. At the age of thirty, he went to Shanghai and became a journalist and an editor of several tabloid newspapers and Illustrated Fiction, a periodical on fiction.4 Li Baojia was gifted in many ways, accomplished at calligraphy, seal carving, and eight-legged essay writing, but on top of all this, he was a prolific fiction writer: his novel Exposure of the World of Officials was published serially in the journal Shanghai Splendor (Shanghai shijie fanhua bao) from April 1903 to June 1905; Living Hell (Huo diyu) and A Brief History of Enlightenment (Wenming xiaoshi) were serialized in the journal Illustrated Fiction. He also wrote two tanci ballads: Tanci Ballad of the Boxer Rebellion of the Gengzi Year (Gengzi guobian tanci) and Affinity of Awakening the World (Xingshi yuan tanci), serialized respectively in the journal Shanghai shijie fanhua bao and Illustrated Fiction. In comparison with The Travels of Lao Can, which presents a panorama of late Qing society, Exposure of the World of Officials closely centers on contemporary officialdom, in which a variety of scandalous practices such as bribery, mismanagement, and above all, the buying and selling of posts, had eroded the bureaucratic and examination system. The characters of the novel, ranging from the minister of defense to minor officials, are mostly based upon historical figures and 673

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events. For example, Grant Secretary Zhou alludes to Weng Tonghe; Grant Secretary Hua alludes to Ronglu; Uncle Black alludes to Li Lianying. However, the novel does not aim to ridicule specific corrupted officials but rather to criticize the decaying of the whole political system, in which both taking bribes and selling ranks and titles have become part of the operating mechanism of the official world. The truth is spoken by the Empress Dowager herself: “In all the eighteen provinces of China, where can one find a single uncorrupted official?” (chap. 18) The beginning of the novel features a young man named Zhao Wen, who passes the Juren examination but fails the metropolitan one. Finally, he purchases a position in Beijing through a broker’s arrangement. In another episode, Governor He 何of Jiangxi province, joins with his younger brother to sell government posts, using marked prices! It can be said that “money” functions as a major theme recurring through the narrative, with the word “qian” (money) emerging 1,723 times in the novel. With money, one can purchase positions even without taking the civil service examination, while those who get positions further sell titles for money, with which they can gain promotion, and so on and so on. As a result, the world of officialdom turns out to be a hypermarket, and corruption and bribery have become routine events. Misconduct in officialdom will inevitably bring about the moral bankruptcy of society, as demonstrated in many situations in the novel. In chapter 14, for example, Commander Hu is assigned to suppress bandits in Yanzhou, where he and his army burn and pillage the town rather than kill rebels, and consequently claim the credit of crushing the riot in order to be rewarded by the court. In chapter 19, a judge-investigator named Fu Litang is sent to Zhejiang to examine a bribery case. Known for his frugality, He comes on the scene in a shabby gown, with an old cap on his head. Afterwards, the officials in Zhejiang fall all over each other to wear ragged clothes, to impress Fu Litang. However, the seemingly incorruptible Fu Litang secretly sets up a special government account, through which he can profit from selling positions. Furthermore, his moral reputation is weakened by the sudden appearance of a prostitute, who claims to be Fu’s former lover. In the end, Fu solves the problem by giving the prostitute a sum of money contributed by those who purchase posts from him. In order to win power and money, those at the lower levels ingratiate themselves with the people in power by any means. In one episode, a man called Mao Deguan actually presents his own daughter to his boss as a concubine. In chapter 36, a lascivious governor-general named Tuan湍 has ten concubines, and one of his staff buys two more peerlessly beautiful women especially for Tuan so as to be elevated to a position in the bureaucracy. Following that, the twelve concubines of Tuan together are called “twelve girls in the Dream of Red Chamber” (shier jinchai). Subsequently, in order to secure promotion, a bureaucrat, Qu Naian, and his wife, kowtow to the servant girl of Tuan’s ninth concubine as their godmother, and they reverently present a gift to her; ironically, Qu and his wife are more than twenty years older than the girl. Whereas The Travels of Lao Can opens with an imaginative description of Lao Can’s dream, Exposure of the World of Officials concludes the narrative with an allegory of a dream, which depicts a character’s visit to a horrific mountain scene occupied by various kinds of fierce animals, including jackals, wolves, tigers, and panthers, always ready to eat humans. On top of all this, other inhabitants are cats and dogs, and they run around trying to escape the tigers and keep disturbing the humans even when the tiger goes away. Also present in the chaotic scene are rats, pigs, sheep, and cattle, all being reduced to useless things. Without question, this world of beasts and monsters symbolizes the late Qing society unrelentingly revealed in Exposure of the World of Officials. At the end of the vision, the dreamer enters a tall foreign-style building in which he hears about a book aimed at the salvation of Chinese society and the education of the citizens. Ultimately, the dream is written down, and this constitutes the text of the current novel. The meta-narrative sense 674

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of this ending articulates the ambition of the author, who sees his novel as being like one half of the Analects, with which one can govern the world. In terms of the narrative structure, the main story line manifests itself as a text within a text, in the form of the final frame story that stages the origin of the text of the novel. By referring to the title of the novel, the closing lines of the narrative point back to the beginning and thereby develops a circle of reading. Among late Qing novels, such a device, of the found manuscript or printed book, which can be traced back as far as the Dream of the Red Chamber, actually became a common means of framing the main narrative, also figuring in Wu Jianren’s and Zeng Pu’s novels of indictment. Overall, however, Li Baojia’s narrative, despite its structural looseness and frequent digression, takes the form of a successive sequence of various self-contained short stories, thereby broadening the scope of the disclosure of the the metamorphosis and alienation taking place in Chinese society of the time. The surplus of characters and cycles of identical plot points, however, admittedly may have been intended to deliberately stretch the work’s length and titillate the reader’s curiosity, responding to the writer’s and publisher’s economic incentives.5 An unforgettable feature of Exposure of the World of Officials is its constant employment of exaggeration, burlesque, and slapstick. A case in point is the comic competition among the officials to dress themselves in a ludicrously ragged garb, in the the hope of winning Judge Fu’s attention. Even more ridiculous is the farcical interlude wherein Judge Fu, a strong advocate of abstinence— a virtue allegedly originating from his cultivation of Neo-Confucianism—has to confront a sexual scandal and domestic war initiated by his former lover, a prostitute. These extremely laughable episodes, with their vivid delineation and naturalistic details, contribute to the fashioning of a kind of “grotesque realism.”6 Scholars of the May Fourth period such as Lu Xun and Hu Shi endeavor to trace the genealogy of late Qing novels of indictment to the mid-eighteenth-century masterpiece The Scholars (Rulin Waishi) by Wu Jingzi (1701–1754).7 With regard to both their narrative format and thematic structure, The Scholars provided a model for aspiring novelists of the late Qing. The two novels under discussion are both criticized for their relative looseness and desultoriness in structure, which, as Lu Xun points out, feature prominently in The Scholars as well.8 However, contemporary scholars tend to apprehend this distinctive mode of narrative from the perspective of traditional aesthetic principles and a lyric vision, which values intuition and subjectivity, and thus favors synchronicity instead of causality, so that events are arranged in an interweaving and reticular process.9 As did Wu Jingzi, Liu E rejected the cliché of classical phraseology represented by a parallel prose rhythm, instead utilizing prose description grounded on personalized observation and expression. Such accurate and individualistic descriptions of scenes and experiences are significantly associated with modern fiction. Most importantly, Wu Jingzi inspired his successors in the ways in which he frames his narrative in unremitting and objective reflections on the decadence of the educated elite and the moral crisis of society, from the point of view of a restrained yet ironic observer. However, Liu E and Li Baojia inherit and develop Wu Jingzi’s literary legacy in their own distinctive ways. Liu E’s The Travels of Lao Can features a great expansion of autobiographical sensibility, and thus a type of vigorous cynicism from Lao Can’s subjective point of view. In his authorial preface to the novel, where Liu E promotes the affective power of fiction writing, he starts with a discourse on weeping that he regards as the embodiment of subjectivity: [T]he quality of a man is measured by his much or little weeping, for weeping is the expression of a spiritual nature. Spiritual nature is in proportion to weeping: the weeping is not dependent on the external conditions of life being favorable or unfavorable.10 675

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Furthermore, he sees his own work as a strong kind of weeping, which does not take the form of tears but reaches farther, locating it in a longstanding tradition of literary creation—the theory of “writing from sorrow and wrath” (fafen zhushu). Although this statement was formally proposed by Sima Qian (ca. 145 B.C. or 135 B.C.–87 B.C.), the origin of such literary thought may be as old as Quyuan’s (340 B.C.–278 B.C.) “Lisao” (Encountering Sorrow), as Liu E makes clear in his preface: The poem “Encountering Sorrow,” was Lord Ch’u’s weeping. The book called Chuang Tzu was the weeping of the Old Man of Meng. The book Historical Records was the weeping of the Grand Astrologer. The Poems of the Thatched Hut was the weeping of the Kung Pu, Tu. Prince Li wept in lyric verse. The Man of the Eight Great Mountains wept with paintings. Wang Shi-fu put his tears into the Story of the Western Chamber. Ts’ao Hsueh-chin put his tears into the Dream of the Red Chamber.11 Inheriting this literary tradition, Liu E articulates his powerfully emotional motivation to write the novel, and his desire to evoke all sensible readers’ feelings and weeping in the face of national crisis. Compared to a language of traditional poetic and symbolic tradition in Liu E’s novel, Li Baojia’s Exposure of the World of Officials, written in a vivid and everyday vernacular, is intended for a less sophisticated reader and fashions a comic discourse that contests the old moralities of reading and writing. It is laughter, instead of weeping or indignation, that drives the author to expose reality, exposing disfiguration, reversal, and carnival. In this sense, Exposure of the World of Officials is read not as normative satire but “a Chinese brand of grotesque realism,” a narrative mode that less reflects than refracts reality in a stylized fashion.12 Despite the lack of psychological depth that characterizes both The Travels of Lao Can and The Scholars, Exposure of the World of Officials develops the distinguished comic capacity that acts out the inhuman qualities in a carnivalesque way. Although The Scholars is also replete with laughable scenes, Wu Jingzi attentively maintains the delicate distance between the laughing subject and the object he laughs at, thereby intimating a hope of revival of, as well as nostalgia for, the cohesive power of Confucian elitism. By contrast, Li Baojia’s grotesque approach attempts to confront the reader with a clash of values that manifests itself in farce. In the middle of a profound historical and cultural transformation, in fact, not only Li Baojia’s grotesque view, but also Liu E’s profound despair about social and national crisis, demonstrate far less confidence about the value system informed by Confucian beliefs, to which their mid-Qing counterpart, Wu Jingzi, could still adhere.

Notes 1 On the school of Taigu philosophy, see Youyuan Ma, “Qingji taigu xuepai shishi shuyao” [A Brief Discussion of the Historical Events Surrounding the Taigu Sect of the Qing], Dalu zazhi 28, no. 10 (May 1964): 13–18; for Liu E’s life and career in detail, see Jiang Yixue, Liu E Nianpu [A Chronological Biography of Liu E] (Jinan: Qilu shushe, 1980); Liu Delong et al., Liu E xiaozhuan [A Brief Biography of Liu E] (Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 1987); Chen Liao, Liu E yu Laocan youji [Liu E and The Travel of Lao Can] (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, 1989); Wang Xuejun, Liu E yu Laocan youji (Shenyang: Liaoningjjiaoyu chubanshe, 1992); L. Kwong, “Self and Society in Modern China: Liu E (1857–1909) and Laocan youji,” TP LXXXVII, nos. 4–5 (2001): 360–92. 2 See C. T. Hsia, “The Travels of Lao Ts’an: An Exploration of Its Art and Meaning,” Tsinghua Journal of Chinese Studies 7, no. 2 (1969): 40. 3 Liu E, The Travels of Lao Ts’an, trans. Harold Shadick (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1952), 107–8.

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The Travels of Lao Can and Exposure of the World of Officials 4 For Li Boyuan’s biography, see Douglas Lancashire, Li Po-yuan (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1981); Zhang Zhong and Gao Feng, Li Boyuan Wu Jianren (Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe), 1999; Zhang Zhong, Li Boyuan yu Guanchang xianxingji [Li Boyuan and Exposure of the World of Officials] (Shenyang: Chunfeng wenyi chubanshe, 2000). 5 See David Der-wei Wang, Fin-de-Siecle Splendor: Repressed Modernities in Late-Qing Fiction, 1849–1911 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 194–95. 6 David Der-wei Wang, Fin-de-Siecle Splendor, 239. 7 Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue [A Brief History of Chinese Fiction] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1998), 205–6; Hu Shi, “Wushi nianlai de Zhongguo wenxue” [Chinese Literature of the Recent Fifty Years], in Hu Shi, Hu Shi zuopinji [A Collection of Hu Shi’s Literary Works] (Taibei: Yuanliu chuban gongsi, 1986), 2.122. 8 Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue, 156. 9 See M. Dolezelova-Velingerova, “Typology of Structure in Late Qing Novels and Narrative Models in Late Qing Novels,” in The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century, ed. M. Dolezelova-Velingerova (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 36–76; Yu-kung Kao, “Lyric Vision in Chinese Narrative: A Reading of Hung-lou meng and Ju-lin wai-shih,” in Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays, ed. Andrew Plaks (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977), 227–43; Lin Shuen-fu, “The Last Classic Chinese Novel: Vision and Design in The Travels of Lao Can,” JAOS 121, no. 4 (October/ December 2001): 549–64. 10 Shadick, The Travels of Lao Ts’an, 1. 11 Shadick, The Travels of Lao Ts’an, 2. 12 See Wang, Repressed Modernities, 185–86.

Further Reading Hsia, C. T. “The Travels of Lao Ts’an: An Exploration of Its Art and Meaning.” Tsinghua Journal of Chinese Studies 7, no. 2 (1969): 40–65. Jiang Haowei. “Cong chenwei dao kexue: lun Lao Can youji zai Qingmo Minchu de piping yu jieshou” [From Divination to Science: The Criticism and Reception of The Travels of Lao Ts’an in Late Qing and Early Republic of China]. Ming Qing xiaoshuo yanjiu 130, no. 4 (2018): 47–62. Kwong, L. “Self and Society in Modern China: Liu E (1857–1909) and Laocan youji.” T’oung Pao LXXXVII, nos. 4–5 (2001): 360–92. Lancashire, Douglas. Li Po-yuan. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1981. Lee, Leo Ou-fan. “The Solitary Traveler.” In Expressions of Self in Chinese Literature, edited by R. Hegel and R. Hessney, 282–307. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985. Lin Shuen-fu. “The Last Classic Chinese Novel: Vision and Design in The Travels of Lao Can.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 121, no. 4 (October/December 2001): 549–64. Lin Yutang. Widow, Nun and Courtesan. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1971. Shadick, Harold, trans. The Travels of Lao Ts’an. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1952. Wang, David Der-wei. Fin-de-Siecle Splendor: Repressed Modernities in Late-Qing Fiction, 1849–1911. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. Wong, Timothy. “Notes on the Textual History of the Lao Ts’an Yu-Chi.” T’oung Pao 69, LXIX. 1/3 (1983): 23–32. Wong, Timothy. “The Facts of Fiction: Liu E’s Commentary to The Travels of Lao Can.” In Excursions in Chinese Culture: Festschrift in Honor of William R. Schultz, edited by Marie Chan and Jinsheng Tao, 159–72. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press of Hongkong, 2002.

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58 A PRECIOUS MIRROR FOR JUDGING FLOWERS Ying Wang

Authored by Chen Sen (ca. 1796–1870) and completed in 1849, Pinhua baojian or A Precious Mirror for Judging Flowers1 is often referred to as a xiaxie xiaoshuo (the courtesan/actor novel), a homoerotic romance, and an imitation of Honglou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber, or Shitou ji, The Story of the Stone). Little is known about Chen Sen except that he was a southerner from Changzhou, Jiangsu province, who went to Beijing to take the civil service examination but repeatedly failed it. Stranded in Beijing, Chen wallowed in theater to dispel his gloomy mood and while away time. He took over ten years (from 1837 to 1849) to complete Precious Mirror.2 Often criticized for its mediocre artistic presentation, this novel nevertheless stands out for its representation of the late Qing fiction, its centrality in dealing with gender and transvestism, and its richness in reflecting the Qing dynasty theater culture, particularly the practice of female impersonation.

An Idealized Courtesan/Actor Novel The courtesan/actor novel refers to a group of fictional works written during the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries set in a brothel or theater and revolving around the life of prostitutes and theater actors and the relationships between them and their patrons (mostly city drifters, including undistinguished scholars, low-rank officials, merchants, commoners, etc.). Lu Xun (1881–1936) classified three types of xiaxie xiaoshuo based on how prostitutes and actors are portrayed in the novel: idealized, realistic, and derogatory representations.3 Precious Mirror belongs to the first category, the idealized representation. Precious Mirror celebrates a group of physically stunning and morally impeccable Kun Opera xiaodan (boy female impersonators) and their amorous relationships with their scholar-patrons. Centering on two loving pairs, Du Qinyan and Mei Ziyu, and Su Huifang and Tian Chunhang, the novel depicts the mutual admiration and appreciation of these two pairs of characters through their homosocial engagements in attending the theater, garden gatherings, flower viewing, and literary games such as poetry writing as well as drinking games. Their relationship is described as “sublime passion”4 that is egalitarian and asexual. While the emotional attachment between Du Qinyan and Mei Ziyu intensifies along with their physical separation, Su Huifang turns into Tian Chunhang’s “revered friend,” who persuades and supports Tian to work hard in his pursuit of officialdom. The homoerotic relationship involves the characters’ repeated reciprocal financial DOI: 10.4324/9781003275688-81 

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and moral support and physical rescue from strained and dangerous situations, and it concludes with Mei Ziyu’s and Tian Chunhang’s heterosexual marriages with two young ladies of the gentry and all of the female impersonators’ being freed from their indentured actor status by taking up either a scholar’s identity (in the case of Du Qinyan) or that of a merchant (in the case of other boy actors). As a foil to the aforementioned two groups of characters, the narrative also includes some vulgar, lustful, depraved characters such as Xi Shiyi and Pan Qiguan, who treat the boy actors as their playthings and use them to vent their libido. Their overindulgence of sexual desire and bestial behavior take them to the extreme of implanting a canine male organ or/and using aphrodisiacs, which eventually either cripples them for the rest of their lives or sends them to their graves. As a piece of idealized representation of courtesans/actors, Precious Mirror is associated with and indebted to the caizi jiaren xiaoshuo (the talented scholar and beautiful woman fiction) that was prevalent in the early Qing dynasty. Many fictional ingredients of Chen Sen’s novel can be traced back to the caizi jiaren xiaoshuo, including emphasizing qing (emotional attachment or love) rather than yu (carnal desire or lust) in the love relationship of the male and female protagonists, endowing the hero and heroine with superb beauty and literary talents, empowering women with unprecedented agency and capacity, endorsing the civil service examination, and concluding the novel with a “big happy reunion” when the male protagonist passes the examination at a high level and marries his love object at a spectacular wedding. Precious Mirror fits very well the conventions of the caizi jiaren xiaoshuo except that the effeminate boy actor takes up the role of jiaren. As a result, this term must be redefined and its female gender association challenged and broadened (as jiaren now is associated with a biological male in the novel). Through this lens, Precious Mirror can be read as a parody of caizi jiaren xiaoshuo. Like other idealized courtesan/actor novels such as Qinglou meng (Dream of Green Bowers, 1878), Huifang lu (The Record of Painting Flowers, 1878), and Hua yue hen (Traces of Flower and Moon, 1866), Precious Mirror’s characters are depicted with exceeding sentimentality, frustration around unrecognized talent, and an urge to showcase their literary skills. Throughout the whole novel, different fortuitous events either interrupt or impede the love quest of Du Qinyan and Mei Ziyu, leaving them with constant longing and melancholy. Their lovesickness is expressed through Qinyan’s weeping, Ziyu’s talking in his sleep, and their poetic writings, and intensified by symbolic and metaphorical depictions. In Chapter 30, Du Qinyan hides in a rich scholar-patron’s residence as a result of Xi Shiyi’s harassment. The combined depression from missing Mei Ziyu and his entrapment causes him to shed tears in front of flowers. Another overly sentimental scene happens in Chapter 48, in which the parting between Qinyan and Ziyu makes both cry loudly and pains Qinyan to the point he faints. The theme of frustration about unrecognized talent is reflected in the female impersonators but best mirrored in the relationship between Su Huifang and Tian Chunhang. Talented and famous in the trade of playing women on stage, the female impersonators are, because of their low social standing, deprived of the opportunity to study and sit for the civil service examination. Their brilliance in learning the literary canon and other arts can only be demonstrated and recognized within the little circle formed by their appreciative scholar-patrons. On the other side of the same coin, the story of Su Huifang and Tian Chunhang reveals the scholar’s frustration when he is blocked in pursuing his career. When Tian Chunhang is stymied in his course of taking the examination because of his poverty, Su’s determined moral support and financial help place Tian back on the right track. Su’s recognition and appreciation of Tian’s talent sets the best example of “it takes a hero to truly understand a hero,” which ironically reveals the scholar’s hidden anxiety that his talent will be unrecognized and wasted. 679

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In the idealized courtesan/actor novel, all major characters (no matter if they are scholars or courtesans/actors) are portrayed as brilliant and/or erudite in canonical and literary learning, and they are given multiple opportunities and large narrative space to showcase their abilities and skills. Precious Mirror is no exception. The actor-and-patron gatherings are when quasi-competitions of learning happen, usually in the form of poetry writing, verse linking, recitation of operatic lines, and word play. Not only are the scholar-patrons exceptionally learned, but even the boy actors (despite their uneducated background) are gifted and demonstrate a level of mastery beyond the reach of ordinary people. Since all these displays came from Chen Sen, one can detect the author’s urge to exhibit his own scholarship and literary accomplishment. Chen spent so much ink in these literary games, however, that he ended up temporizing the novelistic development and dulling the narrative. In addition to its subject matter, Precious Mirror also shares narrative devices with other idealized courtesan/actor novels, including adopting the present continuous story time and the liminal narrative setting of brothel, theater, and private garden, employing imageries, metaphors, and symbols to imply, anticipate, and foreshadow, and using characters’ names to denote and signify meanings.

A Homoerotic Fantasy with Gender Performance A question repeatedly raised and scrutinized by critics and scholars about Precious Mirror is whether it can be categorized as a novel about homosexuality. Giovanni Vitiello, in his book The Libertine’s Friend: Homosexuality and Masculinity in Late Imperial China, makes a clear distinction between Precious Mirror and other pre-modern Chinese literary works of homosexuality. As he indicates, It has been suggested that the latter [Precious Mirror] is part of a literary “homosexual tradition” stretching back to late Ming pornographic works such as Cap and Hairpins (Bian er chai). These are no doubt quite different works, one major distinguishing factor being the treatment of love and sex, which are harmoniously articulated in the late Ming collection but radically, almost obsessively, separated in the late Qing novel, which inherits from The Red Chamber Dream its tendency to devalue the sexual union in favor of a sublime sentimental communication.5 Another distinction, made by Carlos Rojas in his essay “The Coin of Gender in Pinhua baojian,” is that Precious Mirror’s treatment of female impersonation stresses “the necessary divergence between ‘sex’ and ‘gender,’ in which the former is understood as being at some level biologically determined and the latter embraces the various levels of cultural sedimentation inscribed on to the original biological differences.”6 Indeed, with the novel’s asexual orientation and the boy actors’ gender transformations (first feminized and then re-masculinized by abandoning the trade of female impersonation at the end of the novel), the novel fails to present a homosexual love story defined in modern terms in “both conceptual and clinical senses.”7 Nevertheless, and as recognized by many critics, Precious Mirror provides a fertile ground for exploring the issues of gender performance, linguistic transvestitism, the relationship between gender identity and social capital, and the fluidity of gender (both femininity and masculinity) as a highly socialized construct. In Precious Mirror, the erotic fantasy established between the boy actors and their scholar-patrons is conditioned upon the former’s feminization and gender performance. The enamored affection 680

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seems to be diluted or even cancelled out when the boy actors take a re-masculinizing position by abandoning the trade of female impersonation, a collective decision completed with the ritualistic act of burning all stage costumes and female impersonation paraphernalia. Such an act symbolizes a death of a profession (female impersonation) and a gender identity (femininity) as well as the resurrection or reclaiming of another gender identification (masculinity), which results in the elevation of the actors’ social standing. Without the performed feminine gender identity, the boy actors should not and cannot be treated as “objects” of erotic desire: this is why Du Qinyan cannot be called upon to accompany male customers after he is saved from the apprenticeship, and Tian Chunhang stops having erotic impulses toward Su Huifang when the latter takes on the masculine identity of being Tian’s soulmate and rescuer. Further evidence of this point is that the homoerotic relationship never takes place among the scholars, although some of them, such as Mei Ziyu and Hua Guangsu, are described as being extremely beautiful in appearance and dashing in manner. The feminization is so imperative and so painstakingly done to frame the homoerotic romance of Precious Mirror, and the novel’s linguistic transvestism is so pervasive, that it makes the male-male love theme ambiguous and questionable. Another problem is that the gender ideology of the novel is rather conservative, because the assignment of a man’s sexual role was “based not so much on his physical features as on his social position in relation to that of his partner.”8 As a result, “[t]he effect is to reinforce the gendered power relations already inherent in the hierarchy of sexual roles.”9 In other words, in Precious Mirror, male gender is rendered superior to female gender as it is endowed with social and political power. Some scholars seriously questioned the underscored meaning of such writing. David Der-wei Wang, for instance, probes the conventional gender ideology strongly present in the novel and argues that Chen Sen embraced homosexual love in such a way as to subserve rather than subvert the agenda of heterosexual love; and he wrote about women (in their absence) only in terms of a female image prefigured by men and for men, an image from which women were always absent.10 Along the same line of thinking, the feminization in Precious Mirror is described as “coerced,” for almost none of the virtuous boy actors voluntarily enter the profession of female impersonation.11 On the contrary, they are either sold to or fall into the hands of traffickers or actor trainers because of poverty and being orphaned. Du Qinyan lost his music teacher father when he was only ten, and his mother also died one year later. His uncle adopted him, but at thirteen, Qinyan lost his uncle too and was sold to a theatrical group by his aunt who then decided to remarry. Su Huifang experienced a similarly sad story. He came from an official family but lost his mother at eight and his father at twelve (over bureaucratic suppression). After drifting from place to place, he met his scholar-turned-opera master, who persuaded Su to take up acting. Both Du and Su loathe the profession of female impersonation and want to get out, because their effeminate beauty and professional fame only serve to make them the most wanted sex objects in the libertines’ constant haunting and harassment. Liangyan Ge comments that [a]s men are made into “women”—albeit beautiful ones—against their will, the gender discourse becomes more closely related to power than biological sex. The feminization of the xiaodan actors, both on and off the stage, can thus be considered a trope for their loss of social capital as men.12 In fact, the female impersonators not only lost the right to take the civil service examination, but they also had to face an all-round social demotion to the point of being victimized as sexual prey. 681

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Precious Mirror’s seeming heteronormativity can also be observed in the heterosexual marriages of all model scholar-patrons, particularly those of Mei Ziyu and Tian Chunhang. As described by Chloe Starr, “[s]exual acts within the novel are almost exclusively between two males, but are described within heterosexual framework. Same-sex unions retain the terms of reference and trappings of male-female marriages, and are eventually replaced by them.”13 If other scholar-patrons get married before the story’s time and with reasons not provided to the reader, the marriages of Mei Ziyu and Tian Chunhang all happen after their passionate emotional journey with their actor lovers. However, neither Mei or Tian objects to the male-female marriage proposal, and they carry out the wedding ceremonies on the whole contently, because both brides turn out to be the female replicas of their male lovers. Mei’s and Tian’s male lovers are kept on the side, but their former love relationship now transforms into an intimate and loyal friendship. Such a deliberate arrangement from the author’s side can only be explained as a salute to heterosexual matrimony. Even the threesome love relationship reminds us of the polygamous system that allows men to take multiple wives and concubines in a formal marriage while also keeping prostitute or actor lovers outside of the marriage. As illustrated by Keith McMahon, Until the early twentieth century in China, the prominent man was someone who deserved multiple women. This privilege mainly took the form of polygamous marriage and the patronage of prostitutes, two closely linked practices that legitimized the man who consorted with multiple women.14 This point was verified in a modern adaptation of Chen Sen’s Precious Mirror, entitled Fin-de-siècle Boy-love Reader (1996), by Taiwan writer Wu Jiwen. Wu’s version revisits the theme of the female impersonator and explores the male same-sex intimacies depicted in Chen Sen’s novel by evoking the same group of fictional characters. However, in contrast to how Chen ended Precious Mirror with the reunion of Mei Ziyu and Du Qinyan, Wu ends his novel on an unhappy note—Mei and Du part ways. At the same time, several other boy actors are also provided with tragic and disappointing endings: Su Huifang marries a woman but dies by suicide; Yuan Baozhu remains unmarried for his entire life; and Lin Shanzhi, the actor-turned-manager in Hua Guangsu’s household, leaves Hua despite his strong feelings for him. In Jie Guo’s interpretation, while “the ending in Chen Sen’s novel reaffirms the centrality of the polygamy regime in late imperial Chinese representations of sexual relations, including homoerotic ones,” the sorrowful ending in Wu’s novel “reflects the obsoleteness of the polygamous mode in the 1990s, when the new dominant mode, monogamous conjugal marriage, did not offer its aegis to non-heterosexual minorities.”15 Read within a modern conception, Precious Mirror could be interpreted as saluting heterosexual ideology, and as a result, it must exclude and cancel out homoeroticism. This is a misreading because, historically, this was not the case in nineteenth-century Chinese society and culture, which practiced heterosexual polygamous marriage while also tolerating homoerotic relationships. Giovanni Vitiello is right when he says that the late Qing “social reality of the theater and prostitution and the representational tradition of homoeroticism both in literature and the visual arts weaken the need for the hypothesis that Chen Shen wrote a cleverly disguised heteroerotic novel.”16 It is logical and indeed makes sense that a nineteenth-century Chinese homoerotic fantasy such as Chen Sen’s was written within the boundaries of contemporary polygamy to simultaneously legitimize the heterosexual marriage rite and fantasize homosexual love relations outside of marriage. Such an attitude incorporating marriage and eroticism is not only reflected in Chen’s novel, in which male characters accept heterosexual marriage, while women stand back from

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men’s involvement with female impersonators. In fact, it can also be observed in other pre-modern Chinese homoerotic writings, including those written about female same-sex love stories such as Li Yu’s play The Fragrant Companions (Lianxiang ban), for, similarly in Li’s play, heterosexualization of lesbian love is very much at work, and a ménage-á-trois matrimony (with two women lovers marrying the same man) is offered as a compromise.

An Imitation of Honglou meng Critics may disagree on how Precious Mirror deals with gender and homoeroticism, but they all concur that Chen’s novel is a work imitative of Cao Xueqin’s (ca. 1715–1763) eighteenth-century masterpiece, Honglou meng. Many scholars have identified various of Precious Mirror’s borrowings (including character, plot, rhetoric, imageries, symbols, naming strategy, etc.) from its parent novel. Although it is difficult to include them all here, it is important to note that the bipolar pair of qing and yu, personified by the main characters in Honglou meng, is also intentionally projected rhetorically, structurally, and symbolically by Chen Sen in his narrative. At the rhetorical level, Mei Ziyu’s name (Mei, the child jade) implies a close connection to Jia Baoyu (Jia, the precious jade, or the fake precious jade). In addition, since the character yu (jade) in Baoyu’s name is believed to be a pun for yu (desire or lust),17 the same reading is applicable for the name Ziyu. In this strategic reading, then, the name Qinyan (which can be read as a pun for qingyan, the words of qing) alludes to another effeminate young man, Qin Zhong (a pun for qingzhong, the seed of qing), from Honglou meng. Qin Zhong’s homosexual relationship with Baoyu echoes Du Qinyan’s romantic (though platonic) relationship with Mei Ziyu, and the two pairs of characters’ names in both the original and the imitation complete a neat dichotomy of qing versus yu. In the same vein, two minor characters’ names—Yan Zhongqing (a pun for “talking of being deeply in love”) and Zhang Zhongyu (a pun for “displaying obsession with lust”)—serve the same function. Specifically, Yan Zhongqing’s tasks are to voice and explain the author’s idea of qing, to usher the two pairs of male protagonist lovers into the narrative, and to intervene or assist when the romance between the lovers encounters various obstacles. Serving similar rhetorical functions to represent the lustful side of the main dichotomy, Zhang Zhongyu threads together a group of depraved characters with lascivious behaviors and actions. Zhang frequents theaters and pleasure houses, pimping, and buying and selling prostitutes and opera actors, as he lectures novices on aspects of seeking sensual pleasures and currying favor with clients. Both are positioned at key points of the narrative to direct the reader to look beyond the mimetic level of narration and to perceive the patterns of desire and lust. Corresponding to this rhetorical projection, two contrasting fictional worlds serve as the main structure of Precious Mirror—the world governed by the idealized virtue of qing, as represented by ten pairs of talented and beautiful scholars and xiaodan, and the realm ruled by moral corruption and lustful impulses, as embodied by a group of vulgar merchants, phony scholars, and low-grade/ ragtag prostitutes and opera actors. These two fictional worlds are not only morally divided but are also physically distinct. While the idealized world is placed within the spaces of Yi Yuan (The Joyful Garden) and Xi Yuan (The Western Garden),18 the corrupt version is sited in pleasure houses, theaters, the residences of opera actors, restaurants, and temples. This spatial structuring is strongly reminiscent of the two fictional worlds of Honglou meng: the inside of Danguan yuan (The Prospect Garden) is a paradise of qing, and the outside of the garden is the turbid and polluting realm of yu. However, while Cao Xueqin emphasizes the co-dependency, interconnection,

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and mutual influence of the two fictional worlds in his original, Chen Sen attempts to morally counter-pose his two fictional spheres. In Precious Mirror, a series of symbols or metaphors is employed to signal the dual vision of qing and yu. In addition to its appropriation of the symbols of “garden” and “flower” from Honglou meng, the novel has also effectively evoked the imagery of mirror and dream to underscore its message. For example, the novel’s name, Pinhua baojian, or Precious Mirror for Judging Flowers, immediately calls to mind the fengyue baojian or “the precious mirror of romance” held by Jia Rui, a sex addict, in Chapter 12 of Honglou meng. The front and back of this two-sided mirror represent the two contrasting attitudes toward and results of dealing with sexual desire.19 In Precious Mirror, a similar magical mirror appears in Du Qinyan’s dream in Chapter 56. Here, however, instead of reflecting on the two ways and consequences of dealing with sexual desire, the mirror is held up to the two opposite groups of characters who personify qing and yu. Borrowing the use made of dreaming in Chapter 5 of Honglou meng, in which the Fairy of Disenchantment cautions Baoyu about the illusory nature of the Red Dust World and tries to enlighten him by the method of yi se wu kong (to acquire enlightenment by the means of sensual enjoyment), Chen Sen in Chapter 53 of his novel writes about Mei Ziyu’s dream encounter with Du Qinyan after the latter leaves the capital. In the middle of their conversation, Qinyan suddenly transforms into a prostitute who tries to seduce Ziyu. Frightened out of his wits, Ziyu calls out for Qinyan, whereupon Qinyan reappears in Ziyu’s dream, while the prostitute disappears. Unlike Bayou in Honglou meng, who is lured by sexual pleasure and falls right into the abyss of the Red Dust World, Ziyu is not tempted but rather frightened by yu or lust (personified by the prostitute), and he is able to resist its temptation by calling out for qing (personified by Qinyan). In Chen Sen’s world view, yu is simply dangerous and destructive. Although they may take the form of the two sides of the same coin (as suggested by Qinyan’s transformation into the prostitute in the dream), qing and yu are diametrically opposed to each other. In a deeper level reading, qing is unequivocally defined as the equivalent of se (color, looks, or beauty) in Chen’s novel—crystallized in the expression of haose buyin, or loving beauty without excessive or lustful behavior. Such an interpretation of qing intentionally reverses the concept of yiyin (lust of the mind) from Honglou meng, and this can be detected immediately at the opening of Precious Mirror when the narrator explains the gist of his novel: [I intend] to create playful characters in playful writing. The rarest among the playful characters are several gentlemen who practice qing (love and feelings) while observing li (rituals or moral principles) and a few opera actors who refuse to be contaminated by evil influences. [The gist of the novel, therefore] really is in accord with “loving physical beauty without behaving lustfully”—the principle of Guofeng from the Book of Poetry.20 If Cao Xueqin is suspicious of and critical about the principle of haose buyin as demonstrated by Disenchantment in Chapter 5 of Honglou meng, Chen Sen truly embraces it. This can be further deduced from an elaborate discussion of meise and jiaren (both terms can be translated as “a person endowed with physical beauty”) between Mei Ziyu and Yan Zhongqing in Chapter 1 and Tian Chunhang’s lengthy elucidation of the term haose buyin in Chapter 12. In a rebuttal to Ziyu’s (or the implied reader’s) view, the authorial spokesperson Yan Zhongqing delivers an extended speech on how men might be endowed with physical beauty and how the terms meise and jiaren are not used exclusively in reference to women in Chinese classics and literary writings of the past. What is striking here is that Yan has narrowed the meaning of women’s superiority and men’s inferiority

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expressed in Honglou meng to the judgment of se. The implication is that, if men are endowed with physical beauty, or are even more beautiful than women, they are bound to be superior to women. In Chen Sen’s effort to invert Cao Xueqin’s yiyin and reinstate the convention of haose buyin, he has done two critical things: (1) redefined se and equated se with qing; and (2) dramatized the opposition between haose and haoyin, imbuing the word yin with derogatory significance. The redefining of haose buyin as the highest form of qing is provided by Tian Chunhang in Chapter 12. As an aficionado of female impersonators, in defending his devotion to homosexual love, Tian argues that loving another man would, in fact, realize the Confucian teaching of haose buyin: To me, what is the most unfathomable is that, nowadays, people think that loving a beautiful woman is normal, and loving a beautiful man is abnormal. A beauty is a beauty; why do we have to make a distinction between a man and a woman? If a person loves women, and does not love men, he, after all, must have loved sensual pleasure rather than physical beauty. Since he loves sensual pleasure, he certainly does not care much about the physical appearance (of his beloved); however, if he values physical beauty, he would not dare to offend his lover with lustful behaviors.21 Here, Tian Chunhang has made a clear distinction between haose (loving physical beauty) and haoyin (loving carnal pleasure), equating the former with qing while defining the latter as yu. The implications of Tian’s argument then are, first, the idealized homosexual love portrayed in Precious Mirror would have to follow the example of haose buqin and end in a platonic relationship; and second, such platonic love or homosexual bond is considered the highest form of qing in both types of relationships, heterosexual and homosexual alike. What Chen Sen attempts to do, in his formulation of the dichotomy of haose versus haoyin and of his novel’s characters, is exactly what Wai-yee Li describes as an effort “to dramatize the opposition between obsessive sexual passion and well-defined moral imperatives.”22 In Chen’s own words, “the proper and improper ways of dealing with desire co-exist, but neither of them will go in the opposite direction.”23 As a result, Chen’s seeming reaffirmation of qing from Honglou meng actually deviates from its ideological endowment in the parent novel, where qing, with the trope of femininity, celebrates authenticity, spontaneity, and unconstrained selfhood that is socially and ideologically uncontaminated.

Notes 1 A Precious Mirror for Judging Flowers will be referred to as Precious Mirror hereafter. 2 Zhao Jingshen (1902–1985) provided some information about Chen Sen and the date of Chen’s novel, and Zhao also speculated on some possible life models of the novelistic characters. For details, please see Zhao Jingshen, Xiaoshuo xiqu xinkao [The New Study of Fiction and Drama] (Shanghai: Shijie shuju, 1939), 69–80. 3 Lu Xun coined the term xiaxie xiaoshuo in his Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilüe [A Brief History of Chinese Fiction]. The word xiaxie originally referred to the meandering alleys and narrow streets where the pleasure quarters were located. This term was borrowed by Lu Xun to indicate the nature of this fictional genre, which is to write about prostitution in both heterosexual and homosexual contexts. For a detailed discussion on xiaxie xiaoshuo and its three categories, see Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilüe, 1923; rpt. (Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe, 2001), 196–206, 268–69. 4 Keith McMahon argues that the two major themes of Precious Mirror are “sublime love or passion” and the ethics of equality. See his detailed discussion in “Sublime Love and the Ethics of Equality in a Homoerotic Novel of the Nineteenth Century: Precious Mirror of Boy Actresses,” Nan Nü 4, no. 1 (2002): 70–109.

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Routledge Handbook of Traditional Chinese Literature 5 Giovanni Vitiello, The Libertine’s Friend: Homosexuality and Masculinity in Late Imperial China (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 211), 7. 6 Carlos Rojas, “The Coin of Gender in Pinhua baojian,” in Dynastic Crisis and Cultural Innovation: From the Late Ming to the Late Qing and Beyond, ed. David Der-wei Wang and Shang Wei (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2005), 317. 7 David Der-wei Wang, Fin-de-siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernity of Late Qing Fiction, 1849–1911 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 62. 8 See Liangyan Ge, “Feminization, Gender Dislocation, and Social Demotion in Pinhua baojian,” Late Imperial China 29, no. 1 (June 2008): 50. 9 Matthew H. Sommer, Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 144. 10 Wang, Fin-de-siècle Splendor, 66. 11 Chloe Starr, “Shifting Boundaries: Gender in Pinhua baojian,” Nan Nü 1, no. 2 (1999): 268. 12 Ge, “Feminization, Gender Dislocation, and Social Demotion in Pinhua baojian,” 44. 13 Starr, “Shifting Boundaries,” 299. 14 McMahon, Polygamy and Sublime Passion: Sexuality in China on the Verge of Modernity (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2010), 1. 15 Jie Guo, “The Male Dan at the Turn of the Twentieth-First Century: Wu Jiwen’s Fin-de-siècle Boylove Reader,” Prism: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature 18, no. 1 (March 2021): 80. 16 Vitiello, The Libertine’s Friend, 184. 17 According to Wang Guowei, the character yu (jade) in Baoyu’s name serves as a pun for yu (desire or lust). See Wang Guowei, Honglou meng pinglun, 1904; rpt., in Jiuji xinkan (Changsha: Yuelu shushe, 1999), 8. 18 Yi Yuan and Xi Yuan are two luxuriously and artistically decorated gardens owned by two affluent scholar-officials, Xu Ziyun and Hua Guangsu, in the novel. 19 Whereas Jia Rui dies by looking into the seductive front side, at the image of his desired object (the alluring Wang Xifeng), Ziyu will live, or be saved, by turning to the back of the mirror, where a frightening image of a skeleton warns him of the danger of indulgence in sensual pleasure. 20 Chen Sen, Pinhua baojian (Changchun: Jilin wenshi chubanshe, 1999), 2. Unless otherwise indicated, English translations are mine. 21 Chen, Pinhua baojian, 131. 22 Wai-yee Li, Enchantment and Disenchantment: Love and Illusion in Chinese Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 233. 23 Chen, Pinhua baojian, 256.

Further Reading Ge, Liangyan. “Feminization, Gender Dislocation, and Social Demotion in Pinhua baojian.” Late Imperial China 29, no. 1 (June 2008): 41–72. Lu Xun. Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilüe. 1923; rpt., 196–206 & 263–70. Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe, 2001. McMahon, Keith. “Sublime Love and the Ethics of Equality in a Homoerotic Novel of the Nineteenth Century: Precious Mirror of Boy Actresses.” Nan Nü 4, no. 1 (2002): 70–109. Vitiello, Giovanni. The Libertine’s Friend: Homosexuality and Masculinity in Late Imperial China, 180–99. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2011. Wang, David Der-wei. “Edifying Depravity: The Courtesan Novel.” In his Fin-de-siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernity of Late Qing Fiction, 1849–1911, 53–116. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.

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CHINESE GLOSSARY: SELECTED TERMS, NAMES, AND WORK TITLES

A Ai, Duke of “Ai ying” An Dacheng “Anding chenglou” anle wo An Lushan anmin “Anshi fangzhong ge” Aoki Masaru “Ao xianggong yinhen banshan tang”

哀公 哀郢 安大成 安定城樓 安樂窩 安祿山 安民 安世房中歌 青木正兒 拗相公飲恨 半山堂

B Basheng Ganzhou Ba wang zhi luan Baxian chuchu Dongyouji Ba yi ji Ba yi tu “Ba Yushan zhu” Bai Huang Bai Jigeng Bai Juyi Bai Pu Baiqi ji Baiqi xuji Bai Xingjian Bai Xiuying “Baiyuan zhuan” Baiyueting ji Ban Chao Ban Gu Ban jieyu

八聲甘州 八王之亂 八仙出處東遊記 八義记 八義圖 跋寓山注 白鍠 白季庚 白居易 白朴 稗畦集 稗畦續集 白行簡 白秀英 白猿傳 拜月亭記 班超 班固 班婕妤

Bangfeng Bao Daizhi sankan hudie meng Bao Daizhi zhizhan Lu Zhai Lang Baojian ji baojuan baolu Baopuzi “Bao Ren An shu” Bao Si Baoweng laoren Bao Zhao Beichuang suoyan Beifeng Beigu Pavilion beiqu Beiyouji beizhuang bense benji “Bicheng” Bigong biji Biji man zhi “Bijia Wang men” Bili Bimu yu Bishu luhua Bi Wei Biyu bian bianci “Bian dao lun” bianding “Bian du fu”

687

邦風 包待制三勘 蝴蝶夢 包待制智斬 魯齋郎 寶劍記 寶卷 寶籙 抱樸子 報任安書 褒姒 抱甕老人 鮑照 北夢瑣言 邶風 北固亭 北曲 北遊記 悲壯 本色 本紀 碧城 閟宮 筆記 碧雞漫志 逼嫁王門 佛貍 比目魚 避暑錄話 畢魏 碧玉 辯 編次 辨道論 辨訂 汴都賦

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles biangong bianji Bianliang biansai shi bianwen bianyi zhitan bianzhi Bianzong lun biao (tables) bielu Bin zhi chuyan Binfeng Boqin Bowu zhi Boya Bo Yi “Bu fu lao” “Buju“ “Bushezhe shuo” Bu Shi Bu suan zi buxu Boyong

變宮 編輯 汴梁 邊塞詩 變文 變異之談 變徴 辯宗論 表 別錄 賓之初筳 豳風 伯禽 博物誌 伯牙 伯夷 不伏老 卜居 捕蛇者説 卜式 卜算子 步虛 伯庸

C Cai Bojie Caidiao ji Caihao ji Cai Mao cainü cairen caizi jiaren caizi jiaren xiaoshuo caizi shu “Caiwei“ Cai Yan Cai Yong Can Xue Canglang shihua Cao Cao Cao Fang Caofeng Cao Mao Cao Pi Cao Rui Cao Shuang Cao Xi Cao Xu Cao Xueqin Cao Xuequan Cao Yin Cao Zhi CBETA

蔡伯喈 才調集 彩毫記 蔡瑁 才女 才人 才子佳人 才子佳人小説 才子書 采薇 蔡琰 蔡邕 残雪 滄浪詩話 曹操 曹芳 曹風 曹髦 曹丕 曹叡 曹爽 曹璽 曹旭 曹雪芹 曹學佺 曹寅 曹植 中華電子佛典協會

ceyin zhi xin Cen Shen Cen Wenben Cen Zhi Chan chanding Chang’an Changfa Changgeng “Changhen ge” Changsheng dian Chang shu Changwu “Changyao” Chao Buzhi Chao Chulao “Chasi zhuren” Chen Chen Deng Chenfeng Chen Guangrui Chen Jiru Chen Jingji Chen Liang Chen Lin Chen Hong Chen Hongmou Chen She Chen Shi Chen Shidao Chen Shou Chen Xuanli Chen Yinke chenyu duncuo Chen Zhenhui chen zi Chen Zi’ang Chen Zuiliang Cheng Jinfang Cheng Weiyuan chengxiang Chengxiang Cheng Ying Cheng Ying shezi Chengzhai Chengzhai Style Chibei outan chidu Chixiao Chong’er Chonghua chou Chu chuanqi Chuangzei

688

惻隱之心 岑參 岑文本 岑植 禪 禪定 長安 長發 長庚 長恨歌 長生殿 長書 常武 嘗藥 晁補之 晁楚老 茶肆主人 陳 陳登 陳風 陳光蕊 陳繼儒 陳經濟 陳亮 陳琳 陳鴻 陳宏謀 陳涉 陳寔 陳師道 陳壽 陳玄禮 陳寅恪 沉鬱頓挫 陳貞慧 襯字 陳子昂 陳最良 程晉芳 程偉元 丞相 成象 程嬰 程嬰舍子 誠齋 誠齋體 池北偶談 尺牘 鴟鸮 重耳 重華 丑 楚 傳奇 闖賊

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Chuci Chuci buzhu Chu ge “Churu Huaihe sijueju” Chu Ni Chu Renhuo Chu Shaosun chushi Chuwei Wutou Chuzhou chuanqi Chunyu Fen Chunqiu Chunqiu guwen Chunqiu shiyu Chunqiu zuozhuan Zhu “Chun xiao” “Chunyu” ci ci hua Ci lun cike cirang zhi xin Cixue Congshu jicheng chubian congtan “Cu zhi” “Cuicuizhuan” Cui Guofu Cui Hao Cui Ning Cui Qun Cui Shi Cui Daizhao shengsi yuanjia Cui Tanjun Cui Yingying Cui Yingying daiyue xixiang ji Cunsi

楚辭 楚辭補註 楚歌 初入淮河四絕句 鋤倪 褚人穫 褚少孫 出世 楚尾吳頭 滁州 傳奇 淳于棼 春秋 春秋古文 春秋事语 春秋左傳注 春曉 春雨 詞 詞話 詞論 刺客 辭讓之心 詞謔 叢書集成初編 叢談 促織 翠翠傳 崔國輔 崔颢 崔寧 崔群 崔適 崔待詔生死冤家 崔潭峻 崔鶯鶯 崔鶯鶯待月西廂記 存思

D Dadong zhenjing Dadu “Dafeng ge” Dafengli Da Ji “Da Jia Mi shi” “Da Liu Zhengfu shu” “Da Liu zhubo” Da Maogong Da Ming

大洞真經 大都 大風歌 大封禮 妲己 答賈謐詩 答劉正夫書 答劉主簿書 大毛公 大明

Dadong Dashengfu Dashi Dasong Xuanhe yishi Da Tang Sanzang qujing shsihua datuanyuan Daxue zhangju jing Daya Dazhao Daihu dan Dan dao hui danjian Dan Minglun danghang Daode jing daofeng Daojiao Daojing Daoxue Daowang fu Daowang shi Dao Zhi Dejing Deng furen kutong ku Cunxiao Deng Guangming “Denglou fu” Deng Zhimo difu dilu “Di shi” dianban Dian jiangchun “Dian lun” Dianshizhai Huabao Dianzhen (Tower) “Diao Qu Yuan fu” Die lianhua Ding Ding Fubao Dongfang Shuo Donghai xiaofu Donghuang taiyi Dong Jieyuan Dongjing menghua lu Dongpo ci biannian Jianzheng Dong Qichang Dongshan shi Dongxian ge Dongyue Dadi “Dongzhi ri shi xiao zhi Ayi shi”

689

大東 大晟府 大師 大宋宣和遺事 大唐三藏取經詩話 大團圓 大学章句經 大雅 大招 帶湖 旦 單刀會 但見 但明倫 當行 道德經 道封 道教 道經 道學 悼亡賦 悼亡詩 盜跖 德經 鄧夫人苦痛 哭存孝 鄧廣銘 登樓賦 鄧志謨 地府 的盧 狄氏 點板 點絳脣 典論 點石齋畫報 奠枕(樓) 弔屈原賦 蝶戀花 丁 丁福保 東方朔 東海孝婦 東皇太一 董解元 東京夢華錄 東坡詞編年箋證 董其昌 東山寺 洞仙歌 東嶽大帝 冬至日示小 侄阿宜詩

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Dong Zhongshu Dong Zhou lieguo zhi Dong Zhuo Dou Duanyun Dou E yuan Dou Tianzhang Du Bao Ducheng jisheng Du Fu Du Liniang “Du Liniang ji” Du Qinyan Duqu Du Que Du Ruiniang zhishang jinxian chi Du Shan hai jing shi Du Shaoqing Du sheren mu Huzhou Du Shenyan Du You Du Yu “Du Yuanjue jing” “Du Zichun” Duan Chengshi Duan Yucai duihua dunwu Duo Duo Duo Jiao Dunhuang “Dun xiucai yizhao jiaotai”

董仲舒 东周列国志 董卓 竇端雲 竇娥冤 竇天章 杜宝 都城紀勝 杜甫 杜麗娘 杜麗娘記 杜琴言 杜曲 杜確 杜蕊娘智賞金線池 讀山海經詩 杜少卿 杜舍人牧湖州 杜審言 杜佑 杜預 讀圓覺經 杜子春 段成式 段玉裁 堆花 頓悟 多多 鐸椒 敦煌 鈍秀才一朝交泰

E “EPanggong fu” Emperor Wu of Han Er Cheng ji Erke Pai’an jingqi Ershi nian mudu zhi Guan xianzhuang “Ehu si he Lu Zishou” Ertan Ershiwu zhong qingjing dinglun Ertan leizeng Erya

阿房宫賦 漢武帝 二程集 二刻拍案驚奇 二十年目睹之 怪現狀 鵝湖寺和陸子壽 耳譚 二十五種 清淨定輪 耳談類增 爾雅

F Facong fafen zhushu Fajia fawei fazhi

法聰 發憤著書 法家 法位 法職

Fan Chengda Fan Chi Fanchuan waiji fanli “Fan Qiu’er shuangjing chongyuan” Fan Ye Fan Yun Fan zhaoyin Fan Zhongyan Fang Hui Fang Funan “Fangji” Fang La Fang Shi fangshi Fang yan Feihu jun Feijiangjun Feng feng Feng Changqing Feng Hao fenghua fenghuo xi feng gu Fengjian shi Fengliu Fengliu Kongmu chunshan ji Feng Menglong Feng Menglong quanji Feng Qiyong Fengshen bang Fengshen yanyi Fengsu tongyi “Fengweicai ji” Fengyi fengyue baojian Fozu lidai tongzai fu fugu Fu Litang Fu Liang “Fu Luoyang dao zhong zuo” fumo Fu Peirong “Furong ping ji” “Fuqingnong zhuan” fusang Fu Xuan fuyan Fu Yi Fuzhou

690

范成大 樊遲 樊川外集 范例 范鰍兒雙鏡重圓 范曄 范雲 反招隱 范仲淹 方回 方扶南 方技 方臘 房式 方士 方言 飛虎軍 飛將軍 風 封 封常清 馮浩 風化 風火戲 風骨 諷諫詩 風流 風流孔目 春衫記 馮夢龍 馮夢龍全集 馮其庸 封神榜 封神演義 風俗通義 鳳尾草記 豐邑 風月寶鑑 佛祖歷代通載 賦 复古 傅理堂 傅亮 赴洛陽道中作 副末 傅佩榮 芙蓉屏記 負情儂傳 扶桑 傅玄 敷演 傅毅 撫州

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles

G Gaihuan Gai Kuan Gaixia ge Gan Bao Gantang Gantian dongdi Dou E yuan ganbang Gang Bi Gangling Gao Cheng Gao E Gao Kan* Gao Lishi Gao Ming Gao Rugui Gao Shi Gao Xianzhi Gaoyang Gaozu gewu gewu zhizhi geshi Geshu Han genben Geng Jing Genglou chang Genglouzi “Gengsang Chu” Gong gong’an gongdiao Gong Liu Gongqiao jidong dui gongsheng “Gongsun jiuniang” Gongsun Shu gongti shi Gongyang Gujin xiaoshuo Guliang Gusu cinu “Gua yi” guai Guange Guan Yu Guangshiyin yingyan ji Guoxiu ji Gong yan shi Gongming Gongsun Chou Gongsun Chujiu gu guchan

蓋寰 蓋寬 垓下歌 干寶 甘棠 感天動地竇娥冤 桿棒 剛弼 綱領 高承 高鶚 高侃 高力士 高明 高如貴 高適 高仙芝 高陽 高祖 格物 格物致知 歌詩 哥舒翰 根本 耿京 更漏長 更漏子 庚桑楚 恭 公案 宮調 公劉 攻殻機動隊 貢生 公孫九娘 公孫述 宮體詩 公羊 古今小說 穀梁 姑蘇詞奴 瓜異 怪 官哥 關羽 光世音應驗記 國秀集 公宴詩 功名 公孫丑 公孫杵臼 瞽 孤蟾

Gu chui quci gufeng guhun Gu mingjia zaju Gu Qiyuan Guqu sanren gushi Gushi ji “Gushi shijiu shou” Gu Taiqing gutishi guwen guwen jing Guwen yundong Guxiaoshuo gouchen Gu Yanwu Gu Youxiao Guazhi’er guan guaren Guanchang xianxing ji Guan dawang du fu dandao hui Guan gong Guan Feng Guan Hanqing guanli “Guanshu yougan” guanwu guan xiaosheng Guan Yu Guan Yunshi Guan Zhang shuangfu Xishu meng Guanzi Gui gui guicai Guiji guilü guiren Guitian lu Gui Youguang Guiyuan Gui yuan jiaren baiyue ting guizheng ren Guo Congjin Guofeng guoguan Guo Maoqian Guo Moruo Guo Pu Guo Qingfan Guoshang Guo shi

691

鼓吹曲辭 古風 孤魂 古名家雜劇 顧起元 顧曲散人 古詩 古詩集 古詩十九首 顧太清 古體詩 古文 古文經 古文運動 古小説鈎沉 顧炎武 顧有孝 掛枝兒 觀 寡人 官場現形記 關大王獨赴單刀會 關公 關鋒 關漢卿 冠禮 觀書有感 觀物 官小生 關羽 貫雲石 關張雙赴西蜀夢 管子 鄶 鬼 鬼才 會稽 鬼律 貴人 歸田錄 歸有光 閨怨 閨怨佳人拜月亭 歸正人 郭從謹 國風 過關 郭茂倩 郭沫若 郭璞 郭慶藩 國殤 國事

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Guo Xiang Guo Xun Guoyu Guozi Guizijian Guo Zuofei

郭象 郭勛 國語 郭子 國子監 郭作飛

H Haku Rakuten Han Handan meng Han Feizi Hangong chun Hangong qiu Han Jue Hanshan Hanshanzi shiji Hanshang tijin ji Hanshang yi wencun Hanshi waizhuan Han Shizhong Hanshu Han Tuozhou Han Xin Hanyi Han Yu Han Wo haobian haofang haoxia “Hao xiexie” haoran zhi qi Haotian you chengming “Hao li xing” He chongtian He Kai He Xiu “He youren xiju bieye” Hejian Henei Heshanggong hesheng He Xiu Heyang Heyue yingling ji “Hezhong zhishui ge” hengchui Hongguang emperor Honglou meng Hong Mai Hongniang Hong Pian Hongren

白楽天 漢 邯鄲夢 韓非子 漢宮春 漢宮秋 韓厥 寒山 寒山子詩集 漢上題襟集 漢上宧文存 韓詩外傳 韓世忠 漢書 韓侂冑 韓信 韓奕 韓愈 韓偓 好辯 豪放 豪俠 好姐姐 浩然之氣 昊天有成命 蒿里行 鶴沖天 何楷 何休 和友人溪居別業 河間 河内 河上公 合生 何休 河陽 河嶽英靈集 河中之水歌 橫吹 弘光帝 紅樓夢 洪邁 红娘 洪楩 弘忍

Hong Sheng Hong Xingzu Hongzhi chanshi guanglu Hou Hanshu Hou Fangyu Hou Huiqing Houji Hou Liaozhai zhiyi Hou Meng Huhai sanren Huhanye “Hu jia shiba pai” Hu Quan Hu Sanxing Hu Shi Hu Shi zuopinji Hu Yinglin Hu Zhiyu huaben huaben xiaoshuo Huaben xiaoshuo Gailun Huaben yu guju Hua Gongsu Huaguang tianwang nanyou zhizhuan huaji Huajian ji Hua Mulan Huayue hen “Hua pi” Huai Huaihai ji jianzhu Huainanzi huaigu Huainan Huaisong (Mansion) Huan Huanmen zidi cuo lishen Huan Tan Huang Degong Huang Di Huang Feihu Huangfu Huanghe lou “Huanghe lou song Meng Haoran zhi Guangling” Huanghuang zhe hua Huang-Lao thought Huang Liao “Huang Ming daru Wang Yangming xiansheng chushen jingluan lu”

692

洪昇 洪興祖 宏智禪師廣錄 後漢書 侯方域 侯慧卿 后稷 後聊齋志異 侯蒙 湖海散人 呼韓邪 胡笳十八拍 胡銓 胡三省 胡適 胡適作品集 胡應麟 胡祗遹 話本 話本小說 話本小说槪論 话本与古剧 華光宿 華光天王南遊志傳 滑稽 花間集 花木蘭 花月痕 畫皮 淮 淮海集箋注 淮南子 懷古 淮南 懷嵩(樓) 桓 宦門子弟錯立身 桓譚 黄德功 黃帝 黃飛虎 皇父 黃鶴樓 黃鶴樓送孟浩然 之廣陵 皇皇者華 黃老思想 黃繚 皇明大儒 王陽明 先生出身 靖亂錄

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Huang Shanfu Huang Shulin Huang Tingjian Huangzhou Huang Zongxi Huang Zhouxing Hui Hui’an xiansheng wenji huibian Huifang lu Huilin Huiming Huineng huiyan shi yingxiong Huiyuan Huo diyu “Huo Xiaoyu zhuan”

黃善夫 黃叔琳 黃庭堅 黄州 黄宗羲 黃周星 惠 晦庵先生文集 諱辨 繪芳錄 慧琳 惠明 慧能 慧眼識英雄 慧遠 活地獄 霍小玉傳

J ji ji Ji Chang ji da cheng ji dacheng zhe Ji Junxiang “Jifa” Ji’nu “Ji nü” Jisong jiwen jiwen jiandao ji yi Jiying Ji Yun Jia Baoyu Jia Fu Jia Jinhua Jia Kui Jia Mi Jia Nanfeng Jia Sanjin Jia Shizhong Jiatai pudeng lu Jia Yi Jiaxuan Jiaxuan ci biannian Jianzhu Jiaxuan ci jiaozhu fu shiwen nianpu Jia Yuanchun Jia Zheng Jia Zhongming Jian’Ai Jian’an

迹 記 姬昌 集大成 集大成者 紀君祥 祭法 寄奴 績女 偈頌 祭文 即文見道 集義 季鷹 紀昀 賈寶玉 家父 賈晉華 賈逵 賈謐 賈南風 賈三近 賈侍中 嘉泰普燈錄 賈誼 稼軒 稼軒詞編年箋注 稼軒詞校注附 詩文年譜 賈元春 賈政 賈仲明 兼愛 建安

Jiandeng xinhua Jiandeng yuhua Jian’an Jian’an qizi “Jianfa” Jiannan shigao jian podao Jianshantang Jiang Jiangcheng zi Jiang Fang Jiang-Han Jiang Kui Jiang Shang jiangshi Jiangxi daoyuan ji Jiang Ziya “Jiang Xingge chonghui zhenzhu shan” jiao “Jiaonü shi” jue jiaose Jiao si ge “Jiao Zhongqing qi” jie jieben Jie shi Jin “Jince” jinchai Jindai Xu Jingyang dedao qinjiao tieshu ji “Jinfeng chai ji” Jingu qiguan Jin He Jinling suoshi Jinping mei Jin Shengtan jinshi “Jinshilu houxu” Jin suo ji jinti jinti shi jinwen jinwen jing Jinxian chi Jinxie fu Jinxiu tu Jin Zhaoyan jing jing Jing Jingben tongsu Xiaoshuo

693

剪燈新話 剪燈餘話 建安 建安七子 剪髮 劍南詩稿 兼樸刀 兼善堂 江 江城子 蔣防 江漢 姜夔 姜尚 講史 江西道院集 姜子牙 蔣興哥重會 珍珠衫 郊 嬌女詩 角 角色 郊祀歌 焦仲卿妻 解 潔本 節士 晉 錦瑟 金釵 晉代許旌陽得道 擒蛟鐡樹記 金鳳釵記 今古奇觀 金和 金陵瑣事 金瓶梅 金聖嘆 進士 金石錄後序 金鎖記 近體 近/今體詩 今文 今文經 金線池 錦鞵賦 錦繡圖 金兆燕 精 淨 景 京本通俗小說

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles “Jingbian” Jing Cuo Jinghong ji Jingju Jing Ke “Jing Qili Xi” Jingshi tongyan Jing Yin Jingxue jingzuo Jiong “Jiubian” Jiu fengchen Jiuge Jiushan shuhui Jiutan Jiu Tang shu Jiusi Jiuyi Jiuyueji Jiuzhang juren Jushi fendeng lu Jushi ji Juan-e jueju juese junzi

驚變 景差 驚鴻記 京劇 荊軻 經七里灘 警世通言 敬胤 經學 静坐 駉 九辯 救風塵 九歌 九山書會 九歎 舊唐書 九思 九議 九籥集 九章 舉人 居士分燈錄 居士集 卷阿 絕句 腳色 君子

K kanguan Kangle Kangxi Kang Youwei “Kao yan” Kezuo zhuiyu King Jie of Xia King Xuan of Zhou King You of Zhou King Zhow of Shang Kong Anguo Kongguan zhuren konghou “Kongque dongnan fei” Kong Rong Kong Shangren Kong Sanzhuan Kong Yingda Kongzi kuli “Ku Meng Haoran” Ku xiang pian

看官 康樂 康熙 康有為 拷豔 客座贅語 夏桀 周宣王 周幽王 商紂王 孔安國 空觀主人 箜篌 孔雀東南飛 孔融 孔尚任 孔三傳 孔穎達 孔子 酷吏 哭孟浩然 苦相篇

“Kuxiao shuo” “Kuyan” kuyin Kuai Kuaifeng Kuo di tu Kunqu

苦孝說 哭宴 苦吟 檜 檜風 括地圖 崑曲

L Lai “Laihun” “Laijian” Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng Lao Can Lao Can youji laodan laosheng Langxuan shiji “Lao mensheng sanshi bao’en” Laozi lei Leibu leigong Leijiang ji Leishuo Leishen leishu leizhuan li li Li Bai Li Baojia libie Li Cai Li Changqi Li Cheng Lidai diwang xingxi Tongpu li de Li Deyu li er Li Fan Li Fang Li Fuyan Li Geng Li Gonglin Li Gongzuo Li Guang Li Guijie Li Guinian Li Guo Li He

694

賚 賴婚 賴簡 蘭陵笑笑生 老殘 老殘遊記 老旦 老生 琅嬛诗集 老門生三世報恩 老子 誄 雷部 雷公 酹江集 類說 雷神 類書 類傳 禮 理 李白 李寶嘉 離別 李蔡 李昌祺 李成 歷代帝王姓系統譜 立德 李德裕 里耳 李範 李昉 李復言 李庚 李公麟 李公佐 李廣 李桂姐 李龜年 李果 李賀

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Liji Li Jiao’er Li Jinde Li Kaixian Li Kui Li Lianying Li Linfu Li Ling Li Liufang Li Longji “Li Mengzi” Li Mi Li Mo Li Mu Li Nezha Li Panlong Li Ping’er Li Qi Li Qingyu liqu Li Rihua Lisao Li Shangyin Li Shangyin shiji Shuzhu Li Shen Li Shidao Li Shimin “Li Shishi waizhuan” Lishu Li Si Li Taibai quanji Li Xianfang Li Xianmin Li Xiangjun li yan li yi fen shu Li Yong Li Yu Li Yu Li Yu Li Yu Li Yuan “Li Wa zhuan” Li Zhao “Li Zhangwu zhuan” “Li Zhexian zuicao xia Man shu” Li Zhenli Li Zhi “Lizhi si jiangyaozhu shuo” Li Zhuowu “Lianxiang” Lianxiang ban Liang

禮記 李嬌兒 黎靖德 李開先 李逵 李蓮英 李林甫 李陵 李流芳 李隆基 黎檬子 李密 李謩 李牧 李哪吒 李攀龍 李瓶兒 李頎 李清宇 俚曲 李日華 離騷 李商隱 李商隱詩集 疏注 李紳 李師道 李世民 李師師外傳 隸書 李斯 李太白全集 李先芳 李獻民 李香君 立言 理一分殊 李邕 李煜 李漁 李餘 李玉 李淵 李娃傳 李肇 李章武傳 李謫仙醉草 嚇蠻書 李貞麗 李贄 荔枝似江瑤柱說 李卓吾 蓮香 憐香伴 梁

“Liang Yan” Liang Yusheng liangzhi Liaozhai zhiyi Liaozhai zhiyi huijiao huizhu huiping ben Liaozhai zizhi Lienü zhuan Liexian zhuan Lieyi zhuan liezhuan Liezu Lin’an Linchuan Simeng Lin Daiyu linjiang xian “Linjing” Lin Shanzhi Lin Shidian Lin Yutang Linzhizhi Lingbao Ling Dizhi Lingfen lingguai Linghu Chu Linghu Tao Lingjun Ling Mengchu Ling Yueyan Ling Zhilong ling zi Liu An Liu Bang Liu Bei Liu Bian Liu Biao “Liubie Wang Wei” Liu Changjing Liu Chenweng Liu Cong Liu De Liu E Liu furen Qingshang wuhou yan Liu Jingting Liu Jingshu Liu Jun Liu Kezhuang Liulang Liu Mengmei Liu Miaogu Liu Qingyun Liuquan Liushijia xiaoshuo

695

梁彥 梁玉繩 良知 聊齋志異 聊齋志異會校 會註會評本 聊齋自志 列女傳 列仙傳 列異傳 列傳 烈祖 臨安 臨川四夢 林黛玉 臨江仙 臨鏡 林珊枝 林師蒧 林語堂 麟之趾 靈寶 凌迪之 靈氛 靈怪 令狐楚 令狐綯 靈均 凌蒙初 凌約言 凌稚隆 領字 劉安 劉邦 劉備 劉辯 劉表 留别王維 劉長卿 劉辰翁 劉聰 劉德 劉鶚 劉夫人慶賞五侯宴 柳敬亭 劉敬叔 劉峻 劉克莊 劉郎 柳夢梅 劉藐姑 劉清韻 柳泉 六十家小說

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Liushi zhong qu Liu Wan Liu Xiaobiao Liu Xie Liu Xiang Liu Xin Liu Xu Liu Xuekai Liuya waibian Liu Yi Liu Yifu Liu Yikang Liu Yilong Liu Yiqing Liu Yong Liu Yu Liu Yuxi Liu Yuan Liu yue xue Liu Zhen Liu Zhiji Liu Zhiyuan Liu Zongyuan Liuzu dashi fabao tanjing “Loudong fu” Lu lu Lu Bi Lu Da Lu Fangweng quanji Lu gui bu Lu Ji Luming Lu Qinli Lu Shiyong Lu Shusheng Lusong Lu You Lu Yun Lu Xixing Lu Xun Lu Zhai Lang Lu Zhishen Lu Zhonglian Lü Benzhong lüfu Lü Qiuxiao lüshi Lüshi Chunqiu Lü Tiancheng Lü Yue Lüyi “Lüyiren zhuan” Lüzhu

六十種曲 劉灣 劉孝標 劉勰 劉向 劉歆 劉昫 劉學鍇 柳涯外編 劉毅 劉義符 劉義康 劉義隆 劉義慶 柳永 劉裕 劉禹錫 劉淵 六月雪 劉楨 劉知幾 劉知遠 柳宗元 六祖大師法寶 壇經 樓東賦 魯 籙 盧弼 魯達 陸放翁全集 錄鬼簿 陸機 鹿鳴 逯欽立 陸時雍 陸樹聲 魯頌 陸遊 陸雲 陸西星 魯迅 魯齋郎 魯智深 魯仲連 吕本中 律賦 閭丘曉 律詩 呂氏春秋 呂天成 呂岳 綠衣 綠衣人傳 綠珠

“Lüzhu zhuan” luan “Luanli erze” Luo Binwang Luofu xing Luo Guanzhong “Luoshen fu” Luoyang Luo Ye Lunheng Lun wen Lunyu

綠珠傳 亂 亂離二則 駱賓王 羅敷行 羅貫中 洛神賦 洛陽 羅燁 論衡 論文 論語

M Ma Shiying Ma Shumou Mawei Ma Zhiyuan man ci Manting fang Mao Mao Chang Mao Deguan Mao Heng Mao Jin Mao Kun Mao Lun Maoshi Mao Sui Mao Xianshu Mao Yanshou “Mao Ying chuan” Maoyuan yeshi Mao Zonggang Meicheng Mei Dingzuo “Mei nü pian” Meiqin shilun Mei Sheng Mei Ziyu Meng Haoran Mengjiang Meng Ke “Meng lang” Meng Liang dao gu Mengliang lu Meng Shu shi jing Meng Yulou Meng Yuanlao Mengzi mengzi mengzi Mideng yinhua

696

马士英 麻叔謀 馬嵬 馬致遠 慢詞 满庭芳 毛 毛萇 冒得官 毛亨 毛晉 茅坤 毛綸 毛詩 毛遂 毛先舒 毛延壽 毛穎傳 茂苑野史 毛宗崗 美成 梅鼎祚 美女篇 美芹十論 枚乘 梅子玉 孟浩然 孟姜 孟軻 夢狼 孟良盜骨 夢梁錄 孟蜀石經 孟玉樓 孟元老 孟子 檬子 蒙子 覓燈因話

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Mi Heng Miluo “Mizhou chulie” Mian Miao Quansun Miao Quansun “Miaorong” Minlao minzu jieqi ming Mingfeng ji Mingjia Mingri Ming ru xue’an Mingyue nu mo Mohanzhai zhuren Mo Huaigu Mojia Mo Xi Mozi Mudan ting Mudanting huanhun ji “Mudanting ji tici” Mulian Mulian jiumu Mu tianzi zhuan muzhiming

禰衡 汨羅 密州出獵 綿 繆勸孫 繆荃孫 描容 民勞 民族節氣 名 鳴鳳記 名家 明日 明儒學案 明月奴 末 墨憨齋主人 莫懷古 墨家 妹喜 墨子 牡丹亭 牡丹亭還魂記 牡丹亭記題詞 目連 木蓮救母 穆天子傳 墓誌銘

N Nan 南 Nanci xulu Nanhai Nanjiu gongpu Nanke ji “Nanke taishou zhuan” Nanshi nanxi Nan Xixiang Nan Zhong “Naozhai” Neipian neisheng waiwang Nenggaizhai manlu ni gu ni gushi nihuaben “Ni Miaoji” Niannu jiao nianpu “Nianyu Guanyin” Niehai hua “Nie Xiaoqian”

南詞敘錄 南海 南九宮譜 南柯記 南柯太守傳 南史 南戲 南西廂 南仲 鬧齋 内篇 内聖外王 能改齋漫錄 擬古 擬古詩 擬話本 尼妙寂 念奴嬌 年譜 碾玉觀音 孽海花 聶小倩

Nie Zheng Ning Caichen Ning Kai Niu Sengru Niu Yuanyi Nü Wa Nü xia Nüxu Nuo

聶政 寧采臣 寧楷 牛僧孺 牛元翼 女媧 女俠 女嬃 那

O Ouyang Xiu Ouyang Xiu quanji

歐陽修 歐陽修全集

P Pai’an jingqi pailü paishi Pan Pan Jinlian Pan Qiguan Pan Shui Pan Yue Pang Chunmei Pei Di Pei Du Pei Dunfu Pei Ji Pei Songzhi Pei Xing Pei Yin pifu lanyin Pipaji pianwen Pianyu ji Pinhua baojian pinghua Pingling dong pingshi Pingyao zhuan “Pingzhun shu” Po Qinhuai Po zhen zi prajñāpāramitā Pusa man Pu Songling Pu Songling pingzhuan Pu Songling quanji Pu tongshi yanjie

697

拍案驚奇 排律 派詩 般 潘金蓮 潘其觀 泮水 潘岳 龐春梅 裴迪 裴度 裴敦復 裴垍 裴松之 裴鉶 裴駰 皮膚濫淫 琵琶記 駢文 片玉集 品花寶鑑 平話 平陵東 平實 平妖傳 平準書 泊秦淮 破陣子 般若波羅蜜多 菩薩蠻 蒲松齡 蒲松齡評傳 蒲松齡全集 朴通事諺解

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles

Q Qi qi Qi qi “Qi ai shi” Qi Biaojia Qifeng Qi Fu Qijiu xuwen qili jinggong Qiqing Qisong Qixi Qiyue Qian Anfu Qian Daxin Qian Dayin zhichong Xie Tianxiang Qian Dayin zhikan feiyi meng Qiandao Qian Qianyi qiangu diyi cainü Qian Han ji qianhuai Qian Kaogong ji “Qian liu” Qian Mu Qian Nanyang Qiannü youhun Qian Qi “Qiuqianhuiji” Qian Taiji “Qiantang yimeng” Qian Yulian qianze xiaoshuo Qian Zhonglian Qian Zhongshu Qian Zhou zhushi Qie boming qie shuo Qin qin Qinfeng Qin Guan Qin qiang Qin shihuang Qin Shubao “Qinxin” Qin yuan chun Qin Zhong qingfa qing “Qingbo pian”

齊 奇 啟 气 七哀詩 祁彪佳 齊風 祈父 耆舊續聞 綺麗精工 耆卿 契嵩 七夕 七月 錢安撫 錢大昕 錢大尹智寵謝天香 錢大尹智勘緋衣夢 乾道 錢謙益 千古第一才女 前漢記 遣懷 錢考功集 錢流 錢穆 錢南揚 倩女幽魂 錢起 鞦韆會記 錢泰吉 錢塘異夢 錢玉蓮 譴責小說 錢仲聯 錢鍾書 前周柱史 妾薄命 且說 秦 琴 秦風 秦觀 秦腔 秦始皇 秦叔寶 琴心 沁園春 秦鍾 清發 情 輕薄篇

Qinglou ji Qinglou meng Qingping diao Qingpingshan tang Huaben Qing shi Qingshi Qingshi leilüe “Qingshou” qingtan Qingwen Qingyu an Qingzhen ji Qingzhen xiansheng Yishi “Qiuran ke zhuan” Qufu Qulü Qu Naian Quque Qu You Qu Yuan Qu Xiuxiu Quanrong Quan Tang shi Quanxiang Beiyouji Xuandi chushen Zhuan Queqiao xian que shuo Qun qunniao

青樓記 青樓夢 清平調 清平山堂話本 情詩 情史 情史類略 慶壽 清談 晴雯 青玉案 清真集 清真先生遺事 虬髯客傳 曲阜 曲律 瞿耐庵 胠篋 瞿佑 屈原 璩秀秀 犬戎 全唐詩 全像北遊記 玄帝出身傳 鵲橋仙 卻說 群 羣鳥

R Reed songs ren ren rendao Ren Duxing renlun jianshi Ren Sanye ren zhi dao ren zhi cheng ren zhi xing Ren Bantang Ronglu Rongyu tang Ru Rumengling Ruyijun zhuan Ruan Dacheng Ruan Ji Ruan Yuan Rujia

698

笙詩 仁 任 人道 任篤行 人倫鑑識 任三爺 仁之道 仁之成 仁之性 任半塘 榮祿 容與堂 汝 如夢令 如意君傳 阮大鋮 阮籍 阮元 儒家

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Rulin waishi Ruan Yu

儒林外史 阮瑀

S Sai Lu yi San bao en san bucong sancong San du fu Sanguo zhi Sanguo zhi jijie Sanguo zhi pinghua Sanguo zhi yani Sanguo zhi tongsu yanyi Sanjiao ounian Sanjia pingzhu Li Changji geshi Sanjielu bitan San Qing sanqu “San sheng” San Sui Pingyao zhuan Sanxiao niangniang San yan San Yan Er Pai San Yan Liang Pai Ziliao Sanzang Sanzi jing saofu Shanfu Shan hai jing “Shanhu” Shanju fu shanlin Shanshen miao Pei Du huan dai shanshui shi Shan Tao Shan Xiongxin Shanyang Shanyang gong zaiji Shanzai xing shang Shanghai shijie fanhua bao “Shang Li Taiwei lun beibian shi qi” Shangqing “Shang Sanguan” “Shangshan zaoxing” Shangshu Shangsong Shangxin (Pavilion)

賽盧醫 三報恩 三不從 三從 三都賦 三國志 三國志集解 三國志平話 三國志演義 三國志通俗演義 三教偶拈 三家評註李 長吉歌詩 三借廬筆談 三清 散曲 三生 三遂平妖傳 三霄娘娘 三言 三言二拍 三言兩拍資料 三藏 三字經 騷賦 膳夫 山海經 珊瑚 山居賦 山林 山神廟裴度還帶 山水詩 善濤 單雄信 山陽 山陽公載記 善哉行 商 上海世界繁華報 上李太尉論 北邊事啟 上清 商三官 商山早行 尚書 商頌 賞心亭

“Shangyue” “Shang zaixiang qiu huzhou dier qi” “Shang Zhou xianggong shu” Shao shao Shao Jingzhan Shaomin Shaonan “Shaonian you” Shaoshi Shanfang Bicong Shao Yong Shaoyou “Shejiang” Shen shen Shen Gongbao Shen Jiji Shen Jing shenmo xiaoshuo shenqing mianmiao Shen Xiaxian ji Jiaozhu shenxian Shenxiu Shen Yazhi Shenyin jiangu lu Shen Yue sheng Sheng’an quanji “Shengmin” “Shengnü ci” shengren zhi guo shengshang Shengsheng man shi “Shibi jingshe huan huzhong zuo” Shicang lidai shixuan Shi Chong Shidetang shi’er jinchai shifei zhi xin Shifo shihua Shiji Shiji jijie Shiji jiaozheng Shiji pinglin Shiji suoyin Shiji zazhi Shiji zhengyi shijia Shi Jin

699

賞月 上宰相求 湖州第二啟 上周相公書 召 韶 邵景詹 召旻 召南 少年遊 少室山房筆叢 邵雍 少游 涉江 申 身 申公豹 沈既濟 沈璟 神魔小說 深情綿邈 沈下賢集校註 神仙 神秀 沈亞之 審音鑑古錄 沈約 生 昇庵全集 生民 圣女祠 聖人之國 陞賞 聲聲慢 詩 石壁精舍還 湖中作 石倉歷代詩選 石崇 世德堂 十二金釵 是非之心 詩佛 詩話 史記 史記集解 史記校證 史記評林 史記索隱 史記雜志 史記正義 世家 史進

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Shijing Shiben Guyi Shijing zonglun Shi Kefa “Shikang” Shiki kaichû kôchô fu kôho Shikui shu shiluan zhongqi Shimai Shimian Shi Nai’an Shi’ning Shipin Shisanbai Shisanjing zhushu Shishangfu shi sheng Shishi “Shishuo” Shishuo ti Shishuo xinyu Shisou shiti Shitong Shitou ji shiwang Shiwu jiyuan Shiyi ji Shi yi lun Shi yu Shiyue zhijiao shizi Shoudao shoulu “Shoulun” “Shui zai” “Sihe xiang” Song Maocheng shu shu Shu shu “Shudao nan” shufang shuhui shujian Shu Qi shushu Shu Zaiyang “Shua xiucai” Shuangfeng tang Shuangjian “Shuangtao ji” Shuidiao getou Shuihu bian

詩經世本古義 詩鏡總論 史可法 食糠 史記會註考證 附校補 石匱書 始亂終棄 時邁 師勉 施耐庵 始寧 詩品 詩三百 十三經註疏 師尚父 詩聖 師氏 師說 世說體 世說新語 詩藪 實體 史通 石頭記 世網 事物紀原 拾遺記 釋疑論 事語 十月之交 實字 守道 授籙 守論 水災 四和香 宋懋澂 書 疏 蜀 述 蜀道難 殊方 書會 書簡 叔齊 術數 舒載陽 耍秀才 雙峰堂 雙漸 雙桃記 水調歌頭 水滸辯

Suihu zhuan Shui long yin shuo shuohua shuojing Shuo Tang qianzhuan Shuo Tang quanzhuan Shuo Tang yanyi houzhuan: Xue Rengui zheng Dong Shuowen jiezi Shuoyuan Shun si Si chanjuan Sida mingzhu sida qishu si duan Sikuai yu Sima Chengzhen Sima Guang Sima Lun Sima Qian Sima Rui Sima Tan Sima Xiangru Sima Yan Sima Yan Sima Yi Sima Zhao Sima Zhen Simu Sishu Sishu zhangju jizhu Sishu zhiyue Situ Sixue caotang Siyou ji Song Song Song ben Huaihai ji Song Jiang Song Qi Song Shi Song shu songxu Songyin ji Song Ying shi Song Yu Songgao Song Ming lixue Songyin manlu Song Yuan xiqu shi Sougu jiugu Soushen houji Soushen ji

700

水滸傳 水龍吟 說 說話 說經 説唐前傳 説唐全傳 說唐演義後傳： 薛仁貴征東 說文解字 說苑 舜 思 四嬋娟 四大名著 四大奇書 四端 四塊玉 司馬承禎 司馬光 司馬倫 司馬遷 司馬睿 司馬談 司馬相如 司馬炎 司馬宴 司馬懿 司馬昭 司馬貞 四牡 四書 四書章句集註 四書指月 司徒 四雪草堂 四遊記 頌 宋 宋本淮海集 宋江 宋祁 宋史 宋書 送序 松陰記 送應氏 宋玉 崧高 宋明理學 淞隱漫錄 宋元戏曲史 搜孤救孤 搜神後記 搜神記

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Su Huifang Su Kunsheng Sumen sixueshi Su Qing Su Shi Su Wu Su Xun Su Zhe Sui shi yiwen Sui shu Sui Tang liangchao shizhuan Sui Tang yanyi Sui Emperor Yang Sui Yangdi yanshi Suoyu Sun Chuo Sun En Sun Feihu Sun Guangxian Sun Quan Sun Ruquan “Sun sheng” Sun Shi “Sun shi ji” Sun Xue’e Sun Zhongmou Sun Zhu Sun Zizhong

蘇蕙芳 蘇昆生 蘇門四學士 蘇卿 蘇軾 蘇武 蘇洵 蘇轍 隋史遺文 隋書 隋唐兩朝史傳 隋唐演義 隋煬帝 隋煬帝豔史 瑣語 孫綽 孫恩 孫飛虎 孫光憲 孫權 孫汝權 孫生 孫奭 孫氏記 孫雪娥 孫仲謀 孫洙 孫子仲

T tajie Taigong Wang Taigu Taikang Taiping guanji Taiping guangji chao Taishan Taishang Laojun taishi Taishigong Taishigong ji Taishigong shu Taishigong yue Taishigong zixu Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō Taishuishen “Taixia xinzou xu” Taixu Tai Yi Taiyiyuan yin Takigawa Kametarō Tan Chuyu “Tanci”

他界 太公望 太谷 太康 太平廣記 太平廣記鈔 泰山 太上老君 太史 太史公 太史公記 太史公書 太史公曰 太史公自序 大正新修大藏經 太歲神 太霞新奏序 太虛 太乙 太醫院尹 瀧川龜太朗 譚楚玉 彈詞

tanchang “Tanqin” Tan Zhengbi Tang Tang Daizong Tang Gaozong Tangfeng Tang huiyao Tang Le Tang liudian Tang Ming Huang ku xiangnang Tang Renshou Tangren xiaoshuo Tang Sanzang chushen quanzhuan Tang Sanzang Xiyou shini (=e) zhuan Tangseng qujing daochang Tangseng qujing tuce Tangseng xitian qujing Tangshi biecai ji Tangshi sanbaishou Tang shu zhizhuan Tang Song chuanqi ji Tang Shunzhi Tang Song badajia Tang Suzong Tang Xianzu Tang Xianzu quanji Tang Xuanzong Tang Ying Tao’an mengyi Taohua shan “Taohua shan xiao yin” Taohuayuan “Taohua yuan ji” Tao Qian taoshu Taoyuan dong Tao Yuanming “Tao zhengshi lei” “Teng Mu zuiyou Jujingyuan ji” tiba Ti dahui yulu tidiao Ti Miming timu Tianbao qushi Tianbao yishi zhougong diao tiancai tiancao Tian Chunhang

701

壇場 彈琴 譚正璧 湯 唐代宗 唐高宗 唐風 唐會要 唐勒 唐六典 唐明皇哭香囊 唐仁壽 唐人小說 唐三藏出身全傳 唐三藏西游 釋尼(=厄)傳 唐僧取經道場 唐僧取經圖冊 唐僧西天取經 唐詩別裁集 唐詩三百首 唐書志傳 唐宋傳奇集 唐順之 唐宋八大家. 唐肅宗 湯顯祖 湯顯祖全集 唐玄宗 唐英 陶庵夢憶 桃花扇 桃花扇小引 桃花源 桃花源記 陶潛 套數 桃源洞 陶淵明 陶徵士誄 滕穆醉遊 聚景園記 題跋 題大慧語錄 體調 提彌明 題目 天寶曲史 天寶遺事諸宮調 天才 天曹 田春航

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles tiandao Tian Hu Tianjin riri xinwenbao tian ming Tianpingjun tianran Tianshi dao Tiantai qianji Tianwen Tianxu zhai tianyuan shi tie Tingshi Tong dian Tongfu Tongjian gangmu tianming tongpan Tong sheng ge Tongzhi tiaoge “Tou tao” Tu Angu tufen Tu Long Tuo Tuoba Tao

天道 田虎 天津日日新聞報 天命 天平軍 天然 天師道 天台前集 天問 天許齋 田園詩 貼 桯史 通典 同甫 通鑑綱目 天命 通判 同聲歌 通製條格 偷桃 屠岸賈 土風 屠隆 沱 拓跋燾

W wai “Wan guo Cexi shanxia” Wanyan Liang wanyue Wang Anshi Wang Bi Wang Bocheng Wang Can Wang Changling Wang Chi-chen Wangchuan ji Wang Chong Wang Dexin Wang Dingbao Wang Dun Wang Fu Wang Fuzhi Wangfeng “Wang Ge yao chen” Wang Guowei Wang Guowei quanji Wang haichao Wang Han Wang Jide “Wang Ji zhuan” Wang Jia

外 晚過側溪山下 完顏亮 婉約 王安石 王弼 王伯成 王粲 王昌齡 王際真 輞川集 王充 王德信 王定保 王敦 王溥 王夫之 王風 汪革謠讖 王國維 王國維全集 望海潮 王翰 王驥德 王寂傳 王嘉

Wang jiang ting Wangjiang ting Zhongqiu qie kuaidan Wang Jin Wang Jin Wang Jinfan Wang Jingze Wang Kui “Wang Kui zhuan” Wang Liqi Wang-Meng shipai Wang Maoyuan Wang Mian Wang Niansun Wang Pijiang Wang Rong Wang Qi Wang Qing Wang Shen Wang Shenzhong Wang Shifu Wang Shipeng Wang Shizhen Wang Shizhen Wang Shu Wang Shumin Wang Tao Wang Tingcou Wang Tinggui Wang Tingxiang Wang Tonggui Wang Wei Wang Xifeng Wang Xilian Wang Xiangxu Wang Yanzhe Wang Yangming Wang Xie Wang Yi Wang Yi “Wang Xinzhi yisi jiu quanjia” Wang Xingxian Wang Zhaojun Wang Zhenpeng Wang Zhihuan Wang Zhuo Wang Zijin Waipian Wei Wei Weifeng “Wei Jia Mi zuo zeng Lu Ji shi” Wei Hongjian Wei Liangfu

702

望江亭 望江亭中秋 切鱠旦 王縉 王進 王金範 王敬則 王魁 王魁傳 王利器 王孟詩派 王茂元 王冕 王念孫 汪辟疆 王融 王琦 王慶 王詵 王慎中 王實甫 王十朋 王世貞 王士禎 望舒 王叔岷 王韜 王廷湊 王庭珪 王廷相 王同軌 王維 王熙鳳 王希廉 汪象旭 王延喆 王陽明 王瀣 王義 王逸 汪信之一死 救全家 王星賢 王昭君 王振鵬 王之渙 王灼 王子晉 外篇 衛 魏 衛風 為賈謐作 贈陸機詩 魏宏簡 魏良輔

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Wei Meng Weimojie Weinan wenji weiqi Wei Shou Wei Shu Wei Yingwu Wei Zhao Wei Zheng Wei Zhongxian Wei Zhuang wen Wendi “Wen fu” wenjuan “Wenling” Wenming xiaoshi wen shi Wen Taizhen yu jing tai Wen Tingyun Wen Wang wenxin Wen xuan Wenxin diaolong Wen Wang Wen Yanbo Wen Zhong weisheng weiyan dayi Wen Yiduo wenyi mingdao wenyi zaidao Wenzhou Wenzhou zaju Weng Tonghe Wey Weyfeng wu Wu Wu Wu Bing Wucheng Wudaishi pinghua Wu Di Wudi of the Han Wudi lei Wu Ding wufang wufang zhi Di Wu Jiwen Wu Jianren Wu Jingzi wuli Wuling “Wuliu xiansheng zhuan”

韋孟 維摩詰 渭南文集 圍棋 魏收 魏書 韋應物 韋昭 魏徵 魏忠賢 韋莊 文 文帝 文賦 溫卷 聞鈴 文明小史 文士 溫太真玉鏡臺 溫庭筠 文王 文心 文選 文心雕龍 文王 溫彥博 聞仲 尾聲 微言大義 聞一多 文以明道 文以載道 溫州 溫州雜劇 翁同龢 魏 魏風 無 吳 武 吴炳 烏程 五代史平話 五帝 漢武帝 武帝誄 武丁 五方 五方之帝 吳繼文 吴趼人 吴敬梓 無禮 武陵 五柳先生傳

Wulong Wu Meiniang Wu nichang wunian Wu Qi Wu Qi “Wushi nianlai de Zhongguo wenxue” Wu Song Wusuye Wu Wang Wu Wang fa Zhow Wu Wang fa Zhow pinghua Wu Wang fa Zhow waishi Wu Woyao Wuxia cinu Wuxia san Feng Wuxian lingguan dadi Huaguang tianwang zhuan wuxing Wu Taibo Wuti Wu Tianxing Wutong yu wuxin Wuxian wuwei Wu Wenying wuyi wei Wuying Yuanshuai Wu Yingji Wu Yuanheng Wu-Yue chunqiu Wu Yueniang Wu Zetian Wu Zeng Wu Zimu Wuzong of the Tang

烏龍 武媚娘 舞霓裳 無念 吳起 吳期 五十年来的 中国文学 武松 武宿夜 武王 武王伐紂 武王伐紂平話 武王伐紂外史 吳沃堯 吳下詞奴 吳下三馮 五顯靈官大帝 華光天王傳 五行 吴太伯 無題 吴天行 梧桐雨 無心 巫咸 無爲 吳文英 無以爲 五營元帥 吳應箕 武元衡 吳越春秋 吴月娘 武則天 吳曾 吳自牧 唐武宗

X Xi xi xi “Xianü” Xigui ji Xi He xiju Xi Kang Ximen Qing xiqu Xiren

703

僖 兮 昔 俠女 西歸集 羲和 戲劇 嵇康 西門慶 戲曲 襲人

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Xi Shi Xi Shiyi Xi Shu meng “Xi Shu yiyu” “Xishu Yuanjuejing hou” xiwen Xixiang ji Xixiang ji Zhugongdiao Xiyou ji Xiyouji zaju Xiyou zhengdao shu Xia Xia Chengtao Xia Tingzhi xiaxie xiaoshuo “Xiaye zhuiliang” xian Xian Xiancai xianjing Xianjun xianlu Xian-Qin zhuzi xinian “Xianqing fu” xianren Xianzhai laoren xian zhi shi Xiang “Xianghe geci” Xiangjian xiangshu Xiang Yu Xiangzhan Xiangzhu liaozhai zhiyi Tuyong xiao Xiao Gang Xiaoge Xiao He xiaoling Xiao Maogong xiaopin Xiaopin ji Xiaoshi zhenkong baojuan xiaoshuo Xiao Sun tu Xiao Tong “Xiao xing Baxia” Xiaoya Xiao Yan Xiaoyue lou ji Xiao Ziliang Xiao Zilong

西施 奚十一 西蜀夢 西蜀異遇 戲書圓覺經後 戲文 西廂記 西廂記諸宮調 西遊記 西遊記雜劇 西遊證道書 夏 夏承燾 夏庭芝 狹邪小說 夏夜追涼 仙 獻 仙才 仙境 先君 仙籙 先秦諸子繫年 閒情賦 仙人 閒齋老人 見志詩 襄 相和歌辭 鄉薦 象數 項羽 詳戰 詳註聊齋志異圖詠 孝 蕭綱 孝哥 蕭何 小令 小毛公 小品 效顰集 銷釋真空寶卷 小說 小孫屠 蕭統 曉行巴峽 小雅 蕭衍 嘯月樓集 蕭子良 蕭子隆

Xie Xie “Xie ci zhenzhu” Xie Fu Xie Huilian Xie Lingyun Xielu xing Xie Tiao Xie Wei “Xie Xiao’e zhuan” Xie Xuan xiezi “Xiezhen” Xinbian hongbai zhizhu Xinbian nanci dinglu Xin Gengru Xin Jiaxuan nianpu Xin Jiaxuan shiwen jianzhu Xinjing Xinkan qimiao quanxiang zhushi Xixiang ji Xin lieguo zhi Xin Qiji Xin Qiji biannian Jianzhu Xin Qiji yanjiu Xin Qiji ziliao Huibian Xin qixie Xinshu Xin Tang shu Xinxu “Xinyi wu” Xin yu Xing xing ben shan xingjuan xingming xing shan Xingshi hengyan Xingshi yuan tanci Xingyang Xing ying shen Xiong Damu Xiong Longfeng Kanxing xiaoshuo Sizhong Xiongnu xiucai Xiu shu xiuwu zhi xin Xiuxiang xiaoshuo Xu Xu Dingguo

704

燮 契 謝賜珍珠 謝敷 謝惠連 謝靈運 薤露行 謝朓 謝緯 謝小娥傳 謝玄 楔子 寫真 新編紅白蜘蛛 新編南詞定律 辛更儒 辛稼軒年譜 辛稼軒詩文箋注 心經 新刊奇妙 全相註釋 西廂記 新列國志 辛棄疾 辛棄疾編年 箋注 辛棄疾研究 辛棄疾資料彙編 新齊諧 新書 新唐書 新序 辛夷塢 新語 興 性本善 行卷 形名 性善 醒世恒言 醒世缘弹词 滎陽 形影神 熊大木 熊龍峰 刊行小說 四種 匈奴 秀才 修書 羞惡之心 繡像小說 許 許定國

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Xu Fuzuo “Xuge” Xu guzunsu yuyao “Xu huangliang” Xu Kun Xu Lidai shihua Xu Shang Xu Shen Xu Si Xu Wei Xu Xuanguai lu Xu Xun Xu Xun Xu Zhonglin Xu Zhongwei xuzi Xuan Xuanguai lu Xuanhe yishi Xuanniao xuanxue xuanyan shi Xuanzang Xue Baochai Xue Dingshan Xue Tingshan zheng Xi, Fan Lihua quanzhuan Xue Rengui “Xuetaoge ji xu” “Xuezhong shuhuai” Xun Xunfang xunli Xun Qing Xun Yue Xunzi

徐復祚 絮閣 續古尊素語要 續黃梁 徐昆 續歷代詩話 徐商 許慎 許汜 徐渭 續玄怪錄 許詢 許遜 許仲琳 徐仲偉 虛字 宣 玄怪錄 宣和遺事 玄鳥 玄學 玄言詩 玄奘 薛寶釵 薛丁山 薛丁山征西 樊梨花 全傳 薛仁貴 雪濤閣集序 雪中書懷 郇 尋芳 循吏 荀卿 荀悅 荀子

Y Ya Yasheng “Yan’ge xing” yanfen Yanhe dian Yan Hui “Yanshang houde” Yan Shifan Yan Song “Yantai sishou” Yan Ying Yan Yuan ji Yan Wu Yanyan

雅 亞聖 豔歌行 煙粉 延和殿 顏回 盐商厚德 嚴世蕃 嚴嵩 燕台四首 晏嬰 顏元集 嚴武 燕燕

Yan Yanzhi Yan Yu Yang Jian Yang Yun Yan Zhitui Yanzi chunqiu Yanzi jian Yan Zhu yang “Yang Balao Yueguo Qifeng” “Yang er guanren” Yang Guang Yang Guifei Yang Guozhong Yang Jingxian Yang Minzhan Yang Shen Yang Shixun Yang Wencong Yang Yuhuan Yangsheng lun Yang Zhihe Yangzhou sanshou yao Yao yaoguai yaojiao Yao Wenxie yaoshu yaoxian Ye Ye Congqi Ye Gongchuo “Ye gou” “Ye gui Lumen ge” Ye Heng Ye Jiaying Yejingche Ye Mengde “Ye sheng” Ye Xianzu “Yeyi” “Yeyu jibei” yi yi Yi Yicheng yidai shiren yidai shizong Yi jian mei Yijian zhi Yijing yilei yili

705

顏延之 嚴羽 楊戩 楊惲 顏之推 晏子春秋 燕子箋 嚴助 陽 楊八老越國奇逢 楊二官人 楊廣 楊貴妃 楊國忠 楊景賢 楊民瞻 杨慎 楊士勛 楊文驄 楊玉環 養生論 陽志和 揚州三首 妖 堯 妖怪 妖嬌 姚文燮 妖術 妖仙 鄴 葉蔥奇 葉恭綽 野狗 夜歸鹿門歌 葉衡 葉嘉瑩 葉敬池 葉夢得 葉生 葉憲祖 夜意 夜雨寄北 義 異 懿 宜城 一代詞人 一代詞宗 一剪梅 夷堅志 易經 異類 義理

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Yipeng xue yi shi wei ci “Yi shi shi yue” Yishuo Fan Tang yanyi quanzhuan Yishuo Hou Tang zhuan “Yishu” Yiwen ji Yiwen zhi yi yi wei zhu Yi Yin yiyin Yiyuan Yiyuan zhiyan yiyue Yiyun Yizhai Yizhai sou Yizhi hua Yan Zhongqing Yin Yin Fan Yin Gengshi yinhui miaoxie Yin Jifu Yin Jiao “Yin jiu” “Yin ma Chengcheng ku xing” Yinshi yinshu Yinwu Yinxi Yin Xian yin-yang Yin Yuanshuai Yin Yun Ying yingfu seng Yinglie zhuan Yingshen saishe lijie chuanbu sishi qu gongdiao Ying Yang “Yingying zhuan” Yongjia zaju Yongle dadian Yongle dadian xiwen Sanzhong yongshi shi yongwu fu yongwu shi youxianshi Yongfeng Yonghuai Yongjia

一捧雪 以詩爲詞 異史氏曰 異說薛剛反唐全傳 異說征西演義 遺書 異聞記 藝文志 以意為主 伊尹 意淫 異苑 藝苑卮言 議曰 逸雲 已齋 已齋叟 一枝花 顏仲清 殷 殷璠 尹更始 淫穢描寫 尹吉甫 殷郊 飲酒 飲馬長城窟行 尹氏 淫書 殷武 尹喜 尹咸 陰陽 殷元帥 殷芸 潁 應赴僧 英烈傳 迎神賽社禮節 傳簿四十曲 宮調 應瑒 鶯鶯傳 永嘉雜劇 永樂大典 永樂大典戲文 三種 詠史詩 詠物賦 詠物詩 遊仙詩 鄘風 詠懷 永嘉

Yong shi Yong yu le Yongzheng Youan Youbi youdu You Guo’en Youlie pian Youlong You Mao Youming lu youqingren youwei youwu youxi baguwen youxian shi youxin yumu Youxuan ji Youyang zazu youyi wei Yuchi Gong danbian duo shuo yu yu Yu cong Yufu Yugu yujia Yuli “Yulian toujiang” Yulin Yu linling yulu “Yu Nanshan wang Beishan jing hu zhong zhantiao” Yu Pingbo “Yu Qin Taixu” Yu Rang Yu Qing “Yu Shan Juyuan juejiao shu” Yu Shaoyu Yushi mingyan Yu shu Yuwen Shu Yutai xinyong “Yutiaotuo” Yuxi sheng shiji jianzhu Yu Xian Yuxian Yu Xiangdou Yu Xuanji Yuwuzheng Yu Yude Yu Yunwen

706

詠史 永遇樂 雍正 幼安 有駜 幽都 遊國恩 遊獵篇 猶龍 尤袤 幽明錄 有情人 有爲 尤物 遊戲八股文 遊仙詩 遊心寓目 又玄集 酉陽雜俎 有以爲 尉遲恭單鞭 奪槊 羽 欲 語叢 漁父 璵姑 瑜伽 魚麗 玉蓮投江 語林 雨霖鈴 語錄 於南山往 北山經湖 中瞻眺 俞平伯 與秦太虛 豫讓 虞卿 與山巨源絕交書 余邵魚 喻世明言 語書 宇文述 玉臺新詠 玉条脱 玉溪生詩集箋注 玉賢 毓賢 余象斗 魚玄機 雨無正 虞育德 虞允文

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Yuzhen Yuan yuan Yuan baoyuan Zhaoshi gu’er Yuan Baozhu Yuan Chonghuan Yuan Dao Yuandi Yuanqu xuan Yuan dianzhang Yuanhe Yuanjia Yuanjue jing Yuan Hongdao Yuan Kuan yuanmao Yuan Mei Yuan Shang Yuan Shao Yuan Shishuo “Yuanyou” Yuan Yuling Yuan Zongdao Yuan Zhen Yuan Zhongdao yuefu Yue Ke yuefu ling Yuefu shiji “Yue ji” Yueshe congkan Yuewei caotang biji Yuezhang ji jiaozhu Yuezhengzi Yue Zi Yunlu manchao Yunzhai guanglu

玉真 怨 原 冤報冤 趙氏孤兒 袁寶珠 袁崇焕 原道 元帝 元曲選 元典章 元和 元嘉 圓覺經 袁宏道 元寬 原貌 袁枚 袁尚 袁紹 袁世碩 遠遊 袁于令 袁宗道 元稹 袁中道 樂府 岳珂 樂府令 樂府詩集 樂記 越社叢刊 閱微草堂筆記 樂章集校註 樂正子 樂資 雲麓漫鈔 雲齋廣錄

Z zaji zaju zalu Zapian Zaqu geci “Za shi” za ti shi zazhu zazhuan zazen Zaijian Zang Maoxun zaihui keguan “Zaoluopao” zengda shi

雜記 雜劇 雜錄 雜篇 雜曲歌辭 雜詩 雜軆詩 雜著 雜傳 座禪 載見 臧懋循 藻繪可觀 皂羅袍 贈答詩

“Zeng Baima wang Biao” Zengbie Zeng Cao Zeng Guofan Zeng Shen “Zeng xiong xiucai ru jun” Zha Nizi tiao fengyue Zhai Fangjin zhaigong Zhanguo ce Zhanguo shidai “Zhanlun” Zhanzhan waishi Zhang Aduan Zhang Anguo Zhang Cheng Zhang Dainian Zhang Fei Zhang Fu Zhang Gong Zhang Guangcai Zhang Juzheng Zhang Junqing Zhang Han Zhang Heng Zhang Hongjian Zhang Hua Zhang Jiuling Zhang Jun Zhang Lei Zhang Lu Zhang Ne Zhang Shuye Zhang Wenhu Zhang Xie Zhuangyuan Zhang Xie zhan Pinnü Zhang Xinzhi Zhang Yan Zhang Youhe Zhang Zhongyu Zhao Zhao Bi “Zhao Feiyan biezhuan” Zhao Pan’er fengyue jiu fengchen Zhao Qi Zhaoshi gu’er Zhaoshi guer dabaochou Zhang Caitian “Zhang Haohao shi bing xu” Zhang Huiyan Zhang Lü’er

707

贈白馬王彪 贈別 曾慥 曾國藩 曾參 贈兄秀才入軍 詐妮子調風月 翟方進 齋供 戰國策 戰國時代 戰論 詹詹外史 章阿端 張安國 張誠 張岱年 張飛 張輔 張珙 張廣才 張居正 張俊卿 張翰 張衡 張鴻漸 張華 張九齡 張浚 張耒 張魯 張訥 張叔夜 張文虎 張協狀元 張協斬貧女 張新之 張炎 張友鶴 張仲雨 昭 趙弼 趙飛燕別傳 趙盼兒風月救風塵 趙岐 趙氏孤兒 趙氏孤兒大報仇 張采田 張好好詩並序 張惠言 張驢兒

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Zhang Ruzhou Zhang Shougui Zhang Shoujie Zhang Wei Zhang Wenhu Zhang Yuanji Zhang Zeduan Zhang Zhupo zhao Zhao Dun “Zhao Feiyan Waizhuan” Zhao Mingcheng Zhao Qigao Zhao Shengqun Zhao Shuo Zhao Wen Zhao Wuniang Zhao Yanwei “Zhao yinshi” zhaoyin shi “Zhaoying qu” Zhao zhennü Cai Erlang Zhedong Zhegu tian zhe xian zhen zhen zhenben zhengui zhenren “Zhenzhong ji” Zheng Zhengfeng Zheng Guangzu Zheng He Zheng Heng Zhengmin zhengmo Zeng Pu Zheng Qian Zheng Qiao Zheng Xin Zheng Xuan Zhengyu Zhengyue Zhengze Zheng Zhenduo zhi zhi Zhidao xiju bieye zhiguai Zhijing Zhinang

張汝舟 張守珪 張守節 張謂 張文虎 張元濟 張澤端 張竹坡 兆 趙盾 趙飛燕外傳 趙明誠 趙起杲 趙生群 趙朔 趙溫 趙五娘 趙彥衛 招隱士 招隱詩 照影曲 趙貞女蔡二郎 浙東 鹧鸪天 謫仙 箴 真 真本 箴規 真人 枕中記 鄭 鄭風 鄭光祖 鄭和 鄭恆 烝民 正末 曾朴 鄭騫 鄭樵 鄭信 鄭玄 鄭語 正月 正則 鄭振鐸 徴 志 知道溪居別業 志怪 執競 智囊

Zhinang pu zhiren zhi xing he yi Zhiyanzhai zhong Zhongchang Tong Zhongguo gudianxiqu lunzhu jicheng Zhongguo xiaoshuo de lishi de bianqian Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue Zhonghua minzu Zhong Hui “Zhong li” “Zhongli sou yu zhuan” Zhonglü Zhongni zhongnong yishang Zhong Rong Zhongshu ling Zhongshan Fu Zhongshi Ren Zhongsi Zhong Sicheng zhongyi jun Zhongyuan yinyun Zhong Ziqi Zhou Bangyan Zhou Deqing Zhou gong Zhounan Zhoushi Zhousong Zhouyu Zhou Yu Zhou yuexing tu Zhouzong Zhow Zhòu Wang Zhou Zuoren Zhu Dingchen Zhuge Liang Zhu Gui’er Zhugongdiao “Zhufen” Zhu Lianxiu Zhulin qixian Zhu Maichen Zhu Quan zhushu jinian Zhu Xi Zhu Xi ji Zhuxi liuyi

708

智囊補 至人 知行合一 脂硯齋 忠 仲長統 中國古典戲曲 論著集成 中國小說的 歷史的變遷 中國小說史略 中華民族 鍾會 種梨 鍾離叟嫗傳 中呂 仲尼 重農抑商 鍾嶸 中書令 仲山甫 仲氏任 螽斯 鍾嗣成 忠義軍 中原音韻 锺子期 周邦彥 周德清 周公 周南 周詩 周頌 周语 周瑜 周樂星圖 周宗 紂 紂王 周作人 朱鼎臣 諸葛亮 朱貴兒 諸宮調 築墳 珠簾秀 竹林七賢 朱買臣 朱權 竹書紀年 朱熹 朱熹集 竹溪六逸

Chinese Glossary: Selected Terms, Names, and Work Titles Zhu Yizun Zhuzi xinxue’an Zhuzi yulei zhuan Zhuang Chuo Zhuang Ji Zhuangyuan tang Chen mu jiao zi Zhuangzi Zhui baiqiu Zhuo zi Zibuyu Zichai ji Zifan Zilu zipai ziran Zisi Ziyou

朱彝尊 朱子新學案 朱子語類 傳 莊綽 莊忌 狀元堂陳母教子 莊子 綴白裘 酌 字 子不語 紫釵記 子犯 子路 字派 自然 子思 子由

Zizhi tongjian gangmu zongheng zongmiao Zou Zou Tao Zuihuayin “Zuiyan” Zuo Fen Zuori Zuo Si Ziyi Zizhi tongjian Zong-Zhou “Zuifugui” Zuiweng tanlu Zuixing shi Zuo Liangyu Zuo Menggeng Zuoshi chunqiu Zuozhuan

709

資治通鑑綱目 縱橫 宗廟 鄒 鄒弢 醉花陰 罪言 左芬 昨日 左思 緇衣 資治通鑑 宗周 醉扶歸 醉翁談錄 醉醒石 左良玉 左孟庚 左氏春秋 左傳

INDEX

baihua xiaoshuo (vernacular fiction) 505, 551– 78 Bai Juyi 2, 137, 151 – 58, 193, 417, 484; “Changhen ge” (Long Lasting Regret) 2, 155, 193, 417, 439, 484 Bai Pu 402, 416 – 23; Wutong yu (Rain on the Wutong Tree) 402, 416 – 23, 484 Baitu ji (The White Hare) 402 baixi (hundred games) 401 Bai Xingjian 522; “Li Wa zhuan” (The Tale of Li Wa) 522, 524, 526 Baiyue ting (Pavillion of Moon Warship) 402 Ban Gu 36, 52, 327, 336, 628; Hanshu 24, 505, 628 Bao Zhao 3, 35, 64 biansai shi (Frontier poetry) 94 – 109 bianwen (transformation text) 401 biji (random jottings) 212, 385, 388, 443 Buddhism 89 – 91, 112 – 16, 290, 672

Cao Yin 647 Cao Zhi 2, 46 – 48, 50 – 51; “Meinü pian” (The Beautiful Woman) 48; “Song Yingshi” (Seeing Off Mr Ying) 48; “Zeng Baima wang Biao” (Present to Biao, Prince of Baima) 48 Cen Shen 2, 95, 101 – 9 Chan Buddhism 231 – 33, 235 – 37 chanji (Chan witticism) 238 Chan poetry 111 – 17 Chao Buzhi 245 Chao Cuo 297 Cheng Yi 230 Chengzhai ti (Chengzhai Style) 221 Chen Jiru 392 Chen Liang 288 Chen Sen 507, 678 – 86; Pinhua baojian (A Presious Mirror for Judging Flowers) 507, 678 – 86 Chen Shou 557, 581, 587; Sanguo zhi (Records of the Three Kingdoms) 557, 581 Chen Yinke 521 Chen Zi’ang 127, 156 chuanqi (transmission of marvel) tales 505 – 6, 520 – 49 chuanqi plays 402 – 3, 473 – 504 Chuci (Songs of Chu) 1, 22 – 30, 35 – 36, 73, 91, 165, 172, 206 Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn Annals) 296, 304 – 7, 496, 502, 561 Chu Renhuo 507, 602 – 7; Sui Tang yanyi (Romance of the Sui and the Tang) 507, 602 – 9 ci (song lyrics) 199, 204 – 6, 209, 256; haofang (vigorous and unrestrained) 243, 256, 280; wanyue (graceful and subdued) 243, 256 Confucius see Kongzi Cui Hao 94 – 101

Cai Bojie 453, 460 – 65 Caidiao ji (Tones of Genius) 166, 201 Cai Yan 46; “Beifen shi” (Poem of Sorrow and Resentment) 46; “Hujia shiba pai” (A Hu Flute Song in Eighteen Stanzas) 46 caizi jiaren xiaoshuo (scholar-beauty fiction) 679 canjun xi (adjutant play) 401 Cao Cao 2, 39, 45 – 46, 214, 274, 582, 585 – 88 Cao Pi 2, 39, 46, 49, 51, 295, 374, 511; Lieyi zhuan (Arrayed Marvels) 511; “Lun wen” (Discourse on Literature) 295, 374 Cao Xueqin 437, 507, 647 – 58, 678, 683 – 85; Honglou meng (The Dream of the Red Chamber; another name Shitou ji [Record of a Stone]) 437 – 38, 507, 593, 636, 639 – 40, 644, 647 – 58, 674 – 75, 678, 683 – 85

710

Index Daoism 125, 129, 190, 290, 672 Da Tang Sanzang qujing shihua (The Poetic Tale Procurement of Scriptures by Tripitaka of the Great Tang) 613 Deng Zhimo 562 Dong Jieyuan 155, 431 – 35; Xixiang ji zhugongdiao (Various tunes of the Western Chamber) 155, 431 – 35 Dongjing menghua lu (Dream of Splendors Past in the Eastern Capital) 553 Dong Qichang 392 Dong Zhongshu 336 Duan Chengshi 200, 512, 516 Ducheng jisheng (Record of Splendors of the Capital) 553 Du Fu 2, 86, 103, 111, 129, 135 – 48, 156, 185, 247, 253, 388 – 89, 439; “Beizheng” (Traveling North) 139 – 44; “Chun wang” (Gazing in Spring) 138; “Qiuxing bashou” (Autumn Stirring, Eight Poems) 144 – 48 Du Guangting 523 Du Mu 2, 166, 171 – 72, 177 – 86, 199, 202; “E-Pang gong fu” (Rhapsody on the E-Pang Palace) 184 – 85; Fanchuan wenji (Fanchuan Literary Collection) 184 Du Yu 303 Fan Chengda 2, 214 Fan Zhongyan 386 Feng Hao 189 Feng Menglong 394, 481, 506, 555, 560 – 70, 576; Pingyao zhuan (Quelling the Demon’s Revolt) 561; Qingshi (A History of Love) 561; San yan (Three Words) 506, 555, 560 – 70, 572, 576 fu (rhapsody) 1, 50 – 51 Fu Xuan 50 – 51 Gan Bao 511 – 12, 514; Soushen ji (In Search of the Supernatural) 411, 511 – 12 Gao E 648 Gao Ming 459 – 69; Pipaji (The Lute) 402, 453 – 54, 459 – 69, 499, 571 Gao Shi 2, 35, 95, 101 – 9, 129; “Saixia qu” (To the tune of ‘Beneath the Passes) 104; “Yan gexing” (Ballad of Yan) 104 gongdiao (music mode) 401 Gong Zizhen 3 Guan Feng 351 Guan Hanqing 402, 407 – 15; Dou E yuan (Injustice to Dou E) 402, 407 – 13 gufeng (Ancient Air) 131 gushi (old poem) 1, 33 – 36, 106 “Gushi shijiu shou” (Nineteen Old Poems) 1, 33 – 34, 52 Gu Sui 196

guwen 369 – 70 Guwen guanzhi (All the Ancient Style Prose You Need to Read) 381 Guwen yundong (Ancient Prose Style Movement) 369, 381 Gu Yanwu 662 Gui Youguang 369, 393 Guo Maoqian 38 Guo Moruo 253 Guo Pu 50, 52 Guo Xiang 350, 353 Guoyu (Discourse of the States) 7, 296, 311 – 14, 324 – 25 Han Feizi 356 – 65 Hanshan 2, 111 – 17; “Hanshanzi shiji” 111 – 16 Han Tuozhou 217 Han Wo 259 Han Yu 90, 137, 165 – 67, 297, 326, 341, 369 – 81, 384 – 85 Helin yulu (Jad Dew from the Crane Forest) 238 He Yan 336 Heyue yingling ji (Collection of Eminences of Rivers and Mountains) 103 Hong Mai 505, 526, 538 Hong Pian 555; Liushijia xiaoshuo (Sixty Stories) 555 Hong Sheng 403, 484 – 93; Changsheng dian (The Palace of Lasting Life) 403, 484 – 93 huaben (scripts of storytelling) 506 Huajian ji (Among the Flowers) 199, 201, 205 Huangfu Shi 167 Huang Tingjian 245 Huang Zongxi 233, 662 Huanmen zidi cuo lishen (The Scion of an Official Family Opts for the Wrong Career) 402, 443 Huansha ji (Washing Silk) 402 Huayue hen (Trace of Flower and Moon) 679 Huifang lu (The Record of Painting Flowers) 679 Hu Quan 225 Hu Shi 369, 371, 662, 675 Hu Yinglin 78, 505, 512, 520 – 21, 528, 530 Jia Kui 303 Jian’an qizi (Seven Masters of Jian’an) 46 Jiang Fang 522; “Huo Xiaoyu zhuan” (The Tale of Huo Xiaoyu) 522 Jiang Kui 3, 223, 247 jiangshi (historical storytelling) 506, 556 – 57 Jiang Yan 64 Jia Yi 1, 21, 193, 297; “Guo Qin lun” (Om the Falts of Qin) 297 Ji Junxiang 402, 424 – 30; Zhaoshi gu’er (The Orphan of Zhao) 402, 413, 424 – 30

711

Index Jingben tongsu xiaoshuo (Popular Stories from The Capital) 567 Jingchai ji (The Thorn Hairpin) 402, 452 – 58 Jing Ke 318 Jingu qiguan (Extraordinary Spectacles Past and Present) 566 Jinping mei (The Plum in the Golden Vas) 507, 592, 635 – 46, 653 – 54 Jin Shengtan 436, 467, 664 jinti shi (modern-style poetry) 2, 34 Ji Yun 538, 544 Kong Anguo 18 “Kongque dongnan fei” (Southeast Flies the Peacock) 37 Kong Shangren 403, 494 – 504; Taohua shan (The Peach Blossom Fan) 403, 487, 494 – 504 Kong Yingda 303 Kongzi (Confucius) 335 – 39; Analects (Lunyu) 7, 290, 297, 301 – 3, 311, 335 – 39, 345 Landscape (shanshui) poets 83 – 91 Laozi 69, 72, 297, 344 – 55, 512, 627; Daode jing (Scripture of the Way and Virtue) 344 – 49 Liang Qichao 195 Liang Yusheng 323 Li Bai 2, 35, 78, 86, 94, 103, 111, 123 – 31, 166, 185, 214, 268, 439, 484; “Jiang jinjiu” (Bring in the Wine) 125; “Mengyou Tianmu yin liubie” (Roaming Mount Tianmu in a dream, A Valedictory Poem) 129 – 30; “Shudao nan” (The Road to Shu Is So Hard) 2, 125, 127, 214; “Xinglu nan” (Hard is Travel) 125 Li Baojia 507, 671 – 76; Guanchang xianxing ji (Exposure of the World of Officials) 507, 671 – 76 Li Cai 289 Li Changqi 531 Li Daoyuan 394 – 95 Li Deyu 200, 286 Li Fuyan 523 Li Gongzuo 384, 523; “Nanke taishou zhuan” (The Governor y of the Southern Branch) 523 Li Guang 289 Li He 202, 537 Liji (Book of Rites) 376, 460, 512, 628 Li Kaixian 593, 598 – 99, 643 Linghu Chu 188 Ling Mengchu 436, 506, 571 – 78; Er pai (Two Slappings) 506, 566, 571 – 78 Lin Yutang 525, 555 Li Panlong 393 Li Qi 94 – 99, 101 Li Qingzhao 3, 253 – 63, 439; “Ci lun” (On Song Lyrics) 262; “Dian jiangchun” (Tot he Tune ‘Dabbing Crimson Lips’) 255; “Rumengling” (To the Tune ‘As in a Dream’) 254; “Shengsheng

man” (Note after Note, Long Song) 258; “Yong yule” (Joy of Eternal Union) 261 li qu (zest on principles) 238 Li Shangyin 2, 165 – 68, 187 – 97, 199, 202; “Anding chenglou” (Watch Tower of Anding) 192 – 93; “Chunyu” (Spring Rain) 188, 196; “Jinse” (Brocade Zither) 195 – 96; “Wuti” (Untitled) 188 – 92, 196; “Yeyu jibei” (Night Rain, Sent North) 192 Li Si 297 Liu An 352 Liu Changqing 87 – 88 Liu E 507, 671 – 76; Laocan youji (The Travels of Laocan) 507, 671 – 76 Liu Jun 516 – 17 Liu Kun 50 Liu Xiang 302, 315 – 16, 511, 516; Lienü zhuan (Biographies of Exemplary Women) 302; Liexian zhuan (Biographies of, Exemplary Immortals) 511 Liu Xie 25, 33, 45, 47, 49, 296; Wenxin diaolong (The Mind of Literature and Carving Dragons) 51, 296 Liu Xin 303 – 4 Liu Yiqing 33, 511 – 19; Shishuo xinyu (A New Account of Tales of the World) 33, 514 – 19; Youming lu (Hidden and Visible Realms) 511, 513, 515 Liu Yong 3, 243 – 51, 262, 270, 439; “Basheng Ganzhou” (To the Tune ‘Eight Beats of Ganzhou Song’) 244 – 45; “Queqiao xian” (To the Tune ‘Magpie Bridge Immortal) 250 – 51 Liu Zhiji 327, 516 Liu Zhiyuan 433 Liu Zongyuan 297, 326, 369 – 81, 385, 397; “Bushezhe shuo” (Discourse of the Snake Catcher) 376; “Gumutan xi xiaoqiu ji” (Record of the Lit.tle Hillock West of the Box-iron Pond) 377 – 78 Li Yu李煜, 3 Li Yu 李漁, 439, 456, 643, 683 Li Yu 李玉, 403; Qingzhong pu (Registers of the Pure and Loyal) 403 Li Zhi (Zhuowu) 297, 393 – 94, 466, 596, 598 – 99 Lü Benzhong 227 lüfu (regulated rhapsodies) 203 Lu Ji 35, 51 – 52; “Wen fu” (Fu on Literature) 51, 295 Luo Binwang 2, 101 Luo Dajing 238 “Luofu xing” (The Ballad of Luo Fu) 37 Luo Guanzhong 506, 581 – 91, 626; Sanguo zhi yani (Romance of the Three Kingdoms) 319, 506, 554, 581 – 91, 592 – 93, 596, 602, 623, 626, 635, 639 Luo Ye 555; Zuiweng tanlu (Record of an Old Drunken Man’s Talk) 555

712

Index lüshi (regulated verse) 2, 34, 98 Lu Xixing 626 Lu Xun 505, 511, 516, 520 – 21, 525, 528, 530, 614, 626, 644, 662, 675, 678; Goxiaoshuo gouchen (Collected Lost Old Stories) 511; Tang Song Chuanqi ji (Anthology of Tang and Song Tales) 520 – 21, 525; Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue (A Brief History of Chinese Fiction) 507n2, 516, 614, 662 Lu You 2, 211 – 20; Jiannan shigao (Jiannan Poetry Drafts) 211, 217; “Phoenix Hairpin” (Chaitou feng) 212; “Shi er” (To My Son) 218; “Shufen” (On My Indignation) 217; “Yixi” (Recalling the Past) 215 – 16; “You shan xi cun” (Visiting West-of-the-Mountain Village) 213; “Zuizhong ganhuai” (Feelings When Drunk) 215 Lu Zhaolin 2 Ma Zhiyuan 402, 407, 416 – 23; Hangong qiu (Autumn in the Han Palace) 402, 416 – 23 Mao Kun 369, 393 Mao Lun 467, 582 Mao Xianshu 478 Mao Zonggang 467, 582, 584 Meng Haoran 2, 64, 83 – 91, 126; “Chun xiao” (A Spring Dawn) 87 Mengliang lu (Record of the Milet Dream) 553 Mengzi (Mencius) 290, 297, 235 – 36, 239 – 41, 335 – 36, 339 – 43, 371, 383 Mingfeng ji (The Crying Phoenix) 402, 499 “Mo shang sang” (Mulberries by the Pass) 37 – 38, 48 Mozi 7, 297, 335 – 36, 356 – 65 Mulian jiumu (Mulian Rescues His Mother) 456 Nalan xingde 3 nanxi (southern play) 402 Neo-Confucianism 230 – 33, 446, 488 Niu Sengru 177, 200, 524 Ouyang Xiu 3, 260 – 61, 266, 297, 369 – 70, 381 – 86, 512 Pan Yue 50 – 51 Pei Xing 520 pianwen (parallel prose) 369 pinghua (plain tales) 506 Pu Songling 506, 533, 536 – 49; Liaozhai zhiyi (Strange Tales from Liaozhai) 506, 533, 536 – 49 Qian Daxin 323 Qian Mu 230, 528 Qian Qi 87 Qian Zhongshu 223, 427 Qinglou meng (Dream of Green Bowers) 679

Qin Guan 3, 243 – 51, 389; “Queqiao xian” (To the Tune ‘Magpie Bridge Immortal) 249; “Wang haichao” (To the Tune ‘Viewing the Ocean Tide) 246 Quan Tang shi (Complete Poems of the Tang) 2, 531 Qu You 506, 531 – 32; Jiandeng xinhua (New Stories Told while Trimming the Wick) 531 – 32, 538 Qu Yuan 22 – 30, 75, 128, 145, 171, 513, 537, 676; “Lisao” (Encountering Sorrow) 1, 22 – 27, 165, 171, 436; “Jiuge” (Nine Songs) 1, 22, 25 – 28; “Tianwen” (Heavenly Questions) 1, 28 – 30 Ruan Ji 49 – 50, 193; “Yonghuai” (Singying My Cares) 49 Ruan Yuan 303 Sanguo zhi pinghua (Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language) 554, 557, 582 sanqing (The Daoist Three Pure Ones) 627 sanqu (aria) 3 Sao tradition 127 Shagou ji (Killing a Dog) 402 Shangshu (Classic of Documents) 296, 325 Shanhai jing (Classic of Mountains and Seas) 52, 514 shanshui shi (landscape poetry) 2 Shao Jingzhan 531 Shen Jiji 523; “Zhenzhong ji” (Record within a Pillow) 523 – 24 Shen Jing 454 shenmo xiaoshuo (novels of spirits and devils) 611 – 32 Shen Quanqi 97 – 98 Shen Yazhi 165 Shijing (Classic of Poetry) 1, 7 – 21, 23, 33, 53, 127, 149, 171 – 72, 497, 659; Daya (Greater Elegantiae) 8, 12; Guofeng (Airs of the States) 8 – 9; Shisanbai, (three hundred songs) 7; Song (Hymns) 11, 17; Xiaoya (Lesser Elegantiae) 8, 12 Shi Nai’an 506, 592 – 601; Shuihu zhuan (Water Margin) 506, 554, 592 – 602, 623, 628, 635, 369, 664, 676 shouhua (storytelling) 553 – 59 Shuihu zhuan (Water Margin) 319, 436, 581 shuojing/jiangjing (religious storytelling; expounding sutras) 506, 554, 557 – 58 Shuoyuan (A Collection of Tales) 302 Sima Qian 21, 24, 296, 303, 308, 311, 322 – 32, 344, 352 – 53, 357, 388, 437, 531, 538, 676; Shiji (The Grand Scribes Records) 21, 23 – 25, 296, 307 – 8, 312, 315, 322 – 32, 344, 352 – 53, 357, 425 – 26, 437, 531, 538, 676 Sima Xiangru 1, 76, 297 Sima Zhen 323, 329 Sishu (The Four Books) 335

713

Index Siyou ji (Four Journeys) 620 Song Maocheng 531 Song Qi 166 Song Yu 297 Sui Yangdi yanshi (Merry Adventures of Emperor Yang) 507, 607 Su men sixueshi (Four Scholar Disciples of Su [Shi]) 245 Su Qin 317 – 18 Su Shi (Dongpo) 3, 63, 215, 243, 245, 255, 265 – 79, 341, 369, 381 – 90, 584; “Ding fengbo” (Settling the Waves) 271 – 72; “Niannu jiao” (The Charm of Niannu) 273 – 74; “Shuidiaogetou” (Water Music) 268 Su Xun 319, 369, 383, 386 Su Zhe 268, 369 Taiping guanji (Extensive Gleanings of the Reign of Great Tranquility) 521, 561 Tang liudian (Compendium of Administrative Law of the Six Divisions of the Tang) 151 – 54 Tangshi biecai ji (Another Cut of Tang Poetry) 166 Tangshi jing (Tang Poetry as a Mirror) 166 Tangshi sanbaishou (Three Hundred Tang Poems) 86, 165 – 66 Tang Shunzhi 369, 643 Tang Song badajia (Eight Great [Prose] Masters of Tang and Song) 369 Tang wencui (Essential Tang Writing) 166 Tang Xianzu 403, 473 – 83, 571; “Linchuan simeng” (The Four Dreams of Linchuan) 473; Mudan ting (The Peony Pavilian) 403, 466, 473 – 83, 499 Tan Zhengbi 572 Tao Qian (Yuanming) 2, 53, 56 – 65, 88, 192, 203, 213, 292, 513 – 14; “Du Shanhai jing” (On Reading the Classic of the Mountains and Seas) 60; “Guiqulai xi” (Return Home) 58; “Gui yuantian ju” (Returning to the Farms to Dewell) 60; “Taohua yuan ji” (Record of the Peach Blossom Spring) 213; “Wuliu xiansheng zhuan” (Biography of Master Five Willows) 58; “Yinjiu” (Drinking Wine) 59; “Za shi” (Miscellaneous Poems) 59 – 60 tianyuan shi (pastoral poetry) 2, 53, 56, 83 – 91 Tu Long 643 Wang Anshi 227, 266, 369 Wang Bi 344 – 49 Wang Bo 2 Wang Can 45 – 47; “Denglou fu” (Fu on Ascending the Tower) 47; “Qi ai shi” (Seven Sorrows) 47 Wang Changling 87, 94 – 97, 100 – 1 Wang Guowei 247, 407, 413, 427 Wang Jide 454, 478 “Wang Kui zhuan” (The Tale of Wang Kui) 528 – 28 Wang Shenzhong 369, 393

Wang Shifu 155, 431 – 40; Xixiang ji (Romance/ Story of the Western Chamber) 155, 401, 408, 431 – 40, 454, 459, 464, 467, 488, 490, 571 Wang Shizhen 王世貞, 393, 454, 466, 643 Wang Shizhen 王士禎, 538 Wang Siren 398 Wang Wei 2, 64, 83 – 91, 94, 103, 111; “Wangchuan ji” (Wheel River Collection) 85 Wang Yangming 392 – 93, 488 Wang Zhaojun 416 – 22 Wang Zhihuan 94 – 98, 101 Wei Liangfu 465 Wei Yingwu 88 Wei Zhongxian 391, 495, 497, 500 Wei Zhuang 3, 166 Wenming xiaoshi (A Brief History of Enlightenment) 673 Wen Tingyun 2 – 3, 166, 199 – 208; “Shangshan zaoxing” (Setting Out Early from Mount Shang) 201; “Zhaoying qu” (The Reflection: A Song) 202 Wenyuan yinghua (Blossoms in the Garden of Literature) 166 Wu Cheng’en 507, 613 – 22; Xiyou ji (Journey to the West) 507, 541, 558, 581, 592, 613 – 22, 623, 635 Wu Jingzi 507, 659 – 67, 675; Rulin waishi (The Scholars) 507, 659 – 67, 675 Wu Wang fa Zhow pinghua (Plain Tale of King Wu’s Expedition against King Zhow) 624 Wu Weiye 403; Moling chun (Spring in Moling) 403 Wu Wenying 3, 247 Wu Woyao 671; Ershi nian mudu zhi Guan xianzhuang (Eyewitness Reports Strange Things from the Past Tweenty Years) 671 Xi Kang 49 – 50 xiaopin (vignettes) 389, 393 – 94 xiaoshuo (fiction) 506 Xiao Sun tu (Little Sun the Butcher) 402, 443 Xiao Tong 33, 47, 57, 295; Wen xuan (Selections of Refined Literature) 33 – 34, 74, 77, 295 xiaxie xiaoshuo (courtesan novel) 507, 678 xiayi xiaoshuo (novels of knights-errant) 507 Xie Lingyun 2, 47, 53, 69 – 74, 88, 90 – 91, 126; “Deng chishang lou” (On the Lakeside Tower) 72 Xie Tiao 69, 74 – 78, 131 Xin Qiji (Jiaxuan) 3, 243, 257, 280 – 94; “Po zhen zi” (Crushing Enemy’s Battle Formation) 288; “Qingyu an” (Sapphire Table) 284 – 85; “Shuilong yin” (The Water Dragon Cries) 287; “Yongyu le” (Forever Enjoy the Meeting) 291 Xinxu (Matters Newly Arranged) 302, 426 xin yuefu (New Music Bureau Poetry) 154 – 58 xuanyan shi (arcane discourse) 53, 69 Xuanzang 613 – 15

714

Index Xun Yue 629 Xunzi 302, 638 Xu Wei 393, 454, 466, 643; Nanci xulu (Annotated Catalogue of the Southern Drama) 454 Xu Zhonglin 507, 623 – 32; Fengshen yanyi (Canonization of the Gods) 507, 623 – 32 Yang Jiong 2 Yang Shen 583 Yang Xiong 1, 297, 370 – 71 Yang Wanli 2, 211, 221 – 29; “Churu Huaihe sijueju” (Four Quatrains upon Entering the Huai River) 227; “Wan guo Cexi shanxia” (Passing Ce Creak Mountain in the Evening) 224 – 25 Yang Weizhen 171 Yang Yuhuan (guifei; Lady Yang) 143, 416 – 22, 484 – 91, 604 – 6 Yang Zhu 370 Yan Shu 3 Yan Yanzhi 56 – 58 Yan Yu 166 Yijing (Classic of Changes) 69, 71, 148, 225, 345, 614 Yin Yun 512 yonghuai (singing my care) 192 – 93 yongshi shi (Poem on History) 36, 193, 206 yongwu ci (song lyric on objects) 274 yongwu fu (Fu on objects) 50 yongwu shi (Poems on Objects) 77 You Guo’en 195 youxian shi (poems on wandering immortals) 30 Yuan Hongdao 297, 391 – 400, 571, 643 Yuan Mei 544; Zi buyu (What the Master Would Not Discuss) 544 Yuan Yuling 506; Suishi yiwen (Forgotten Tales of the Sui) 507, 607 Yuan Zongdao 393 – 94 Yuan Zhen 2, 137, 151 – 58, 202, 431 – 32, 520, 522, 526; “Yingying zhuan” (The Tale of Yingying) 155, 431 – 32, 520, 522, 524 Yuan Zhongdao 393 – 94 Yu Da 507; Qinglou meng (The Dream in the Green Chamber) 507 yuefu (music bureau) poetry 1, 36 – 39, 47 – 48, 50, 77, 192, 199, 206 Yuefu shiji (Collection of Yuefu Poetry) 39 Yutai xinyong (New Songs of the Jade Terrace) 36 – 37, 202 Yu Xin 2 Yu Xuanji 200 zaju (northern play) 401 – 2 Zang Maoxun 412, 424, 480 Zeng Gong 369 Zeng Pu 671; Niehai hua (Flower in the Sea of Sin) 671 Zeng Shen 336

Zhang Caitian 198 Zhang Dai 297, 391 – 400 Zhang Heng 36, 52 Zhang Hua 50 – 51, 511 Zhang Jiuling 84 – 85 Zhang Jun 225, 281 Zhang Juzheng 391 Zhang Lei 245 Zhang Shi 238 Zhan’guo ce (Stratagems of the Waring States) 296, 315 – 21, 324 Zhang Xie Zhuangyuan (Top-Graduate Zhang Xie) 402, 433, 443 – 51, 460 Zhang Yan 247 Zhang Zai 231 Zhang Zhupo 638, 640, 643 – 44 Zhao Mingcheng 255 Zhao zhennü (Chaste Lady Zhao) 402, 460 Zheng Guangzu 402; Qiannü lihun (The Detached Soul of Qiannü) 402 Zheng Qiao 17 Zheng Xuan 18, 303, 345 Zheng Zhenduo 253, 319 zhiguai (strange tales) 505 – 6, 511 – 19 zhiren (anecdotal stories) 505, 514 – 19 Zhong Rong 56, 61, 74 Zhong Sicheng 407, 409, 424, 435; Lugui bu (A Register of Ghosts) 407, 409, 424, 435, 593 Zhou Bangyan 243, 247 – 51, 255; “Queqiao xian” (To the Tune ‘Magpie Bridge Immortal) 250; “Shaonian you” (To the Tune ‘Wandering Youth) 248 Zhou Deqing 407; Zhongyuan yinyun (Rhymes of the Central Plains) 407 Zhou Yu 274 Zhou Zuoren 397 Zhuangzi 69, 193, 297, 335 – 36, 344 – 55, 436, 505, 512 Zhuge Liang 217, 582, 587 – 89 zhugongdiao (all keys and modes) 402, 453 Zhui baiqiu (Patching the White Fur Cloak) 481, 486 Zhu Quan 408 Zhu Xi 2, 17 – 18, 225, 230 – 40, 335, 341, 587; “Chun ri” (Spring Day) 236; “Guanshu yougan ershou” (Sudden Enlightenment in Reading Books, Two Poems) 235 Zhu Xi ji (Collected Works of Zhu Xi) 234 Zhuzi xinxue’an (A New Study of Zhu Xi) 238n1 Zhuzi yulei (Assorted Sayings of Master Zhu) 231 Zuo Qiuming 302, 311 Zuoshi chunqiu (Master Zuo’s Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals) 311 Zuo Si 52 Zuozhuan (Zuo Commentary) 7, 296, 301 – 10, 311 – 12, 316 – 17, 324 – 25

715