Playing for Profit: Tracing the Emergence of Authorship through Li Yu’s (1611- 1680) Adaptations of his Huaben Stories into Chuanqi Drama by Lenore J. Szekely A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Asian Languages and Cultures) in The University of Michigan 2010 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor David L. Rolston, Chair Professor Joseph S. C. Lam Professor Shuen-fu Lin Professor David L. Porter Associate Professor Jonathan E. Zwicker © Lenore J. Szekely ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge the wealth of support I have appreciated throughout this project. My graduate studies would not have been possible were it not for the generosity of the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures and the Center for Chinese Studies. The encouragement of my friends and mentors has fueled the growth of this dissertation from conception to completion, for which I am tremendously grateful. In particular, I would like to give a shout-out to Elizabeth Armstrong, friend and running partner, for being a receptive sounding-board for my frustrations and a cheerleader for my progress. To my sister, Rachel, I give thanks for doing it first, and for Vivian, my most joyful inspiration. For bringing humour to the study of Chinese drama, I would like to thank Guo Yingde, who also gave me a warm welcome as a student during my year of dissertation research in Beijing. I met Professor Miranda Brown the day I arrived at the University of Michigan, and she‘s given me her support and encouragement ever since. My dissertation committee has invested a great deal of their time and energy guiding me through the process of completing my degree. I would like to thank Professor Joseph S.C. Lam for bringing the performative side of chuanqi into sharper focus. I am grateful to Professor Shuen-fu Lin for his kind, wise, and measured words of advice. I am greatly indebted to Professor David Porter for his thoughtful, extensive and productive feedback at all stages of the writing of this dissertation. Professor Jonathan Zwicker has been a frequent and invaluable outlet for my writerly anxieties. I owe the largest debt of ii gratitude to my adviser, Professor David Rolston, who has made an immense contribution, giving his time and patience generously, and responding to my ideas with care and consideration. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii LIST OF FIGURES vii LIST OF TABLES viii LIST OF APPENDICES ix CHAPTER I Marketing Genius in Different Genres 1 Publication of Primary Sources 5 Li Yu Responds to a Diversified Literary Market 11 Itinerancy as a Motif in Publishing, Mirrored in Li Yu‘s Authorial Persona 15 Re-representation of a Performed Identity 21 Deploying Genre to Target a Stratified Market 23 The Theatricality of Self-Fashioning 29 Deploying Genius as a Marketing Strategy 31 Ya/Su Discourse and the Crisis of Literary Authority in Chuanqi 32 Conclusion 35 CHAPTER II Role-Type, Parody, and Li Yu’s Effort to “Popularize” Chuanqi through his Adaptation of “Chou langjun” into Naihe tian 37 Summary of Naihe tian, ―Chou langjun,‖ and their Divergences 39 Complicating the Ya/Su Paradigm in Contemporary and Current Drama Criticism 40 The Fallacy of Characterizing Chuanqi as an ―Elite‖ Form with Respect to Li Yu‘s Contribution to the Genre 45 What Li Yu‘s Genre Adaptations Reveal about the Problem of Labeling Chuanqi as an ―Elite‖ Genre 54 iv How Li Yu‘s s Dramatic Criticism Further Resists an ―Elite‖ vs. ―Popular‖ Characterization 56 Que Lihou, the Anti-hero of Naihe tian 60 Li Yu‘s System of Role Types 61 Could Li Yu‘s Troupe Have Performed Naihe tian? 68 Role Type and Characterization in Naihe tian 70 Que Lihou as a Parody of Deficient Heroes of Chuanqi Drama 72 Que Lihou‘s Chouishness 73 Que Lihou‘s Transformation and the Generic Constraints of Chuanqi Drama 74 Sheng: Duty and Didacticism in Chuanqi 76 Fujing: Characterization in Chuanqi 80 Conclusion: Ideology in Naihe tian? 86 CHAPTER III An Enterprising Author: Li Yu’s Narrator in “Tan Chuyu xili chuanqing” and Bimuyu 97 Story versus Play 98 The Stakes of the Emerging Author: Locating Li Yu‘s Narrator within the Evolution of Huaben 102 Li Yu‘s Narrator in ―Tan Chuyu xili chuanqing‖ 107 Xi zhong xi/Bimuyu—Hack Novelizations of Bimuyu 109 Liu Jiangxian Ventriloquizes Li Yu‘s Narrator in Bimuyu 113 Bimuyu‘s Embedded Meanings 1: Li Yu in his Play 119 Bimuyu‘s Embedded Meanings 2: Writing in the Play 130 Conclusion 137 CHAPTER IV Performing Gender Inversion: Feminized Authenticity Valorized as a Counter to Forgery in “Guafu sheji zhui xinlang” and Huang qiu feng 141 Qiao Fusheng and Huang qiu feng 146 Sanitized for the Stage 150 v Reversed Gender Roles 159 Lü Zaisheng as Qingzhong: Reclaiming Authenticity to Counter Forgery 164 Breached Containment: The Circulation of Private Texts in ―Guafu sheji zhui xinlang‖ and Huang qiu feng 170 CHAPTER V Displaced Identities: Reclaiming Authenticity through Circulation in “Sheng wo lou” and Qiao tuanyuan 174 The Male and Female Leads 178 In Defense of Commerce 185 Asserting Authorial Authority 193 Displacement and Narrative Time, Circulation and Authenticity 194 APPENDICES 210 WORKS CITED 283 vi LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE Figure 1. A Magical Bath Transforms the Chou 37 Figure 2. Liu Miaogu Performs her Chastity, Tan Chuyu Follows 97 Figure 3. Redress of Fraudulent Business Practices 141 Figure 4. The River as a Stage of Identity Transformation 174 vii LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1. Number of Scenes per Role Type in Naihe tian 63 2. Number of Arias per Role Type in Naihe tian 63 viii LIST OF APPENDICES APPENDIX A. Naihe tian Scene Summaries 210 B. Bimuyu Scene Summaries 234 C. Huang qiu feng Scene Summaries 248 D. Qiao tuanyuan Scene Summaries 267 ix CHAPTER I Marketing Genius in Different Genres The seventeenth century in China witnessed an unprecedented commodification of culture.1 This dissertation focuses on how Li Yu 李漁 (1611-1680), in his adaptations of his own huaben 話本 (vernacular short stories) into the most important dramatic genre of his day, chuanqi 傳奇 drama,2 reacted to the commodification of literary production in his day. Li Yu was a prolific writer—his collected works include ten chuanqi dramas, several huaben collections, a volume of essays with several chapters that constitute a veritable manual for writing drama, and lots of poetry— but this study concentrates on the four surviving pairs of his huaben originals and the chuanqi adaptions he made from them, because this is the best way to show how he approached these two genres differently. I will show that in his huaben stories Li Yu took advantage of the newly 1 For more on the commodification of culture in early modern China, see Clunas, Superfluous and Empire, and Brook. 2 Chuanqi is not a readily translatable term. Chuanqi are long, typically composed of between 30 and 55 scenes, and have an equally long cast of characters. Plots typically revolve around the male and female leads, the sheng 生 and dan 旦. Also typical are primary and secondary plotlines that develop concurrently and are resolved at the end of the play, which concludes in a tuanyuan 團圓 finale that reunites the cast, ties up loose ends, punishes villains, and rewards heroes. Chuanqi can further be characterized by its varied entertainments, ranging from high to low brow. Arias are a highlight of chuanqi and can be sung by any member of the cast, although the sheng and dan typically sing the most. Chuanqi‘s popularity spread in the Ming as it adopted the melodious Kunshan 崐山 musical style. Chuanqi plays are marked by controlled variety, cycling through slow languorous and romantic scenes, battle and action scenes, and comedic ones. This dissertation is largely a consideration of Li Yu‘s adaptations of his huaben into chuanqi plays, reading these chuanqi as texts. We consider performance only to the extent that Li Yu invisioned for his chuanqi, as you will see below, a wider audience than for his huaben, composed both of readers and non-readers alike. Apart from a consideration of this imagined non-reading audience of chuanqi, our discussion does not essay to address issues of performance, with the exception of an understanding of what little we know about the circumstances of Li Yu‘s small acting troupe. 1 stratified reading audience of the late Ming (c. 1550-1644), an audience composed of not just the traditional literati, but also including the upwardly mobile mercantile class eager to buy their way into elite culture. In those stories Li Yu creates a flattering space for these readers to purchase and inhabit, a place where this select audience could consume the display of his literary genius performed for them. In his plays, however, Li Yu targets a broader, more neutral audience, whom he nonetheless also invites to appreciate his literary skill, but less exclusively. The creation of these audiences for his stories and plays was not an idle matter for Li Yu. He made a substantial proportion of his income from his writing, directly in terms of book sales and the like, and indirectly as part of campaigns to win patrons. This would not have been possible without certain important changes with regard to the publishing and consumption of literary works in Li Yu‘s time, changes that spurred comparatively unrestricted circulation and dissemination of literature in ways that worried social conservates in terms of the problems they saw that causing in society, and for Li Yu in terms of his ability to control and profit from his literary endeavors.