Ming and Qing Novels Míng-Qīng Xiǎo Shuō 明清小說
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◀ Mineral Resources Ming and Qing Novels Míng-Qīng xiǎo shuō 明清小說 During the Ming and Qing dynasties, highly best vehicles for the spread and popularization of humane educated literati increasingly used the long and civilized values. fictional narrative as a popular vehicle to en- gage in sophisticated storytelling. Drawing on historical events and personal experience, Late Sixteenth Century and on popular tales, anecdotes, and legends, In the late sixteenth century a number of great novels ap- novels by these authors provide us with some peared, all of them based to some degree on shorter works of our most illuminating sources on Chinese and popular themes from previous eras; one even appro- life in the early modern period. priates an historic figure, using much artistic license of course, and creates a fantastical group of animals to guide him on his journey. he Ming 明 (1368–1644) and Qing 情 ( 1 6 4 4 – 1 9 1 2) ROMANCE OF THE TH R EE KINGDOMS dynasties witnessed a great flowering of long prose narrative fiction, especially from the six- Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo zhi yanyi 三國志 teenth century onward. Despite the relatively low status 演義), a sweeping historical saga in 120 chapters based of fiction as a genre in Chinese culture, especially when on actual historical figures and events, tells of China’s compared with poetry, highly educated writers increas- division into three competing kingdoms after the collapse ingly turned to novels in the Ming period to express their of the Han dynasty (206 bce– 220 ce). The focus on the artistic visions and their moral critiques of society. Before story is the rise and fall of states based on the talent, wis- the nineteenth century they tended to publish their works dom, luck, and loyalty (or lack of loyalty) of its leading anonymously or under pseudonyms, but with the growing statesmen and generals. It was long popularly assumed prosperity of the late Ming period and the rapid expan- in China that the Mandate of Heaven—the belief, dating sion of the printing industry their works of fiction found a from the Zhou dynasty in the eleventh century BCE, that large and growing readership. Confucian orthodoxy had a benevolent Heaven grants political power only to the long looked down on fiction as frivolous, morally suspect, moral leader—went to the most virtuous competitor for and likely to lead readers astray with tales of sex, violence, power, but in this story virtue is less decisive than ambi- and villainy. By the late Ming period defenders of fiction tion, cunning, determination, and at times blind luck or argued, to the contrary, that because fiction can capture the unpredictable interventions of fate. Although highly and hold an audience’s rapt attention, it is in fact one of the fictionalized, Romance of the Three Kingdoms has given 1479 Copyright © 2009 by Berkshire Publishing Group LLC T 1480 Berkshire Encyclopedia of China 中 國 many ordinary Chinese their basic understanding of the enjoyed its hard-drinking, fun-loving bandits who might dynamics of power in imperial Chinese history. murder without a moment’s reflection but who would also gladly give up their lives for their fellow bandits. In a so- ciety where young people owed their elders and teachers WATE R MA R GIN automatic obedience, Shui hu zhuan has afforded each Water Margin (Shui hu zuan, 水滸傳), is a long rambling young generation the vicarious thrill of rebellion and de- narrative ranging from 71 to 124 chapters, depending on fiance of authority. the edition, based on popular stories about a band of 108 outlaws from the thirteenth century. It has been famously JOU R NEY TO THE WEST translated in English as Outlaws of the Marshes by Sid- ney Shapiro in the 1970s, and in an adaptation by Pearl S. Journey to the West (Xiyouji 西遊記) is a fanciful retelling Buck called All Men Are Brothers). These rough and ready, (in one hundred chapters) of the life of the Chinese monk larger-than-life heroes are forced into banditry by their Xuanzang, who journeyed to India in 629 ce and returned impulsive but noble resistance to injustice and to the cor- in 645 ce with hundreds of sacred Buddhist scriptures ruption of the imperial government. Many critics have whose translation he oversaw for the rest of his life. In his complained about the violence and brutality in this novel, fictional incarnation Xuanzang is a timid and fearful soul but most readers have relished the drama of the story and who succeeds despite himself with the able assistance of A scene from a Ming dynasty historical novel, likely to be Romance of the Three Kingdoms, adorns the top of a bamboo lacquered box. From the Avery Brundage Collection. Copyright © 2009 by Berkshire Publishing Group LLC Ming and Qing Novels n Míng-Qīng xiǎo shuō n 明清小說 1481 four talking divine animal spirits, of whom the most im- for status in the eighteenth century when one could win portant are the impetuous adventurer Monkey (Sun Wu- fame and fortune by passing the examination—or by a kong) and his lazy sidekick Pigsy. The comic interplay of whole variety of alternative strategies, including publish- these contrasting characters is quite captivating as they ing one’s poetry or writing model examination essays, face a host of demons, ghosts, fallen angels, and monsters holding fashionable poetry parties in idyllic settings, on their way through the mountains and deserts of central selling or giving away one’s paintings, socializing with and Southwest Asia. The novel can be read as a Buddhist the successful and prominent, or even impersonating the allegory of the quest for enlightenment, a gentle Daoist famous in gullible circles. satire of human frailties, or a Confucian call to modera- tion in all things. However it is interpreted, it is above DR EAM OF THE RED CHAMBE R all a pleasurable adventure story and has enjoyed many modern incarnations in operas, films, and cartoons. Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng 紅樓夢), also known as Story of the Stone (Shitou ji 石頭記). is univer- sally recognized as China’s greatest novel and was written GOLDEN LOTUS (JIN PING MEI ) by Cao Xueqin (d. 1764) at about the same time as Wu Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅 (Plum in the Golden Vase or Golden Jingzi worked on The Scholars. A masterpiece of narrative Lotus) is a different kind of novel, an erotic story of a he- prose, the novel chronicles the gradual decline of the Jia donistic urban merchant, Ximen Qing, and his six wives family against the backdrop of a Buddhist-Daoist mytho- (or to be more precise, one wife and five concubines or logical framework. The novel emphasizes the themes of maids). The most ambitious of these women is Golden contrasting and alternating interplay of joy and sadness, Lotus, who exploits Ximen Qing’s weaknesses to the ex- good and evil, beauty and depravity, illusion and reality. treme in order to triumph over her rivals for his affec- No other Chinese novel succeeds as well as Dream of the tions. The daily lives of these urban pleasure addicts are Red Chamber in creating vivid and individualized char- chronicled with loving care by the narrator, who weaves acters of great psychological depth. together popular songs, plays, stories, and poems into a comprehensive portrait that, despite its erotic theme, he can claim as a moral tale because the protagonist dies Late Qing Novels two-thirds of the way through the story, a victim of his own excesses. Many other notable novels were published in the late Qing period. Many sequels to Dream of the Red Chamber were written, although most fell far short of Cao Xueqin’s narra- Seventeenth and tive mastery. Flowers in the Mirror (Jinghua yuan 鏡花緣) Eighteenth Centuries by Li Ruzhen, a fantasy novel from the early nineteenth century a bit like Gulliver’s Travels, portrays a series of so- Many other novels appeared in the seventeenth and eigh- cieties that mirrors and/or satirizes Chinese society. In teenth centuries, although only two rivaled the aforemen- the late nineteenth century several novelists, including Liu tioned four works in their prominence: The Scholars and E (1857– 1909) and Wu Woyao (1867– 1910), emulated Wu Dream of the Red Chamber. Jingzi in writing biting satirical portraits of Chinese soci- ety in, respectively, The Travels of Lao Cao (Lao Can youji 老殘遊記) and Bizarre Happenings Witnessed over Two THE SCHOLA R S Decades (Ershi nian mudu guai xianzhuang 二十年目睹之 The Scholars (Rulin waishi 儒林外史), written by a frus- 怪現狀). These exposés, written against the backdrop of trated literati, Wu Jingzi (1701– 1754), who failed the civil China’s humiliating encounters with Western military and service examinations, is China’s first great satirical novel. economic might, were powerful critiques of Chinese so- With an unforgettable series of comic villains, heroes, and ciety, foreshadowing the critical and Western-influenced antiheroes, Wu Jingzi explored the pressures of competing fiction of the May Fourth Movement in the 1920s. Copyright © 2009 by Berkshire Publishing Group LLC 1482 Berkshire Encyclopedia of China 中 國 All of these novels are among the most enjoyable and Huang, M. W. (2001). Desire and fictional narrative in late illuminating introductions to Chinese life in the Ming- imperial China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Qing period. Asia Center. Plaks, A. (1987). The four masterworks of the Ming novel: Paul S. ROPP S u t a c h ’ i - s h u . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Roberts, M. (Trans.). (1992). Three Kingdoms: A histori- Further Reading cal novel, attributed to Luo Guanzhong.