Spirit and Self in Medieval China: The Shih-shuo hsin-yu and Its Legacy

Introduction

∫ Introduction This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the Shih-shuo hsin-yü (conventionally translated as “A New Account of Tales of the World”) and its literary legacy—a legacy that lasted for well over 1,600 years in China and that also extended to other parts of EastAsia during this period. Compiled by the Liu-Sung (420–479) Prince of Liu I-ch’ing (403–444) and his staff around a.d. 430,1 the Shih-shuo hsin-yü consists of more than 1,130 historical anecdotes about elite life in the late Han (ca. 150–220) and WeiChin (220–420) periods—what is generally regarded as China’s early medieval period. Together, these beautifully written and artfully constructed anecdotes express what came to be known as the “Wei-Chin spirit,” an outgrowth of new intellectual trends that emerged during one of the most creative and iconoclastic periods of Chinese imperial history. The Shih-shuo hsin-yü also inaugurated a specific Chinese literary genre—the Shih-shuo t’i, which inspired dozens of imitations from the latter part of the T’ang dynasty (618–907) to the early Republican era (the early twentieth century). Most of these imitations were Chinese works, but a few were written by Japanese. What do the Shih-shuo hsin-yü and its various imitations tell us about the way the Wei-Chin spirit came to be transmitted and transformed across space and time? What does the Shihshuo t’i reveal about changing social values, standards of behavior, and attitudes toward gender in both China and Japan? Satisfactory answers to these and other such questions require new ways of thinking about a magnificent book (and an entire genre) that for too long has been marginalized and misunderstood. The Purpose and Significance of Studying the Shih-shuo hsin-yü Tradition Despite a general recognition of the Shih-shuo t’i’s place in China’s literary history (and, to a lesser extent, that of Japan), the genre itself has never been adequately defined nor thoroughly studied. From the seventh century to the present, the Shih-shuo hsin-yü and its imitations have been categorized as hsiao-shuo (petty talk or minor persuasions), a pejorative classification analogous to what Confucians described as the hsiao-tao or the “petty path”—activities that did not measure up to Confucian standards of scholarship and/or moral attainment. The stigma of hsiao-shuo, with its connotations of triviality and incoherence, not only blurred the distinctive identity of the Shih-shuo hsin-yü, but it also dimmed the glory of the Wei-Chin spirit encapsulated within it. Complicating matters further is the fact that in modern China the term hsiao-shuo has come to be used as the equivalent of the Western notion of “fiction,” specifically the “novel.” The Shih-shuo hsin-yü thus occupies a strange position in Chinese literary life. When treated as a collection of Wei-Chin cultural references and historical anecdotes, it has been highly regarded, placed in a central position, and hence well studied; but, when considered as hsiao-shuo, it has been ignored, marginalized, and hence underexamined. Paradoxically, the term hsiao-shuo, as a label of inauthenticity, has often undermined the Shih-shuo hsin-yü’s academic reputation, and yet the undeniable academic value of the Shih-shuo hsin-yü as a historical source clearly challenges the modern definition of hsiao-shuo as “fiction.” The result has been that scholars both in China and the West have failed to see the work for itself. By forcing the Shih-shuo hsin-yü into one or another inappropriate category , they have created a gap in our understanding of its proper place in the Chinese literary tradition. This study, then, fills a critical gap in both Chinese and Western language scholarship on the Shih-shuo hsin-yü and its imitations, viewing the whole tradition as a distinct narrative genre in its own right. It offers the first thorough study in any language of the origins and evolution of the Shihshuo t’i, based on a comprehensive literary analysis of the Shih-shuo hsin2 I n t r o d u c t i o n yü and a systematic documentation and examination of more than thirty Shih-shuo imitations, many of which are still unknown to specialists in Chinese literature.As a unique Chinese genre, the Shih-shuo t’i...