Rewriting the tang

Snakes' legs

Volumn , Issue , 2004, Pages 159-189

  Hegel, Robert E ^a  

^a WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 84901540954     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: None     Document Type: Chapter

References (37)

1. The edition I will refer to here is Yuanhu Yusou jiaoding, Shuo Tang quanzhuan (hereafter Shuo Tang). Another well-edited edition is the 1998 Beijing Shuo Tang quanzhuan. For a survey of early imprints, see Ōtsuka Hidetaka, Zōho Chügoku tsüzoku shōsetsu shomoku, 207-209
2. Given his intimate familiarity with the characteristics, and probably the content, of oral narratives concerning these figures, we might hypothesize that the Shuo Tang author was an educated man from a not-so-educated family who was thus familiar with the ways of thinking and of organizing narratives that were distinctive to oral cultures. For a comparison of ways of organizing material between oral and literate cultures, see Ong, Orality and Literacy, 7-10, 22-26, and 118-132; see also Goody, The Interface Between the Written and the Oral, 260-261, 269, and, for his discussion of writing and power relations within a society, 281-283.
3. See the Sui Tang liangchao zhizhuan colophon, 12.55b; the two titles are obviously intended to be interpreted as paired. For a modern edition of its sequel, see Can Tang Wudai zhi-zhuan. I give its first edition the tentative date of ca. 1600 because it carries a "Li Zhuowu" commentary, probably written by the early seventeenth-century writer Ye Zhou. There is no reason to associate this commentary with the historical Li Zhi (1527-1602), but other novels having commentary attributed to him began to appear around 1600; see appendix 2, in Rolston, ed., How to Read the Chinese Novel, 356-363
4. Plaks, Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel, 513-517
5. Ye Lang, Zhongguo xiaoshuo meixue, 280-302
6. Wang Zhongmin tentatively dates the novel in the 1570s; see his Zhongguo shanben shu tiyao, 401-402, but I am more persuaded by recent scholarship on Ye Zhou. Curiously, although the parent novel seemingly quickly went out of print, Can Tang Wudai zhizhuan was frequently reissued during the Qing period. See Ōtsuka Hidetaka, Zōho Chügoku tsüzoku shōsetsu shomoku, 218-219.
7. For a modern photo-reprint edition of Da Tang Qinwang cihua, variously identified (suggesting, perhaps, that the printing blocks changed hands among several printing houses) as Tang Qinwang cihua (Ballad tale on the Tang prince of Qin) and Tang Qinwang benzhuan (The basic biography of the Tang prince of Qin), see Zhu Shenglin, Da Tang Qinwang cihua. Tang shu zhizhuan tongsu yanyi has virtually the same story; the relationship between these two works and Sui Tang liangchao zhizhuan will be the subject of a later study. For bibliographic notes on Da Tang Qinwang cihua, see Sun Kaidi, Riben Dongjing suo jian Zhongguo xiaoshuo mu, 32-34
8. Luo Cheng in Shuo Tang seems to be a conflation of that character from the earlier novels, the son of a regional commander, and a violent youth of poor background befriended by Qin Shubao in Sui shi and Sui Tang named Luo Shixin. On the limited use of secret notebooks of story outlines and information shared by members of a single storytelling "family," see Børdahl, "Narrative Voices in Yangzhou Storytelling," 7-8
9. Hrdlicková, "The Professional Training of Chinese Storytellers and the Storytellers' Guilds," 233-234.
10. For discussions of reading and critical practices in late Imperial China, see Kao, "Aspects of Derivation in Chinese Narrative," 1-36
11. Xiao Chi, "Lyric Archi-Occasion," 17-35
12. Rolston, Traditional Chinese Fiction and Fiction Commentary
13. Likewise, the Old Fisherman had a fine model for literary parody in the writings of Li Yu (1610-1680). However, for the most part Li Yu's source works were rewritten only in part, for example his send up of Confucian ideas in rewritten lines from Mengzi in his erotic novel Rou putuan, chap. 1; see my The Novel in Seventeenth-Century China, 172-174. For a broad study of Li Yu, see Hanan, The Invention of Li Yu; Hanan's translation of Rou putuan appeared as Li Yu, The Carnal Prayer Mat.
14. For studies of early vernacular fiction, see Idema, "Some Remarks and Speculations Concerning p'ing-hua," 69-120
15. more recently, Breuer, "Orality and Literacy in Early Chinese Vernacular Literature." English-language surveys of the development of Chinese vernacular fiction can be found in Idema and Haft, A Guide to Chinese Literature, 198-230
16. Hanan, "The Development of Fiction," 115-143
17. and in my Reading Illustrated Fiction in Late Imperial China, 21-71. For Chinese readers, the standard version is, of course, Lu Xun's (1881-1936) magisterial Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue, trans. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang as A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, with which I will take issue below.
18. For the textual histories of these last three novels, see my The Novel in Seventeenth-Century China, 241-246, 250-253; and my "Sui shi yiwen kaolüe." There I trace the degree to which Chu Renhuo copied the earlier novels into his own. Recently Ouyang Jian has documented the remarkable degree of similarity between Sui Tang chaps. 68-100 and the entire contents of a now rare novel generally known as Hun Tang yanyi (Devastating the Tang: A romance). Based on a comparison of taboo characters in the two texts, Ouyang concludes that Hun Tang yanyi predates the Kangxi period and hence Sui Tang as well, for which it may have served as a source. For his discussion of this dating problem, see Ouyang Jian, "Sui Tang yanyi 'Zhui ji cheng zhi' kao," 353-396, esp. 383-395
19. Taking the opposing view, Sun Kaidi reportedly considered Hun Tang yanyi to be heavily indebted to Sui Tang; Tan Zhengbi and Tan Xun, Guben xijian xiaoshuo huikao, 227, agree. I concur
20. Qi Yukun, Sui Tang yanyi xilie xiaoshuo, 8
21. misdates Sui Tang as 1719, apparently basing this date on Sun Kaidi's and Liu Ts'un-yan's preference for a late misreading of the cyclical characters for the date on the preface to Chu's first (Sixuecaotang) edition; see Sun Kaidi, Zhongguo tongsu xiaoshuo shumu (rpt. Hong Kong, 1967), 44
22. Liu Ts'un-yan, Chinese Popular Fiction in Two London Libraries, 99, 257. (Liu refers to the correct date of 1695 for Sui Tang on 134, then concludes that his sources, Sun Kaidi and Zheng Zhenduo, are incorrect!) It suits Qi's argument to make Sui Tang and Shuo Tang more nearly contemporaries, which probably induced him to rely on this later date. Qi characterizes the content of Sui Tang as za (varied), 48. With virtually all other scholars, I base my dating, 1695, on the unambiguous date given in its first edition.
23. See Qi Yukun, Sui Tang yanyi xilie xiaoshuo, 59-76
24. Sui shi yiwen appeared in only the one Ming edition of 1633 and was not reprinted again until 1975; see Ōtsuka Hidetaka, Zōho Chügoku tsüzoku shōsetsu shomoku, 203-204
25. Zheng Zhenduo, "Zhongguo xiaoshuo tiyao," 352-353. argues that the "source" for Shuo Tang was Sui Tang liangchao zhizhuan and that Shuo Tang must predate Sui Tang. Other scholars agree with him, although Sun Kaidi, the primary bibliographer among May Fourth-era scholars of fiction, sees the dating of the preface as relevant and concludes that Shuo Tang was based on Sui Tang. See his Zhongguo tongsu xiaoshuo shumu (rpt. Hong Kong, 1967), 44-45. Xu Shuofang's prefatory comment to the Guben xiaoshuo jicheng series reprint of Shuo Tang, included in his Xiaoshuo kaoxin bian, 545-546, notes the references in notes there and in Sui shi yiwen that refer to "older versions" and concludes that both were based to some degree on earlier manuscript texts. Contradicting the positivistic formulation that "cruder" versions inevitably lead to "more refined" versions, Xu interprets this relationship as indicative of the flexibility with which new texts were derived from older ones, regardless of their provenance.
26. Shuo Tang, preface, 1
27. Qi Yukun, Sui Tang yanyi xilie xiaoshuo, 8, 73.
28. For the text of Laojun tang, see Yuan quxuan waibian, 530-544; this episode occurs in Shuo Tang, 250-251. For the parallel scene, see Sui Tang, chaps. 50 and 51, esp. 380-391.
29. In a recent study of Shuo Tang sources, Peng Zhihui posits the existence of a number of storytellers' "prompt books" to suggest a lost pinghua version of Sui and Tang stories. Lacking any textual evidence, Peng suggests that disciples of the late Ming professional storyteller Liu Jingting (also known as "Pockmarked" Liu, Liu Mazi) would have expanded on the Sui-Tang tales for which he was famous and that they are likely to have produced stories much like those now incorporated into Shuo Tang. Peng's reconstruction is as hard to refute as it is to verify; certainly the Liu school would logically have developed their master's narrative materials rather like Yangzhou pinghua artist Wang Shaotang expanded the Shuihu zhuan tales of his father and grandfather. (See Wang Shaotang, Wu Song and Song Jiang; and Børdahl and Ross, Chinese Storytellers, 60-72, 102-125, 169-259.) Peng Zhihui considers Shuo Tang to be the intermediary in a direct evolutionary line between early prosimetric oral narrative such as the late Ming Da Tang Qinwang cihua and the northern pingshu versions of the Sui-Tang material by contemporary raconteurs such as Chen Yinrong, Xing Tang zhuan, 4 vols
30. See Peng, "Lun Shuo Tang quanzhuan de diben," 181-187. I agree that the Old Fisherman appears to have been inspired by storytelling and theatrical narratives. But I submit that its clearly subversive engagement with literati novels is at least as important as its appropriation of oral material for understanding the novel's significance and that searching for his specific sources is less fruitful than exploring how, and to what end, he used these easily identifiable earlier printed fictional texts.
31. Qi Yukun and Peng Zhihui echo the usual interpretation of this racy language as proof of the novel's oral origins and that it was intended for unlettered readers. Needless to say, a reader of any level of sophistication can appreciate slang and vulgarity, but less experienced readers might well miss the literary play in their use. For summary statements on the characteristics of oral narrative, see Ong, Orality and Literacy, 37-56, esp. 44, 57, 70.
32. Qi Yukun, Sui Tang yanyi xilie xiaoshuo, 55.
33. The quotation is from Shuo Tang, 125; Cheng becomes emperor in chap. 28, 165-167. Later he complains when Li Mi disregards his suggestions that Li Mi has no respect for him, even though he would not have become an emperor if not for Cheng (256). See Qi Yukun's comments, Sui Tang yanyi xilie xiaoshuo, 64-65.
34. Shuo Tang chap. 51, 303-305; Qi Yukun also draws attention to this episode (Sui Tang yanyi xilie xiaoshuo, 70). The source for this is Sui Tang chap. 57, although there the prince chases a beautiful pheasant to where a mysterious monk saves him from pursuit. Shan's response in the literati novel refers more to political realities than to personal loyalties: now we each have our separate rulers, and past personal feelings should be put aside, Shan insists; see Sui Tang, 440-441. Readers of erotic novels might know about a more famous anecdote in which an emperor cut off a part of his robe to avoid disturbing his sleeping lover. See Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve, 52-53.
35. Xiang Yu's leave-taking appears in Shiji 7, 1:333-334. For a translation, see Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian, trans. Watson, Han Dynasty 1:44-45. The film I refer to is, of course, Bawang bie ji (Farewell my concubine, 1993) directed by Chen Kaige and starring the late Leslie Cheung, Gong Li, and Zhang Fengyi. This scene is a favorite in traditional operas, such as the Jingju version around which Zhang's film revolves.
36. See Ong, Orality and Literacy, 44. Some of the most vulgar expressions, such as "Ni niang de biqing," were partially expurgated from the Shanghai Guji edition of Shuo Tang, 336; the Beijing Shiyue wenyi edition retains all of these expressions, however; see 448. In a private communication, July 30, 2002, Martin Huang insightfully observed, "The version of this incident in Sui Tang where words in the chapter title 'cutting off his robe' (to sever his relationship with his sworn brother) is very telling. In a word, this is not entirely the 'innovation' of the author of Shuo Tang. I tend to believe that Chu Renhuo has reinserted this detail into his novel to show that Shan is in fact the first to disregard yi, thus making more excusable Qin Shubao and others' later failure to keep their words when they fail to die with Shan as they have promised in their swearing of brotherhood. Chu's efforts to 'alleviate' Qin's guilt can also be seen in his expanding the scene of Shan's death in his novel (emphasizing more the attachment among the sworn brothers)... In fact, if Qin and others had tried really hard, they might have been able to save Shan. This is at least the impression I got from reading the version in Sui shi. Furthermore, this episode, though not seen in Suishi yiwen, is not Chu Renhuo's 'innovation' either, since it can be found in Chapter 61 of Sui Tang liangchao zhizhuan."
37. On banned books, see Wang Liqi, Yuan Ming Qing sandai jinhui xiaoshuo xiqu shiliao; for the various attacks on Shuihu zhuan, see 204-210, etc. An Pingqiu and Zhang Peiheng, eds., Zhongguo jinshu daguan, include Shuo Tang on their list of books banned during the Qing (649-715); see 695. Okamoto Sae, Shindai kinsho no kenkyü, does not, however. For the crimes of sedition, see Jones, The Great Qing Code, 237-239. Wang Liqi (Yuan Ming Qing sandai jinhui xiaoshuo xiqu shiliao, 18-21) quotes the general Qing legal restrictions concerning the sale of banned books.