From First-Person to Third-person Narrative, and then to Hakka Ballad: From “Tang Xuan shouji” (Tang Xuan’s Manuscript Notes) To “Tang Xuan” To “Tang Xian ji” (The Story of Tang Xian)
- From First-Person to Third-person Narrative, and then to Hakka Ballad: From “Tang Xuan shouji” (Tang Xuan’s Manuscript Notes) To “Tang Xuan” To “Tang Xian ji” (The Story of Tang Xian)
Wilt L. Idema (b. 1944) obtained his Ph.D. from Leiden University in 1974. He taught at Leiden University (1970–1999) and Harvard University (2000–2013). His research has mostly focused on traditional Chinese vernacular literature. He has published widely on early Chinese drama (with Stephen H. West) and on Chinese women’s literature (with Beata Grant). In recent years he also has completed several volumes of translations of traditional Chinese song narrative and prosimetric literature. His most recent publications include The Resurrected Skeleton: From Zhuangzi to Lu Xun (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015); Passion, Poverty, and Travel: Traditional Hakka Songs and Ballads (Hackensack: World Century, 2015); The Metamorphosis of Tianxian pei: Local Opera under the Revolution (1949–1956) (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2015); The Immortal Maiden Equal to Heaven and Other Precious Scrolls from Western Gansu (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2015); and Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language (with Stephen H. West; Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2016).
Footnotes
1. Li Fang 李昉 comp., Taiping guangji 太 平廣 記 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961), juan 332, pp. 2635–38.
2. See Li Jianguo 李劍國, Tang Wudai zhiguai chuanqi xulu 唐五代志怪傳奇敘錄 (Notes on anomaly tales and chuanqi stories of the Tang and Five dynasties; Tianjin: Nankai daxue, 1993), pp. 156–57 (on “Tang Xuan” and its circulation) and 489–93 (on Tongyou ji), and idem, “Tangdai chuanqi jiaodu zhaji (er)” 唐代傳奇校讀札記 (二) (Notes on the collation of Tang dynasty chuanqi tales [number 2]), Wenxue yichan 文學遺產 (Literary heritage) 2015.5: 41 (on “Tang Xuan”). Although Li actually uses “Tang Xuan shouji” as the name of his entry on “Tang Xuan” in his book, he admits “the original title was not that, it is already not possible to know” (fei yuanti rushi, ti yi bu ke zhi 非原題如是, 題已不可知).
3. A detailed English-language summary of the tale is provided by Daniel Hsieh in his Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2008), pp. 189–91. Hsieh treats the story as an example of conjugal love surviving even after death.
4. These particular daowang shi 悼 亡 詩 (poems lamenting the departed) have been treated in discussions of this genre during the Tang. See Hu Xu 胡旭, Daowang shi shi 悼亡詩史 (Shanghai: Dongfang chuban she, 2010), pp. 95–97; Shu Hongxia 舒紅霞 and Gao Haiyang 高海洋, “‘Duchou taoli jie, bu gong yequan kai’: Tangdai daowangshi de shikong miaoxie” 獨愁桃李節, 不共夜泉開: 唐代悼亡詩的時空描寫 (Saddened on my own that in the season of peach and plum,/ I am unable to bloom with you in the other world [this couplet actually comes from the first of Tang Xuan’s two poems to his dead wife]: The description of time and space in poetic laments for the departed), Bianjiang jingji yu wenhua 邊疆經濟與文化 (The economy and literature of the borders) 2012.11: 50–51.
5. Chen Ruoshui 陳弱水, “Cong “Tang Xuan” kan Tangdai shizu shenghuo yu xintai de jige fangxiang” 從唐晅看唐代士族生活與心態的幾個方向 (Looking at several tendencies in Tang dynasty gentry life and mentality from “Tang Xuan”), Xin shixue 新史學 (New historiography) 10.2 (June 1996): 1–27.
6. This translation was first published as Anonymous, “Tale of Tang Xian,” Wilt L. Idema, tr., Taiwan Literature: English Translation Series 31/32 (2013): 225–44. A slightly revised version was included in Wilt L. Idema, Passion, Poverty, and Travel: Traditional Hakka Songs and Ballads (Hackensack, NJ: World Century, 2015), pp. 109–26.
7. “Xian” and “Xuan” are easily interchanged in Southern dialects. For instance, the male protagonists in versions of the legend of the White Snake is known both as Xu Xuan 許宣 and Xu Xian 許仙.
8. Anonymous, “Tale of Tang Xian,” p. 242.
9. Qiu Chunmei, Taiwan Kejia shuochang wenxue “zhuanzai” yanjiu, p. 276.
