Appropriation and Representation Feng Menglong and the Chinese Vernacular Story
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Appropriation and Representation Feng Menglong and the Chinese Vernacular Story Shuhui Yan CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN ANN ARBOR Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities/ Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. MICHIGAN MONOGRAPHS IN CHINESE STUDIES ISSN 1081-9053 SERIES ESTABLISHED 1968 VOLUME 79 Published by Center for Chinese Studies The University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104-1608 ©1998 The Regents of the University of Michigan Printed and made in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Yang, Shuhui. Appropriation and representation : Feng Menglong and the Chinese vernacular story / Shuhui Yang p. cm. — (Michigan monographs in Chinese studies ; 79) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-89264-125-8 (alk. paper) Feng, Meng-lung, 1574-1646— Criticism and interpretation. 2. Feng, Meng-lung, 1574-1646. Yii shih ming yen. 3. Feng, Meng-lung, 1574-1646. Ching shih t'ung yen. 4. Feng, Meng-lung, 1574-1646. Hsing shih heng yen. 5. Folk literature, Chinese— History and criticism. 6. Women in literature. I. Title, n. Series PL2698.F4Z98 1998 895.134609— dc21 9746019 CIP ISBN 978-0-89264-125-3 (hardcover) ISBN 978-0-472-03810-7 (paper) ISBN 978-0-472-12756-6 (ebook) ISBN 978-0-472-90151-7 (open access) The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ . Ct h if: t Af r r To Yunqin Contents Acknowledgments vii Notes on Romanization and Citations viii Introduction 1 Elite Uses of Popular Material. Theoretical Perspectives: Dialogism and Ventriloquism. Evolution of the Chinese Vernacular Story, ca. 1550-1660. 1. The Politics of Literati Representation 19 The Preface to Stories Old and New. The Problem of the Intended Audience. Authorship of the Sanyan Collections. The Myth of Folk Songs as Political Capital. The Storyteller's Manner. 2. Ventriloquism through a Storyteller 45 Who is Moralizing—Narrator or Author? Use of the Playful and Unreliable Narrator: The Moral Consequence of Two Paired Stories. Balancing the Moral Equation: The Adulteress Versus Her Husband. The Victim Versus the Cunning Schemer. The Husband and the Lover. The Concept of Fate and the Sense of Inevitability. The Narrator as Spokesman. 3. Ventriloquism through the Companion Story 79 4. Ventriloquism through Women Characters 99 Feng Menglong's Attitude Toward Women. Femininity and Yin. Sources of Literati Trans-gender Expression. Gendered Expressions of Anxiety in the Sanyan. Female Superiority in the Sanyan. Feng Menglong's "Beauty and Flower" Strategy. Women as Zhiyin. Conclusion 153 Appendix: Sanyan Stories in This Work 157 Works Cited 161 Glossary-Index 177 Acknowledgments I have accumulated many debts of gratitude in the preparation of this book, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my teachers at Fudan University and Washington University, and all the friends who have encouraged, inspired and helped me. My biggest debt is to Robert E. Hegel, my mentor and advisor at Washington University when I was a graduate student. Without his advice and support, which I continue to benefit from, it would be impossible for me to be where I am now academically. I am also grateful to William Matheson and Emma Kafalenos for their advice during my graduate study. I owe special thanks to Tony Chang for always providing me with timely and accurate bibliographical information in my research. I also must thank Martin W. Huang (now at the University of California, Irvine) and Guan Daoxiong (now at the University of California, Santa Barbara) for generously sharing their expertise and resources on Chinese literature. I am grateful to David L. Rolston, who did a thorough and careful reading of the entire book manuscript and offered many helpful suggestions. My thanks also go to Katherine Carlitz for her insightful comments on the second chapter at the 1995 AAS Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. I also wish to thank the two anonymous readers for the Center of Chinese Studies who made abundant useful suggestions, and my copyeditor Terre Fisher who provided expert assistance during the final stages of manuscript preparation. I have benefited greatly from these suggestions, although I have not been able to incorporate all of them, and if any errors remain in the book, I take complete responsibility for them. Last but not least, I wish to thank Yunqin Yang, who helped to make my life meaningful during extended periods of stress and who contributed so much intellectually and emotionally to this study. To her this book is dedicated. vn A Note on Romanization and Citations The romanization system used in this book is pinyin. For the convenience of readers who are more accustomed to the Wade-Giles system of spelling, here is a quick reference for the most difficult consonants: c=ts' q=ch' x = hs z=tz zh=ch For the spelling of Chinese words of two or more characters (or syllables), this book follows the rules of Xiandai Hanyu cidian (Beijing: Shangwu, 1979). Apostrophes are used between two vowels, or between one consonant and one vowel, but not between two consonants. For example, an apostrophe appears in "Tian'anmen," but not in "shange." For the sake of consistency, romanized words in citations are all changed to pinyin, with the exception of published titles. Citations from the Sanyan collections in this volume come from the following editions: Yushi mingyan, Xu Zhengyang, ed. (Beijing: Renmin wenxue, 1987); Jingshi tongyan, Yan Dunyi, ed. (Beijing: Renmin wenxue, 1987); and Xingshi hengyan, Gu Xuejie, ed. (Beijing: Renmin wenxue, 1987). Facsimile reprints of Ming editions of Gujin xiaoshuo, Jingshi tongyan, and Xingshi hengyan, edited by Li Tianyi (Taipei: Shijie shuji, 1958-59) are used only for citing the extra-textual commentary, which does not appear in the more recent editions. Source materials that I compare with the stories edited and published by Feng Menglong come, in the main, from Tan Zhengbi's Sanyan Liangpai ziliao (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1980). All citations from the above works are my own translations unless otherwise noted. vm Introduction This study addresses the role played by Feng Menglong (1574-1646) in compiling the famous Sanyan collections and his important position in the evolution of the Chinese vernacular short story. I will examine Feng's methods of selecting source materials and demonstrate how, as part of his narrative strategy, he creatively manipulated elements of both popular and literati cultures to elevate this then-underrated literary genre. The term Sanyan, literally meaning "three words," refers to three Ming dynasty collections of huaben (vernacular short stories), entitled respectively, Stories Old and New (Gujin xiaoshuo) or Illustrious Words to Instruct the World (Yushi mingy an) ^ Comprehensive Words to Warn the World (Jingshi tongyan) and Constant Words to Awaken the World (Xingshi hengyari).1 Scholars generally agree that these collections of forty stories each were published in 1620, 1624, and 1627, and were edited by Feng Menglong, a member of the late Ming literati class recognized as the most knowledgeable connoisseur of popular literature of his time. 1 It is generally agreed that when Gujin xiaoshuo was reprinted in 1626 or 1627 it was retitled Yushi mingyan; see Patrick Hanan, The Chinese Vernacular Story (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 230 n. 4. For the dissenting view that Gujin xiaoshuo was originally meant to be the general title for all three collections, see Lu Shulun, Feng Menglong yanjiu (Shanghai: Fudan daxue, 1987), pp. 89-94. 2 The collection to which an individual story belongs will be indicated by GJ (for Gujin xiaoshuo/Yushi mingyan), 7Y (tor fingshi tongyan), or HY (for Xingshi hengyan), followed by a number indicating the story's ordinal position in the collection. On the first mention of a story I will give a full translation of its title and use a shortened title thereafter. 2 / Appropriation and Representation Chapter 1 of this study historicizes Feng Menglong's motivations for promoting the vernacular short story while denying his own "authorship" in the Sanyan collections; it also explores Feng's handling of vernacular stories in light of the literati tradition of collecting folk songs. Each of the succeeding three chapters addresses one outstanding feature of the Sanyan stories. Chapter 2 examines Feng's various strategies for appropria- ting the storyteller-narrator to his own ends; this appropriation not only aims at convincing the reader of the oral origins of the text, but more importantly, it sets up the rhetorical and ideological manipulation of the narrator's voice and the values it represents. Chapter 3 discusses how Feng arranged his stories in pairs, particularly his self-conscious use of the second story as an implicit comment on the first. Chapter 4 is primarily concerned with the way women are represented in the Sanyan collections. It explains why it is often the heroine, not the hero, who initiates the struggle against the restrictions of conventional morality. It also explores to what extent Feng Menglong was involved in elevating the image of women in these stories and what the elevation of women by this male "author" reveals. The remainder of this introduction will lay out the theoretical framework for my discussion of Feng's involvement with the Sanyan collections. As a point of departure, I will address the elite uses of popular materials by reviewing Robert Redfield's model of "great tradition" (elite culture) versus "little tradition" (popular culture), with special attention to the interflow between these two "traditions." I then propose reading the Sanyan stories in light of Mikhail Bakhtin's dialogism and Michael Holquist's ventriloquism: these theories justify my focus on the literati editor Feng Menglong as a conscious manipulator of his literary materials, rather than on the popular sources of the stories.