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3: Contending Narratives in Classical Voices
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3 Contending Narratives in Classical Voices For it may be doubted, firstly whether there exist any antitheses at all, and secondly whether these popular evaluations and valueantitheses , on which the metaphysicians have set their seal, are not perhaps merely foreground valuations, merely provisional perspectives, perhaps moreover the perspectives of a hole-and-corner, perhaps from below, as it were ‘‘frog-perspectives,’’ to borrow an expression employed by painters. —Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, first part, ‘‘On the Prejudices of Philosophers’’ Once Lie±u Ha ˙ nh’s cult was established as a visible aspect of popular culture, educated people found ways to make use of it. From being a dynamic aspect of village life, a focus of religious practices and community events, it was given literary form and philosophical significance, thereby becoming a figure of contention among intellectuals, who made it represent their preferred visions of social authority. This chapter will discuss three works written about Lie±u Ha ˙ nh in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. All of them were written in Hán (the classical Chinese language). Together they constitute a discussion of the role of women in Vietnamese society. Moreover, they reveal an open fight between Daoists and Buddhists. This argument lasted for more than a century, from the 1730s to the 1850s. The starting point is a story written in the eighteenth century that became the source text for all later writings about Lie±u Ha ˙ nh. It is immediately apparent that this story—as well as its many offspring in subsequent years—is not about Lie±u Ha ˙ nh as a personality embedded in markers of historical specificity but rather uses her to make arguments about controversial issues of concern to various authors. Rather than bringing us closer to Lie±u Ha ˙ nh, the stories written about her bring us closer to those who wrote the stories. lie±u ha ˙ nh as femme émancipée As we have seen, Lie±u Ha ˙ nh’s cult was already blossoming in the first half of the eighteenth century. This is when Ðoàn Thi ˙ Ðie¡m, the most renowned woman of letters in the eighteenth century and one of the most famous female writers in the history of Vietnamese literature, created her work about Lie±u Ha ˙ nh titled Vân Cát Tha¼n N§ ˜ Truyê ˙ n (Story of Vân Cát Goddess). Ðoàn Thi ˙ Ðie¡m’s story is the foundation of what I call ‘‘the content’’ of Lie±u Ha ˙ nh’s cult—first, because it is, according to some Vietnamese scholars, ‘‘the earliest and the fullest story of Lie±u Ha ˙ nh,’’1 and, second, because it is written by an acclaimed woman writer about another woman, which lends a special point of view for understanding the content of Lie±u Ha ˙ nh’s cult. Moreover, most later writers and scholars regarded this text as an authoritative account of the goddess Lie±u Ha ˙ nh. Ðă ˙ ng Văn Lung observes: ‘‘Generally speaking, all the books acknowledge the earliest book describing the story/history (s§ ˙ tı́ch) of Mother Lie±u, that of . . . Ðoàn Thi ˙ Ðie¡m. . . . After Ðoàn Thi ˙ Ðie¡m a lot of people described the origins of the Mother in Nôm [the vernacular Vietnamese language] poetry. . . . As for the plot, in general, all the manuscripts are similar to each other, but some details are added.’’2 Virtually all existing accounts of Lie±u Ha ˙ nh are based on Ðoàn Thi ˙ Ðie¡m’s story. Ðoàn Thi ˙ Ðie¡m’s text is a piece of fiction based on the cult of the princess Lie±u Ha ˙ nh as she knew it and on her own life experience. It was written to promote the author’s personal agenda, which was to express the critical attitude of an educated woman toward the society of her time. Ðoàn Thi ˙ Ðie¡m Ðoàn Thi ˙ Ðie¡m was born in Giai Pha ˙ m village, Văn Giang district, of Ba£c Ninh province in 1705 but was raised by her mother’s family in Vũ Ðiê ˙ n village, Nam Sang district, in modern Nam Ði ˙ nh province. Her ancestors were from the Lê clan.3 Her father, Ðoàn Doãn Nghi, failing to pass the provincial examination, came back home and established a school and a medical practice. He had two children: a son, Ðoàn Doãn contending narratives in classical voices : 83 [44.200.77...