The Fountainhead of Chinese Erotica

8. Later Works

115 8 Later Works The most wonderful things are brought about in many instances by means the most absurd and ridiculous; in the most ridiculous modes; and, apparently, by the most contemptible instruments. —Edmund Burke, Re¶ections on the Revolution in France, p. 154 Contemporaries recognizedthattheRuyijun zhuan was,ifnothingelse,anovel creation for Chinese literature: a unique combination of history and ¤ction that described sexual relations in weird and unprecedented detail. Quite a few authors paid it the dubious compliment of copying its most licentious passages straight into their own works. And until the Jin Ping Mei was published approximately ninety years later, easily eclipsing it in terms of size, sophistication , and importance, the Ruyijun zhuan was the most in¶uential work of its kind. There can be little doubt that it left a permanent mark—some might say an indelible stain—on Chinese literature. Although the Ruyijun zhuan is most famous for its novel descriptions, it undermines many of them with references to the classics and standard histories . There is reason to suspect that its earliest extant appraisals, the “Du Ruyijun zhuan” and the preface of 1634, appreciate this aspect, but few other texts take its ironic references seriously. Nevertheless, the examination of such works is still useful: a comparison of the passages they copy demonstrates that the earliest extant edition of the Ruyijun zhuan, printed in Japan in 1763, is probably quite close to the original manuscript that was most likely written during the 1520s. And it is just as useful to consider the parts that were cut. With few exceptions , later works that quote the Ruyijun zhuan, even works that copy most of the text verbatim, almost always cut its references to the classics, its condensed yet accurate portrayal of Tang history, and its historical poetry. Virtually every work eliminates all traces of Xue Aocao’s moral remonstrations. Later 116 Context and Analysis authors found that they interfered withthe description of sex. When such passages are cut, the descriptions are not only placed in a context that is much more conducive to ¶ights of carnal fancy, but their meaning is ineluctably transformed. They become pornographic in a way they could not have been otherwise. In Bakhtin’s terms, a dialogical work that contains many divergent voices becomes a monological one in which voices that express regret, doubt, disgust, and even outrage are silenced, leaving only the monotonous, depraved spectacle that these voices scoffed at in such a subtle fashion. In this chapter I examine four works that copy signi¤cant passages from the Ruyijun zhuan: the Wu Zhao zhuan (Story of Empress Wu Zhao [Wu Zetian ]), the Nongqing kuaishi, the Sui Tang liangchao shizhuan (Historical record of the Sui and Tang dynasties), and the Jin Ping Mei.1 Each of these works tells us something different about the text of the Ruyijun zhuan and its in¶uence on later works. The author of the Jin Ping Mei not only copies many of its descriptions , but he seems to be one of the few authors to appreciate its sophisticated rhetorical technique. The Sui Tang liangchao shizhuan is signi¤cant because it copies a few pages from the Ruyijun zhuan almost verbatim. The Wu Zhao zhuan and the Nongqing kuaishi are signi¤cant because of the manner in which they simplify the text of the Ruyijun zhuan. Like many erotic works, they delete its ironic allusions not because they think their readers will not be able to understand them but precisely because they are afraid they might. The Wu Zhao zhuan The Wu Zhao zhuan is a short abridgment of the Ruyijun zhuan found in a work whose preface is dated 1587. Whereas the Ruyijun zhuan describes Tang history in surprisingly accurate detail before introducing the ¤rst graphic descriptions at about its midpoint, the Wu Zhao zhuan is little more than a stupid series of sexual acts. It gets right to the point in the ¤rst few lines: as the ever more feeble exertions of Xue Huaiyi, Zhang Yizhi, and Zhang Changzong fail to satisfy the empress’ insatiable desire, Xue Aocao is introduced in an attempt to provide perfect satisfaction. A deluge of graphic description follows. In a few pages both the plot and the protagonists are exhausted and the story ends as abruptly as it began. The Wu Zhao zhuan deletes almost all of the history found in the original text. Emperors Taizong and Gaozong are not mentioned. More than forty other characters are omitted. All of the poetry...