The “Chongzhen” and Zhang Zhupo Editions of the Jin Ping Mei

CHINOPERLPAPERSNo.17 also has special sections on Ximen Qing, Pan Jinlian, Li Ping'r, and Pang Chunmei. His performance thus represents a recapitulation of the entire lin Ping Mei cihua,146as well as marking a kind of personal conversion for himself.147 In summary, we can conclude that Ding Yaokang's use of oral performing literature in his Xu lin Ping Mei differs most from his model in two ways. Although quoted texts or performances of oral performing literature represent a smaller proportion of his novel, the striking difference is not a matter of quantity but of the straightforwardly didactic function of most of the quoted material. Didactic material of the kind quoted in the Xu lin Ping Mei is undercut in the lin Ping Mei cihua as being inadequate or misguided because of the type of people promulgating it. The second difference is the lack of experimentation with the borrowing of formal conventions from oral performing literature. The "Chongzhen" and Zhang Zhupo Editions of the lin Ping M ei The "Chongzhen" edition of the novel is traditionally dated to this last reign period of the Ming because the artists' names on the illustrations belong to people considered to have been active during that time period. The identity of the person who did the editing and added the commentary of this medley have distinguishing prefixes (bai B and chang O~, respectively), but the shizan sections are only prefixed by the, in this context, unfamiliar term, daola j:ijnfU. (Daola xiaozi j:~UJfiiJ/J\rappears in lin Ping Mei cihua, where it refers to performers of songs. See lin Ping Mei jianshang cidian, p. 262). These sections were presumably recitedrather than sung. There are mistakesin the use of this conventionin the corresponding Jinwu meng section, while in Gelian huaying this usage has been "naturalized" or "fictionalized" (transitions from verse to prose and back are handled explicitly by the performing character or by the narrator). 146 Perhaps in an attempt to obscure the relationship to the lin Ping Mei, the version in Gelian huaying is quite different. Only the sections on Ying Bojue and Ximen Qing (under their code names of Tu Benchi and Nangong Ji) appear in it. 147 The conversion does him no good, however. Immediately following his performance, he is given what proves to be a fatal bite in the leg by a dog who is the third and final reincarnation of Ximen Qing. 46 Rolston lin Ping Mei cihua to this edition148 is unknown, but the names of Li Yu (1611-1680) and Feng Menglong ~ffi~~ (1574-1646) have been proposed. There is only one partial and three full copies from premodern printings of the lin Ping Mei cihua now extant. It seems that either the blocks were destroyed or that readers were put off by the experimental usages and the execrable editing that set off that edition from the "Chongzhen" editions and later ones based on it. In the "Chongzhen"edition, the great majority of the quoted popular songs and dramatic song suites have been cut out.149 Sometimes the fact that they were performed is retained in the text, sometimes not. The basic principle followed by the editor seems to have been to cut out anything that could be considered extraneous to the basic narrative. The editor seems either to have missed or not to have considered importantthe function of much of the material that he cut out; his prime goal seems to have been to produce a slimmer, more marketable version of the novel. The quotations from oral performing literature preserved in his edition are those that strain "realism" the least, and even these are pared down to the minimum. When someone sings two songs we only get to read the first one, when someone sings a song suite, we are given only the first song, or the original quotation is transformed into a announcement of the performance by the narrator. Needless to say, almost all of the very intrusive uses of oral performing literature in the lin Ping Mei cihua have disappeared in the "Chongzhen" edition. The two duets that Ximen Qing participates in are 148 There are several slightly different versions, distinguished primarily...