Li Zhi, Confucianism, and the Virtue of Desire

2. Life Stories (傳): Reading A Sketch of Zhuowu: Written in Unnan

17 C H A P T E R T WO Life Stories (傳) Reading “A Sketch of Zhuowu: Written in Yunnan” I. INTRODUCTION In this chapter we turn to a close textual analysis of “A Sketch of Zhuowu: Written in Yunnan” (Zhuowu lunlüe: Dian zhong zuo 卓吾論略： 滇中作),1 one of the most widely cited, though not so often critically analyzed,2 of Li’s essays.3 The title of the essay identifies the piece as a “commentary ” or lun (論) and indeed the piece begins like most conventional biographical commentaries throughout Chinese history. Li writes: “Kong Ruogu said, ‘I am of an age to have met the Layman Zhuowu and I am able to provide a sketch of his life.’” Traditionally the commentary is a small space of no more than a few lines reserved for the historian or narrator’s subjective interpretations . It is a written form with a long history most commonly dated back to the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji 史記) of Sima Qian 司馬遷 (ca. 145–86 BCE).4 Through the centuries, the 25 dynastic histories including that of the Ming adopted much of the structure of Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian. The lun, or commentary, is most often paired with the historical “biography” (zhuan 傳). Traditionally , these two genres are quite distinct from each other in form and content. The distinction between the commentary and the biography always is clearly marked. In addition to the difference in length, there is a physical separation between the two forms. The commentary is easily identifiable, too, in that it is commonly marked by a short formulaic introduction of the author. For example, throughout the Records of the Grand Historian the commentary often begins, “The Grand Historian 18 Li Zhi, Confucianism and the Virtue Of Desire says . . .” (Taishigong yue 太史公曰). Following this traditional structure, Li begins his essay, “Kong Ruogu says . . .” (Kong Ruogu yue 孔若谷曰). Whereas the contents of the zhuan are drawn from verifiable sources, the lun is a small place of relative freedom from literary conventions where the historian or narrator offers his subjective interpretations . In form, the traditional historian’s commentary runs but a few lines in length in contrast to the more substantive biography. In “A Sketch of Zhuowu” Li adopts and adapts the form of the commentary and stretches its capacities for expression of an individual’s inner world; his commentary extends on to several pages, much beyond the length of a traditional commentary and instead, approaching the length of the biographies found in dynastic histories. At the same time, Li Zhi adopts in whole the substance of the traditional commentary; “A Sketch of Zhuowu” concerns and describes the realm of feelings and unveri- fiable reflections. He seeks to describe the world of each individual’s distinctive and spontaneous feelings and thoughts, in contrast to a long tradition of authoritative teachings and canonical texts. In the course of this work, Li Zhi often refers to the “child-like heart-mind” (tong xin 童心) and uses it as a symbol for this interior world. In Chapter Three we will return to and offer a close analysis of this term, which is central to Li’s thought and appears throughout his body of writings. Let us turn briefly to the identity of the narrator who guides us through “A Sketch of Zhuowu.” At least one respected scholar has examined historical sources in an unsuccessful attempt to identify Kong and uncover his life story.5 If we turn away from historical sources and attend to the characters themselves, i.e. 孔若谷 kong ruo gu, we clearly see examples of Li Zhi’s central concerns and method of argumentation. In the first three characters of the essay, Li already is adroitly and wittily working to open the imagination, and to challenge traditional distinctions and hierarchies. Kong ruo gu can aptly be translated as “Great-like-theValley ” or “Open-like-a-Ravine.”6 Our narrator is presented as boundless , nothingness, and completely imaginary.7 Throughout the rest of the essay, Li adopts and adapts conventional forms of and quotations from the classical literary and philosophical world; over and over again we will see how he, in turns subtly and boldly, amends and overturns them, in the service of the imagination and of genuine feelings and thoughts. With Kong Ruogu as our guide, we the readers walk into a world of multiplicity and diversity where the lines between fact and fiction , between the spoken and the written word, between virtues...