Nüxian Waishi 《女仙外史》 As Demonology

Nüxian waishi 《女仙外史》 as Demonology NG, Kum Hoon A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Chinese Studies The Chinese University of Hong Kong May 2016 ii Thesis Assessment Committee Professor Jan Kiely (Chair) Professor John Lagerwey (Thesis Supervisor) Professor Poo Mu-chou (Committte Member) Professor Wang Chiu-kuei (External Examiner) iii Abstract of thesis entitled: Nüxian waishi 《女仙外史》 as Demonology Submitted by NG, Kum Hoon for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Chinese Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong in May 2016 The demonic as featured prominently and provocatively in the Qing novel Nüxian waishi (Unofficial history of the female transcendent) by Lü Xiong (c. 1641 – c. 1722) has been rather poorly understood and under-analysed by scholars so far. This dissertation sets out to rectify this deficiency in scholarship. By taking the demonic as a politico-cultural and philosophical category (but giving due respect to the intrinsic fuzziness, inexhaustibility and livingness thereof), the study undertaken herein moves away from the tendency to see the demonic in Nüxian waishi simply as a conscious literary means to a moral or discursive end, and strives to examine it in its own right (i.e., as the demonic-qua-demonic, with its own intrinsic logic) and in relation to other construals of the demonic outside of the said novel. Specifically, this dissertation first clarifies the qualities and structuralities of the demonic in Nüxian waishi, then situates it within an evolving trend of demon-glamorization (termed “demonogloria” herein) in the narrative literature of late imperial China. Through plotting a rudimentary timeline of literary demon-glamorization intensifying through the period in question (especially from the 16th to the 18th century), this dissertation shows the demonology of Nüxian waishi to be a culmination of such a trend, which makes this novel a text of ample demonological significance, potent and radical in its construal of the demonic not only synchronically but also diachronically. Pertinent corrective implications for two existing demonological frameworks with a Sinological interest – i.e., Laurie Cozad’s tripartite schema for the demonized Other in the Ming novel Journey to the West, as well as Barend J. ter Haar’s “demonological paradigm” for the Chinese civilization – are also presented. iv 論文摘要: 作爲「妖魔學」文本之《女仙外史》作者：吳錦漢目的：中國研究博士學位機構：香港中文大學二〇一六年五月清代呂熊（約 1641 – 約 1722）所著長篇小説《女仙外史》中所呈現的「魔」，既突出而又頗具震撼力，但學界至今對此仍瞭解不深、分析不足。本論文旨在填補此一缺憾。文中以「魔」作爲兼具政治、文化與哲學意味的範疇，留存其本質上的模糊性、不可窮盡性及活性。將《女仙外史》之「魔」簡單視爲有意識地實現道德或議論目的的文學手段，是學界慣常的做法；本文則脫離此一研究方向，試圖審視純粹作爲「魔」的「魔」，探究「魔」之爲「魔」的自有的内在邏輯，並循以聯繋《女仙外史》以外的、其他對「魔」的詮釋。具體而言，本論文先著力釐清《女仙外史》之「魔」的特點及結構性，再觀之於中國明清敘述文學的一股特定趨勢——即將「魔」揚舉而美化的趨勢之中。本文摘取幾個較有説明性的例子，大略標明上述趨勢在數百年間（尤其是十六至十八世紀之間）步步強化的演進過程，從而顯示《女仙外史》對「魔」的詮釋（或即「妖魔學」觀點）正是代表了「揚魔」趨勢的高峰。由此則證明《女仙外史》乃是「妖魔學」上意義重大的文本，其對「魔」的詮釋的感染力與激進性是超時性的，但也是自有歷史意義的。此外，本文對與中國材料相關的兩套現有的「妖魔學」框架（一是勞蕊·柯贊用以概括明代小説《西遊記》之「魔化」他者的三層體系，一是田海就整個中國文明提出的「妖魔觀範式」）亦順勢提出修正或質疑。 v Acknowledgements (This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of my mother Lee Pek Chu, who passed away during the writing of the first three chapters. Bless her soul.) I thank my wife Hui Yin for her loving support through the years, without which this study could not have materialized. I thank my energetic cat Meowmi for making life a little more bearable during the long days and nights when the demonic wanted to assert itself strongly against the writing of this dissertation, as it were. I thank my incomparable friend and fellow academic Wee Lian Hee, who was, in a way, the starting point of this arduous endeavour. And, of course, I am grateful to my supervisor Professor John Lagerwey for his insightful inputs, and his remarkable patience with me. My thanks go also to Professor Denise Ho who brought Barend J. ter Haar’s “demonological paradigm” to my attention, which proved to be immensely helpful; and to my examiners Professor Jan Kiely, Professor Poo Mu-chou and Professor Wang Chiu-kuei. vi Table of Contents English Abstract ………………..................................................................................................... iii Chinese Abstract ……………...................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…. v Chapter 1 Introduction ………………………………………………….……………………………………… 1 1.1 Nüxian waishi: A Demonological Aporia …………………………………………………... 1 1.2 The Demonic as a Politico-cultural and Philosophical Category ………………… 2 1.3 A Survey of Existing Scholarship …………………………………………………………….... 8 1.4 The Structure of This Dissertation ………………………………………………………….. 16 Chapter 2 Nüxian waishi: An Overview …………………………………..………………………. 18 2.1 The Author …………………………………………………………………………………….………. 18 2.2 Time of Writing and Editions ………………………………………………………….….…… 27 2.3 The Novel’s Contents and Underlying Motivations ………………………….….…. 30 2.4 Reception and Influence …………………………………………………………………...…… 40 Chapter 3 The Demonic in Nüxian waishi …………………………………….………… 54 3.1 The Two Levels of the Demonic ………………………………………………….… 54 3.1.1 The Immediately Demonic: Asuraism, Self-alterity and Appeal ….. 55 3.1.2 The “Mirrored” Demonic: Self-alterity and Subversion ………………. 90 3.1.3 An Illustrative Account: The Humiliation of the Celestial Master.. 102 3.2 The Prominence of Nüxian waishi’s Demonology …………………………………. 109 Chapter 4 Nüxian waishi and Late Imperial Chinese Demonogloria ………. 117 4.1 Demonogloria in Late Imperial China’s Narrative Literature ……………….… 117 4.1.1 Liu Ji’s “The Two Demons” …………………………………………………….… 120 4.1.2 Water Margin and The Latter Water Margin …………………………... 125 4.1.3 The Unsubdued Belles Femmes and Ji Yun’s Infernal Man-eaters..136 4.1.4 Rising Demonogloria: A Rough Timeline ………………………………….. 146 4.2 Reconsidering Barend J. ter Haar’s “Demonological Paradigm” ………….… 148 Chapter 5 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………………... 151 5.1 Demonological Tensions and Transgressive Impact ……………………………… 151 5.2 Some Pursuable Lines of Inquiry …………………………………………………………... 155 Appendices ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 160 Appendix I: A Chapter-by-chapter Synopsis of Nüxian waishi …………………….. 160 vii Appendix II: My Translation of Liu Ji’s “The Two Demons” …………………………. 201 A Glossary of Recurrent Works, Designations, Names and Other Terms …… 218 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………………….….… 221 Abbreviations ………………………………………………………………………………………………..……. 221 Chinese Primary Sources ……………………………………………………………………………………… 222 Early Western Sources ……………………….………………………………………………………………… 230 Other Literature ………………………………………………………………..………………………………… 231 1 Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Nüxian waishi: A Demonological Aporia Nüxian waishi 女仙外史, The Unofficial History of the Female Transcendent (NXWS or the Unofficial History hereafter), is a historical-fantasy novel written in Qing dynasty China by Lü Xiong 吕熊 (ca. 1641 – ca. 1722). Although not as well-known as late imperial masterpieces like Journey to the West (Xiyouji 西遊記), Water Margin (Shuihuzhuan 水滸傳) or Dream of the Red Mansion (Hongloumeng 紅樓夢), it is nevertheless an extraordinary text of an “enigmatic nature”. 1 It baffled and amazed its early readers, embodying many a “shockingly unconventional idea”. 2 The present dissertation represents an analytical response to some of the important yet challenging questions that naturally arise as a reader takes in NXWS’ narrative as it is. Stories in literature, as literature scholar Kevin McGinley puts it, “constitute a horizon of meaning and value into which the reader is invited to enter.”3 An interpreter of a story as such, he points out, […] enters into the story with a set of questions about the meaning of the text emerging out of one’s own context of meaning. Understanding the text, however, is a process of coming to understand the story’s horizon. The process of achieving such an understanding is a self-corrective process in which one begins the interpretation with a set of questions which thematize one’s anticipations of the meaning of the text. In the encounter with the text and its horizon, the interpreter shifts his or her initial questions to others more pertinent to the horizon of the text itself.4 As one engages with the “horizon” of NXWS in such a manner, some of the resultant questions in one’s mind inevitably revolve around the demonic, which is featured prominently in the novel through various characters, discourses and interactions. These 1 Fan Peng Chen, “Ideology and Female Rule in the Topsy-Turvy World of Nüxian Waishi,” Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association 32, no. 2 (1997): 17. 2 Masato Nishimura, “The Composition and Ideology of Nüxian Waishi” (PhD thesis, Harvard University, 1993), 174, http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/cgi-bin2/Libo.cgi?. 3 Kevin McGinley, “The Hermeneutic Tension and the Emergence of Moral Agents,” in Literature as Philosophy / Philosophy as Literature, ed. Donald G. Marshall (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1987), 19. 4 Ibid., 21. Introduction 2 questions include the likes of the following: Why does the author’s conception of the demonic feel so potent and radical (as detailed in Chapter 3 of this dissertation)? How was such a conception possible at the time of writing? Why does it seem self-contradictory at times? What does it mean for the author and his readers? Does it still bear relevance for us today outside of its immediate literary and historical context? To fully resolve all of these questions would

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