Spirit and Self in Medieval China: The Shih-shuo hsin-yu and Its Legacy

3. Shih-shuo t’i: A Sui Generis Genre

∫ Chapter 3 Shih-shuo t’i: A Sui Generis Genre Wei-Chin character appraisal bequeathed to the Shih-shuo t’i obligatory discursive properties, and its nonpragmatic approach propelled the genre into a philosophical, psychological, and aesthetic quest for ideal personalities . Semantically, character appraisal implanted in the Shih-shuo t’i a preoccupation with the study of human nature. Syntactically, it foreshadowed the taxonomic structure of the Shih-shuo t’i, which classified historical anecdotes according to human character types. And verbally, the linguistic paradox that haunted character appraisal throughout the WeiChin era stimulated the Shih-shuo author to a broad search for adequate literary and artistic expressions of human nature. A new genre was in the making. Given this direction, the author has yet to mold a concrete shape for the genre through transformation of established formulas. As Todorov points out: “From where do genres come? Why, quite simply, from other genres.A new genre is always the transformation of one or several old genres : by inversion, by displacement, by combination.”1 Self-Claim of the Genre Among the genres that contributed to the genesis of the Shih-shuo t’i, the shuo weighs heaviest, because it directly influenced categorization of the episodes, a feature that occupies the central attention of Shih-shuo readers . Scholars generally believe that the original title of the Shih-shuo hsiny ü was Shih-shuo, as first documented in the “Sui Treatise,” as well as in LiYen-shou’s Nan-shih (History of the Southern dynasties) compiled about the same time. The title was later changed to Shih-shuo hsin-shu (New writ- ing of the Shih-shuo) or Shih-shuo hsin-yü (New account of the Shih-shuo) because of the need to differentiate it from the Han scholar Liu Hsiang’s (77–6 b.c.) Shih-shuo (Tales of the world).2 Thus, when titling his work, Liu I-ch’ing chose shuo, a genre already in existence, to characterize the book as well as the new genre he launched. What features, then, did the Shih-shuo hsin-yü inherit from the genre shuo? The character shuo has three pronunciations, with several groups of meanings. Here I cite some that are relevant to the discussion that follows: 1. *sîwat /sîwät / shuo—to speak, to explain; 2. *sîwad / sîwäi / shuei—to exhort, or to persuade; 3. cognate with *dîwat / îwät / yüeh, and *d’wâd / d’uâi / tuei—pleased, glad.3 And from the above three groups of meanings emerges a fourth: *sîwat/ sîwät / shuo—a genre used to explain or discuss classics, or to present certain ideas through reasoning, usually for the purpose of persuasion or advice .4 Liu Hsieh (ca. 465–522) defines this genre in his Wen-hsin tiaolung (Literary mind and the carving of dragons), “Lun shuo” (Treatise and discussion) in the following way: “The character shuo, to speak, or to discuss , has the meaning of yüeh, to please.5 As [one of its elements,] tui, or to please, is a mouth and tongue [according to the “Shuo-kua” in the Book of Changes], the way to please is by means of one’s words. When one’s attempt to please goes beyond one’s actual state of feeling, he is guilty of hypocrisy. For this reason Shun abhorred flattery.”6 By equating shuo (discussion ) with lun (treatise), Liu Hsieh emphasizes the reasoning aspect of shuo. But he also points out that shuo differs from lun in having the meaning of yüeh, “to please.” Thus, although shuo involves reasoning, it may easily descend from truth to fiction. This appears to be what Lu Chi (261–303) had in mind in his Wen-fu (Rhyme-prose on literature), when he described shuo as “brilliant, yet deceitful.”7 This characteristic of shuo, I believe, results from the speaker/author’s desire to please the listener/reader in order to drive home the argument. As Han Fei (ca. 280–233 b.c.) points out, “the difficulty of shui [persuading , advising, or exhorting] lies in getting to know the heart of the perS h i h - s h u o t ’ i 8 5 suaded [so-shui] in order to fit in with the reasoning or discussion [shuo].”8 During Han Fei’s time, strategists competed to persuade rulers to heed their advice...